Rather Than The Other

Review: Endhiran -- The Robot

2010-10-04T05:29:00.000-07:00

It's easy to get carried away, even for the ones who do the extra bit of introspection to bring in that elusive, nice-sounding thing called objectivity, with a Rajnikanth film on Mojo overdose. Easier when it's Endhiran -- The Robot, Shankar's audacious, go-for-broke shot at home-spun Sci-Fi that seems to have nudged the staunchest among non-believers into a herd of converts flocking to the cinemas. I got, but only just.

But out of the spell that Rajnikanth's performance -- when did you last catch the actor in nerdy, all-flawed humanness shifting to detached, robotic cheek and then, to deliciously OTT badass? -- and Legacy Effects' path-breaking (by Indian standards, at least) graphic-work created in Endhiran, I also returned to the film's core man-machine debate, its endearing, cleverly spun-in Indianness and stray bits of engaging writing.

The debate is cursory and understated but it doesn't, thankfully, reflect the preachy angst that Shankar has patented through his anti-establishment vigilante films. Chitti (Rajnikanth), the lovable humanoid Dr Vaseegaran (Rajnikanth) creates, also serves as a pointer to human incongruities. When Vasee reprimands Chitti for eyeing his girl Sana (a seriously dishy Aishwarya Rai), all Chitti can offer in response is a bemused "I too love her", as if he doesn't Get this whole fuss over ownership when it's about love. For Chitti, life is worthier than the 'shame' of having been stranded naked in a crowd. The logic that powers him doesn't help him realise why a girl should adjust her mundhaani when he, a 'male' humanoid, is around either.

A good share of these establishing shots also comes as montages in a racy first half where the writing (Shankar, Madhan Karky and the eminent Tamil writer, late Sujatha) deftly captures Chitti as a Tragic Hero, a misfit in a world that wouldn't flinch before it lies, cheats and moves on. Sana, who calls Chitti her best friend, disowns him even when he's trying to help her clear a tough paper in college. Vasee -- Chitti calls him his God -- doesn't hesitate to terminate him after realising that his creation could be a competitor in love and a pointless research investment.

The sources of inspiration are across the range: from Star Wars to Bicentennial Man to The Matrix films. For a film built around the concepts of Artificial Intelligence and dealing with Neural Schema and such, Endhiran is also formidably desi. Shankar goes spoofy with a segment set around a temple festival where the Robot, flashing an assortment of weapons, sends a bunch of yellow-clad women into spiritual delirium. It feeds off its in-the-face Indianness, tapping on to all cliches from the masala genre. Here, A R Rahman's songs (the refrain from Arima Arima loosely translates to 'When his name's uttered, when his fame's mentioned, the oceans applaud') and BGM (check out the zingy electronica theme as the rogue Chitti unleashes havoc on Chennai roads) are vehicles to celebrate The Rajnikanth.

Endhiran lines up a top crew (cinematography: R Ratnavelu, editing: Anthony, art: Sabu Cyril, sound design: Resul Pookkutty and stunts: Peter Hein/Woo ping-Yuen) and the film, for most of its runtime, looks stylised-rich. But the budget-triggered compulsion to play desi also punctures the narrative in the second half, where the songs (though shot with spunk and ambition) cram it up. There's a dreadfully executed sequence that leads up to the gorgeously shot Kilimanjaro and a random bit about talking mosquitos (solid fun, but a bit stretched). In its run-up to the climactic segment, the film keeps drifting between jaded camp and drop-jaw spectacular.

The final 40 minutes hit a new rush, thanks to Rajni's smashing return to bad-boy mode (there's a nod here to the stylised, crowd-pleasing Alex Pandian from Moondru Mugam) and stunning VFX formations and stunts that, rightfully, cap this mad joyride of a film. The post-climactic segment is a fine footnote that winds down with a suitably profound teaser of a line. The sub-texts are worth biting into but Endhiran, in spirit, is make-believe entertainment that showcases its iconic lead player in his absolute elements. Respect. And Whoa.

Glorious kill

2009-10-08T00:52:00.000-07:00

There’s a certain duality about Quentin Tarantino – the idea, and not necessarily the filmmaker himself – that reinforces faith in his work. At least, among those who have followed him as an adroit dissenter building films around thugs in suits, whistling assassins, highway stalkers and other fascinating oddballs.

Tarantino represents an unlikely, engaging mix of sensibilities. He’s an impossibly deft writer, able to beef up the blandest of stereotypes with delicious quirks and attitude; someone who can have you hooked even to what appears to be wordy, drawn-out sequences. As Bill runs The Bride (Kill Bill Vol 2) up to the five-point-palm-exploding-heart-technique, he punctuates the narration with slow blows into his flute. It’s a pause-peppered monotone you don’t want to miss.

"Once upon a time in China, some believe, around the year one double-aught three, head priest of the White Lotus Clan, Pai Mei, was walking down the road, contemplating whatever it is that a man of Pai Mei’s infinite power contemplates; which is another way of saying, Who knows?"

Tarantino, concurrently, channels a free-spirited bludgeoner with a thing for the base, extreme torture and indulgent camp. Though detached as he is from his foul, murderous players – as reflected in the sorry, abrupt ends they largely meet – it’s hard to miss the relish with which he colours these men, as they hit orgasmic highs after head-on car collisions (Death Proof), rent out comatose women to freaks looking for kinks (Kill Bill Vol 1) and quotes Ezekiel before gunning hapless boys down (Pulp Fiction)

This dichotomy – both of instinct and intelligence – makes Tarantino an interesting artist, greater than who he is for ambition and universality. It also helps him connect with an urban viewer grappling with extreme instincts that seem to be in conflict with a moderate self shaped by social manner.

Inglourious Basterds also feeds off this trait. The premise – a band of violent Jews out to hunt down the Nazis in occupied France – is right up the filmmaker’s alley. Led by Lt Aldo Raine (a hammy, yet effective Brad Pitt), the boys clobber and kill through the towns, even as Col Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz in terrific form) tries to close in. Playing out in parallel is the double-life of Shosanna Dreyfus (Melanie Laurent) as she plots to avenge her family, eliminated by the ‘Jew Hunter’ colonel. The Basterds and Shosanna, on their own separate paths, are undercover at the premiere of a propaganda film made by Goebbels. The catch? Hordes of Nazis caught unawares on a happy film night.

The Tarantino essentials – randomness that tantalizingly builds imminent action, the bleakly comical (Goebbels’ eyes well up when the Fuhrer himself lauds his film), absolute detachment from the kill after the act (Raine steps on a dead soldier as he walks to make conversation) – are all there. Strangely, I was hoping for an off-hand reference to the Big Kahuna Burger. Bad idea.

Basterds, however, is short on characters. That’s a downer, considering what Tarantino has done with history – no spoilers here – and it shouldn’t have hurt to probe more into men on the fringe, like Sgt Donny Donowitz a.k.a Bear Jew (Eli Roth, all manic and fired up). This is one of Tarantino’s more organized efforts and its straight structure, at one level, may appear conforming to the tradition of other films made around the Third Reich. It only appears to.

Shosanna’s steely, audacious shot at retribution and the Basterds’ go at the Man himself make a stunning, outrageously imagined climax. As Donowitz fires at screaming, hopelessly cornered men and women, the action shifts to slow-motion. The gunshots are now separated by longer intervals. They are music on a close-up of Roth’s face, that’s at once tense, evil and aroused. Quentin Tarantino’s back. That’s not a bad thing, really.

Actor, again

2009-08-10T00:35:00.000-07:00

An hour into Bhramaram, there’s a chilling, unhurried scene that captures the manic edginess of its protagonist. The man (Mohanlal) walks into a bar with a dopey, apologetic grin. He eases out for a drink with his “friend” (Suresh Menon) who’s already downed one or two. He sniffs off the glass and ascertains – with a bit of derision – that it’s whiskey. He asks for rum, two at a go.

The friend, still grappling with the swinging temper that seems to propel this stranger, says something that upsets the man. Drifting to a wise-man drawl, he tries to reason with the friend. There’s no hostility. He just talks. The friend insists. The drinks are on the table. The man swills them down raw, in one shot. Now, he’s a menacing hood who wouldn’t flinch before the kill. In about two minutes, it’s a Mohanlal master class.

Writer-director Blessy’s latest is an engaging experiment with the road-thriller genre. Bhramaram, even with its scraggy pace and modest production values, is a riveting detour that also feeds off some top-class writing. But what really gets it going is Mohanlal. This is the finest at work. The actor sheds the superstar buckram for a character that calls out for all the showy tics and sundry voice tricks that we’ve come to attach with “psychotic” men on screen. Mohanlal, though, is another breed. This is the smashing reinvention of a supremely gifted actor who’s far from done. I'll keep the faith.

New bonding

2008-11-08T22:22:00.001-08:00

The burn mark on Camille (a fetching Olga Kurylenko) underlines the change. The world's longest running spy-film franchise, now, comes with a grim real-worldness. Suckers for the old, happy swagger can make do with Sean Connery re-runs. Casino Royale had famously effected the bleak drift for double-o-seven. Quantum of Solace -- the 22nd film instalment featuring Ian Fleming's debonair agent -- takes the mode forward.

James Bond (Daniel Craig) is nursing wounds of betrayal by a woman. That's a sort of first for the super-stolid agent who has his girls and work all sorted out, as smooth as his Martini stir-ons. The heady chases and action set-pieces -- erected on a pan-global sprawl, from Haiti to Siena to Kazan -- work well within the franchise's trademarked template. But it's hard not to pit Craig's bare-knuckle rage against the cocksure poise of Connery. The spy who could kiss his women with all the heart and move on with baffling detachment is, now, someone who forgets the hard way. A killer, bloodied and not done.

The shift in Bond's bearings also, in parts, reflects his new beat. He's on the trail of Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric, flashing moments of edgy evil) who eyes potential in the business of water, in the drylands of Bolivia. Bond has had a rather interesting assortment of antagonists: from metal-mouthed hitmen to egomaniacal media czars. It was, perhaps, also a given that the MI6 agent would have a sham environment crusader like Greene to battle in these days of meltdowns; of the glaciers and otherwise.

Quantum of Solace is, often, a patently snappy Bond vehicle. But what really powers it is the clever, yet intriguing positioning of its protagonist. It's a choice of the maker (Marc Forster from Monster's Ball and Finding Neverland) and his writers (Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis and Robert Wade) who sift through the darker half of their lead player, that may put the formula-seeking purist off. But it's a supremely engaging detour that deserves a look-in not blinded by endorsement of the cult, as against the film. The name's still Bond. Only, he's getting real.

Goosebumps

2008-07-19T00:40:00.000-07:00

A day off work. Vodka-high. Fist of Fury on the television. This is the real deal. Damn the pretenders.

Singapore and all that

2008-07-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

Legislation, combined with persuasion. Take that for a potent, inclusive development model. The city-state of Singapore -- all of 700+ sq km -- offers a distinct look at political savoir-faire for those who care. The development is top-down: The state advertises, legislates and implements. The people fall in line and endorse. Things work.

The state jacks up car prices to get more people on public transport. The state beats its water concerns by recycling water from the sewers and branding it NEWater for potable use. The state lines up massive public housing blocks (where more than 70% of the population lives) in the central district. The state, also, sexes up integrated water management projects by promoting them with a leisure-and-high life feel-good. The state is, also, opening a casino and is calling it an Integrated Resort. There was initial resentment over the casino. That's where the persuasion helps. Things work.

The city sits easy and quiet on its spotless roads. On the flanks, the Young Rich hit the teeming, noisy malls and splurge. You are warned ahead of traffic snarls. You are told how long would it take for you to get where you are getting. The MRT is a cruise. You get change after the cab ride. Life moves like clock-work. Sometimes, things are better when not working. Really.

The brilliant Tan Dun was in concert at The Esplanade, playing his Academy Award-winning score from The Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. There was some divine beef, Indonesian style (Garuda Padang, Orchard Road), Guinness and exotic wine (assorted parties), a staggeringly beautiful skyline (view from the Pan Pacific hotel room) and some hurried shopping (Marina Square, Farrer Road and Little India). The best deal? Saravana Bhavan, near Mustafa Centre. A spicy, full meal. Burp. That was contentment.

Ten is a crowd

2008-06-16T09:12:00.000-07:00

Christian Fletcher: Remember Hiroshima?
Shingen Narahashi: Remember Pearl Harbour?

As two of the 10 avtars – Kamal Haasan, mightily affected as an American mercenary and Kamal Haasan, with rehearsed gravitas as a Japanese martial art ace – exchange this during the climactic fight in Dasavatharam, it’s hard to miss the point. Haasan is playing to the gallery. He wants you to take note. Fair trade.

But what, truly, tanks Dasavatharam is not the corniness of it all. It’s not the supremely shoddy graphic-work. It’s not Michael Westmore’s laboured, prosthetic faces. No, not even The Bullet That Cures The Cancer. This super-hyped return of the chameleon actor-star is done in by its ambition.

Dasavatharam has an engaging premise that makes for a rollicking road movie. White hitman follows Indian scientist who flees with a deadly virus, in a cross-continent trail. The thread, though, gets thinned out as the actor-writer pursues the blurred and the superfluous, with an apparent nod to the Chaos Theory. In the process, Dasavatharam gets populated with the rest of the avtars, spun in for the all-lead-to-one effect.

RAW sleuth Balram Naidu – perhaps Haasan’s best turn here – has terrific possibilities as a stand-alone protagonist. There are also moments that carry the stamp of a writer who hasn't quite lost it yet. These are still parts of an underwhelming whole. Some of the avtars look straight out of a badly done school pantomime, ill-propped and cramped for movement. The CGI boys go berserk with their toys, belting out practically anything – from butterfly wing-flaps to the Tsunami – with a certain B-movie tardiness that you don't attach to the costliest (check) film made in the country. And Himesh Reshammiya has, probably, scored his last for a film down south.

But as always with a Kamal Haasan film, the fun is on the ringside. While many fans have been left shocked at this assault, the more trusted ones are out there, diligently decoding the method behind this madness. Last heard, the jury is still out on if Vincent Poovarahan – an interestingly etched Dalit leader – is a throwback to the well, varaha avtar. And if the kurma avtar has a parallel in the vaishnavite priest Rangaraja Nambi, who's left bound to his deity in the depths of the ocean. Loaded questions, really. But after an outrageously indulgent lead-man trip, do you care enough to dig deep?

Jodhaa Akbar

2008-02-15T19:19:00.000-08:00

Understatement is not what you look for in an epic romance that’s set in a period identified with pomp. Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar – despite its spectacular premise and ethereal-looking actors – has its neat share of hearty, everyday blips.

Emperor Akbar (Roshan) is stopped before his feast, to be told by Princess Jodhaa (Rai) that the food is low on salt. After his first look at the demure princess, the Emperor strolls down the palace corridor like a lost teenager, as curtains swirl to A R Rahman’s rapturous score. Jodhaa and Akbar cross swords in a duel that would decide if the Princess of Amer would return to her shauhar’s palace that she had left after a fight.

Gowariker’s detailing works fine in these little touches. What really fails Jodhaa Akbar is its compliance to convention. And it’s not just the classical three-and-a-half-hours run. It’s the clunky writing, underwhelming battle sequences (watch out for those cannon balls and deadpan soldiers) and an inefficacy in tapping into the minds of its protagonists, who are already out there on the pages of history.

The story of the feisty Rajput Princess and her politically arranged marriage to the Mughal Emperor, as conceived in the screenplay (Gowariker and Haider Ali) is not quite a story that had to be told again. Not with this grandstand splendour, at least. The set-piece battles and songs are shot like fancy pageants – the rousing Azeem-o-Shahenshah has giant drums and a crowd of minions genuflecting to the all-conquering Emperor – but Gowariker gets it wonderfully right with Rahman’s terrific Khwaja mere khwaja.

Roshan, the stray affected bits notwithstanding, is in top form. Rai puts in a fairly restrained turn as well. But it’s the fringe players who get a better deal from the writing. Particularly engaging is Maham Anga, the Emperor’s overbearing badi ammi (played with spunk by Ila Arun) and Sujamal (Sood), the failed, tragic prince.

Jodhaa Akbar is mounted on the epic romance staples. While the love story, by itself, is engaging, it doesn’t come with the perspective that could have made this a worthier effort. Despite the all-out sincerity of the lead actors, their presence primarily works as a smart product placement tool for the eyeballs. Precisely why the camera closely freezes on a sweaty, topless Roshan, almost calling out for the gasps.

The old, familiar rush

2008-02-13T09:57:00.000-08:00

When I picked an old, sodden copy of The Mosquito Coast from the pavement, it was just about the name. I had heard of Paul Theroux. I knew that Theroux is pronounced without the x, making the purchase all the more gratifying. It was a phase when travel writers came with definitive coolth for me. He meant everything from Bohemian abandon to sagely poise. He was at once, the hippie and the Buddha.

At 17, when all my miles couldn't have gotten me past my hometown, I wanted to travel and write. I needed the style. I needed the words. Theroux could help, I presumed. Until someone broke in and said my prized, passed-down possession was a work of fiction and probably one of the more departed from the writer's core essentials. I remember flitting through the book with a strange feeling of betrayal. For me, that was the last of Theroux.

On Wednesday, in the bustling Landmark at The Forum, the man had a blunt, dazzling turn. He revived the solitary traveller in all his brooding, glorious disconnect. Theroux traced the interior world of the traveller's imagination, as pitched against the exterior, physical process of being at an exotic destination. "Imagination, too, is an exotic place," went the line. And the anecdotes. On Jorge Luis Borges, the Russian gulags, African Literature, Gujarati settlers in Kenya, the Civil Rights Movement. More.

"When you are at home, it's like a motherly embrace. You tend to become less critical about your surroundings... Good writing comes out of being isolated."

I'm all set for a revisit. This time, suitably initiated.

Culturally correct

2008-02-09T21:12:00.001-08:00

Kyom darte ho? Bolo Hindi.

That's the rather quaintly malayalified teaser for a spoken Hindi column in one of those assembly-line career magazines. The pitch, here, is for job aspirants from Kerala looking out of the State. And who can't say their hain from hoon. In these times, when cultural multiplicity doesn't quite mean what it suggests, a bit of functional Hindi shouldn't hurt. Anything goes, as long as it helps social existence.

Migrant population. There's something galling about its sound. I think inter-state work permits. I think tests to prove affiliation to the Local Culture. I think separate queues for the settlers and floaters. Last time I checked, there was no Constitutional provision that validated physical violence on grounds of ethnicity. The local is a migrant, elsewhere. But obviously, Raj Thackeray disagrees.

The mobilisation of Maratha hostility against the corrupting influences on the city of Mumbai is also pegged to a familiar divisive agenda that may even work in favour of political rebels who have drifted off the Sena's first family. But more importantly, the grain of hate has just spun another charged debate on the question of progress at the cost of cultural identity.

In Bangalore -- one of the country's more culturally inclusive metropolises -- posters have come up saying "Learn Kannada or leave Bangalore." These are minor elements of defiance that don't cloud the overall sense of amity and tolerance that this city is rooted in. But it's hard to miss this tone of expectant glee when some of them discuss the Mumbai situation.

This was random talk at a house party. Soon, it drifted to Mumbai and what it meant for the rest of Us. "No offence (you being an outsider, you see), but just wait... this will spread to other cities." Point noted.

Red Sunday

2008-02-03T02:29:00.000-08:00

The weathered building sported fluttering blood-red on this muggy Sunday morning. The flags signalled a CPI(M)-hosted seminar on parliamentary democracy. The turnout, however, didn’t suggest anything remotely linked to the loaded deliberations that would spool out in the seminar hall. Well-groomed boys and girls sauntered in, nimbly flitting between small talk and SMS. Parliamentary Democracy? Is this the stereotype debunked, finally? A dapper teenager put doubts to rest, in an acquired accent: “There’s Also a seminar on IT entrepreneurship.” Ah.

The Other seminar. Nilotpal Basu, acerbic as ever, was on the usual suspects: Engels, counter-reactionary forces, India’s Sham Socialist Constitution, conceptualisation of The Change. Nandigram. The bourgeois mainstream media double up as champions of Socialism, while charging the Left forces with a diluted ideological premise, went Basu. A good part of the Sunday down, Bourgeois Journalist walked out, even as the crowd — a neat mix of hope and prudence — was just warming up. The debate is pegged to the old point: How to take Socialism to the people. How to work within the “limitations” of parliamentary democracy and strive for that Tomorrow.

Two boys from the Also seminar, heard outside of the hall.
“What’s with all the flags?”
“Some party meeting.”

Adam's Values

2008-01-28T19:16:00.000-08:00

Here's to the one definitive swashbuckler of the modern day game. Superstar stumper and marauding bat, Adam Gilchrist came with the customary Australian pluck. But after the genial Mark Taylor, Gilly has also been the sober other-face in a side that redefines in-the-face aggro. At 36, when the willow still hits them sweet and long, he has pulled out. With the easy grace and no-hassle composure that's, perhaps, second nature to The Australian. Thanks for the entertainment.

Just like yesterday

2008-01-26T19:06:00.000-08:00

The flavour is 80s. Ilayaraja on the mind. The Bangles on the computer. The weekend has been a willing bow-down to the decade of pop culture excesses.

And John Rambo is around. Bloody, yeah. Do we mind?

Stutter

2008-01-25T22:16:00.000-08:00

Take One. I'm stuck.

(a cigarette later). This is embarrassing. I'm like the child on stage, with the lines all muddled up. Send in the cheer, people. I'll need all that and more for Take Next.