Monday, October 22, 2007
Movies: My Take & Reviews
With this habit of watching movies at every weekend, I realized that I have developed a taste to appreciate movies as a whole and in elements. I was reading across one of the public forums and I came across statements like “Bhool Bhoolaiya- remake of ApthaMitra” , and “This film is a remake of south film. In Malayalam this film was Manichitrathazhu and in Kannada this was ApthaMitra As many are aware that Priyadarshan usually remakes all south films to Bollywood”.
I am not contemplating on the facts of the statements above but their tone seems to be condescending for the director & producer who has made the movie. I believe that movies are cultural artifacts. It’s a different piece of art, its far more than story telling. We actually fail to understand and undermine the movie as a piece of art when they judge it solely on the basis of the story. A movie not only consists of a storyline, but also other essential parts that make it a different art form all together as compared to story writing. Movies is the story, the art of story telling, the art of living the story, the art of showing the story, the art of holding interest, the art of music and dancing and moreover so the art of placing other art in it’s place. So even if someone makes a remake of another movie (irrespective of the language) he should not be despised of his creativity. It is not that he lacks creativity or the art of movie telling. What matters is that he is trying to tell an old story in his way, with his choice of presentation and its contents. That can not be wrong about the movie, when a director picks up a storyline already used than it does not necessarily means the movie is bad or the quality has been compromised.
There are a lot of things which are reused including the story; the important question is to view it as the art form and the intent behind it. For example rights for the song “Pretty Woman” were bought from Hollywood for Rs. 800,000 to use it in the movie “Kal Ho Na Ho”, but isn’t the song original. Similarly, when Farhan Akhtar made Don, and RGV made Aag, they openly made the remakes in the sense the story was already told by someone else but still the movies are accepted as different movies. So why degrade the movies just because the story has already been told, judge them accordingly and benchmark it to the previous movies. My take on two recent movies I saw-
Bhool Bhulaiya- Story: The story line was good and relatively new (p.s. I haven’t seen the Kannada or Malayalam movies mentioned above, and I am not aware of another Hindi movie in the same genre), though there were some loopholes in the movie and couple of questions are left unanswered towards the end. Over all the story keeps you interested. A weak part pointed to me by a lot of people was Akshay Kumar doing comedy amidst of a ghost being present. I will grant it to Priyadarshan because of the line Akshay says towards the end, that he knew from the very beginning that who the ghost was and why it was acting this way. Overall the story line was good enough to keep you occupied for the duration of the movie.
Acting: The star cast was well chosen and everyone did a very good job, even Rajpal Yadav was humorous, instead of being irritating like he was in Partner and RGV ki Aag. Characters like Paresh Rawal, Asrani and Manoj Joshi played their part extremely well. Akshay Kumar and Shiney Ahuja were also good. On other hand Amisha Patel had a very subdued role to play. She didn’t left any substantial impact. Vidya Balan was the centre point of the movie, specially in the later half. The kind of acting she has done in the movie is amazing specially towards the end. It’s been commendable to see her journey through Parineeta, Lage Raho Munnabhai, Guru and now Bhool Bhulaiya. She has proved time and again that she is not an actress who can be ignored on the face of the hindi cinemascope.
Music, Cinematography & Dialogues: As usual for a Priyadarshan movie dialogues of the comedy were very well written, but the dialogues could have been more effective at a lot of serious places. Specially the dialogues for Radha (Ameesha Patel) could have been a lot better for her role. The choreography is good, and the location entirely fit the setup and background of the story. The music by Preetam is average except for the title song which is a very rocking tune. While the rest of the songs I can’t even recollect.
Laga Chunari Main Daag: Story: This is the age old story of a woman turning into a prostitute because of her family troubles. There is nothing new in the storyline, those who willing to watch it for the story it’s a strict not watch kind of movie. The ending is one of the most stereotyped Hindi cinema ending and a very shabbily wrapped one.
Acting: Rani, Konkana, and Jaya Bachchan have been amazing through out the movie, the expression and the delivery of the characters is outstanding and one can relate to the scheme of things through them. They make the entire movie watchable. Kunal kappor and Abhishek Bachchan have hardly any role to play in the movie. They are just there to give a happy ending. Hema Malini, in her 5 minutes of role created a dramatic impact. While Anupam kher was not even half as good as he generally is.
Music, Cinematography, and Dialogues: The dialogues of the movie are very well written giving the strength to the characters and are a backbone of the film. Cinematography is very good the locations and the expressions have been very well taken into account. The treatment of the Banaras, Mumbai and Zurich all has been equally good. The music of the movie is really good and evenly placed, the title song in the voice of Shubha Mudgal evokes a lot of emotions, while the songs like “Hum to Aise hai Bhaiya…” and “Kachi Kaliya…” are very refreshing. I would say Shantanu Moitra some more pieces of awesome music to his name.
