Category: Cinema

Excerpt: In, what seems to be, yet another attempt to sell ”Indian Exotica” to western audiences, ”Road, Movie” becomes a largely contrived and entirely self-indulgent cinematic exercise. If you really must go on a journey today, take some other road.

Spoiler Alert: Since the film is more about a collage of instances than a story, the review mentions a few scenes in their entirety. If you wish to not know anything except the verdict, you may leave this page now.

Review: It has become almost fashionable to have logos of many international film festivals on Indian movie posters these days. One thread, however, that binds them together is that irrespective of the cinematic quality of the ”festival appreciated” (often with “5-minute long standing ovations”), most of these films exhibit an unsaid lack of confidence with regards the box office.

In the case of ”Road, Movie”, the fear is quite understandable – for neither the ”Road” (read “the journey”) looks for real, nor the ”Movie”.

”Road, Movie” presents most things, which the western audience  (only at the festival circuit at that; rest still doesn”t care), look forward to seeing in an Indian fare – vibrant colours; poverty; a distinctly distant life and way of life et al. It even has a widow of rural Rajasthan (played by Tannishtha Chatterjee) break into an impromptu, possessed rendition of a folk song on the first night of her journey with three strangers in truck. “Oh, such an exquisite piece of Indian folk music” – someone in Berlin might have uttered. But Dev Benegal (the writer-director) would have been shattered beyond redemption, if he had witnessed the audience reaction to that portion, here in one of the major cities of India.

Maybe, the reaction was exaggerated because the film had already lost the audience by then!

Or was the audience ”exaggeration” was quite in sync with the film”s exaggerated definition of ”chic”. Sample this: Abhay Deol, driving a truck, is stopped by a dhaba kid (played by Mohammed Faizal Usmani), in the middle of nowhere. He then gives Abhay tea and biscuits. When Abhay makes a face after tasting the tea, the kid remarks – “Toh yeh STARBUCKS hai kya”!

Maybe when uneducated kids, who work at tea stalls by rural India highways, know their CCD from Starbucks, they become worthy enough to earn appreciation at film festivals! “Oh look, the kid is so poor and uneducated, but he is so intelligent and knows so much”, did we hear a western lady say that?

The above two are only a couple of an entire ”road” of contrived situations.

The biggest of them all is a sequence about a ”Mela” – right in the middle of absolute nowhere. Maybe this author is intellectually challenged, by can anyone please inform him (and the entire audience, with which he watched this film) whether the ”Mela” was for real or a dream sequence! Ideally, when one reads a statement like that, the instinct is to give up on the person who utters that. You may do so for this review. Unfortunately, however, for the makers of ”Road, Movie”, the audience too decisively gives up after that sequence.

This is not a vindictive rant, but one must add one more of illustration of how the film meanders in and out of nothingness: A ferocious leader of the water mafia (played by Yashpal Sharma), who is also mentioned to have killed the husband of the film”s heroine, hunts the ”road team” down, captures them, takes them to his work site, beats them and then lets them off in exchange of a few bottles of hair oil! Yes, you read that right. Apparently, after Abhay Deol massaged his head with the oil, combed his hair and told him of the oil adding to male virility, the water mafia don “becomes a man”. “Maine aapko mard banaya hai”, Abhay Deol tells the goon – if you must know exact dialogue!

A rural Rajasthan widow walking away with some stranger kid after traveling and making love to a truck driver, as if nothing ever happened; a water mafia man talking of corporate philosophy …

The only saving grace of the film is Satish Kaushik. Though hindered by abstracts, he delivers a seasoned performance as a mechanic-cum-showbiz passionate old man. He looks the part; talks, walks and acts the part with the ease of a master.

What however his performance does is that it tells the audience the inadequacies of others. Tannishtha Chatterjee looks and acts more like a hottie doing the ”ethnic round” on ramp than a Rajasthani widow. Mohammed Faizal Usmani does better than her, but still does not manage to convince.

That brings us to Abhay Deol. How many more movies would he do in which he plays the cool dude – irrespective of the socio-cultural roots of his character? He looks and acts precisely like the Abhay Deol that the audience came expecting. Never mind if an actor is loud or subtle, if he or she knows just one way of delivering, he would end up being predictable. We are sure that Abhay Deol is way too good to end up becoming that. Or lets say, we hope so.

Dev Benegal should take a call on the kind of films that he wants to make. Because both Split Wide Open and Road, Movie belong to the “neither here, nor there” category. He looks confused at the moment. Maybe he should just make it for festivals and not worry about box office release. Or maybe he should move around the country a little more and meet some real people.

Verdict: Wait for the DVD to come out in the market, if you must.

Excerpt: Ever played a game of three cards, where the first card provides undefined promise; the second card makes a potentially victorious pair with the first; but the last one, just as your heart longs to hit the jackpot, lets the first two cards down, decisively?Teen Patti stands for an enticing promise that never quite delivers beyond threatening to do that.

Review: Probably bound by self-inflicted demands of plurality and morality, the writers of Teen Patti (Shivkumar Subramaniam and Leena Yadav) try to wade through an ocean of cinematic opportunities in all directions, till it becomes clear even to them that the only way to end the stylish zig-zag is to drop anchor right in the middle of deep sea.

In Teen Patti, the plurality act is played out by trendy music (by Salim-Suleiman), glitzy cinematography (by Aseem Bajaj) and the selection of often irresistibly sensuous bodies to, firstly, support Bachchan”s old and Madhavan”s ample frames and secondly to offset the often-abstract-and-aimless interaction between Bachchan and Sir Ben Kingsley. The morality act is provided at the climax via, once again, by an Amitabh Bachchan speech – probably to put all that goes earlier in the movie in perspective!

Unfortunately, neither the chic tools nor politically correct explanations work in totality.

In the end Teen Patti is a film that could have been a razor-sharp, pulsating film devoid of any reasoning or an incisively intelligent film full of cerebrum. The key phrase, however is, “could have been“. It is not.

Teen Patti is a film that is better than the majority of trash that we see everyday, but fails – by some distance – to become a film that we can watch any day.

Teen Patti is about a soon-to-retire math genius Venkat Subramaniam (Amitabh) and his research paper on probability. A simple game of ”teen patti” on Internet convinces him of the potency of his findings. When he shares his thoughts with a fellow lecturer Shantanu (Madhavan) and 4 of his students, he gets sucked into the bait of trying the theory in a real life situation – across underground gambling dens. But before anyone can utter ”mathematics”, all of them get caught in a whirlpool of greed, deceit, ransom and finally, murder.

While the premise looks fresh and interesting, it doesn”t quite pan out that way.

Some of the reasons are unconvincing acting by new actors, often verbose moral talks, sprinkling of known actors (Ajay Devgan, Jackie Shroff, Tinnu Anand, Shakti Kapoor, Ranjit etc) with characters that barely look more than annoying caricatures and, most of all, less than purposeful script and direction (by Leena Yadav).

But what makes up for the above is the freshness of story / scenario, stylish execution of frames and an impactful performance by Amitabh.

And that is the problem with this film. Even in the “impactful performance by Amitabh”, one can clearly ask – “How come he never, ever exhibits any south Indian accent?” Well, maybe because he never lived in his native state. The example is a mere illustration of how nothing fits to the ”perfect T” in the film.

Madhavan is a huge star and a very competent actor. But if it was not told clearly, and enough number of times, he would have been misunderstood for one of his own students. In fact, it might even be a “Five Years Later” portion of 3 Idiots.

Ben Kingsley is an utter waste in the film. So is the special appearance by Ajay Devgan, which does nothing to the film – except making it feel long and labourious. Jackie Shroff”s portion in the film is a disgrace to his own “Hero” legacy.

The newcomers should thank their stars for getting to work with Bachchan, Sir Ben Kingsley and Madhavan. All of them, except Vaibhav Talwar (as Abbas) look raw and need to work on their skills.

What makes the film tick at all times is some pleasing cinematography by Aseem Bajaj. But if camera were the only thing, YouTube would have long killed cinema.

As for the two most important aspects of the film, script and direction, what better illustration can sum up the confusion than the putting together of Amitabh Bachchan and Sir Ben Kingsley – for actually nothing. In fact, and this may seem an exaggeration of sort, Teen Patti can still be the same film, even if you completely remove Sir Ben and all his portions.

And if you do a similar treatment to portions like Mrs Kale”s (Mita Vashisht) scene with Venkat, along with Ajay Devgan”s and Shakti Kapoor”s portions, you might actually have a much tighter and impressive film.

Get the drift?

Verdict: Teen Patti falls short of the promise it held – but can be viewed once, for the sake of trying out a fresh and different story.

In this issue’s column, we’ll spend the entire time discussing an issue with the help of an Urdu feature film from Pakistan, Khuda Kay Liye.

Directed by Shoaib Mansoor, Khuda Kay Liye revolves around a young Pakistani man named Mansoor who goes to the United States for higher education. During his study years, the tragic events of 9/11 turn the World Trade Center into dust. Chaotic investigations and arrests engulf the United States. Mansoor too gets arrested by the American authorities, although he is innocent of wrongdoing. The experience leaves Mansoor severly traumatized.

Meanwhile, his younger brother Sarmad is encouraged by an old friend, Shershah to cease his musical career in favour of the “straight path of God”.

Mansoor and Sarmad’s uncle arrives from the UK with their only cousin Mary (Mariam) who wanted to marry her non-Muslim boyfriend back in the UK, against her father’s wishes.

When they arrive in Pakistan, Shershah trucks them to their village in a tribal area near Afghanistan, forces Mary to marry Sarmad, and leaves her there. She tries to escape but Shershah and Sarmad follow her and bring her back to the village.

This film also stars Naseeruddin Shah in a short but powerful cameo. He plays a Muslim scholar who clarifies oft misunderstood and misinterpreted tenets of Islam during a court case.

So, why are we discussing the film here?

Well, apart from the fact that it is a well made film, the most notable feature surrounding the film is that it was made and released amidst severe criticism – often laced with threats of dire consequences – by the orthodox Islamic forces of that country.

It also amply demonstrates how media and creative arts can really do their job of highlighting issues and starting a dialogue, if supported by the rulers of the nation.

Apart from the raging dialogue about terrorism and religion, the film’s many themes include the role of music in Islam and the balance of Muslim values with moderate Western enlightenment.

While audiences and film critics loved the film, the religious clergy slammed the film for manipulating the teachings of Islam and its scholars to suit the theme of the film.

There were serious differences between the makers of the film and the religious figures, but there was no violence from either side.

So, basically, Khuda Kay Liye is an example of a situation where a film challenges the status quo of a society and helps start a dialogue by bringing all the various viewpoints. Can there ever be a greater success for any form of art?
Pakistan and its films may or may not ever mean anything to us, but what this example teaches us is that if you wish, you can have a socially-relevant film in a terrorism-infested dictatorship. But, if you don’t deserve it, you won’t get it even in the most remarkable example of democracy.

Let’s ponder over our cinema and values all over again.

In a world where Film Festivals for films made on mobile phones are getting increasingly in vogue these days, almost every other person who has a digital camera feels like a filmmaker. And one of the best around, at that. And why not, with a Rs. 40,000 digital camcorder, about two dozen video tapes and a good computer with video editing software, one can really make a film worth showing around!

The only thing with (most of) such films is that one would not be able to show the film on a size much greater than that of a TV screen. Because the picture quality would be of very low resolution and look more like an archives footage of a news channel, rather than a 35MM or 70 MM motion picture.

And hence it cannot really be called digital cinema! Or can it be?

There are two schools of thought about digital cinema: one that says that Digital cinema refers to the use of digital technology to distribute and project motion pictures and the other that considers Digital Cinema to be ANY application of digital technology applied to making motion pictures.

Since this forum is not appropriate to get too technical with details, we shall get over and aside the debate and take the middle path, involving full well, the usage of digital technology in the recording of the image too.

Going by the approach, digital cinema can be explained best by segregating it into three major stages of movie-making:

Production (the method and making of movies), Distribution – (the transfer of movies from the production company to movie theaters) and Projection – (the screening, presenting or the projection of the movie on screen).

Production:

In digital cinema, celluloid’s analogue screen image is replaced by (what are technically called) pixels, so that, instead of using chemicals on film (a reel of film), there’s a very large data file detailing each pixel in each frame of the complete film. All existing digital cinemas showing feature films use a screen resolution of 1280 x 1024, so that at 24 fps (frames per second) and assuming 10-bit colour, the uncompressed file size for a two-hour feature film will be of the order of 850 GB.

The main advantage of digital technology (such as a CD) is that it can store, transmit and retrieve a huge amount of information exactly as it was originally recorded. Whereas, analog technology (such as an audio tape) loses information in transmission, and generally degrades with each viewing.

Morever, it is possible to see the video and make any necessary adjustments immediately, instead of having to wait until after the film is processed. Digital footage can also be edited directly, whereas with film it is usually digitized for editing and then re-converted to film for projection.

Distribution:

Digital Cinema Distribution (DCD) is the process of transmitting the Digital Cinema Package (DCP) – compressed and encrypted sound and images – to theater (or their servers) via physical media delivery (in the form of DVDs, LTO3 tape, BluRay Discs etc), network delivery (transfer of digital files via shared or dedicated network connections) or satellite delivery (transmission of the film to theaters via satellite – a bit like TV).

Projection:

There are currently two types of projectors for digital cinema: Texas Instruments’ Digital Light Processing (DLP) Projectors (of 1280 x 1024 resolution) and Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI) specification digital projectors, with three levels of playback – 2K (2048×1080) at 24 frames per second, 4K (4096×2160) at 24 frames per second, and 2K at 48 frames per second. Sony is soon to deploy its own, ‘SXRD’ technology projectors, that would have resolution of 4096×2160.

And therein lies the root of the problem – there are far too many different technologies or standards or products. Since not everything works with everything, theater owners, technology companies and film-makers can never have an agreement on which technology should the latter go for.

And more than that, the big question is who bears the cost of transforming a normal theater into a digital one?
Issues are in plenty and are of great technical complexities. Unfortunately, this forum does not allow us to go into that depth of the subject. What we can learn and remember at the moment is that digital cinema indeed is the future of cinema. But at the moment, it is at a bit of ‘trial and error’ stage. The costs involved are huge; ironically both in terms of opting for the technology and in terms of the saving on the making and distribution of films!

For the moment, we should just hope that the film world arrives at the digital standards soon.

Roman Polanski, the Oscar winning director of films like The Pianist (2002) had once said, “Cinema should make you forget you are sitting in a theater”.

At at time when the entire pursuit of the theater owners is to override the experience of watching a film with the experience of being in a film theater, one struggles to determine whether Polanski’s statement makes the situation ironical or sad.

There can’t, obviously, be any complaints against film theaters getting swankier by the day; the projection and sound technologies improving by leaps and bounds and multiplexes becoming a picnic spot for entire families on weekends. But sadly enough, the phenomenon is forcibly packing the experience of watching films into a shopping bag!
One would think that we are digressing from the subject – of the fight for survival of single-screen theaters in Ahmedabad (as in the rest of the world), but it would require only a moment of lateral thinking to arrive at the conclusion that how unlike the present day corporate giants who are entering the business of film exhibition, the owners of single-screen theaters were basically cinema enthusiasts and the business of exhibition was their method of staying close to their passion even at work.

But today, cinema exhibition has become a part of the real estate business!

A theater / multiplex today is basically one, just one, of the many avenues for earning the maximum revenue from land and the construction thereon. What doesn’t hurt the cause of multiplex builders is the tax concession that such projects get from the government of Gujarat. As funny as it may sound, multiplexes were given a 5-year tax holiday as a part of boosting tourism in the state! So, the next time you see a multiplex being built around your place around SG Highway, be sure that it is being constructed for cine-goers of other states!

On the positive side, the new opportunities for builders and corporate houses that are interested in media has ensured that Ahmedabad and indeed the whole of country witnessing a wave of cinema expansion. More screens are being added today than ever before; and at an infinitely faster rate at that.

But the difference, as we had discussed earlier, the previous wave of cinema expansion (right from the early days of cinema in India to the 60s and 70s) and that of now is with regards ownership.

The first wave emerged very early in the history of theatrical film exhibition, before the industry had a chance to consolidate. Although small, loose chain-like groups had developed even then, the majority of cinemas established in this early period were independently owned and run.

But presently, the ownership sky is fast changing colours. Today the theater /  screen ownership is getting increasingly dominated by a handful of players like ADLABS, PVR, INOX, Fun Republic etc. No single-screen theater can ever hope to fight the might of the names mentioned here.

But why can’t both the formats co-exist?

To explain this, let’s first take an example of the corporate world. Suppose you have a product that competes with a similar product of a huge business conglomerate and you try to get it stocked at a small neighbourhood store. Though nothing would happen on paper or for the naked eye to see, chances are that strong arm tactics would be employed by the conglomerate to dissuade the store from keeping your product. The communication to the store from the big group would be simple:”If you keep that one product here, we would no longer be interested in supplying any of the 25 products that we stock at your store. Kindly decide and let us know”. No prizes for guessing which side the store would turn then.

Similarly, to maximise his profits and slowly force competition away, a multiplex can tell a distributor or producer of a film, “if you want to give this film to the single-screen theater across the road too, then we won’t be interested in showing your film in our multiplex. Please decide what suits your interests more, 4 shows daily there or 14 shows of your film daily in our multiplex. Moreover, if you give your films to him, we might not be interested in showing any films of your production house in the future. I hope you understand”.

What makes the odds stack higher against single-screens is the fact that most of the big names in the multiplex business are either already or fast getting into the production and distribution aspects of film-making.

So while earlier they were merely fighting an uphill task of getting good films from production houses (at prices that they can afford), with the advent of a three-in-one entity of producer-distributor-exhibitor, who runs a multiplex chain, single-screens now have virtually no chance of getting any good films on the first day – unless they pay through their nose. Something that they can’t do.

Moreover, single-screen theaters are generally aligned (or stuck) with a singular distributor. Hence the fortunes of the theater depend to a great extent on the fortunes of that distributor. On the other hand, because of excess number of screens, multiplex owners are able to invite and buy films with a range of distributors. In the process, they have also managed to get the right to negotiate on a case-by-case basis (”I want this film. I don’t want that film. I can’t pay so much for this film etc”), something that single-screen theaters don’t have the luxury of. They get the film that their regular distributor supplies.

It is a perfect case of being seized from all sides. Adding to the mountain is limited funds. And hence the present scenario. Where it is fast becoming a question of survival for single-screen theaters.

Roopalee theater, which has now downed its shutters, had reached a stage where it was not in a position to even pay its employees, pay electricity and other charges. And to think of it, Roopalee was one of Ahmedabad’s best theaters for a long, long time. Unfortunately for all, Roopalee would not be the last one to down shutters in Ahmedabad.

The exodus towards multiplexes is a worldwide phenomenon. In India alone, about 1000 new screens would be added in the next couple of years.

Time to turn a leaf:

Have a look at the pictures at the bottom of this and the adjoining pages. The photographs are of Metro theater in Mumbai. It is a single screen theater that was built before India’s independence and was once run directly by MGM (Metro Goldwyn Meyer) studios, Hollywood! Recently, the theater was taken over by ADLABS and re-christened Metro ADLABS. But, as the photographs on these two facing pages tell us, name wasn’t the only thing that the new buyer had changed. Everything from the lounge to the ticket window to the technology, every aspect of the theater was upgraded. No wonder that Metro ADLABS, lying in the middle of VT and Churchgate stations, in the Marine Lines area is still very popular with the audiences.

Admittedly, not every single-screen theater owner would have the money muscle of Reliance ADAG (new owners of ADLABS), but if someone had the gumption to get into a business as risky as film exhibition years ago and then run it all along, there is no reason why that person can’t do that all over again.

If money is a problem, do NOT aim to be a Kingfisher. Realise that SpiceJet too is a good airline and a lot of us like traveling by it. Make small but visible and effective changes first. Things like getting an educated person to man the box-office, provide uniforms to the ushers of the theater and teach them to be polite with the audience. Don’t have Russian Salad sandwiches and pastries but have a clean counter – at least for selling GENUINE mineral water bottles.
And the best method to go about the aforementioned would be to shut down the theater for at least a week, announce that you are going for an upgrade and come back all of the changes and slightly increased ticket rates! Yes, the new rates not only work psychologically in favour of you (”well, if they have changed a few things, so tickets are bound to be a little expensive”, audience would think) but also restrict that part of the audience that walks into a theater for want of a better thing to do and create nuisance inside the hall.

Stand out in the crowd:

Single screen owners should try and ‘take a stand’, which separates their place from others. They can make their theater as the “Ahmedabad’s only theater that plays ONLY English films”, “only theater that has a cell-phone jammer installed”, “only theater that projects digital movies every Sunday”, “only theater that has a complete day marked ONLY FOR WOMEN”, so on and so forth. The idea is to have a USP and then use it to firstly stand out in the crowd, and then to translate it into business revenue. For example, it can tie-up with Femina for the Women’s Only day.
Single screen theaters have lost the battle decisively in the west. But let’s hope it does not happen here; if only for the sake of experiencing the moment when a group of 1000 is  standing together and talking about the ONLY thing that it is there for – watch the film, go home and discuss.

Hey GLOVADIs, the best friend that carries your specially selected music to her, the good ol’ CD, has just turned 25!

In what now looks an incident of another era, the CD had marked its arrival with Abba’s The Visitors, which was the first album to be released in CD format in 1982. That marked the beginning of the end of vynil era and transformed the landscape of musical formats.

“At that time, even experienced engineers told us ‘this will never work’. And we learned one should never say never. We knew that we were working on a completely new, exciting technology. However, we did not know at that time that the CD would grow to that magnitude,” said Hartmut Loewer of Bayer AG recently.

Offering unprecedented sound quality and optimum data capacity, CD not only changed forever the way people listened to music but also marked the beginning of the digital age.

Now, every year, the world produces roughly 90,000 originals on CD, billions of copies of which are sold globally. And today CDs have carved a very important space for themselves in our lives.

Molded plastic disc containing digital data that is scanned by a laser beam for the reproduction of recorded sound or other information. Since its commercial introduction in 1982, the audio CD has become the dominant format for high-fidelity recorded music. Digital audio data can be converted to analog form to reproduce the original audio signal.
Co-invented by Philips Electronics and Sony Corp. in 1980, the compact disc has expanded beyond audio recordings into other storage-and-distribution uses, notably for computers (CD-ROM) and entertainment systems (videodisc and DVD). An audio CD can store just over an hour of music. A CD-ROM can contain up to 680 megabytes of computer data. A DVD, the same size as traditional CDs, is able to store up to 17 gigabytes of data, such as high-definition digital video files.