Review: Q's raunchy "Brahman Naman" is his most accessible film to date.

The first thing that we notice and acknowledge in provocateur Qaushiq Mukherjee’s – who goes by Q – new film, his most accessible to date, is that it sounds different. And no, I do not mean the liberal use of expletives or the fact that it is in the English language. It’s the jargon. For some reason, I was instantly reminded of Jason Reitman’s Juno. The fast-talking, Shakespeare-quoting protagonists here, cocky and geeky quizzers who designate themselves as gods, use words like “obsequiousness,” “ocular fill” and go for “mayhaps” instead of “perhaps.” (An imaginative mind would easily see them hanging out with Arundhati Roy's shaggy and pot-smoking architecture students from In Which Annie Gives It Those Ones.) I haven’t met a fellow Indian – quizzer, nerd or otherwise – who talk like Brahman Naman’s protagonists, who uses the words that they do. And I do not claim to know many of them, having never been a part of the country’s quizzing scene. It's a fascinating world we enter, and our first glimpses of it – the clothes they wear, the music they listen to, the cars and scooters they ride, and the houses they live in – are beautifully captured.

We can acknowledge one other thing early into this movie, too. The outrageous and bawdy Brahman Naman is several steps ahead of the other so-called sex comedies India has to offer. It has a lot of interesting things to say and, er, show. It has wit and style. It has life. It is less flashy in comparison to Q’s previous works. It does not feature actors doing a great disservice to their profession. And it does not go for sexist and homophobic jokes – tasteless, in other words – to elicit laughter. And yet, it remains unsatisfying. Not because it shies away from showing or saying something, but because the filmmaking feels a tad gimmicky. 

Q's works have always been a bit showy, serving more to provoke outrage than engage, and Brahman Naman is an out-and-out Q product. There's a snappiness to the narrative, explicit nudity, emotional detachment for the most part, and an eagerness to shock. But this is an oddly likable tale of sexual awakening. Or, er, almost-sexual awakening, so to speak. This isn't the first time the filmmaker has tackled this subject. In Gandu, his controversial debut that was banned, he had explored it fearlessly and not in a manner that will stay with a viewer for how they responded to the film. Although a grungy but great film that made a very real effort to challenge censorship, it will be sadly remembered more for its explicit sexual content than for anything else. Brahman Naman, thankfully, will be remembered, if it does, for everything else except its attempts at subversion. 

And then there's a different kind of beauty to be found here. We do not have protagonists – four males – we like, for they ill-treat on a regular basis the one character we actually do like. They treat women like objects one should lust after only when they tick the correct boxes when it comes to caste and fashion. But even when there's nothing likable about them, there is nothing unlikable about them. They are not innately bad people. They are reflections of misogynistic men we have known at some point. Writer Naman Ramachandran's excellent and incisive writing forces us to understand them and their actions without ever disliking them, even when they foul up. While their antics are only moderately amusing – I am obligated to not spill the beans here, unfortunately, but I will say that the aftermath of a party sees an especially nasty piece of revenge – it is their confusion and lack of courage to approach women and recognize the right people for them that makes them charming in a weird way. At a time when students in Indian cinema are categorized very broadly into "geek," "cool," "disinterested" and "rebel," these characters come across as real. And it is such a relief.

 As the story progressed, I found myself becoming increasingly restless. The weariness came as it ventured into a territory I am not particularly fond of: self-indulgence. It is hard to pinpoint the exact moment where it set in, but I came to discover that it stopped being the film I was enjoying until that point. I had stopped caring for its characters. My emotional investment into the story wasn't there anymore. I was looking for a scene or maybe a detail that would make me invest in its characters again. But I did not find it. The characters don't stop being themselves, and the lack of variation in their attitude toward life or people in general made for a somewhat monotonous conclusion. They go on with their lives a little wiser, as they should, but the impact of it isn't strong enough. Sure, there are a couple of fabulous sequences and the film manages to stay unpredictable till the end. But in retrospect, I feel a small emotional punch would have made me enjoy it more. (There is this slight detail in the end, a nod, that did make me smile a silly smile, but it was followed by an inexplicable twist. That is… exactly why it didn’t live up to my expectations.)

Brahman Naman is that kind of film that doesn't entirely work, but it makes one excited to see what the people involved come up with next. It does manage to beat most Indian films released this year on the basis of its spunk – yes, pun intended – and its ability to capture an era, something which many domestic films fail at. And let's not forget that lovely, lovely soundtrack. Greatest 80’s hits, handpicked. Wow. Wow.

(Not For Reproduction)

Review: Abhishek Chaubey's "Udta Punjab" is an important film that plays it safe.

[Might contain a few spoilers.]

In Udta Punjab, Abhishek Chaubey's third feature-length film, there is an excellent moment that stands out for its quiet power and terrific execution. A junkie rockstar who glorifies drugs in his songs that youngsters are now hooked on bumps into two doting fans in a jail cell in the middle of the night. He is in for – you guessed it – possession of drugs. The two youngsters are quite taken by the presence of their hero and begin crooning one of his songs as soon as he settles down. They inform him matter-of-factly that the first time they injected, his face flashed before their eyes. It is an attempt to flatter their idol. The camera lingers momentarily on his carefully lit face. He is appalled. Then, Chaubey drops the bomb: the boys have been jailed for murdering their mother over money they wanted to fuel their habit. But in another matter-of-fact declaration, one of the boys pipes, "When you get the urge, what else can you do?"

Like nearly half of the film, the scene plays out mostly in darkness, which I was thankful for. We don't really need expressions to amplify the impact of it. We don't see the boys again. But we get the idea that they aren't the only ones who went to the extremes to fuel their habit. They aren't the only ones who sit in those jails, remorseless and aimless, looking for another fix.

It does not take us long to figure that Udta Punjab is on a mission to inform and warn us about the emotional, physical and spiritual harm drugs can cause. With three cautionary warnings and every other conversation touching upon the subject, it doesn't need a stamp from the CBFC about whether or not its intentions are honorable. The outcry prior to its release made us expect a Trainspotting, maybe a tamer version of it because, well, we are in India after all. (Though it does pay a small tribute to the fabulous toilet sequence in Trainspotting, a cinematic moment that is permanently burned in pop culture.) But it is pretty evident that the makers of Udta Punjab have taken a cue from Steven Soderbergh's Traffic, with its cross-weave narrative following several characters – all non-users in that case – whose lives are affected by the drug trade. It is also an angry film, and it does not try to hide it. Characters involved in the dealing of drugs are routinely subjected to smacks and beatings, and the Samaritans seethe at the sight of stoned youngsters. So, for the big screen, Udta Punjab transforms facts and research into an overly cautious and grim tale of a place struggling to understand the enormity of the problem it is facing.

But one must appreciate the amount of effort put into bringing the nitty-gritty of the drug trade to us. This isn't merely a gimmick or a backdrop to explore more mainstream themes. Chaubey's film dives right into the grimy world of corrupt cops, elusive dealers and those stuck in between. He concerns himself with the human element in substance trafficking rather than the commerce of it. So when a woman here finds a packet of dope that has "dropped from the sky" and attempts to sell it before getting caught by lecherous dealers she robbed it from in the first place, we don't see how her move has possibly disrupted a cycle of dealings. Instead we see her getting shoved in the room and sexually assaulted. It is a dreadful scene that confirms two things: Chaubey's insistence on showing us, the Indian viewers unaccustomed to watching the ugly, violent side of organized crime, the ruthlessness of the drug trade, and his original decision to stick to the human side of the story.

And it pays off. His characters – a rockstar, a farm worker, a cop and a doctor – do well as our guides in the underbelly of the state. We get glimpses into how the locals cope with the widespread presence of drugs. We see the lasting effects it has on the youngsters there. We see the cops twiddling their thumbs, indirectly aiding the dealers in their businesses. It is enough to revolt us. Then there are those flashes of brilliance to balance out the weaker, more contrived portions of the film. (The cop and the doctor team up to get to the root of the drug trade, and manage to do it without a hiccup. A little too simplified, I felt, even for a Hindi film.) In another razor-sharp sequence, the rockstar, in a drugged haze, tries to warn his young fans of the horrors of addiction only to be booed. Pushed to the brink, he urinates on them, disregarding morality for arrogance and chaos. (Although we never see the actual act.) It is a sequence that injects great energy into a film that, until that moment, showed signs of slowing down, one of those few moments when the film roars.

However, not all of it works. If I had to have a complaint with the film, it would be this: it meanders. Long stretches of time are dedicated to touching upon the topic of why drugs are bad instead of advancing the plot, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Promoting good through a film is not a bad thing at all. But it does affect the larger picture. The last half-hour feels like a breathless sprint through the story after a leisurely walk. It ends the film on a high, but it feels like an unearned rush of adrenaline. Some evenness would had a much stronger impact, and the tying-up would have felt more organic.

Udta Punjab can hardly be classified as "bold" cinema, but it nevertheless is a brave film. While I would have preferred one that points fingers and names names, we must applaud one that took a step towards tackling a pressing issue especially in a mainstream Hindi film.

(Not For Reproduction)