Deepa Mehta’s Fire (1996): Keep it burning

There has always been a reason in my heart why I haven’t ever written about the movie Fire. It was Deepa Mehta’s first movie that I watched and fell in love with the director and her handling of sensitive topics.
This one was too sensitive for me to ever write about. But now I really wish to share my understanding of this film.

It is a bold and sensitive handling of an equally bold and sensitive subject. The film throws up a lot of issues such as boredom in marriage, patriarchal society as a core of Indian families, joint family system, and relationships and bonds shared by people amongst all these. 

Film is surely a brave and bold attempt, esp. for the year in which it was released i.e. 1996. It was in true sense a coming-of-age- film at that time. It also sparked of a debate on the freedom of speech and expression and the custodians of the traditional and patriarchal Hindu culture.

My first memory of watching this film was during a school trip to Manali when I was in 11th class, sorry for my generation or let's say me and my classmates’ somewhat late social blooming, for at that time watching this film was for us very close to watching something forbidden or well in crude terms slightly pornographic in nature.
With growing years my understanding of the topics, social issues and well in course to the film changed immensely.

Many believe that the central theme of the film is just the lesbian relationship shared by the two woman protagonist in the family. I really respect the way in which the director has portrayed it, the beginning of the bond between the two, social threat they face due to it, being marked a destruction to family and social beliefs and then being scarred as a mark of scar themselves on the society. It is truly a moving build up to exploration of this alternative love that the two find.

But there is something that has always troubled me about calling it lesbian relationship; I just prefer it to call it a bond. Because this relationship doesn't begin by feelings towards each other but rather is born out of their social situation n their boredom.  It is more like the frustrations of their marriage and the yearning to break from bondages of social and sexual frustrations that lead both Radha and Sita to discover the bond of physical and emotional love within each other.

I truly wish to agree with Deepa Mehta’s own stance that lesbianism is just one of the aspects of this film, and not its central theme. I feel that the central theme of the film is the frustrating traditional and cultural clutches of patriarchal society. I think the film is made to break this very concept and idea of patriarchal society by exposing its suffocating threads to naked eyes and in the utmost clear words and visuals. It is not a film just about the homosexual relationships, which is just one of its themes.

The film is about a middle-class joint family in the urban setting of Delhi. Sita (Nandita Das) has just entered her new household as the youngest daughter-in-law of the family. She has had an arranged marriage with Jatin (Javed Jaffrey), who is in love with a Chinese Girl. He agrees to go for the arranged marriage to Sita, to get his nagging elder brother, Ashok (Kulbhushan Kharbanda), off his back. He is not able to commit to Sita in any way, neither physically or emotionally, only bond between them is social bond of marriage. And same is the case with her elder sister-in-law, Radha (Shabana Azmi). She holds and goes through all the responsibilities of being a dutiful daughter-in-law to her invalid mother-in-law, and equally devoted to her husband, who for long has just been using her as a part of his exercises of testing his own resolve of abandoning all bodily desires. He does all this under the influence of a Swami who tells him that desires are reasons for all human sufferings and all desires should be curbed.

Similarity of situations and familiarity of each other’s suffering and desires bond these two women, Radha and Sita, in discovering physical and emotional solace amongst each other and thus aiming for freedom from their social shackles that have just been suffocating them. In company of each other the women become brave and vocal and are also ready top move out of their home in order to just be with each other away from the patriarchal household and society that would never be able to understand them.

Also there is the servant, Mundu (Ranjit Chowdhry), who is aware of the growing closeness between the two and reality of their bond, but he too has his own dirty secret. He secretly masturbates in the living room of the house, on the pretense of looking after the sick biji (mother-in-law), when other family members are busy in running their food takeaway joint below their house itself, and watching porn. These I found were some most disturbing scenes as you find the servant masturbating in full view of an old sick woman and watching porn in front of her, all on pretense of taking care of her. These were the most disturbing scenes of the film for me.

The most wonderfully etched out scene is the finale the confrontation between Ashok and Radha. Those scenes are like the part that make you shout out on the victory of the women against the patriarchal society, that does everything possible to curb their desires of freedom and expression, even letting them burn as well.

In the end you feel that it is not the patriarch (represented by Ashok and his family) but the matriarch (represented by Sita) in whose arms the burnt Radha finds her life.

In the film Radha was shunned out of her home by her husband, just like the Sita was shunned out of her home by King Rama from Mythology. Both the women (the one from mythology and one from the film) had to go through the ritual of fire, (former to prove her innocence, while latter to assert her freedom). And she too bears the fruits of her relationship, like Sita did when she had left King Rama’s house. The only difference, there the fruits of relationship were offspring’s of the Sita and King Rama (their two sons’); over here in the film the fruits were burns that Radha got in the end.

I would like to share is my praise for the casting in the film. The cast ensemble is very good; every role is well-cast. It is a talented array of actors. I often believe that Actors are truly director’s mouth piece and the way they portray their character can either make or break the director’s point of view attached to that character. It is not who is playing the role but rather how they are playing it. A talented character understands very well what the director is expecting and wishes to get across to their audiences.

Another important point of my understanding of the film is my view of the male characters in the film. You always feel sympathy and empathy towards the oppressed and bonded characters, but well these emotions are arisen only when there is an oppressor and an element that brings out so much hatred in you towards its actions that you in turn feel the sense of sympathy towards the one being oppressed. In the film the male actors portray their characters so well that even though you feel such deep sense of hatred at their patriarchal ideas and beliefs but in the end you feel that the actors who played those parts did a fab job in understanding their characters and presenting it so well to the audiences.

I wouldn’t be writing much about the music other than mentioning the name of the Music Director, Mr. A. R. Rehman. That’s it leave the rest to your understanding of the music that this man creates and all the movies that he has lend his music to, and fab job done in that. Music is very soulful, moving, and has a rhythmic and important movement along with the narrative.

I feel that for a film it should be more important to raise a sense of sympathy or empathy in their audiences rather than just thinking of box-office nos. And well by sympathy I don’t mean you sympathize with actors and directors on committing creative murder….Nope. Audience should feel sympathy or empathy with the subject of the film and its character. If the audience feels that in any film, believe me for them that film and its director is surely successful.

I feel anyone who watches this film will feel either sense of sympathy or empathy to its protagonists and if they do well that means it is a success for you, but don’t let me tell you that. Watch it to understand it.

Fire (1996)

Director and Writer: Deepa Mehta

Starring: Nandita Das, Shabana Azmi, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Javed Jaffrey, Ranjit Chowdhry

Producer: Bobby Bedi and Deepa Mehta

Cinematographer: Giles Nuttgens

Music By: A.R. Rehman

Most Memorable Scenes: entire movie, particularly the final confrontation scene, also the scene in the family picnic when Sita is caressing Radha's feet and Ashok tells him that it is her duty to take care of her elder sister-in-law without knowing the bond the two already share; and also the scene where Ashok after having found out the relation between Radha and Sita finds himself getting an arousal with images of their love making which makes him realize that his resolve of 13 years has after all not worked at all in abandoning of physical desire......

Mahesh Bhatt’s Arth- Too Many Meanings

Ok so yesterday I had decided to write a review of Arth and look at the chance happening, the movie came on d TV. That is one reason why I still love DD, movies there are not just for entertainment n advertisements.

So Arth is a moving and heart warming 1982 film. The film like many of Mahesh Bhatt film's draws quite closely from his own personal life. it is a semi-autobiographical film, often touted to be Bhatt's own confession of his extramarital affair to actress Praveen Babi. 

Arth is a movie about an orphan girl Pooja, who grew up with a dream of owning a house, and is married to Inder who is a film director. Inder and Pooja have bought a new house, but it is soon revealed that Inder bought this house out of his own guilt due to the on going affair he is having with an actress Kavita. The time when Inder comes clean to Pooja about his affair and leaves her to go and stay with Kavita, Pooja's life falls apart. She is guided in her journey out of the faulty marriage and to independence by singer Raj, and her friend and her husband.

The best thing is that all d characters of d film are well defined and beautifully etched out both artistically and realistically. 
The three central characters are so complex and beautifully portrayed- Shabana Azmi as Pooja, Kulbhusan Kharbanda as Inder and Smita Patil as Kavita.

What I like most about the character of Kavita is that that even though she is the ‘other woman’ in the story, you don’t feel any negative emotions towards her. You feel a sense of sympathy for her at every point. She is a woman suffering from schizophrenia, a woman who teeters on an edge all the time.

Even when she has got what she wanted, the man she loves, her guilt and her illness don't allow her to be free in enjoying that as well. She is a woman who loves a man with so much of passion that even she herself is unable to control.

I think the most beautiful portrayal of this character comes out in the scene where she in one of her moment of illness, blames Pooja for scattering her mangalsutra beads all over the house in bid to hurt Kavita. This scene best exemplifies the edge on which the character is walking, and her guilt. Also worth mentioning, is the final scene between Kavita and Inder, where she decides to leave him forever. All this comes after Pooja has met her an d even forgiven her for wreaking her marriage, but maybe that real interaction is enough to push Kavita out of her guilt and in realization of what is right and what is wrong.

Next is the character of Inder. A man trapped in his own feelings for two women. He is a character trapped in his own ego issues. Inder is a character that can't hear rejection. When the client rejects his ad film he gets into physical fight with him, when his secretary rejects him by handing over his resignation letter he shouts at him and tears the letter, when Kavita rejects him he gets mad at her and makes his last attempt to return to Pooja.

There are two most defining moment of this character. One is the scene where he confesses his illicit relationship with Kavita to his wife Pooja. During the scene you see his main concern is to prove that he is not the one who is wrong, he is the one who is stuck between two women. And second scene is one where he comes to meet Pooja at her hostel with divorce papers. Here also we see how hard Inder tries to tell Pooja that he is getting a divorce just for Kavita’s sake and no other reason.

And Shabana Azmi plays Pooja, a woman whose life is torn apart by her husband's affair. She tries to be strong but her emotions take over her every now and then during her journey from moving out of the safety of her breaking home to the world of independence outside it.
A character governed by realistic highs and lows. Often what happens is that at times directors make their female characters unrealistically strong and surrealistic.

Another good part of the film is its side characters, esp. the character played by Raj Kiran and by Rohini Hattangadi as the bai.
Raj plays a happy go lucky singer, who strives by just with a good voice and luck. It is he who helps Pooja in her journey; he becomes his friend and confidante in d outside world. He is a silent admirer, who loves Pooja even after she has dismissed him after he openly declares his feelings for her.

Another important side character in the film is that of the Bai. She is one who represents a story like Pooja's only but within a different class structure. She is someone who too faces troubles in her life mainly due to her drunkered and unfaithful husband. She is a strong woman, even being from a very low background, she is quite independent and her only aim is that her daughter sud receive a good education and a claim to a better future than her own. 

I think it is when the bai kills her husband is in fact quite a moving scene. When she sees her husband threatening her daughters future she retaliates by killing him. I think it is the jolt of physical killing of one unfaithful threatening husband that leads to Pooja's actually freedom in mind.

Music is a wonderful and very expressive part of the film. Every song represents the state of mind of characters present in it. Every song has an identity of its own. It is as of if the words fail to express what the characters are going thru that is where the songs come in. All 3 beautiful songs in d film have been picturized on Raj and have been sung by Jagjit Singh. Jagjit Singh's voice is so encapsulation and engrossing that it just reaches your heart and strike a chord with emotions directly.
Jagjit Singh, even despite attaining a status of being a gazhal exponent, never attained any significant mark in the mainstream bollywood industry.

This is undoubtedly one of the finest performances ever by Shabana Azmi. She perfects the character of Pooja with her marvelous acting. No doubt that she won many accolades for her performance in Arth, and her second Nation Award for the same.

Also I feel Smita Patil played the character of Kavita, the ‘other woman’, really well. She understood and embodied all the complexities of the character perfectly in her portrayal. Her performance moves you with so many emotions at the same time. You want to dislike her as a home wreaker, but you also sympathize with her to be a passionate woman in love who is suffering from schizophrenia.

Arth is a story about a woman's journey to independence and freedom. Freedom of mind and soul. And as the last words of the film point out 'palat ke matt dekho pooja. Palat ke matt dekho. Jao'. It is about a journey forward into a new beginning for the character.

Arth (1982)

Director: Mahesh Bhatt

Starring: Shabana Azmi, Samita Patil, Kulbhushan Kharbanda, Raj Kiran, Rohini Hattangadi

Producer: Kuljit Pal

Music by: Jagjit Singh, Chitra Singh

Cinematography: Pravin Bhatt

 Favorite Songs: Koi yeh kaise bataaye...., Tum itna jo muskura rahe ho...., Jhuki-jhuki si nazar.....

Clint Eastwood's 'Invictus' (2009)- Cliche yet inspiring

Invictus is a bio-pic based on Nelson Mandela's life during the 1995 Rugby World Cup in South Africa. Directed by Clint Eastwood; the film stars Morgan Freeman as South African President Mandela and Matt Damon as François Pienaar, the South African team captain.

Predictable movie…yet what work in its favour is Clint Eastwood’s perceptive direction.

Though the movie might not be rousing enough for certain audiences due to its predictable flow, yet what it has working for it is Freeman’s & Damon’s portrayal of real life characters that is admirably convincing.

Invictus tells the true story of how Nelson Mandela joined forces with the captain of South Africa's rugby team, Francois Pienaar, to help unite their country. As newly elected president, Mandela believed that the universal language of sport could bring people together in the wake of apartheid. As a result, the nation's underdog rugby team made an unlikely challenge on the 1995 World Cup Championship – a tournament where very few expected them to do well in.

The film is based on a book by John Carlin “Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation”. The film draws its title from a short poem of the same name, by the English poet William Ernest Henley.

Morgan Freeman plays a newly-elected Nelson Mandela, who wants to use his power for reconciliation, rather than just continuing his predecessors’ oppression of the opposition and perpetuating the cycle. The blacks hate the Springboks because the racist Afrikaners love them and that’s what Mandela wants to change.

As a theme the film seems somewhat repetitive of using sports as a unifying medium for an Apartheid torn nation; what appeals most, to me in particular are a few scenes in the film. The most alluring being the one where Pienaar visits the prison cell where Mandela was held for 27 years, on Robben Island. What is most interesting about this scene is the way in which Pienaar imagines Mandela & his life in that cell & prison, as you hear the poem ‘Invictus’ being played in the background. You feel the same emotion that Damon’s character portrays on screen, that it is the same place where a great man waited for a future that made him an inspiration & motivation to an entire nation. It is as the last lines of the poem ‘Invictus’ states

“I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul”.

I also liked the scene where Mandela invites Pienaar to have tea with him to make a personal appeal to him about lifting the team as a national team rather than a symbol of the past bigotry. Mandela speaks of leading by example and exceeding expectations, and leaves Pienaar astonished at the idea that they can dare to dream about winning the World Cup. As well as the scenes of interaction between the black & white officers assigned to Mandela’s security, in the film.

If the award nomination of a film makes it any benchmark to view a film’s credibility & success of a film, then I guess this film makes great strides due to its actors solely. Even the Academy Awards (Oscars), 2010 have nominated both Freeman & Damon in the Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor categories, respectively.  The Film also went on to win many critical awards and accolades in many award circuits around the globe.

The thing that is most appealing, and also probably the best fit for the film, is Freeman’s portrayal of Nelson Mandela. Many characters in past have attempted to portray Mandela’s character on screen, yet no one has come so much close to it as Freeman.

So my final word on the film is that even though the themes of racial discrimination & sports film might be clichés to some, what appeals in Eastwood’s ‘Invictus’ is its strong emotions and its actors.

Invictus (2009)

Dir: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon

Producers: Clint Eastwood, Lori McCreary, Robert Lorenz, Mace Neufeld, Morgan Freeman

Screenplay by: Anthony Peckham

Cinematographer: Tom Stern

Mahesh Bhatt's 'Daddy' (1989)- A heart warming film

Last night I was watching Mahesh Bhatt’s 'Daddy' and I realized why it is considered to be such an important film in career of those involved in it; esp. Director Mahesh Bhatt, actor Pooja Bhatt and Anupam Kher.

It’s quite a touching and moving film. I have always had a special liking for stories that have interesting narrative. I'm a fan of movement between past and present. That movement keeps the story interesting and narrative more intriguing for me.

The story is about an estranged father and daughter and their journey to get to know each other, to reconcile the differences between them. It is a story of a daughter who longs to get to know her father and to bring him out of his ghosts of past and alcoholism. It is her way to bring her father back into the society out of the shield of obscurity that he has formed around him.

The most important part in the film is played by music. Music as a plot and well Music as in the background score and the songs. Music becomes a bonding factor of relations in the film, and also something that brings out acute emotions in the characters. Music not only builds in the pathos of the characters in the film, but is also a very much part of it.

I also love the music of the film. The songs are beautiful and so full of emotions. And that is how it should be for a film that has music at its center. I esp. Love the last song of the film 'Aina phir se mujhse woh pheli si soorat mange....' It’s such a beautiful song. Also the song ‘Kabhi khwaab mein kabhi khayal mein….’

The songs are well placed and add a lot to the narrative structure of the film on the whole.

The acting is superb. Not only the main characters but even the side cast seems so well casted in their respective roles. No character or actors seems to be wasted in the film. Daddy is Pooja Bhatt’s first film as an actor, and her performance in the film shows how much of an evolved actor she was since the beginning. I particularly love Anupam Kher’s performance as a drunk father, who is trapped in his past but has a longing of getting over his addictions and getting to know his daughter. No doubt in his winning the Filmfare Critics Award for Best Performance in 1991. I would like to make special mention to Manohar Singh, in the role of the protective grandfather who doesn't wishes his granddaughter to be hurt by the hands of the man who took his daughter away from him.

At times when words become scarce in appreciating something really good, I believe I should best leave it to emotions. And trust me watch the film and it will certainly not only engross you but will move you to emotions of sympathy and empathy at the pathos of its characters.

The movie is a typical Mahesh Bhatt style, which involves deep psychological pathos of it’s characters with real emotions, and camera angles and shots that don’t make anything ‘larger-than-life’ or grand or unreal. It all appears real and arises out of real human emotions that is why the magic of Mahesh Bhatt films has always worked; wether it is Arth, Saraansh, Sadak, etc.

It is actually true that real human emotions are presented in these films, as Mahesh Bhatt has himself claimed that Arth, Zakhm and Daddy were inspired by embarrassing personal experiences.

"What people are ashamed of usually makes a good story… I was ashamed of cheating on my wife, of being a child born out of wedlock, of being an alcoholic. These emotions created Arth, Zakhm and Daddy," the filmmaker had posted on Twitter in 2010.

Just one thing I was initially confused about is the year of release of the film. Going by Wiki and IMDB which state it as 1898, while many online sources state it as 1991. So that's one confusion I faced. No problem..it is actually 1989.

I guess I'm seeing this film again after ages. Approx I guess 7-8 years. Seeing it again after so long makes it so fresh for me.
My mom often hates my habit of watching films on TV late in night. But well she is sitting next to me and watching this film and engrossed as well, is what I believe a good enough achievement for the film. Sorry won't divulge into details of this as no one would understand the understanding me and my mom share on such things. It’s just a mom-daughter bond thing.

Daddy (1989)

Dir: Mahesh Bhatt

Starring: Anupam Kher, Pooja Bhatt, Manohar Singh, Soni Razdan,  Nath Zutshi, Avtar Gill, Satish Kaushik, Suhas Joshi, Sulbha Arya, Pramod Moutho, Himanshu, Neena Gupta, Akash Khurana, Sakshi Bhatt, Shaheen Bhatt.

Producer: Mukesh Bhatt

Writer: Suraj Sanim

Music by Rajesh Roshan

Playback Singers: Talat Aziz, Arun Ingle, Dilraj Kaur, Suresh Wadkar

Favorite songs: Kabhi khawab mein....; Aina mujhse mere....

First Blog.....Confession

I'm a die hard movie fan....well no specific sort....just has to be motion picture. Be it Hollywood, Bollywood, regional, international, World Cinema, anything at all.

So here is a special Blog just dedicated to films. Films that I have bought, I have seen. Films I have loved, hated or well just cant make up my mind about.

I have more than 500+ films in my possession currently, and I have an intense deep emotion for them. It is as if  I share an important part of my life and my emotions with them.

Why keep films and not write about them, that is so unlike me. Well I love writing and I love esp. writing about movies and actors and all. So this special blog is just dedicated to them.

My first n Only true Love- Movies/ Films/ Motion Picture....