Film Review

The heartbreaking Fandry – my first Marathi film review

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Fandry was my first Marathi film.  It was recommended by several people on my Quora post about why I love Indian cinema.  I foolishly asked for recommended films of the commenters, and the list is well over 300 films long now.

I was delighted to discover that Fandry, a film festival favorite, was available on Netflix streaming.

Jabya is an untouchable. He’s the sweetest, most adorable intelligent 7th grade boy who is in love with a fair-skinned higher caste girl. He can’t even bring himself to speak to her. His family are the poorest in the village, and his father and the rest of the family are expected to do all the menial work in the village that no one else will do. The title means “pig” because chasing and killing the wild pigs that live around the village is something no one else will do. Anyone else who is even touched by one of the pigs is defiled.

Your heart bleeds for this boy, and his dreams. His father doesn’t want him to go to school, just wants him to help earn money for the family. Jabya is mortified that his classmates see him having to do horrible jobs, and in the end climax, the verbal abuse piled on him by other men and boys in the village becomes overwhelming rage in Jabya. The final moments of the film left me stunned with my hands over my mouth. So powerful, so heartbreaking.

This is the director’s debut film. No one else was telling his story, so he made this film to tell it.   I highly recommend Fandry.  It is an incredible parallel cinema film giving you the perspective of an untouchable young boy.

4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Fandry is currently available to watch on Netflix Streaming.

My first Kannada Film – the Amazing Lucia! ****1/2 Film review

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On my Quora post, over and over again, the Kannada commenters listed Lucia by Pawan Kumar as a recommended film. I watched the trailer here and the film is a total mind f*ck kind of trip. Watch the trailer, and you’ll get a taste of what I mean!

First, the way the film got made is totally interesting on its own It was crowdfunded! One of the production thingies at the beginning is “Audience” films, and then they show a grid of like 100 youtube videos of people holding signs. 110 people contributed to make the film, for like $70,000. It won the audience award at the London Indian film festival, where it premiered, and was short listed for the Oscars film from India.

YES, it’s that good!!

It’s a micro-budget film, but one of those indie feeling films where they were super creative and did a LOT with very little. It would totally fit in at Sundance.

So, what’s it about? Lucia is the name of the Lucid dream drug. The movie starts with policemen investigating why a certain patient is in a coma — and news TV debates whether euthanasia should be allowed.

The movie is very non-linear. We flash from color scenes of Nikki, a “torch-shiner” or usher in a tiny little theater in Bangalore, who lives in a shack with 4 other guys. He’s an insomniac, and a local drug-peddler gives him a sleeping pill, Lucia, that will give him dreams so real, he’ll feel that he lived them. But if he stops taking the pills, the dreams become nightmares.

The dreams are in black and white, and suddenly Nikki is Nikhil, a movie star! It’s like Wizard of Oz in reverse, as all the people in his humble life are in the movie star life, which is black and white. His uncle the little theater owner, is now his trusted manager. The pizza parlor waitress girl he’s crushing on as Nikki, is his item number girl in the movie he’s filming.

Lots of meta commentary on the value of the little tiny one screen theaters. And life as a movie star in India, etc.

The main actor, Sathish Ninasam, who plays Nikki/Nikhil is amazing. He is this humble sweet poor schlub Nikki, who doesn’t even think he deserves a cute pizza parlor girl and then he has this amazing confident movie star air as Nikhil. The main actress who plays the pizza parlor girl and the item number girl, the love interest in both worlds, is pretty good. I especially love her as the spunky pizza parlor girl. She tries to get Nikki to learn English and get a job at a multiplex, which leads to some very humorous scenes.

The film has sweetness, and a very filmi romance while also being a near Matrix level psychological — which-world-is-real kind of sci-fi plot. This is an Indian film where the script is truly king. It is quite the story — certainly not like anything else in Indian film, and yet, with the dual role, so very filmi at the same time!

I now feel like I have to go back and thank each of those people who recommended this on the Quora post. So good and so interesting! I really enjoyed the roller coaster ride. The director’s next film, U-Turn, is evidently about to come out. Lucia got rave tweets from Irrfan Khan and Anurag Kashyap tweeted “My birthday gift to myself would be lucia…”

Highly recommend this quirky strange wonderful Kannada film.  4 1/2 stars out of 5.

Rent Lucia for $2.99 on Youtube with English Subs.

Ki & Ka – Film Review

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The first thing you need to know is that I find Arjun Kapoor adorable in just about anything.  And I’m one of those people who enjoyed Tevar.  Still love Superman!

I had big hopes for Ki & Ka.  We haven’t seen Arjun in a film for over a year.  But Ki & Ka, while it had some enjoyable moments, was a disappointment.

I liked the chemistry between Arjun and Kareena, and am glad she broke her “no kissing” pledge. I feel like this is a film that had an interesting concept, but the script still needed work. And maybe a woman’s perspective on the script.

Kareena is Kia, a very ambitious marketing executive. She meets Arjun’s Kabir on a plane when he is sobbing over his late mother’s birthday.   They go out for a drink after the flight and he stuns her during a date by telling her he wants to be a housewife just like his mother. His father is a very wealthy builder, and Kabir has been a “topper” in an MBA program, but has no interest in the rat race.

He proposes they marry after a very brief courtship. He’ll create the home she’s never had (her single mother sent her to boarding schools), and she can pursue her career with no barriers.

Arjun’s character is just too perfect. There was really no comedy of him dealing with learning to manage the house. He’s a master chef. He redecorates (with model trains!!). He manages Kia’s mothers sugar levels by cooking healthy food. Kia gets home late, and rather than complain, he just massages her feet and covers her with a blanket. The conflicts are pretty predictable in their marriage, and are resolved very quickly.

Maybe it’s the Indian cinema thing about having a hero be perfect with no flaws. While advantageous in a crime fighting supercop, in a domestic drama it’s not quite as interesting.

This movie is not helped by the fact that I’ve just seen Kapoor and Sons twice. Now THAT is a domestic family drama where everyone is complex and has flaws.

The couple also don’t have children by the end of the movie. That’s the kind of thing that could have provided comedy by upsetting his perfect routine.  There is a pregnancy scare, and you can see Kareena added layers to her reaction that were probably not in the original script.  Kudos to her for trying to add depth.  But once the scare is over, the issue is never dealt with again.  Yet another missed opportunity.  So many directions this plot could have taken, that were just left hanging.  Balki, the writer/director is evidently known for these high concept films, but not great follow through.  Having more subplots and side characters would have helped this film, too.

That said, Kareena and Arjun give it their all, and I did like their chemistry. It was a pleasant timepass, but not the deep social commentary it was preaching to us about. The cameo by Amitabh and Jay Bachchan, though, was a delight!

I do enjoy this song!  But the rest of the soundtrack was just okay.

Kathy Gibson of AccessBollywood.net and I saw the film at the same showing.  She really hated it.   Margaret of DontCallItBollywood.com goes in depth into the missed opportunities in the film.  And gives a full summary here comparing it to a sitcom!

Kapoor and Sons (since 1921) Film Review

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Sometimes there are movies you have been anticipating for months and you do a little prayer before it starts that it lives up to your hopes for it. This is a movie that not only exceeded my every expectation – it blew me away it was so excellent.  I’ve seen the movie twice now.

I don’t want to spoiler this movie, because I really enjoyed going into it guessing what might happen in this intense family drama, but not knowing. I laughed, I cried, I gasped in shock at more than one point. This film puts you through the emotional wringer. I really cried at more than one moment in the film.

This is an incredible ensemble of actors. Rishi Kapoor was a hoot as a fun loving 90 year old grandfather whose sudden heart attack brings home the two brothers, played by Siddarth Malhotra and Fawad Khan. There are tensions and secrets that burst out over the family coming together again. The trailer plays up the romantic angle with Alia Bhatt’s character, but that’s just a small part of the drama.

I do love Siddarth, but he is the lesser actor of this stellar cast. The stand out, by far, is Fawad Khan. This Pakistani actor had his Bollywood debut in Khoobsurat in 2014, and I’ll admit it, I caught Fawad Fever. I watched his entire Pakistani soap Humsafar (on Watch Bollywood Movies Online – Eros Now), and this guy can ACT. He’s also incredibly generous with the actors sharing the screen with him. What a choice of a sophomore Bollywood role. It has felt like it’s been forever since Khoobsurat came out, but this film was so worth the wait. When the movie was over I wanted to watch it all over again!

Kali Film Review

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Kali in an incredible film with fantastic performances by Dulquer Salmaan and Sai Pallavi. Siddarth is a hot head. Siddu and Anjali marry against her father’s wishes. We see Siddu struggle to find a job, and quell his natural temper. Everything seems to set him off, and working in customer service at a bank doesn’t help matters. The first half of the film shows the struggle of their marriage, and Siddu’s attempt at changing. After a huge blowup, Siddu drives Anjali late at night to a family get together some distance away. Along they way, they are almost run off the road by a truck driver. Anjali begs Siddu not to go after the truck driver.

Interval.

Then the movie completely changes. It becomes a taught thriller. They stop at a road side restaurant, and the situation becomes incredibly tense and dangerous. I was gripping my seat with the tension. We have gotten to know this couple. We know that the moment of tension comes after they are both reeling emotionally. They aren’t sharp to see the warning signs. And then things go south in a major way. We know that Siddu is full of bottled rage, and we wait for the moment he will boil over. But will it be enough to save Anjali — and himself. I have never seen Dulquer like this. This is not the easy going charmer of Bangalore Days or OK Kanmani. He has come into his own. I’ve never seen him do action sequences like this either. Sai was exceptional. She shows that wistfulness. She loves Siddu, but she doesn’t know if she can live with him and his rage.

I admire the script and how the director kept me on the edge of my seat. I did not know what would happen next at any given moment. I felt that anything could happen. And I loved that about this movie!