Movies to watch before you die: Masoom

My first post on a series of films that I personally think you should watch - some of my favourite films.

I'm starting off this series with what is probably one my favourite ever Hindi films - Masoom. No, I'm not talking about the 1996 film starring this annoying little shit:



I'm talking about the 1983 classic starring Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, and Urmila Matondkar and Jugal Hansraj as child artists.

The plot of the film is fairly simple - DK (Naseeruddin Shah) is happily married to Indu (Shabana Azmi), and has two daughters Pinky (Urmila) and Mini. DK suddenly finds out that he also has a son from an affair with another woman (Supriya Pathak). Following his mother's death, DK is contacted to pick up his son Rahul (Jugal Hansraj). This, expectedly, causes friction in the household - Indu cannot handle having DK's love child in the house, where DK start to bond with the son he didn't know he had. As the tagline of the film states: 'Can this boy destroy your family?'

What makes Masoom work big time is the realism in the film. The family is loving without always gushing over each other, the arguments are heated without being melodramatic, the kids are cute without being annoying. The realism is achieved for three factors - Shekhar Kapoor's direction, Gulzar's screenplay, and the performances all round.

The direction is refreshingly low key - no unnecessary songs or action sequences (even though this film came in the same year as the Jeetendra potboilers Mawaali, Himmatwala and Justice Chaudhry). The camera seems to follow the family around on their daily life, which was perfect for this story. Gulzar sets up very natural situations, and creates three-dimensional characters - it's easy to sympathise with DK even though he has cheated on his wife, and you can understand where Indu's anger at Rahul comes from, even though he isn't at fault. Of course, these characters work because of the performances.

Naseeruddin Shah gets his role pitch perfect - as the father who wants to do the right thing by his family, but can't ignore his heir. Shabana Azmi gets some of the film's most evil scenes - when she portrays her hate towards Rahul, you want to shout abuse at her......but you can't as you understand exactly where she's coming from. As mentioned before, as the two sisters who have found a new playmate in Rahul, Urmila and Aradhana are childlike without being annoying. But the knockout performance in the film comes from Jugal Hansraj. As the confused child who loses his mother, only to gain another family, and then faced with the threat of losing it again, he is the life of the film. The title of the film perfectly suits him, and it's a pity that this was his best performance to date.

I can't not mention the music of this film - the Gulzar - R.D. Burman combo always provided fantastic songs, and this film was no exception. My personal favourites are Tujhse Naraaz Nahin Zindagi




and Do Naina Aur Ek Kahani



although Lakdi Ki Kaathi is probably one of the more popular songs from the film.

A word of warning - if you decide to watch this film, be prepared to cry. It sets me off everytime I watch it!!

With regards to copies of the film, the best available print appears to be the one that I've included the links to above on Youtube. Unfortunately, this print doesn't seem to be available to buy. There are three DVDs available - one by Baba Traders, one by T-Series, and one by Ultra. I've seen all three, plus the version shown on Set Max, and own the Baba and Ultra DVD version (I told you I like the film). Of these, the Ultra version is the best one to get (available here: http://www.induna.com/1000002799-productdetails/)

Rahamat Ali (Bengali)

Mithun Chakraborty. Partho Ghosh. Remake of Ghulam-E-Mustafa.

Dialogue: 'Jar namer aage Rahamat aar pore Ali, saara jannat bajai taali'.

Downside: No 'Gutur Gutur' as in the previous Mithun-Partho combo Dalaal.

Thana Theke Aschi

Starring: Sabyasachi Chakraborty, Paoli Dam, Parambrata Chattopadhyay, Rudranil Ghosh, Alaknanda Ray, Dulal Lahiri.
Music: Jeet Ganguli
Director: Saron Dutta
Censor Certificate: A

I'd been looking forward to watching Saron Dutta's adaptation of Thana Theke Aschi. Hiren Nag's 1965 film with Uttam Kumar in the lead role is one of my favourite films, and Dutta has had an interesting career so far, starting with the different but not very well made horror Raat Barota Paanch, followed by the underrated thriller Shikaar. So I was intrigued to see how Dutta handles this subject.

The film starts with a lavish party in the home of Amarnath Mullick (Dulal Lahiri), celebrating the engagement of his daughter Rinita (Srabanti Banerjee) to Rajat Dutta (Rudranil Ghosh), the son of a business tycoon. At the same time, in a non-descript basti, a girl commits suicide.

After the party, an unexpected visitor arrives at the Mullick household - Inspector Tinkari Haldar (Sabyasachi Chakraborty), holding a diary of Sandhya Mondal (Paoli Dam), the basti girl who has just committed suicide. Haldar alleges that all the family members, including film-maker son Arin (Parambrata Chattopadhyay) and the NGO-running mother Sutapa (Aloknanda Ray) are responsible for the death of Sandhya. One by one, each family member's interaction with Sandhya is unravelled.

The film manages to grab your attention from the first scene - the way the scenes of the party are mixed with the scenes of Sandhya contemplating, and ultimately killing herself are extremely well done - in particular the shot after she slits her wrist, where a glass of red wine is spilt at the party. The film moves briskly along without any diversions from the main story, with some of the revelations being more shocking than others. Unfortunately there are a few loose ends - Sandhya's body is discovered by a girl calling her Didi, but these people are nowhere to be seen for the rest of the film. Sandhya changes her name before her interaction with the different family members, but the reason for this isn't explained. But these are small complaints for a film that is a refreshing change from the loud 'blockbusters' the Bengali film industry normally churns out.

Performance wise, Paoli takes top acting honours. With no dialogue throughout the film, she expresses a lot through her eyes and expressions, and she is fantastic in the film. It's a pity that it's taken up to now to recognise her talent, and hopefully she'll be doing more lead roles now as opposed to the side roles she's had to do in the past (she had the thankless role of Payal's friend in I Love You). Parambrata does reasonably well, but doesn't portray the guilt of choosing films over his love too well. Rudranil is repulsive in his role - which is testimony to how good an actor he is. Again, someone who deserves more. Sabyasachi is dependable as always, infusing his dialogues with the right amount of acidity. The rest of the cast fit their roles well.

Word of warning - this film is consistently dark in tone, and can make uncomfortable viewing in parts. The rape scene is fairly explicit and disturbing. However, this film does have an 'A' certificate, and is by no means family viewing.

All in all, well worth a watch if you want something different. If your favourite hero is Jeet, and your favourite dialogue is 'Maarbo ekhane, laash porbe shoshane', stay well away.

'Punch' dialogues

Reports are that one of the dialogues from Rajnikant's upcoming Tamil film Endhiran (co-starring Aishwarya Rai Bachchan) goes something like this:
"When I've finished beating you up, even Google won't be able to find you"

For the uninitiated, this sort of dialogue is known as a 'punch' dialogue down South (that's South India, not Cornwall), and is pretty common in Tamil films, particularly those starring Super Star Rajni. However, they're not exclusively reserved for Tamil films, there are a lot of similar dialogues in Bengali films. Unfortunately, with Hindi films coming of age and moving away from the masala movie, it seems as though these are becoming rarer.

So, for your entertainment only, a list of 'punch' dialogues that come to mind from Bengali and Hindi films (with English translations where possible):

Maarbo ekhane, laash porbe shoshane
I'll hit you here, your dead body will fall in the graveyard!

Agnishwar Ray jekhane paa rakhe, prothome shei jega gorom hoy, tarpor agoon jole, shesh hoy chhai diye
Where Agnishwar Ray stands, first that place gets hot, then a fire explodes, and it finishes in ashes. (Yes, seriously)

Fatakeshto khobor dekhe na, khobor shone na, khobor toiri kore
Fatakeshto doesn't watch or listen to news, he makes news.

Hum jahaan khade hote hai, line wohi se shuru hota hai
The queue starts from where I stand!

The most well known one:

Rishte mein hum tumhare baap lagte hain, naam hai Shahenshah
How do I translate that?!?!



And my personal favourite:

Tor golar noli kete jutor fite bandhbo
I'll use your vocal chords as shoe laces!!


As a side note, all the Bengali dialogues are from Mithun Chakraborty films. Legend. Nuff said.

Hello

First post on the blog - rather than jump straight into it, thought I should have an introductory post explaining what all this is supposed to be about.

Most of the posts on this blog are likely to be film related - Hollywood, Bollywood, Bengali, Tamil, Telugu and any other language I happen to watch. When I haven't seen any films, or nothing exciting is happening there, I'll write about something completely random. And trust me, I can think of some very random things..........I guess you'll get used to that with time though.

First post coming up - hope you'll enjoy!