A Short Note on Achal Mishra’s “Gamak Ghar”

[Contains spoilers.]

For a feature film debut, twenty-three-year-old Achal Mishra’s serene “Gamak Ghar” grapples with a formidable subject: home. Over three time periods—we open in 1998, return in 2010, and finally close in 2019—we examine the slow death of an ancestral house in Bihar’s Madhopura. As its inhabitants age, so does the house. On a strictly conceptual level, “Gamak Ghar” is magic: a story, our story, told in 90 concise minutes, leaving us with an ache in our hearts, a priceless offering. On a narrative level, however, there is something lacking, something that could truss the three parts up. Mishra’s primary focus here is mood and detail; there is an artfulness in his approach. When we open in 1998, the house brims with life. Children play in a courtyard in which a tulsi plant occupies the centre; men sit in the verandah playing cards; women gossip away in the bedroom. A newborn rests in a cradle, the apple of everyone’s eye. Everyone’s content. Every word exchanged quivers with feeling. Laughter is easy to come by. Mangoes are picked directly from trees. It’s a world that once existed but no longer does, and this recreation does it justice.

Snatching these moments from the characters is cinematographer Anand Bansal, whose work in “Gamak Ghar” warrants the highest praise. Each frame is is a painting unto itself, using colours and light intelligently, lending the film the wistful mood it strives for. Avni Goyal’s excellent production design deserves a mention as well, capturing the passage of time so skilfully that I wondered at one point whether the film was actually filmed over a period of twenty years.

When the family regroups in 2010, the walls have begun crumbling and the people have grown distant. Dinner is had in near silence, we get clumps of stilted conversation, and instant noodles is the kids’ choice of snack. The house is surrounded by taller, firmer, newer buildings. The emphasis on detail is as fascinating as it is exhausting, for we are always left observing from a distance, barred from engaging with the characters. There is a beautiful extended scene in which the matriarch, the one to whom the house was bequeathed, leaves it for the last time, to be with her son in the city. The camera is stationed a little further away, refusing to invade the moment. I wished with all my heart that it did. I wished with all my heart to share it with her.

The third part, taking place in 2019, is bereft of dialogue. The rotting house, neglected and forgotten, is now manned by an old watchman. It will be destroyed soon to make way for a grander structure, and only one member of the family shows up to supervise its demolition. By leaving a lot unspoken, Mishra prods us to confront who we have become. The house that accommodated innumerable memories, now rubble and dust. A brilliant shot of the family member taking the picture of the deceased family patriarch off a wall, maker and destroyer as seen through the half-broken roof, pops up near the end. It’s a deeply poignant image. One wishes “Gamak Ghar” found more like it.

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Review: Shankar Ramen’s “Gurgaon” is a promising work that wobbles near the end.

[Contains spoilers, many of them.]

The most fascinating aspect of Shankar Ramen’s directorial debut, Gurgaon, is its examination of how violence shapes its characters. In a scene at a pub, just before a full-fledged brawl is about to break out on the crowded dance floor, a man, instead of hitting the other, punches the woman he’s dancing with. The woman is understandably traumatized by the incident and wants to leave, but her companion begs her to stay. She doesn’t. In a later scene, he’s in a bathtub with a prostitute in a seedy hotel. Given his reaction to the incident (he batters the other man until he is stopped), we might have thought he is someone who doesn’t like violence to be perpetrated against women. But, unfazed, without batting an eye and without warning, he suffocates the prostitute with a picture of the other woman. We were clearly mistaken.

It does not end here. In a flashback, his father is about to commit murder by taking a pickaxe to his victim. When the axe is brought down in a rather dreadful moment, the father’s blood-caked face carries the same stony determination as his son’s. It’s an interesting moment; it’s the coming-of-age of both father and son in two different eras, but both through murder.

In many ways the characters of Kehri Singh and his son, Nikki, are similar. Kehri Singh is a man who made his bones by killing his kin and grabbing land that did not fully belong to him; Nikki is someone who wishes to do the same. He wants his adopted sister, Preet, clearly the apple of her father’s eye, out of the way. He yearns to become a somebody but he lacks the education and magnetism. She is more sophisticated and measured, letting out secrets to only those she absolutely trusts. He is reckless, craving for a place in the spotlight; she wants to stay out of it. He wants to open an upscale gym on his father’s property, but she casually points out that he got the spelling of ‘powerhouse’ wrong in the pamphlet he made as a sales pitch to his father. He has everything, but he has nothing too. So he spends most of his time driving around with his younger brother and his friend, betting on cricket matches and visiting pubs. His sister, an architect by qualification, spends this time working on a massive real estate project for her father in her office on the property Nikki wanted for his gym.

If Gurgaon’s real estate is a big pie, then Kehri Singh has the biggest piece. The very invocation of his name is enough to seal deals; in one particularly revealing scene, Nikki is about to bet a large amount, but the bookie only accepts his bet when his friend mentions his father. Nikki is living in his father’s shadow and he is looking for ways to get out of it.

This is not the first time a family as dysfunctional and volatile as this has been brought to the Indian screen. We last saw one such family in Kanu Behl’s terrific Titli, a tale about a family of carjackers with tempers who eke out a living by committing petty crimes. Gurgaon's family is wealthier, but they understand violence. The women are rational; the men unreadable, forever in pursuit of power.

And then there’s Gurgaon itself. But in this case it’s not the place that makes the men who they are; it’s the men that make the place what it is. Ramen’s bleak realization of the place lends it an alluring quality. It has a shiny surface but a murky underside. There are people who have everything, and there are also those who have nothing. In one scene, a man who has been hired to kidnap Preet inspects the layout of her project and asks her how she intends to supply the property with water. In an earlier scene, that same man stood in a long queue for water that was brought to his neighborhood in a tanker. It’s an ironic moment where the two worlds within Gurgaon collide in the dark; Preet imagines an upmarket park where the rich will haves their homes and offices, but she encounters a man who thinks progress means a steady supply of water, nothing more.

Like Titli, Gurgaon explores the themes of patriarchy and ambition, and how violence irreversibly seeps into the lives of its characters. Then there’s the violence that none of the main characters inflict, but it’s very much part of the lives of Gurgaon’s residents. In a deeply unsettling scene, we see a tollbooth attendant being taunted with a can of beer. The perpetrator’s face is never seen nor is the attendant’s. A minute later, the hand that carried the can of beer brings out a gun and fires. The killing is as cold as it is impulsive. Ramen uses it to give his world a certain mood. Anything can happen. And ‘anything’ does.

The central characters are developed beautifully. We are revolted by their actions, but are also eager to know what they will do next. Ramen doesn’t oversimplify things; he gives us enough time and background to unravel them ourselves. Nikki doesn’t like the fact that his adopted sister, whom he leaves no opportunity to remind came from a ‘gutter’, will be the heir to their father’s empire. He believes that he’s entitled to that fortune. And as time passes, he finds it increasingly difficult to control his overblown ego. He ticks off a guy who dared to touch his sister. It’s not out of love for her; he simply cannot accept that someone doesn’t fear him enough, as people usually do his father.

Gurgaon slips just when the story needed tidying up. Had it ended fifteen minutes earlier, it would have been a much, much better film. Alas, it doesn’t. It goes on, twisting the story and hammering it out of shape. A character-driven mood piece would have made more sense, and one would have believed it was slowly inching toward it, but Ramen brings the familiar urgency of a thriller to the last fifteen minutes of a film that was, for a large part, a quiet examination of what greed does to the power-hungry. As a result, it leaves us with a feeling that we may have seen this before, and it’s a disappointing feeling. I expected more, but in this case, less.

But it doesn’t take away from the fact that Gurgaon is a stellar debut. With its world-weary characters who have cynicism for a companion, how gently tension is handled here, and an eye for atmospherics, it makes a strong case for the talent of its cast and crew.

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Review: Shlok Sharma’s “Haraamkhor” is a commendable debut that could have been great.

[Might contain spoilers, many of them.]

There are films one wants to love because they are brave, especially in an environment not conducive to brave cinema. But the dilemma that I often find myself in is that these films are also flawed at the narrative level, thereby leaving me with mixed feelings. On the surface, these films look groundbreaking; we expect them to shake us, to start a debate, but they don’t. A very recent example is Abhishek Chaubey’s Udta Punjab, a compelling if somewhat underwhelming attempt at capturing a state’s war on drugs. While being noteworthy for tackling a weighty issue in a mainstream Hindi film, the simplistic treatment of its subject was frustrating. But I digress.

Shlok Sharma’s feature film debut Haraamkhor falls into this category. Sharma goes for risqué content here, choosing substance over style, and offers, in parts, a fantastic film. In parts. Because there’s too much unevenness in it to break new cinematic ground. Maybe it’s deliberate, the tonal shifts; it switches between dark comedy and drama, never settling into either genre, and it does take some getting used to. However, once we do, it begins to grow on us.

But even when the film occasionally falters, there is much to admire here; first, its fearlessness. Sharma's film doesn't just toe tricky waters but dives into them spectacularly. In the riveting opening hour of Haraamkhor, we watch with growing discomfort how the fifteen-year-old Sandhya becomes infatuated with her older married teacher. She's had a rough childhood; her mother abandoned her when she was a toddler, and her father, a police inspector, hardly has time for her. She discovers that he's secretly having an affair. The teacher, Shyam, a smooth-talking and often volatile sexual predator, fulfills the void in her life. He offers her an emotional bond, something that nobody has ever offered her. He molests her briefly when she spends a night at his place. Then, we see her slip. In a memorable scene, she asks him playfully if he's the father figure in her life. She lays it down gently; she wants to see how he reacts. He answers, just as playfully, with a 'no'. It's a scene that establishes the nature of the relationship they share: they subtly express a romantic interest in each other for the first time without saying it out loud.

Image source: www.hindustantimes.com

On the side, a younger boy, Kamal, has fallen for her as well. He wants to pursue her aggressively but is unable to. He's shy and inexperienced in the matters of love. His friend, Mintu, his chief consultant on romantic relationships, advises him to do a lot of ridiculous things if he wants to 'get married' to her. These portions are where Haraamkhor draws much of its humor from. The two boys make a charming pair. We want to see more of them, but the focus is firmly on how the platonic teacher-student relationship develops into a sexual one. Sharma treads carefully here. His handling of this development is particularly delicate. We see how the discovery that her father is having an affair drives her into the arms of her teacher, who gently coaxes her into taking the plunge. She does it to secretly get back at her father; he, because he wants to.

In the first half, this plucky premise is handled wonderfully, determinedly avoiding the melodrama that could have attached itself to some of the developments. While the exchanges between the characters are sharply written, a more important problem plagues the film: the characters are extremely underdeveloped. We begin to understand Sandhya slowly, but the others are overlooked. We aren’t given enough to connect with them emotionally. This particular flaw results in the film's climax being unaffecting when it should have been devastating. It feels out of place; I am trying to understand why the film had to end that way. It certainly doesn’t justify its denouement. Furthermore, it doesn’t help that the build-up to the climax is careless. Far too much goes unexplored. For example, when Shyam’s wife discovers his infidelity and leaves him, it doesn’t have a strong effect on him. We don’t see much of her after that. It could have been turned into a critical moment that could have given us a glimpse into the mind of Shyam, but this opportunity is passed to examine how Sandhya warms up to her father’s love interest. That, clearly, is a significant moment in the film, but a lot is sacrificed to make room for it.

The performances are uniformly impressive. There is a very specific character, as complex as any, that Nawazuddin Siddiqui excels at playing: an oily, smart-alecky thug who can slip out of any conundrum, because he knows exactly what people's weaknesses are, and he exploits them to his advantage. He doesn't wear his character's evilness on his sleeve; he brings pathos to this role, and makes us believe that though he – the character – is fundamentally evil, he's still capable of being human. It’s the kind of effort he puts into fleshing this character out that puts him in a class of his own.

This time, though, he finds a match in Mohammad Samad, the little marvel who plays Mintu. His performances in Haraamkhor and 2011’s Gattu confirm that he is a natural. He has an impish charm, a disarming smile, and though he’s sidelined here for the most part, he finds a way to be the scene-stealer that he is. We leave with memories of not Sandhya or Shyam or even Kamal, but Mintu. It takes an actor of prodigious talent to pull this off.

In the end, Haraamkhor is a commendable effort. What's unfortunate is that it settles for ‘commendable’ when a more appropriate adjective, considering the talent that went into making it, could have been ‘great’.

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Handpicks: The 10 Best Films Of 2015 -- Vol. I

Still plenty of films left to watch.

2015, for me, was a year of debutants. Some of the most promising efforts I saw had first-time helmers behind the camera, and I have mentioned as many as four in the list below. And then, there were some definite bummers, big and small. Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin was a gorgeous wuxia tale whose editing pattern was frustrating and rendered it inscrutable; Paolo Sorrentino's English-language debut Youth had both grandeur and flair, but was somewhat lacking; Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales was riveting and imaginative for the most part, but flat and tedious in places. I don't know what to say about Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart. One can't classify it as a misfire, surely, but the uneven, ambitious picture made promises but didn't live up to them. But some niggles aside, these were films that offered more than what an average fare at the cinema usually does.

To the list, then. But first the honorable mentions, in no real order: Paul Thomas Anderson's Junun, Hou Hsiao-Hsien's The Assassin, David Zellner's Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter, Matthew Heineman's Cartel Land, Jia Zhangke's Mountains May Depart, Roy Andersson's A Pigeon Sat On A Branch Reflecting On Existence, Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy's The Tribe, Ronit Elkabetz and Shlomi Elkabetz's Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, Veronica Franz's and Severin Fiala's Goodnight Mommy, Alex Garland's Ex Machina, Paolo Sorrentino's Youth and Matteo Garrone's Tale of Tales.

Of the films that I saw last year, my favorites are:

10. Amy (UK) and Sicario (US)

I couldn't choose between the two. While Asif Kapadia's Amy expertly culled and stitched together events and tidbits from her life to give us a three-dimensional portrait of her, so tangible that it felt like each one of us knew her personally, Denis Villeneuve's taut thriller that he describes -- and rightly so -- as a "dark poem" dealt directly in high-quality tension. The impeccable craftsmanship that went into packaging the two films made it impossible for me to take a call. And if the two films were indications of anything, it is that their respective directors can do no wrong.

9. The Lobster (Ireland/UK/Greece/France/Netherlands)

There is absolutely no doubt that Yorgos Lanthimos is able to handle black comedies, drier than usual as they are, better than his peers. In The Lobster he demonstrates this to great effect. It takes us back to his world where impassive cynics rule, people are sophisticated beasts and violence is acceptable and somewhat mundane when it is carried out with neither the drive nor deliberation with which it should be. But The Lobster has one major plus point: it has got heart and humor, which is most unlike Lanthimos for he rarely makes accessible films. That said, The Lobster is still an acquired taste. But with his most commercial outing yet, here is a master filmmaker who proves once again that he can handle a fatter budget and a broader story with the same finesse that he does his indies without compromising on his style.

8. Mustang (France/Turkey/Germany)

Deniz Gamze Erguven's fine first feature is an incredibly intimate and quietly haunting study of growing up in a conservative society. Bookended by two stirring sequences, both buffed to perfection, Mustang draws from Erguven's own childhood. She suffuses this tale with deep empathy, opting for a calmer approach to the story instead of grappling it bluntly. And that's a good thing, too. The result is a film undoubtedly more powerful as a drama than an angry social commentary. By the end, I was left to deal with a lump in my throat.

7. Güeros (Mexico)

Alonso Ruiz Palacios' debut throbs with the energy and creativity that could make it the best film of any given year. But here's the problem: it suffers from a special kind of disease that I call "Screw You, I'm Brash," a disease that has ailed many a filmmaker, especially debutants. Palacios doesn't concern himself with keeping his story taut, and one can't help but wonder whether it was deliberate. Güeros is meandering, supremely indulgent but consistently inventive and immersive. Political anger brewing in the backdrop of a story of three slackers out to find an aging rockstar whose album had given them something to live for shows a lot of promise from a debutant, and Palacios exhibits a knack for injecting life into every frame. What it did was it took me back nearly ten years ago when I watched Walter Salles' fantastic The Motorcycle Diaries for the first time, a film similarly trembling with youthful energy. Güeros is an excellent film by any standard, but the tragedy is, it could have secured a higher spot on this list but did not. And the answer to why not is the film itself.

6. Court (India)

Chaitanya Tamhane's debut was, for lack of a better word, surprising. It showed the conventional Indian movie-goer who is so used to seeing courts being a place for theatricality on-screen how insipid they really are, but that doesn't count as an achievement. The real achievement here is Tamhane's observational visual style that detached us from the characters emotionally, thereby allowing us time to soak in the tiny details. Court is not for everybody; alternatively frustrating and compelling, it encourages its viewers to ruminate on its characters and their lives instead of sniffing around for a plot. With the aesthetics of an European art house fare, Tamhane risked tricky waters to deliver a dryly humorous, keenly observed and challenging character study, and succeeded.

5. Spotlight (US)

Tom McCarthy's film, a sure-fire frontrunner at the Academy Awards in February, takes a delicate, important story and squeezes magic out of it. Never losing momentum or sight of probably thousands of significant details cramped in its vigorous two hours, Spotlight leaves one rapt, hanging on to each word spoken as the story unravels in grave whispers and phone calls. And we ascertain the breadth of the chilling story because McCarthy doesn't soil it with unnecessary melodrama but, much like his protagonists, tackles it with the urgency a story like this demands. And when it ends, one can't help but look up the entire case on the Internet if they aren't already watching the film again.

4. The Look Of Silence (Denmark/Finland/Indonesia/Norway/UK)

In 2011, Joshua Oppenheimer gave us a documentary on the Indonesian genocide that was unquestionably the most provocative of this generation with The Act of Killing. Bone-chilling, difficult to watch and sure to leave one dazed by the end, the documentary was one many wouldn't and didn't return to, me included. With The Look of Silence, the second part in the two-part documentary on the genocide, Oppenheimer delivers another gutting documentary on the extermination of many millions, this one less horrifying in comparison, less aggressive in its arguments but retains the potency of the first. And like The Act of Killing, he boldly turns us into hostages of our own imaginations. Masterful.

3. Killa (India)

There is one thing Avinash Arun's brilliant debut did for me, which is rare for a film at least in my opinion, to do so. No matter how many times I watch it, it always drowns me in my memories of a place I knew as a kid but have never known as an adult. It shows a place of the past that exists nowhere but in our memories and then makes us want to live in it. One could say that Killa plays the nostalgia card better than most movies released this year, and it is in how it engulfs you with its lush imagery and humble storytelling that makes it so remarkable a film.

2. Carol (US/UK)

One would have to purposefully scan Todd Haynes' new film many times over to find a fault with it. Carol, adapted from Patricia Highsmith's novel, The Price of Salt, is a rare specimen; there's nothing that should be any different. Haynes captures the blossoming romance between two women in cursory glances and unspoken stares with such sophistication that it hoists the film to another level altogether. Each composition is immaculate, each actor outdoes themselves. This is filmmaking of the highest order. Abdellatif Kechiche's poignant Blue Is The Warmest Colour broke new grounds in 2011. Carol is right up there giving it company.

1. Taxi (Iran)

Those who are acquainted with Jafar Panahi's fight against his artistic decay will surely acknowledge the devastating brilliance of his latest. Those who haven't, well, will find something to admire in this filmmaker's unwavering determination to keep going on a path choked with hurdles. Like 2011's This Is Not A Film and 2013's Closed Curtain, Taxi is more of an angry social commentary on the attempts to quash an artist's creative energy than a conventional feature film, but Panahi, with the restrictions imposed on his creativity, isn't painting on a small canvas anymore. This is an ambitious effort that skillfully captures the gravity of the problem that he faces while introducing us to the common faces in Tehran, where he is driving a taxi and picking up conversations with his passengers. And like his last two ventures, this one too underscores his frustration at his creativity being sealed off. In one particularly poignant scene, his niece wants to tell him what she has learnt about making "distributable" films. But he does not wish to listen beyond a couple of points. The moment's translation to the screen deserves not only our sympathies but also our outrage.

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Essay: Decoding the subtleties of Kanu Behl's "Titli."

Two weeks ago, Kanu Behl's Titli was unanimously hailed as one of the better Hindi films of the year upon release. It was not an exaggerated claim, as I found later, thanks to its meticulous structure and carefully written characters that I found worth raving about. 

Before I begin, I should attribute a large chunk of this naive essay to my friend, Ashwini Dabadge. She noticed an important metaphor that I missed, and she told me about it during a rather illuminating discussion I had with her after we both watched the film. 

There are several tiny throwaway details, little flourishes, that stayed with me many days after I watched Kanu Behl's debut. Many reviewers of the film have pointed out Behl's seemingly weird obsession with personal hygiene. A recurring detail where some or the other member of the vulnerable family of violent carjackers is brushing his teeth and clearing his throat noisily -- something of a morning ritual in the family -- hardly seems like a detail a filmmaker would want his audience to watch repeatedly. It's simply unpleasant. Unless that filmmaker is trying to indicate something through it. 

Behl introduces us to this incorrigibly evil male family that engages in small but brutal crimes to earn a living. And he tries to acquaint us with his characters by taking us through their routines, emphatically stressing on how they begin their day. Through the film, three of the four members of the family are seen brushing their teeth vigorously (I don't recollect seeing the character of middle brother, Bawla, doing the same), making nauseating noises throughout. 

As I soon discovered, this detail signifies how the family is trying to rid themselves of their inner evil but always fail to do so. As the character of Bawla only lends a helping hand in the crimes, never being a perpetrator himself, he is not seen doing the same. He is merely a slave of his volatile elder brother, which doesn't entirely redeem him of his sins but makes him a sorry figure. But because we see the characters of Vikram and Titli channelling their inner monsters through their immoral acts, we see Behl's careful placement of these sequences after they partake in something unlawful or unethical. The character of Daddy gets a brief "brushing" scene, too, for not trying to reform his eldest son, choosing to be a silent spectator instead. In Behl's eyes, that makes him as much a criminal, if not more, than his son. The confrontation between Titli and the patriarch near the end is actually Behl's speaking through a fictitious character, I feel.

This theory also applies to the scene where Titli throws up before taking the high road. I believe it alludes to him ridding himself of the evil he had kept bottled inside for so long. As soon as he is done vomiting, we suddenly see him in a new light. We see him as a better, stronger person.

Although this is not a metaphor, the middle brother's strongly implied homosexuality lends itself wonderfully to the intriguing bunch of characters. This detail is implied through brief scenes scattered throughout the film and is kept restrained, bringing a nice subtlety to the character of Bawla. It also demonstrates how thoughtfully Behl and co-writer Sharat Katariya have fleshed out the characters.

Yet another metaphor I observed which was pretty discreet was the house this dysfunctional family lived in. A crumbling, perpetually messy house might be an indication of the crumbling, messy lives of the gents who live in it. And that we never see the characters clean or redo the house and the fact that they don't even seem bothered by it might hint at them being criminals beyond reformation. In one sequence, we get a quick glimpse into the wardrobe of Neelu. It is a tidy one. This bit, I feel, suggests that she is the only upright member of the family.

There are many more such trivial details crammed in the film that might be symbolic. Starting with that framed picture of their forefather, a detail that shows up in many a sequence and which I tried to but couldn't quite understand the relevance of. Maybe another viewing might shed light on that. Or maybe, as I discovered mulling over it in the last two weeks, not knowing what it signifies makes the film all the more fascinating. Maybe like Titli himself, we don't really know whether we want to know. Well.

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Review: Neeraj Ghaywan's ambitious "Masaan" marks the the arrival of a noteworthy wielder of the megaphone.

There are films that put on a riveting show of their unconventionality as soon as the clock starts ticking.

In the opening sequence of Neeraj Ghaywan's impressive debut, we see a girl watching porn, taking off to check into a seedy hotel with her boyfriend where their mating is interrupted by the arrival of a bunch of cops who threaten them with shame or worse, death. It is a captivating sequence that is executed with such sensitivity that it promises a whole lot of things promptly, some of which it meets by the end and some of which it doesn't. And the biggest promise it makes is to sidestep blatant exploitation, which in the hands of any other filmmaker would have been inevitable.

And that is how the strongly atmospheric Masaan elevates our expectations in a marvelously rendered opener. It sucks us into its miserable and enticing world, keeps us hooked as it tries to tell an ambitiously woven tale in modern-day Banaras and sagaciously balances themes of redemption and tragedy. There's a lot of plot here that needs telling, two different strands that have to meet at some point and Masaan's triumph is that those two interwoven tales do meet at the point of coherence.

This has been a year of debutants, a year in which Indian cinema finally came of age. The emerging indie movement had never been as visible as it has been this year, and Masaan really is the cherry on the cake. It won two awards, including the FIPRESCI Award earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival, and the first thing that struck me when the film ended was how justified its achievements at Cannes were. This is mature, subtle and purposeful storytelling, something that one doesn't expect to see in a debut, and it only gets better as the film progresses. It cuts back and forth with clarity between those two stories, invades the consciences and minds of its characters till they are people we know and understand. The problem with telling two simultaneous stories is, everything can turn muddled in the blink of an eye. We may lose track of the story or simply grow disinterested in the characters. It is too big a risk to undertake, but Ghaywan goes for broke here. He understands his characters, their milieus and the world of which they are a part, and tells his story with great empathy. And I have always strongly believed in one thing: any director who has great empathy for his characters can do no wrong.

As we move on to another story, a really charming romance that bowls you over with its simplicity and spirit, we are made to take notice of the skill of the storytelling. On one hand, we have a story that kicks off gloomily and on the other hand, we have a delightful romance that thrives on optimism. And in the middle of all that, we have passages of poetry narrated by the characters that lends a certain lyricism to the film. Ghaywan's command over the tone is laudable, never bungling in spite of two stories with different flavors. Nitin Baid's editing makes sure the tone remains consistent and never distracting as the film switches between the stories in a determined pattern.

Apart from being a story about redemption and hope, Masaan also manages to be a story of loneliness and the unpredictability of life, with its people seeking closures that their lives are unwilling to give. Like I said, it is all ambition. There is much to soak in, much to pay attention to, much to tell. But Masaan does a great job of cramming great detailing -- right from the clothes the characters don to the way they speak, all reminiscent of the Banaras we know -- tonal shifts and many, many characters. Everything works quite well for the most part. And that's also owning to heartfelt performances from a largely talented cast.

Alas, it has a few flaws. Screenwriter Varun Grover's scrutiny of the different facets of city is beautifully incorporated into the story, thereby creating a place that is almost a character in itself, forgive the hackneyed line. And a long and booming round of applause for cinematographer Avinash Arun, who also debuted a couple of weeks ago with the miraculous Killa. The Banaras in Masaan exudes a tranquility and melancholy that helps a great deal in the telling of the stories. But the stories themselves are paced inconsistently and plotted a tad unconvincingly. In parts, the film is monotonous and predictable. And personally, I found a major plot point too far-fetched to believe. I was expecting it to be treated with a bit more realism.

But these admittedly minor flaws were forgiven when the whole film came together in a nifty tug at the end. What matters is, Masaan is unconventional in the best possible way. It is an earnest effort, an outstanding debut by any standard. Rarely has a story this sprawling been told with such clarity and confidence and maturity. For a film that promised so much, Masaan is memorable. And in all likelihood, one of the better Hindi films of the year.

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Review: Avinash Arun's "Killa" is a mesmerizing examination of childhood.

It is fast turning into a year of debutants. 

So far, we have had Chaitanya Tamhane's Court and M. Manikandan's Kaaka Muttai that have left indelible impressions, that have given us plenty reasons to whoop, that have left us feeling exceedingly optimistic for the future of Indian cinema. That's a good enough reason to celebrate.

But there is one film, one sensational film, that stands out among these gems, the vanquisher. Avinash Arun's profound and intricately constructed debut, Killa, is the film of the year. And I'm not talking about Indian cinema specifically when I proclaim that.

I have always believed that the most difficult of all stories to tell involve deciphering children and their emotions, how their minds function, how they survey the world we live in. It's a complex subject to explore that is often incorrigibly simplified, but when done right, I find that there is no greater joy than looking at the world through the eyes of children. Arun's Killa does exactly what one would look for in a film about children: it presents children as they are. Emotionally complex, eternally buoyant and frequently misunderstood. No falsities, no oversimplification. Only sensitivity. 

It's a quiet, almost meditative and painfully poignant reflection on childhood, the earthshaking distress we feel when we are estranged from our friends, how venting our unhappiness on the world becomes our only source of solace in these times, not realizing that the world already has heaps of problems to deal with in the first place. The balance it manages to strike between humor and poignancy is superlative. Rarely has a debutant demonstrated such tactfulness. It's generously scattered with moments so charming, so impossibly funny -- one of the factors that contributed to the humor is how truthful the shenanigans the kids pull off are -- that I could not resist grinning. It's almost as if we needed reminding that to enjoy a film, it needs to speak to us by telling us something about ourselves, not through disposable gimmicks. 

While Arun takes his time building his world in affectionate detail in the first-half, subtly establishing his characters and the relationships they share, it's in the second-half that the film turns into something more than what initially met the eye. Strained relationships are skillfully and unhurriedly examined in wordless scenes, through mournful glances and furtive smiles, and a boy finally comes of age. In an empathetically crafted sequence, he realizes the worth of having a mother from the unlikeliest of people. A world in which he was a misfit, a home in which he felt isolated become a part of his identity and he gradually comes to accept them as his own. It is in the capturing of this exquisite moment that Arun won my salute. It's a passing moment that is difficult to spot, for it is ever so discreet, but its overpoweringly wistful effect is felt somewhere near the end. It's the kind of moment that turns great films into enduring masterworks.

It only helps that Killa is one gorgeously shot film. The lush hills, mud paths, rusty bridges and blue seas are characters in themselves, being as much parts of the protagonists' lives as the landscapes, contributing a great deal to the film's moody atmosphere. I doffed my hat to Arun's spirited camerawork that engages us swiftly into the small but devotedly composed world. The performances, from even the smallest actors in the briefest roles, are brilliantly multilayered, and the young lot does wonders. They carry the whole film on their shoulders and make it look like a cakewalk. Parth Bhalerao, perhaps the most recognizable actor from the young lot, is particularly miraculous. His brusque Bandya is a character of warmth and goofiness, but he manages to imbue him with a sadness that is hard to describe.

Killa, eventually, is a heartbreaking film. A hushed montage of the people and places we have come to know and care for plays in the final few minutes, and ends with a moment of great hope. In a film that is full of heart, it is the heart it aims at till fade-out. 

It hardly needs pointing out that it is the film to outclass this year.

(Not For Reproduction)

Review: M. Manikandan's "Kaaka Muttai" grapples with tragicomedy like no other film in recent memory.

I have always found movies about slum children or people who dwell in the slums to be slightly manipulative. Often in such films we are subjected to repeated and exploitative shots of the dreadful living conditions in the slums as a means to invoke empathy, and how this small world has been preexisting discreetly while we walk past it everyday. While Slumdog Millionare resorted to brash exploitation to stir up the compassion needed to invest into its story, Mira Nair's Salaam Bombay offered a more realistic and subtle picture. 

It comes as such relief, then, that Kaaka Muttai, one of the more extraordinary debuts one is likely to see this year, neither glorifies nor exploits poverty for sympathy, but tells an uncommonly charming story about two slum boys yearning to taste a luscious pizza with a lot of heart. In the process, as is inevitable and in a way obligatory also, it delicately emphasizes on the discrimination between the rich and the poor in India, and how the people involved deal with it. 

It's a tragedy, naturally, but director M. Manikandan is too shrewd an artist to fall for that stereotypical trap. He sidesteps the despair in his tale and shifts his focus to the optimistic bit, thereby delivering an uplifting adventure that has a gloomy undercurrent we rarely have to confront. It is a film that celebrates morality in a cruel world, and conveys this through the shenanigans of two boys obsessed with a snack that even the people who can afford to munch on it consider to be harmful.

It is the perfect recipe for a quasi-preachy film that would have characters delivering routine sermons, but Kaaka Muttai rebuffs that approach entirely. Through humor and heartbreak and tenacity, it teaches us a bit about the world we live in, a bit about us, and it never slips into the melodramatic territory. It is predictable, yes, but the most notable triumphs as far as films are concerned are those that follow a path from the outset that is foreseeable till its conclusion, yet it manages to win you over. Kaaka Muttai is one of those films. It reflects a world that we know, is inhabited with characters we might have met at some point in our lives, but it is its honesty that eventually sways.

While also commenting the effects of globalization on the country and on the mindset of its people, Manikandan's dense debut switches tones rather skillfully as it oscillates between tragedy and comedy. It's a film about a mother's desperation to bring her family together and her diminishing hope, about how she tackles the absence of a father figure in her sons' lives. It is a film about her concealed sacrifice. But at its core, it is a film about entrepreneurship. It's a film about the naivete of two lads when the odds are stacked against them and how they beat it with their steadying optimism. These layers form an exquisite blend that drives the narrative. Each scene is put to good use to sculpt either the characters or the plot, and with each passing moment, Kaaka Muttai reinvents itself. In many ways, that is a rarity. 

The allure of Kaaka Muttai, like most great films', lies in the little throwaway but carefully handled details. In one the scenes deep into the film, the boys unknowingly turn up in dapper clothes only to come up against a catastrophe, and their mother washes her feet on their brand new clothes as a means for salvation. In another, possibly the most vivid of all sequences, a rich kid offers them each a piece of pizza, which they initially gape at but then reject it as they take the offer to be an unfounded insult. The rich kid's confusion is both funny and evocative, for he's completely oblivious to what his actions have led them to feel. After all, he was doing that in good faith. It is marvelous how many perceptive details are crammed in each scene, and how relevant they are in shaping our impression of the characters. Perhaps, this is one of the copious things that I would go back to the film for.

But this film wouldn't have worked half as well if it wasn't for the fabulously understated performances. Admittedly, I'm not as well acquainted with contemporary Tamil cinema as I would have liked to have been, but this committed ensemble only enhances a fine script. The young actors at the heart of this coup have such a strong screen presence, it feels awkward to even imagine for a second who could have played their roles if they had not, and their scenes with Iyshwarya Rajesh, who plays their mother, are doozies. There is no better actor here; only actors who complement each other like actors should. 

My only gripe with Kaaka Muttai is that the story goes slightly awry in the second-half, almost surrendering the logical consistency it maintained throughout for some needless drama. But looking at the bigger picture, it isn't something that would tarnish the joy that it bequeaths to us. Some of the finest Indian films in recent years have been debuts, and Kaaka Muttai proudly upholds that tradition. It is absolutely wonderful.