HKA revisited [june 24, 2005] {previous viewing}

Thanks to all those questions about cameos, my second viewing of the film, and a recent Swanand Kirkire interview with Screen, I now have some more thoughts and some more trivia for the uninterested reader.

* Cameos (credited ones, strictly) galore: from Sudhir Mishra as Justice Tyebji's departing guest (when Vikram gives Geeta a ride to Siddharth's house) (the other guest is executive producer Sushil Dutta, btw); there's Mishra's assistant Ruchi Narain [here's an interesting article featuring a photograph] as a woman politician, Swanand Kirkire as the head of the singing troupe that passes Siddharth and Geeta as they bid goodbye (and e sajanii plays in the background) -- the photograph in the Screen interview confirms my guess (as his answer to a question further down), Choreographer Gilles Cheun is credited with an appearance as a dancing party guest, but I don't know what she looks like.

* At the party, when Geeta wants to leave, Arun begs to attend the "Narain" party for a bit (in joke?)

* Nice quote: "the violence of the opressed is right and the violence of the opressor is wrong"

* Can anyone shed light on the chronological accuracy of the photographs of Indira Gandhi that show up at a few points in the film?

* A few words get muted on the soundtrack; what really sucks is that the subtitles never use the F-word (which features liberally on the soundtrack), yet later take liberties on other fronts by inserting words that don't figure in the on-screen speech track (e.g. a**h**e, farting)

* {just for you, JR} The book that Geeta is reading at Siddharth's place is (I'm quite sure) "Hard Labor" by Cesare Pavese.

* Guess who is credited with arranging the music? Daniel B George, who just made his own soundtrack composing splash with the Arshad Warsi starrer Sehar.

* Satyajeet Sharma is credited for playing both sons of the maharaja with whom Vikram's negotiating a deal. Watch carefully and you can appreciate the power of editing (unless this was a copy-paste error and I'm reading too much into all this)

* The Gulzar angle: Reportedly, Chitrangda figured in the video for the song kachche ra.ng from the Gulzar-Vishal collaboration Sunset Point.

* And despite some disagreements, I also think Chitrangda looks a lot like Smita Patil in profile (and seems to exude a similar liberated spirit). However, referring to her as the "new" Smita Patil seems a bit premature and slaps on a label that threatens to override her uniqueness.