1. The Battleship Potemkin (1925)

Adored by film students and dumb charades aficionados alike, The Battleship Potemkin is one of those game-changing films that, even today inspires film-makers. For the first time, film-makers took the camera off its tripod and explored angles. This film also experimented with montages and film editing techniques to maximise audience empathy.

Apart from its technical achievements, it is important to watch Potemkin in the right context. When this movie was made, the Tsar of Russia had been dead for 8 years and Stalin was consolidating his power.  It is also important to remember that Potemkin was a government supported propaganda film; every single frame was designed to have the greatest emotional impact on its audience. And it achieves that objective most effectively. I haven’t felt such socialist stirrings since my Law and Poverty course in college.  I began to see Rasputins, Tsar Nicholases and Stolypins among the characters that represented the Establishment.

In 1905, the worker uprising had begun. Disgruntled sailors onboard the imperial battleship, Potemkin want to join the workers. But the straw that finally broke the camel’s back was rotten meat. Putrid, maggot-ridden meat is served to the sailors in their borscht, despite their vehement protests. When the sailors refuse to eat it, the Captain threatens to have them all shot. But one sailor, Vakulinchuk makes an impassioned speech and the sailors are so moved that they take up arms. But in the ensuing fight, Vakulinchuk is killed. He instantly becomes a martyr, the man who was “killed for a plate of soup”.

So shaken are they by his death that even the people of the port town, Odessa, flock to see this martyr’s body. Suddenly, all the people who never wanted to get drawn to either side of the revolt realize that the battle lines have been drawn by Vakulinchuk’s death and have to pick a side.

The movie’s most iconic sequence, The (dreaded) Staircase of Odessa, where a robot-like troop of Cossasks brutally murder the townspeople, including women, children and the infirm is horrifying and riveting. As I watched it, I thought, “Clichés much?”: woman carrying dead son, pram with baby rolling down a set of stairs, weeping old woman, the unfeeling military types marching on relentlessly. Except, you realize that all these devices were used for the first time ever in the history of cinema. It is the cinematic equivalent of watching the creation of Adam and Eve, and it takes your breath away.

2. The Battle of Algiers (1966)

Really, do yourself a favour and don’t watch this movie. Unless you have three sleepless nights (and three ensuing unable-to-work days) to spare. Damn you, Gillo Pontecorvo with your exquisite film-making technique and Ennio Morricone with your haunting soundtrack. If that scene where a man is tortured to reveal an insurgent hideout and then just sits there, with his dark, tear-filled eyes burning with hate and shame for himself keeps me awake for one more night, you will owe me a job.

Often called the greatest revolution movie ever made, The Battle of Algiers is about clashes in the city of Algiers between the native Algerians (a mostly Arab population) and French settlers during the Algerian War of Independence. But the depiction is so brutally realistic that it could have been a revolutionary war set anywhere in the world, at any point in history.  In fact, the Holy Wikipedia says that this movie is regularly screened for counter-revolutionary and armed forces personnel to understand the nature of guerilla warfare.

Perhaps the most refreshing feature about this movie was that, it practically danced on a knife edge between the two sides. The movie never makes any sort of judgment about whose reasons for murder and arson were better.  You do what you do for what you believe in, and you must accept all the consequences (this is precisely why I excluded movies about revolutionaries in this series; film-makers often get infatuated by their characters and feel compelled to rose-tint them a little bit).

War is not pretty and rarely fair. I believe it was Chairman Mao who said, “Revolution is not a tea party”, and how right he was.  If you watch this film expecting some sort of justification for armed rebellion or torture by armed forces, expect none. This movie was designed to make you uncomfortable about any side you pick, because there are always consequences. Innocent infants and mute spectators die on both sides and fresh-faced, earnest young men are among the guerillas and the soldiers. The revolution leader is a brilliant strategist who makes zero moving speeches five minutes before the climax and the head of the counter-revolutionary force is not the standard issue army sadist (I’m looking at you, Colonel Quaritch), but was once part of the French Resistance himself.

A number of scenes are bound to strike a chord, even today. The water boarding scenes and some scenes which were awfully reminiscent of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, are a reminder that more than 50 years later, almost nothing has changed.

3. The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)

If you were in a rebel army and found a traitor in your midst, you would have him shot, right?  But what if the traitor was your lifelong friend? Or your brother? What of your principles then? This pain of so many families and friends opposing each other during the Irish Civil War in the early 1920s is not an uncommon theme in Irish literature.

The Wind that Shakes the Barley is the story of two brothers, Teddy and Damien who are leaders of a brigade in the Irish Republican Army (IRA). But once the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 is signed, they find themselves on opposite sides. Although sympathetic to the IRA and their demands of complete independence, this movie’s great strength was the heart it brought into a political event. The feuding brothers are an obvious allegory of the Irish Civil War, but that doesn’t make their relationship clunky or unsubtle, but their affection for each other and the strength of their convictions are extremely believable.

I always assumed that the British soldiers were dickish towards only brown people and orientals. However, if this movie is anything to go by, apparently this was a general attitude problem in the British army. Say what you will, but they really knew how to work their divide and rule policies. An enemy who is different is easily opposed. But fighting your neighbours and third cousins? Messy. They let the IRA have everything within an inch of their demands, then sat back and watched them destroy themselves over that inch. Some felt that this was a chance for peace in Ireland; others felt that this was just putting a calico frock and lipstick on a pig. And this sort of thing happens on a regular basis. The Suffragette movement in Britain, the Indian National Movement and so many others suffered the same problem. Everybody starts off with the same oaths of freedom and liberty, except, nobody can actually agree on what those words mean.

I’ll leave you to ponder these perturbing questions over a hearty Irish rebel song.

I’m taking a short break from revolution movies to express outrage at Hollywood’s affinity for senseless alien invasion flicks.

For a ridiculously young civilization that, till a few centuries ago thought that constellations were centaurs frolicking in the heavens, and that you would topple off the edge of the world if you sailed in a straight line,  we’re awfully full of ourselves.  An alien army just travelled untold distances, has perfected water fuel-based technology, entered our atmosphere completely undetected and targeted and levelled most of our major cities, and we still have the audacity to say, “Let’s show those alien scumbags not to mess with us!”

Fortunately for our hubris, Hollywood aliens don’t believe in bulletproof vests or doing any reconnaissance before attacking.

World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles was predictably, a rehash of what ID4 already did, and did so much better. What really surprises me is that, despite a few thousand websites dedicated to pointing out exactly what is wrong with the traditional planet-being-invaded-by-weird-bio-armour-wearing-aliens-with-tentacles-and-they-don’t-want-to-negotiate-okay-enough-talking-let’s-open-up-a-can-of-whoop-ass plot line and a number of small ways movie makers could actually create a credible alien invasion story, the makers of this movie chose to ignore this body of literature entirely, and went with the favourite excuse of, “Hey, this is an action movie! We don’t need to have a sensible plot or even obey the rules we just created. Just watch the guns and explosions and be happy!” No, Hollywood. No.

The movie opens with the clichéd TV news story about suspicious meteor showers across the globe, where these meteors seem to be falling into oceans near large cities (Boo-YAH, Mumbai. How do you feel about your great sea breeze now?). We learn that the meteors contain aliens who are in no mood for conversation and want to quickly start destroying our cities and people. These aliens have entirely water-based technology and since 70% of our planet’s surface is covered in water, they want our planet and want us dead.  A brave band of US Marines (oo-rah!) must venture into the battle zone to go and rescue some civilians (1 pretty woman, 1 precocious boy, 2 screaming children) before the area gets carpet bombed by our side and in the process, they learn valuable lessons about love, friendship, patriotism, etc.

Needless to say, our brave band has all the favourite trope characters: Young Inexperienced Lieutenant, Tough War-Weary Staff Sergeant and a motley crew of Big Talker, Strong Silent Martyr, Male Chauvinist, Sexy Gun-Toting Female, Bro from Da Hood and Young Innocent Boy. True, there was surprisingly little “America Rulez!” and our badass marines looked less like Full Metal Jacket and more like a pleasant university brochure with a healthy representation by ethnic communities and one Canadian. But before you get the wrong idea, let’s be clear about this:  no amount of political correctness could save this rubbish movie.

The most obvious questions one must ask these aliens are:
(a) Really, aliens? Is water so rare in the universe that you must expend (what is probably) the last of your fuel on a wild expedition to an inhabited planet, where the natives have nuclear technology, AGAINST WHICH YOU HAVE NO DEFENCE? Why couldn’t you just go to one of the moons of Jupiter, dig out the ice and leisurely take it back home?

(b) Even assuming that you had absolutely made up your mind to come to Earth and take our water, how about some research? You were aware that we weren’t those pathetic Pandoran natives with bows and arrows, right? You were aware that we had grenades and bazookas, right? It wasn’t like we were trying to keep it a secret or anything. We’ve been blaring TV signals into space for decades now. If I were you, I’d have become somewhat concerned after watching Tony Montana’s cocaine fueled rampage with his “little friend”.

(c) If you knew we had guns, why did you decide to walk in wearing armour that only protects you from feathers and bunnies? On that note, since your Achilles heel is the right side of your chest, why not have some extra armour there?

(d) You have ONE freaking “command centre” which is the brain of your entire operation for an area and you choose to stick it in a highly conspicuous place and you couldn’t even be bothered to slap on a half-decent force field? You deserve to lose.

(e) How exactly were you planning to carry all the water back to your home planet? Or was this the most ill-advised illegal immigration plan in history?

(f) Have you not heard of the prevalent theory that it is logical that any alien species that makes contact with humans will be benevolent? For a species to have mastered space travel and travel across unimaginable distances is no mean feat. It would suggest that the species is far, far, far older than us and is so technologically superior to us, that fighting them would be like a child threatening a mail-clad knight with a bow of string and green willow. They could gain nothing from humankind, and therefore begs the question: aliens, why so hostile?

However, since these are bullshit aliens that are a cheap ripoff of ID4 aliens, none of these questions can or will be answered. If you thought these supernova sized plot holes might give you a headache, I assure you that your head will be pounding long before. I don’t know who was responsible for it, but shaky cam is Officially A Thing. Even when the plot doesn’t require it to be an amateur video (like The Blair Witch Project or Cloverfield). Nobody in this movie was filming a documentary, and yet they had to insist on using it.

The one solace was that this wasn’t another movie set in Manhattan, and we didn’t have to sit through the Statue of Liberty being destroyed again. Could this mean that Hollywood has finally woken up to how silly this sequence is, and how only one movie ever managed to pull it off?

Needless to say, once all the token characters are killed off, Marine-banter (oo-rah!) has been exchanged and the alien Macguffin has been smashed, the earthlings live on happily ever after… wait a second, how do we know this was their entire force? What if this was only their vanguard, which managed to destroy all our major cities (and based on the Los Angeles battle experience, most of the air force too)? So, is the sequel going to be titled, “World Invasion 2: Building a Pipeline Across the Galaxy for Our Alien Overlords”?

Firth and Rush in 'The King's Speech'

The King’s Speech begins on a dreary day in 1925 when the Duke of York, second son of King George V of England, prepares to make the closing speech at the British Empire Exhibition. The Duke clutches his speech, looking sick with worry, as he waits to be called to the stage. When he finally steps up to the microphone, his voice turns on him and he stands in front of a crowd of thousands, speechless, heaving with fear and choking on words that will not be said.

From the very first scene, your heart begins to ache for the King with the stammer – George VI (Colin Firth), or Bertie, as he is known to family and friends. His wife, then the Duchess of York (Helena Bonham Carter), finds him a Australian speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), and Bertie and Lionel strike up an unlikely friendship as they battle to overcome Bertie’s tortured childhood and find him a voice that is his own. When his father passes away and his elder brother, King Edward VIII, abdicates to marry the woman he loves, Bertie, against the odds, ascends to the throne of England. Now, the stakes are even higher as the newly crowned King George VI must face not just his fears, but also an anxious nation. The film ends as it began, with a speech, this time the King’s speech, as George VI addresses the empire on radio at the start of the Second World War.

The King’s Speech is one of the most talked about films of 2010 and, with 12 nominations, a likely big winner at this month’s Academy Awards ceremony. Along with a stack of technical nominations, the film is a contender for Best Picture, Best Director (Tom Hooper), Best Actor (Firth), Best Supporting Actor (Rush) and Best Supporting Actress (Bonham Carter). More ominously, it has been produced by Harvey Weinstein, formerly of Miramax Films, who has the Midas touch as far as the golden statuette is concerned (16 nominations for Best Picture including 3 wins in a twelve-year career with Miramax).

The first thing that strikes you about the film is the profusion of bizarre characters. An eccentric BBC radio presenter gargles with whiskey before every announcement, a quack doctor with a manic gleam in his eye stuffs marbles into the Duke’s mouth in an attempt to get him to talk, and the pompous Archbishop of Canterbury (Derek Jacobi) harrumphs that a commoner cannot possibly sit in the Royal Box in Westminster Abbey for the King’s coronation. The royal family is equally caricatured: the fierce old king George V (Michael Gambon) barks at his son to “spit it out” and fix his stammering problem while his wife, and mother to King George VI, Queen Mary (Clare Bloom), is white, cold and rather unfeeling. King Edward VIII is portrayed as a shallow fool – who, when asked what he’s so busy doing, replies grandly, “kinging” –while his temptress, the evil Mrs. Wallis Simpson of Baltimore, seems sour and manipulative. A positive (and surely unintended) cartoon is Winston Churchill himself (Timothy Spall) – I almost expected him, any minute, to turn into Spall’s Wormtail from the Harry Potter series.

Nor is the historical background very convincingly portrayed. The public drama of abdication is severely glossed over and the build-up of war seems hollow and inadequate. Apart from a few flashes of Hitler making a speech (“I don’t know (what he’s saying)”, says the King, “but he seems to be saying it rather well”), the film appears to be taken by surprise when war breaks out. Christopher Hitchens has written an excellent piece on the historical inaccuracies relating to Churchill’s role in the film, particularly with respect to his close friendship with the Nazi-sympathising Edward.

Yet, amid all this exaggeration and melodrama, a remarkably warm story emerges of a friendship between two men – the King of England and his speech therapist. Through a series of meetings in a sparsely decorated consultation room, Lionel helps Bertie break down his paralyzing fear through often unconventional techniques: prancing about the room, singing songs like Swanee River and Camptown Races, and letting forth a stream of expletives. Lionel is an agreeable and irreverent chap who refuses to be cowed by the royal background of his client. Bertie takes his time to warm to the cheeky Australian. “You’re peculiar”, says the King to Lionel. “I’ll take that as a compliment”, is the quick response. Yet, they eventually become close friends and confidantes.

Colin Firth towers as the stammering King. Girls of my generation have mooned over Firth ever since he played the gloomy Mr. Darcy in the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice. I was around ten when I first watched that mini-series; Firth was my first crush and I’ve had a soft spot for him ever since. Even so, I was astounded by his wonderful performance as a homosexual college professor in A Single Man – an Oscar-nominated turn which lost out to Jeff Bridges in Crazy Heart (probably because half the Academy hadn’t even seen A Single Man).

As the gentle and sad Bertie, Firth is excellent. In his own restrained way, he brings to life the gut-wrenching terror that renders Bertie speechless and the hot shame of failure that follows. Rush is smart, funny and engaging as Lionel. Bonham-Carter, too, strikes the perfect note as the loving wife – supportive and witty, and not beyond a bit of low gossip at the expense of Mrs. Wallis.

However, both Rush and Bonham Carter are probably too delicate and subtle for the Academy – not when there are roles of drug addicts and murderous outlaws waiting to be awarded. Firth, however, is probably going to bring this one home. The King’s Speech doesn’t suffer from the obscurity of A Single Man and here Firth plays not just a historical figure (and the Academy loves those), but also one with a physical disability. It seems too good to be true, and if Firth wins, in my opinion, it would be a very well deserved victory.

This is more than I can say for Tom Hooper’s nomination as Best Director. Frankly, I thought his directorial style was a little over the top (Beethoven blaring during the eponymous King’s speech) and vastly predictable: his fellow nominees in both David Fincher (Social Network) and the Coen brothers (True Grit) are far more nuanced (read about why Lekha picks Fincher for the win here).

Ultimately, The King’s Speech is a feel-good bromance between Bertie and Lionel and it is practically impossible to not like it. Will it win the Best Picture Oscar? If it does, it wouldn’t be on a list of the best of best picture award-winners of all time. Actually, it wouldn’t even be close. But it remains a delightful little movie with genuine heart.

There isn’t much point in giving a preface before listing out the ten best films of the year. You know what its about and how it works. So lets get on with it. The only disclaimer is that I can only make a list out of the movies that I have seen. So I may have not seen some of the best films (read Black Swan/ The Fighter) of the year because they haven’t been released in India and I couldn’t find a good enough torrent.

1. Social Network

People knew that it was going to be a good movie but few thought that a docu-drama on the life of the socially awkward creator of Facebook would go on to become one of the most successful films of the year. Extremely witty, sharp and smart. These are usually the words used to describe a person, not a film but they fit perfectly to Social Network. The Zuckerberg character, fictional though it may be is one of the most well crafted characters in recent memory. You can identify with his confusion, his motivation but even after the movie gets over, remain as clueless about his intentions as he probably is himself. Its a film not merely about a person but about a generation.

2. Scott Piligrim vs. the World

Scott Pilgrim is from the maker of inventive spoofs like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. It gets the energy and zing of a video game in a movie and loads it up with quirky comic book humour and exciting back ground score. This is without a doubt the most entertaining film of the year. Put it in loop motion and get under the quilt. Oh, and remember to get a large tub of pocpcorn before you do that.

3. Udaan

A film about growing up and conflicts between the adults and to be adults. Its been called the Indian 400 Blows and a celebration of the rebellious spirit of youth. That’s probably a bit too generous to a movie which has slightly one dimensional characters but it still deserves all the credit for being one of the most sensitive films made in India in a long time. It also has the earthy look of small town India which has rarely ever been seen in the movies since the seventies. Not to forget that it’s the first film of director Vikramaditya Motwane and also has the best soundtrack for a Hindi movie this year.

4. Leaves of Grass

The fact that this movie has one of his best performances by Edward Norton (in the role of identical looking but completely different twins) should be sufficient to carry it to the list of the year’s best. The film unfolds like a typical Coen Brothers’ crime comedy, except that it is made by Tim Blake Nelson and not Coen Brothers. So it is much more affectionate of its characters and devotes time to what they think and not just what they do. It gets you thinking about how much of our life is a result of our choices and how much simply of conditioning and events.

5. The Ghost Writer

I would much rather state that Barack Obama is black than say that Roman Polanski is a class filmmaker but what is really amazing is that at seventy seven years of age, he is still making elegant gripping thrillers like this one. This is a film which does not wander around too much. It does not distract you with action sequences or blowing up buildings. It clues you in with the plot in the first five minutes and then starts working on you slowly, tightening the screws. This is a film equivalent of having a glass of good scotch. It won’t knock you out but leave you admiring the finesse.

6. Greenberg

The protagonist of Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg is not a very likable guy. He thinks only about himself and is angry because he never made it big. People think that he has decided not to do anything with his life and he is angry with people because they can’t see how much pain he is in. He meets a beautiful, caring and sensitive girl but the film is not about the healing power of love. Its about how people can sometimes get stuck with the problems that they create for themselves in their heads. Ben Stiller plays Greenberg like someone you would know.

7. Inception

Initially I wasn’t too sure about putting this on the list because for all the hype generated by Inception, I’ll remember it as a movie which could have been better than how it turned out. That said, it was certainly one of the most influential and talked about movies of the year and it seems to be a waste that one had to watch the movie again to decipher it and not because it was entertaining.

8. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

There are a number of things that this movie pulls off spectacularly not the least of which is an intriguing protagonist, the fascinating Lisbeth Salander. The credit for that of course should truly go to the writer who launched (even though he may not have lived to see it) the massively successful trilogy of books based on the character. But where the film goes beyond is in getting the perfect casting for the role and creating a brutal cold setting which would seem to incubate the kind of evil that is let loose in it. The way the suspense unfolds, specially how an investigation of long buried sins transforms into one with ominous urgency, reminded me of Agatha Christie. A thousand times better than the likes of Salt. No offence to Angelina Jolie.

All right, now I am going to cheat a bit. This is a list of this year’s best movies but I definitely have not seen all the movies released this year which deserve to be on this list and I don’t want to fill it with movies which were not good enough. So instead, I am going to slip in a couple of really good movies that I watched this year even though they had been released much earlier.

9. Lars and the Real Girl

Lars and the Real Girl is a film about a lonely guy who gets home a life size sex doll and treats it like his girl friend. Its not a slapstick comedy though, far from it. It’s a heart warming film about the goodness of human nature. Lars (played endearingly by Ryan Gosling) is a nice, gentle, quiet guy who avoids human contact both of the physical kind and that of the social interaction variety. He goes to work everyday and stays in a garage meters away from his brother and sister in law but keeps to himself with a firm insistence. One fine day he orders the doll off the net and introduces it to everyone as his girlfriend; Bianca. The psychologist says that the cure is to go along with his delusion. The rest of the film is about how the people around him including his family, co workers, neighbours and church members come together to play along in the delusion of treating Bianca as a real person; not in a fake sympathetical manner but with a sincerity and gentleness which comes from their care and affection for Lars, one of their own.

10. Away We Go

It seems almost cruel to end a list of the year’s best without a single romantic movie. So here’s a gem borrowed from 2009. Away We Go is about an unmarried couple in early thirties, about to have a child but clueless about where they are in life. They go hopping cities, visiting friends and family, to decide where they want to settle down, the people they want to live close to. Somewhere along the movie, they find out as we do, that they do not have much support apart from their love for each other and that they don’t really need anything more. A soothing soundtrack by Alexi Murdoch adds to the delight that this movie is.

I saw Dabangg last weekend and was completely blown away. That seems to be the consensus amongst the thousands of people who have seen the film, including very many who would not be the typical target audience for a Bollywood-Salman-Action film.

I have read multiple reviews of the film in popular media with words like “paisa wasool” and “mass-entertainer” have been used whilst maintaining that though the film would be a financial behemoth it lacks somewhat in the script/storytelling department. And a particular reviewer scoffed at it and said that a film wearing its origins so blatantly could have added a separate treatment a la Om Shanti Om (OSO).

While OSO was a fun film and also arguably some pretty good film making – I would not sell Dabangg short at all. I think it was far superior.

Dabangg is a genre film.

And it is a spectacular genre film. I have seen all the action films of the 80s and love the glory of Suneil Shetty-Akshay Kumar era of the mid 90s. And while they helped set the parameters of a genre: Dabangg revelled in it.

Anurag Kashyap said it would be a film Tarantino made. People scoff because in this case he is hardly an un-biased party. But I agree with him.

A genre film is one which keeps a strong pace while touching every milestone set out in the genre. It takes some very very good storytelling to do that without losing the plot.

And most importantly: a genre film is judged by the rules of the genre.

Here is why it is a much better piece of “cinema” than people would agree right away:

** Serious Spoilers Ahead **

1. It has a plot. There are heroes and villains and relationships between some protagonists change during the course of the film. The romance was done well and smartly and effectively. Serving to further fill in the character of Mr. Chulbul Pandey. He is fearless (duh) and is driven by an enormous ego and a twisted sense of honour. This is all we need as an audience. He is pissed off and feels the whole world owes him something – the background of which was etched very cleanly. We never question why he feels this way…

2. Again in the plot the character motivations seem clean and not terribly convoluted. The step-brother’s character was confused and wandering: but he is supposed to be a jellyfish and his pre-climax over compensation seems apt. The step-father does a 180 towards the end but at that time he is vulnerable and the reconciliation happens because he sees Chulbul no longer as a threat (he probably hates him for being better than his own son, and fears what would happen when he dies) but as a support. The heroine loves Chulbul because he is an alpha male where she is surrounded by men she had to take care of her whole life (drunken dad, handicapped brother). And Dimple did a kick-ass job as a mother torn down the middle. We don’t need 30 minute dialogue heavy scenes to get  it. We are a smart audience. A 45 second scene is enough to establish relationships.

The mother torn between sons is done better here than in Deewar and Ram Lakhan and so many other “genre” films.

3. Again on plotting: all the cannons are shot. I cannot emphasize this enough: from the inhaler and the asthma, to the money stolen at the bank heist (forming such a huge plot pivot – almost a macguffin), even the explanation for the sunglasses (which we were all wondering about) there was an attention to detail here sorely missing in many other films.

4. Subtlety in storytelling. Now you are wondering if we even saw the same film!

- Sonakshi’s nervous almost sub-conscious adjustment of her pallu on her shoulders when Salman is talking to her – its glorious. She feels naked in his glare: and we see that. (Again very different from the gratuitous almost exploitative stance taken during Sallu’s last hit: Wanted)

-  A hilarious abroad song shoot (it would have been Australia or Switzerland for a Yash Raj film – here it was Dubai because that is where a corrupt cop from small town UP would go for his honeymoon!) which helped build the characters

4. This film knew its genre and exploited it. We got all the one-liners we could want (Salman only spoke in those), we got 2-3 liquor drenched songs with the requiste pelvic thrusts, well choreographed fight sequences (phone ringing mid fight was a touch of genius; also the song is from Wanted), right touch of sentimentality (the sunglasses hiding tears was very effective) and the requisite touch of the bizarre (the weird photographer guy).

5. Salman was shirtless only once in the film. We knew it was coming – it was just a question of the when and the how. I don’t think anyone could have written that part better. This was better than anything Takashi Miike could come up with.

It is a clean reference to the Super-Heroism of the heroes of the genre (like a certain green guy who we will not like angry). That worked better than the hero surviving explosions and multiple gunshots.

The simplest stories are the toughest to tell. Genre stories even more so.

Every character served their purpose (even Om Puri and Anupam Kher in short cameos) and character motivations are clear and we get spirited along to the inevitable ending.

Nothing in the film is by chance, and it has been put together very consciously and very carefully. So carefully in fact that you almost don’t notice.

That is great storytelling and great cinema.

Is the camera on?

One of the most noticeable and publicized things about the movie, Love Sex aur Dhoka was that it had been shot in a digital, hand held camera/ hidden camera format. This visual style made the movie very real and immediate. In fact the reason why some people were appalled by the explicitness of violence and sex in the film was because there was no background music or soothing wide angled shots to cushion the impact of the difficult scenes. They were too brutally real to be just seen and forgotten like a normal movie scene.

The film is neatly divided in three stories smartly interconnected to each other and dealing with the L, S and D respectively. The story is in equal parts a tribute/ spoof of Bollywood potboilers (there obviously isn’t much of a difference between a tribute and a spoof of Bollywood movies) and a heart wrenching realistic story. Even after the first fifteen minutes or the so, this first story remains pretty uncertain in its tone. It seems like a naive and fun film while following the falling in love of the lead couple and the silly student film which serves as the backdrop to their affair.  But there are some ominous and grave shadows in between when the girl’s family comes into picture. Eventually, however, it is the ending which redeems and gives a purpose to the story. The ending is susceptible to the attacks of being contrived. Its been said that its a deliberate set up by luring the audience into a funny, sweet and innocent love story and then banging them in the face with a brutal ending. This is at least partially true but the ending has a greater impact not only because it is quiet gruesomely explicit but also because it is so ironically sad, which is also true for life. Some of the gruesome tales of ‘honor killings’ that come out suggest that in most cases the victims are blissfully ignorant or deeply underestimate the violent reactions of their families to their amorous adventures.

The first story on the face of it does not have any direct correlation with the invasion of media into our lives apart from the fact that it is shot like a home video with digital handy cams but even if it was shot on a normal movie camera, that would not have made too much of a difference to the story per se.  Of course, reflecting a bit, it is apparent that the love story of the lead couple is not only inspired but is a reflection of the films of their generation. The candy floss romances of the 80s and 90s have been deeply embedded in the minds of the generation which grew up in during that period. So its not really a surprise that young couples in Kanpur or Ranchi have no hesitation in ‘falling in love’ without any regard to the sensibilities of their families. The problem of course is that their make believe worlds modeled closely on their favorite movies are completely out of sync with the realities of the world around them. Most of these films have happy endings with the disapproving elders being won over by the pure and sincere love of the young ones. Even the ones with sad endings make the sacrifice a glorious spectacle.

In real life, a high number of these love stories are crushed brutally by their families and the ‘society’ (the infamous orders of various ‘khap panchayats’ being  the ugliest reflections of the same) and there is hardly any glory in being killed brutally and being forgotten forever. LSD presents the problem is all it glory or rather with all its gory details. It does not attempt to be indirect or circumspect or provide a gentle suggestion to the audience about the fate of the love birds. It shows them being slaughtered and butchered as merciless(ly) as the perpetrators who commit them are.

The second story is probably the heart of the movie. Its about what has possibly emerged as the most destructive side effect of the camera age. With the all pervasive cameras of phones to security monitors and the ease and anonymity of user uploaded content on the internet has made paparazzi from a profession of a few to the hobby of an entire generation. It would be quite reasonable to expect that a number of lives must have already been destroyed if the number of ‘scandals’ that are uploaded on the relevant websites everyday are anything to go by.  In the movie, the guy is an out an out bastard who starts off flirting with the girl with the sole intention of selling a video with her in the act. The girl on the other hand is a shy and homely girl, too conscious of her dusky, simple looks and has a heart of gold. As it happens quite often in the movies and not so often in the real life, the guy actually develops sincere emotions for the girl and resists from capturing her on the camera the first time he gets the opportunity. But soon after his sinister side is reawakened and the next time when the girl is inconsolable and vulnerable for having lost her best friend, he films her in the act and sells the video. Like the first part which has a really violent scene towards the end, this story has a rather explicit sex scene which is quite uncomfortable to watch.

One reason why the damage caused by such a scandal in the age of Internet is catastrophic is because it is irreversible and proliferated. Unlike the earlier times when newspapers (and to a lesser extent the news channels) were the repository of public memory which could only keep track of a scandal for some time, now the 24/7 news channels do not have any qualms in running something over and over and over again. Even after the news channels tire of the story, it is impossible to erase the traces from the Internet and hence the scars would last through the victim’s life time and even beyond.

It is also interesting to see that while so many people would enjoy watching the video and fantasize about it, they consider themselves to be morally much superior to the poor girl who has been secretly filmed by someone she trusted in an intimate moment. This question is also posed by the much harassed Chanda in the Anurag Kashyap movie, Dev D.

The third story deals with the highly controversial aspect of media encroaching upon the privacy of individuals under the garb of newsworthiness. It follows an exploitative and vulgar music video director/ singer who goes by the name of Loki Local. Loki is habitual of taking the aspiring starlets to his bed by promising to cast them in his next ‘super hit’ music video. There is a girl who has been duped by Loki. She tries killing herself but is saved by a journalist who due to narrative coincidence happens to be a veteran of ‘sting operations’. The girl wants revenge and the reporter is desperate for a story. She approaches Loki and soon they have him on the tape ‘taking advantage’ of her in lieu of a promised music video. The reporter has however developed romantic feelings for the girl by that time and is reluctant to put the graphic video up for the news channel wolves and an interesting conclusion is reached.

The rise of ‘invasive journalism’ is intricately linked to the rise of reality television all over the world and India has not been an exception. We were probably a bit slow to take off but in the last half a decade with the explosion of satellite television and the resulting competition for TRPs assisted by the advances in the surveillance  technology have made ‘sting operations’ and ‘spy cams’ familiar words not only for the journalist community but also for the common man. High TRPs of shows like Emotional Atyachar, Sach ka Samna and Big Boss is clearly an indication that while we may not yet be the voyeur nation like the US but we are surely getting there. In view of the traditionally conservative nature of the Indian people, this trend is particularly perverted. It seems that while we are still not willing to see a couple kissing on streets, we apparently have no qualms about watching (in the privacy of our own homes) a couple indulging in far more intimate acts behind the closed doors through the aid of the technological marvels called hidden cameras.

While in countries like the United States there have been various instances where the victims of such sting operations have gone ahead and sued the news channels/ reporters for damages and have also succeeded a number of times, the idea is almost unheard in India. It is usually the other way round and the person featured in such an expose irrespective of whether it concerns his public or private life is deemed to be guilty by the camera trial and is forced to defend himself. The sense of self righteousness is so firmly entrenched in the Indian media that the questions about the ethical nature of such endeavors are contemptuously dismissed with a wave of the magical hand of ‘public interest’. LSD does not take a clear side, while it portrays Loki as a sleazy and exploitative scum-bag, it shows the news channel bosses as ruthless mercenaries whose sole concern is getting a juicy scandal for their channel. Its not just a question of ends justifying the means but the ultimate objective itself is questionable.

Anurag Kashyap often narrates the anecdote about his first movie, Paanch. Apparently, it was rejected the Censor Board certificate (and still remains unreleased) because the Board felt that there was no moral lesson in the story of the movie. Thankfully, now things have changed and LSD did release even though it is difficult to say whether the movie takes a moral stand. Does that mean that LSD is an ‘exploitation film’ which sells by showing uncomfortable ‘youtube’ like footage? I would say no. It makes you uncomfortable but because it intends to do so; because the reality it tries to depict is really quite disturbing. The couples who run away from don’t get a quiet, dignified, ‘slow music’ death, they get a brutal, unexpected, painful one; the girl in the ‘scandal in store’ video probably did not do anything even remotely ‘wrong’ or ‘stupid’ to deserve it and will probably never recover from it.

The film’s use of the digital video footage is not a gimmick but, in fact, its subject matter. By showing the reality in a much too immediate and recognizable form, it seeks to make you a part of the ‘filth’ that it ‘criticizes’ so that every time you watch a scandal  MMS/ Emotional Atyachar/ India TV/, you realize that you are creating a demand for the supply, that you become a part of the cycle of (irresponsible) media affecting people affecting media. Like many other good movies, LSD offers no answers but it makes you aware of the questions. That in itself is something.

* The author would like to acknowledge the discussions on this film with Abhishek Saluja, Harsh Parashar and Prateek Mishra which may form part of this post.

(THIS IS THE FINAL PART OF A TWO PART SERIES ON THE FILMS OF DIBAKAR BANERJEE)

(image from here)

Anupam Kher showing the golden name plate in Khosla Ka Ghosla.

Part I: Before the Shock came the Smiles

Before making Love, Sex aur Dhoka (Love, Sex and Betrayal or LSD for short), Dibakar Banerjee had made two of the most original and authentic movies of the so called new generation of Bollywood since the turn of the millennium. His first movie Khosla ka Ghosla (Khosla’s Nest or KKG for short) was and continues to be arguably the best comedy about a post liberalization middle class family. The closest resemblance that it had was to the movies of Hrishikesh Mukherjee about simple and gentle middle class families in the India of 1970s/80s, so comfortably insulated from the chaos of their political and social settings that they could indulge in their funny and often whimsical ‘problems’. Khosla ka Ghosla however, went much further than being a comic tale of a middle class family. It dealt with the hilarious consequences when two seemingly disparate worlds interact with each other as they do quite invariably in our modern India. The sophisticated have to interact with the crude and the gentle law abiders have to deal with the gun totters. In a way, it was also a subtle ‘critique’ of how the middle class likes to isolate itself from the muck around it and how frail and short lasting these attempts are.

Some of the best parts of the movie, however, were the interactions between the pre and post liberalization generations represented by a father and his son. The father played brilliantly by Anupam Kher is driven by the middle class dream of his generation: a good, self owned house. The son also seems to be driven by the middle class dream of his own generation that of getting a job in the US. Neither of them understands the value of what the other values. The new post liberalization generation is typified by a confidence of economic self sufficiency which the prior generation did not have till very late in their lives. This also means that the attempts of the older generation to exercise control over the young one can no longer gain strength from ‘zaaydaad se bedkhal’ (dis-entitlement from the family property) threats that were so common in the movies of 70s and 80s. Instead, the older generation tries to adapt by trying to appease and cajole the younger generation which results in some really funny and yet somewhere heart warming scenes in Khosla ka Ghosla. One of them being where the presumably teetotaler father gets whisky at home to drink with his son or the one where understanding that Chiraujni Lal is a particularly embarrassing name for his son, he suggests changing it to CL Khosla. “Same ka same aur different ka different”

If Khosla Ka Ghosla established his credentials as a sensible and crafted filmmaker, Banerjee’s second movie, Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! (OL, LO) convinced everyone how good his understanding of the urban middle class sensibilities is. The protagonist (Lucky) in OL,LO is seen in his earlier years as a very normal teenager who lusts after the same attractive things and has the same insecurities that other young people of his age and background have. Of course, he grows up to be a master thief which is not something that ‘regular’ middle class boys do for a living. However, unlike the movies of the 70s and 80s the explanation behind him becoming a thief is not rooted in some great personal tragedy or the prospect of starvation in the face of a cruel, classist world but rather in his middle class desire to be upwardly mobile.

He steals because he wants the good things in life and after a point perhaps because he just loves his work and loves the fact that he is so good at it.  There is a very interesting montage in the movie, when Lucky being frustrated and disturbed by the fraud pulled on him by Paresh Rawal’s character, goes on a spree stealing everything and anything that comes across his way, all through the night. One of the biggest reasons for the success of Lucky (and the real life character on whom he is supposedly based) seemed to be that he did not appear to be the stereotypical criminal, the uneducated, filthy and crass thug.  He would dress well, drive a flashy car (stolen, of course) and appear to be suave and cultured. In short, to the upper middle class of south Delhi, he would appear to be ‘one of them’.

Dibakar does a reversal of sorts in the relationship of the classes in KGK and OL, LO. While in Khosla Ka Ghosla, the crude, loud, uneducated Boman Irani is the exploiter and a gentle, educated, mild mannered Anupam Kher suffers him, in OL,LO, our smart, daring and super successful hero who fools the filthy rich and the helpless police with equal ease is, in fact conned by the sophisticated, educated and supposedly respectful veterinarian played by Paresh Rawal.

The father-son relationship is at the core of both KKG and OL, LO. The actions of the protagonist in both the movies are driven by their relationship with their fathers. In Khosla ka Ghosla, the son (played by Parvin Dabas) does not want to lead the embarrassing and outdated life that his father has planned for him but when he sees how helpless his father is against the corrupt and terrorizing Boman Irani, he devices a plan to get the plot back for him. In OL, LO, Lucky is continuously looking for a father figure (played every time by Paresh Rawal) and is disappointed every time. This supposedly fuels up his hunger for fame and his disregard for the authority and rules of a society which is equally disregardful of his existence.

Having made these two light hearted and yet realistic and sensible movies, everyone was looking forward to Dibakar’s new project and almost everyone expected that it would have the same nice, quiet and peaceful general tone even though it was audaciously titled Love, Sex aur Dhoka. When the movie came out a sizable number of people who went expecting a light hearted or a titillating film were disappointed to put it mildly (I had the good fortune of watching the movie with some of them who went on abusing the family of the director and how the movie was a Dhoka (fraud) upon them, the poor popcorn munching audience). The ‘critics’ and a hundred other serious film-goers were impressed to a great extent but shocked to a greater extent.

(THIS IS THE FIRST PART OF A TWO PART SERIES)