a dash of mishra

Sudhir Mishra's Aur Devdas, a political mix of "Devdas and Hamlet" with Shiney Ahuja, Lara Dutta and Chitrangda Singh (more hereabouts) as Devdas, Paro and Chandramukhi respectively, seems to have lost to Tera Kya Hoga Johnny, a quickie set in a time when Bombay wants to be Shanghai" and when nobody gives a damn about a kid called Johnny who sells tea on the streets. Turning co-producer with the film, Mishra plans to give Karan Nath a second lease of life with the film besides having live songs in it. There's also the juicy tidbit that Chitrangda Singh's been roped in for an item song of sorts. What boggles the mind, however, is the cast roster for the film: joining Sikander Agarwal (who plays Johnny) and Karan Nath is a host of familiar names -- Neil Nitin Mukesh (who made a stupendous début as Johnny Gaddar), Soha Ali Khan, Kay Kay Menon, Anurag Kashyap and Aditya Bhattacharya (director of the undersung Raakh and the criminally hard-to-find Dubai Return). One drools in anticipation.

more SATYA trivia

While opening his PFC post pitching for Sudhir Mishra's Khoya Khoya Chand, Anurag Kashyap drops a nugget of trivia about Satya:

Satya, the much celebrated cult classic of this country was conceived after Ramu saw Iss raat.. infact[sic] Sudhir was asked to work on it in the beginning before getting the famous Ramu Indifference treatment..

In a wonderful world, this would've been enough incentive to have a DVD of Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin on the stalls. But this would fall right next to the other scenario from the wonderful world: in anticipation of Khoya Khoya Chand's release, stores have DVDs of previous Sudhir Mishra ventures on display. Alas, this is far from a wonderful world despite what Satchmo had to say.

the moon returneth?

In a wonderful post on PFC, Sudhir Mishra offers some background on his latest release Khoya Khoya Chand with some especially enlightening notes on the songs. The following extract might explain Shantanu Moitra's filching of Jingle Bell Rock (something that JR brings out in his notes on the soundtrack):

Three of the songs in the film, namely the cabaret, the mujra and the piano song "khushboo sa" , "chale aao saiyan", "yeh nigahen", are referential. They have to deliberately remind you of similar songs. "Yeh Nigahen" for example has to deliberately sound like other western songs. Like yeh hai bambai meri jaan is actually O my darling Clementine.

The highest point of the post comes with the following extract:

I do wish to at some day make a sequel to Hazaaron. And now that I hear Chitrangada is coming back at least to do a film with me. That's great. You could write the sequel many ways but you can’t write it without Geeta.

There's a shard on TOI that adds more fat to this fire. If this is indeed true, the vanishing lady will find a horde of fans waiting.

On a related note, if anyone has seen the DVD for Ruchi Narain's Kal:Yesterday and Tomorrow, please drop me a note.

February 16, 2008: Chitrangada's slated to play Chandramukhi as a socialite in Sudhir Mishra's Aur Devdas and she's also on board for Sorry Bhai, the third directorial venture of Onir (My Brother Nikhil, Bas Ek Pal).

March 14, 2008: More proof from the sets of Sorry Bhai. The location of the first shot added an ironic echo to the video Sanjay Suri and Chitrangda Singh had featured in for the Vishal/Gulzar collaboration Sunset Point (The production house for the film (Anticlock Films) takes its name from the club in Bas ek Pal)

April 01, 2008: A Rediff interview treads familiar ground, but features a few more photographs of the lovely lady.

April 13, 2008: ad filmmaker Abhinay Deol has her interest for Delhi Belly, a comedy of the risqué kind set in Delhi (duh!); while she awaits the script there are talks of roping Aamir Khan in as well.

April 15, 2008: Tehelka has a nice article, which includes a note that Vishal Bhardwaj was among those that had wanted to work with her. Now that she's back, one hopes that the opportunity to see the two talents work together.

sudhir mishra goes live on PFC

Oz strikes gold on Passion for Cinema as Sudhir Mishra comes on board with his own diary. The first post is a transcript of an interview where he talks about the influences on his work.

elsewhere on PFC: an extended post on his directorial début Yeh Woh Manzil To Nahin, a film that portended the finest film of 2005, Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.

elsewhere hereabouts: A pointer to a bilious rant about the state of filmmaking in Bollywood.

thirsting for pyaasa

what we make today is not cinema but superficial, downright dumb drivel is the byline for some impassioned vitriol from Sudhir Mishra in an opinion column for Outlook India. The article notes the ignorance fuelling Bollywood's auto-fellating spirit, the stronghold exercised by the stars and a ray of hope represented by a new breed of filmmakers who're more interested in telling stories instead of churning pages of captions accompanying polaroids of stars. My favourite nugget is a bit devoted to the industry reaction to Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi:

The continuing tragedy of Hindi cinema is that it is in the grip of the hegemony of a few stars, who patronise a select few filmmakers, often resulting in the tripe that is offered to the public. I was told by two of these megastars that Hazaaron Khwahishein was one of the worst scripts they had ever read. What these stars did with their next films is a part of history that I don't wish to dwell on.

related reading: An article that offers a comparative analysis (see page 2) of financial success in Bollywood and in the south indian film industry.

elsewhere hereabouts: notes on Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, easily the best Hindi film of 2005 and one of the best Indian films of the year | a review of Bhansali's Black that includes a pointer to Sudhir Mishra's caustic take on the film and the fawning industry reaction to the film.

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.

muhabbat me.n nahii.n hai farq jiine aur marane kaa / usii ko dekhakar jiite hai.n jis kaafir pe dam nikale [june 18, 2005]


Sudhir Mishra's Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi [official site | notes on the soundtrack] is easily IMO the best film of the year already. It's one of the best pieces of political cinema. It's one of the best love stories on screen. It's one of the best scripted films ever (and the best scripted film this year). It has a wonderful soundtrack that NEVER intrudes. It has the best performances ever. Sudhir Mishra and his team deserve a week-long standing ovation for restoring my faith in Hindi cinema. The under-rated, under-privileged (forced to include songs in Calcutta Mail and thus destroying what promised to be a taut film) and hyped-for-the-wrong-reasons (see: Chameli) delivers a tight slap on the faces of all his detractors. The experience of watching this movie was indescribable. I am usually multi-tasking while watching most movies regardless of how good or bad they are. With this one, I was only taking my customary notes. The film never (and I meant that; NEVER) struck a false note. I was with Siddharth, Geeta and Vikram, icons of a disllusioned generation lost in a tide of socio-political upheaval and despondent failures. Every step of the way. And once the end credits began to roll, I knew that I couldn't watch another movie (or do anything else) for the rest of the day. Amazing! I haven't felt that way about a movie in a long time. Hats off, Sudhir Mishra.

The end credits began with a dedication to the late Renu Saluja, Mishra's wife, one of India's great editors, who succumbed to cancer in 2000. That set me thinking about the autobiographical resonance of the film's central triangle. In almost Layla-esque fashion, Renu Saluja was married to Vidhu Vinod Chopra, and then later to Sudhir Mishra. I would hazard a guess that these relationships (and the associations with the FTII brat pack) afforded the film a personal angle that elevates it light years above the commonplace.

Related: Vidhu Vinod Chopra's wife (and sister of Vikram Chandra and Tanuja Chandra) writes an obit to Renu Saluja (incidentally, the movie by Blondie Singh that she refers to is Bollywood [more here], an adaptation of Shashi Tharoor's wonderful Show Business).

chameli: victory to the ghaaTs [related: music review]

This is the last(?) in the legacy of projects left to the burgeoning crossover mainstream section of Bollywood by the late Anant Balani (see also: Joggers' Park, Mumbai Matinee, 1 Din 24 Ghante). Sudhir Mishra took on the project after Balani's untimely demise, and gets a chance to revisit Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin territory, minus a lot of the chaff that riddled that effort: bad acting, good songs hopelessly staggering the pace of the film, overdramatic moments, minimal realism. Mishra continues the sheeny trend of Balani's flicks and with a strong technical department, he gives us an engaging narrative covering the events of one night as an investment consultant meets a hooker. I had very strong reactions to the choice of Kareena Kapoor in the lead role (and her starry comments in the wake of the film didn't help matters much either). To her credit, she tries hard. Her horrifying looks augment the tawdry aspects of the character. Where she fails is in getting decent complex expressions on her face: most of her contortions are Ramsay nominees. Bose strikes gold (again!), followed closely by the reliable and more-commonly-seen-nowadays Yashpal Sharma, and Pankaj Jha. The flash dissolves do get a bit irritating, but the narrative (except for the rain song, which although aurally appealing, seems to add a speed bumper in the flow, and in itself, does not convey enough release, despite all the guest populace appearing to join Chameli). My favourite moment (of several) comes close to the end when K P Singh (Sharma) drops a mention of the "Kurla case" to the corrupt corporator Naik over the cellphone. As Singh goes into the details of his knowledge, thunder strikes dominate the soundtrack, leaving it all to our imagination. Excellent. And the film ends well too (so no SSH problems). Minor quibble: Rinke Khanna's character is named Neha (verified by the end credits and references in the movie), yet one scene has Rahul Bose's dialogue track refer to her as Sudha!

Our censor board is full of morons. Proof: all the bleeps on the dialogue track where (a) Chameli refers to her age when she was brought into prostitution {if you watch carefully, you can read her lips!} (b) when Chameli refers to the relationship between Haseena (Balani camp favourite Kabir Sadanand) and Raja (if you've seen everything you already know what's going on, so why bleep the frigging dialogue??) (c) a couple of obscenities. I was watching a VHS taped off a DVD with the subtitles turned on and all I had to do was read them. Great going censor board!

And now for the byline in the post title. I'm sure no one on our censor board knows Marathi. Why else would the Marathi obscenities stay on the dialogue track unbleeped? Sent me rolling on the carpet to hear them. Clearly, to paraphrase the inspector, censorchyaa du.NgaNaath mirchyaa.

trivia note: Fans of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (and other films made by that talented clique of people fragmented by mainstream nightmares) will note the brief appearance by Deepak Kazir (credited thus; alternate spelling = Qazir) as Raja's father (as Commissioner Shrivastava is JDBY he got to deliver the infamous gutter speech).

elsewhere: Gaurav's review

calcutta mail: SSH resurfaces {see also: music review}

Let's start with awarding points:

* screenwriters Sudhir Mishra, Saurabh Shukla and Ruchi Narain for distilling the essence (minus the star baggage) of the Chiranjeevi Telugu vehicle Choodalani Vundi, and giving Mishra another chance to create a cut-to-cut pacy thriller

* Saurabh Shukla (again) for some great dialogue (you can even sense this is SS's work)

* Shukla (yet again) in one of several good performances in the film, as Ghatak, a pimp whose only allegiance is to takaas

* The other performances from Anil Kapoor (sincerity all over), Rani Mukherjee (very much at home), Sayaji Shinde, Satish Kaushik (in his first negative role, and making up for some of his fox paws as a director[sic]), Shivaji Satam. Manisha Koirala's role is mercifully brief -- can't stand this lady. The same trademark collection of expressions regurgitated

* A great first half with little mercy for taking stock of breathing cycles

* Mishra's use of Calcutta's backdrop -- the train, tramlines, Durga Puja, red-flag marches, Howrah Bridge, Sona Gachhi (a set recreation) to augment Avinash's pain as he seeks the kidnappers of his son

And now, the bad. What are songs doing in this film? Well, the same thing they did in Is Raat Ki Subah Nahin. Clog the narrative. Admittedly, ye saahab ajiib hai.n has a Sai-Paranjpe-esque appeal to it and is even entertaining. But the other song breaks are painful -- although the dance routines are (perhaps intentionally) comical, the sojourn to Salzburg was uncalled for. Damnation.

And last but not the least, SSH (Sagging Second Half). The film begins to lose steam with the flashback narrative (although not completely).

The film was delayed due to the ill health and the eventual death of Mishra's wife Renu Saluja, one of the best editors India has ever had. This might explain the few jerky switcharoos and jumpy little visuals that interfere with the pace of the film and the narrative. These minor glitches apart, I'd recommend CM -- on VHS or DVD only, so that you can skip the songs -- as an alternative to mainstream turdbags featuring famous hunks in romantic rain and foreign locales vying for the amorous attentions of sassy semi-nude senoritas. Ugh! for that last thought.

R. I. P. Renu. We'll miss you. {obits}

{Sunday Midday review and Khalid Mohamed's review for the Midday}

addendum (october 08, 2003): I must retract the SSH label and put on a new one (once again overloading an existing technology abbreviation): the film offers an example of SMS (or Sagging Middle Section). This happens (coincidence?) when we see Manisha Koirala. Thankfully, the latter portions resume their pace and the film races to a conclusion. So no SSH here, really. If only the songs and the Manisha portions were excised (or at least edited for brevity). But if you liked a well-paced, well-made little domestic thrill ride (no fancy jumping off building tops and slow-mo kung fu here) go take a look at Sudhir Mishra's eulogy to Renu Saluja.