no smoking: random puffs on the soundtrack

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

A sign in the lobby of the marriott said: "welcome trial of K., liberty ballroom A/B", and in smaller letters underneath: "a smoke-free building"
-- K for Fake (Jonathan Lethem)

A darkness prevails over the soundtrack of No Smoking. It's the hypnotic darkness of clubs and lounges drenched in shadows and light diffused through clouds of smoke. Vishal and Gulzar serve a surreal stew of potent metaphors, appropriate musical styles (the jazz club song, trance, psychedelia) in their second collaboration on a film that neither directs. This is Vishal's second soundtrack for Anurag Kashyap; the first one was for the yet-unreleased Paanch -- that soundtrack packed some of the best rock songs in Hindi films along with light pop and the plaintive fusion of अँखियाँ चिपकी जाए. It also contained the only other song that I know Deva Sengupta to have sung. He returns after तमस with Ash Tray, where Gulzar adroitly injects the English phrase into an otherwise Hindi song. There is a nice flat texture to the voice and it so appropriately sounds like the voice of a smoker. There were times I thought of Shivaji Chattopadhyay singing ये सफ़र. Vishal seals the wounds of dissonance with his trademark lingering melodic endings and strong arrangements. The arrangements reinforce the feeling that you're sharing the depressing soliloquy of a smoker -- listen to how layers of the chorus intoning धुआँ धुआँ swirl in and strongly about a crescendo conjuring images of fresh smoke blown into the air. This chorus rising from the dark recesses of the song's ambience in what is probably the most compelling metaphor for smoke ever arranged in 2007. The version on CD isn't in standard tuning: I wonder if this was done when mastering the song to preserve a certain texture in the song or if everything was moved a bit up the fretboard.
Everything dark and introspective about Ash Tray is turned inside out by the bucolic कश लगा. It's an exhortation to smoke that works like a folk ditty you'd hear as you walked along the banks of a river in the morning. Vishal joins Sukhwinder Singh and Daler Mehndi in an interesting vocal collaboration and his trademark breathing works in favour of the film's theme. Gulzar bounces from the combustible stacks of cowdung to mixed signals about the addiction (ज़िंदगी के कश लगा हसरतों की राख उड़ा) to his metaphoric pronouncements (ये जहान फानी है बुलबुला है पानी है / बुलबुलों पे रुकना क्या / पानियों पे बहता जा). The second a.ntaraa is evidence of how far Gulzar and Vishal have come since छोड़ आये हम: छोडी हुयी बस्तियां जाता हूँ बार बार घूम-घूम के / मिलते नहीं वो निशाँ छोड़े थे दहलीज़ चूम-चूम के.

The bass in Rekha's voice seems to get chopped as she belts out फूँक दे while the earthy rhythms give the song a percussive immediacy. हयात फूँक दे हवास फूँक दे / ये साँस से सिला हुआ लिबास फूँक दे seem to be the successor to न ग़िलाफ़ न लिहाफ़ ठँडी हवा भी ख़िलाफ़ (or I'm just reading too much into the song). The female voice that opens the song fades away reminding us of the breath of death, before Rekha takes over with another paean to kicking the habit (or rather "blow" it away). Sukhwinder's version hits the surreal without wasting time (पीले पीले से जंगल में बहता है धुआँ). This version is faster and more aggressive. It also boasts a female voice intoning some of the best psychobabble ever heard in an Indian film:

You have just traversed a hole(?) in space-time
You are no longer confined to physical objects, aspects or surfaces or contained within them
You will now experience power to identify and change the semantic sensory field that influences the final consequences of your journey
You are now at the limits of the multiverse but not beyond the space of this dream(?)

जब भी सिगरॅट (why ciggaret instead of cigarette in the track listing?) with its mix of jazz and lounge sets up the right milieu of a club with trails of smoke wafting about. The song unfolds like the thoughts of the compulsive smoker, whose craving has begun to itch as dusk approaches. Gulzar spins out images (शाम होने लगी है/लाल होने लगी है) and similes (उपले जैसा सुलगता हूँ) with ease and aplomb (the eyebrow hardly rises when the smoker/cigarette is compared to a smoldering cow patty). For his first collaboration with Vishal, Adnan Sami croons away in typical style. Sunidhi Chauhan's version opens with a vocal loop (statutory warning) dedicated to the deplorable disclaimer on cigarette packs (the vocal loop also closes the song). The brass riff from the Sami version becomes a wonderful guitar lick in the tradition of Badalamenti's theme for Twin Peaks, Chris Isaak's Wicked Game and Boy George's The Crying Game. Lounge and jazz are replaced by trance. Interestingly, the lyrics remain from a masculine perspective. Belting out the song with characteristic gusto, Sunidhi gets to employ the falsetto to good effect and curiously rolls the 'r' in cigarette just as Sami does.

Vishal and Gulzar manage a coup yet again as they explore the dark, hypnotic world of the smoker where shards of light are drawn through curtains of smoke. This is perhaps the closest a Hindi film soundtrack has come to working remarkably well as a concept album as well.

dibakar banerjee speaks and regales

PFC notches another big fat feather in its cap with a no-holds-barred conversation with Dibakar Banerjee, who scored with Khosla Ka Ghosla and whose bold second effort Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! managed to survive despite the unfortunate timing of Bombay's terror weekend. This is strictly NSFW (you get Delhi-style cussing, comparisons between precisely measured filmmaking and porn flicks among other things) but it's worth every minute. And there's a lot of praise for .

as Dhaal as it gets

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]
Responsible for Divyashakti, an adequately downbeat tale of revenge driven by principles and loss bolstered by an interesting villain, Tau (pronounced: taauu), played by Amrish Puri and two films with Akshay Kumar and Saif Ali Khan (Main Khiladi Tu Anari, a rip-off of The Hard Way and Keemat), Sameer Malkan was last heard of when he finished a songless thriller shot in New York City and Philadelphia called Lips: The Kiss Of Death starring Anuj "KKusum" Saxena and Maushmi Udeshi. Despite getting the skin bits excised and getting slapped with an A certificate, the film reportedly still hasn't made it to the marquee (or did it just quietly get out on DVD?). The film's about the development and consequences of the crush an illegal Indian in the US has on the enigmatic young sexy wife of a middle-aged millionaire.

aparaadh tabhii ruk jaaye jab ye kaalaa koT ban jaaye khaakii vardii kii Dhaal

That's the tail of Raza Murad's voiceover, which builds a crescendo to the opening titles for Dhaal, a film that, as the tagline tells us, is about the battle of law against law. Someone must've found the premise thrilling: On one hand we have the police officer's uniform representing the honest losing struggle against social evil; on the other, the lawyer's coat representing the abuse of legal manoeuvres that kept the evil-doers of society out of prison and powerful in the streets; Justice would truly be served (with fries and a drink, no doubt) when the lawyer's coat wrapped the police officer's uniform (not unlike paper wrapping stone) to protect it and strengthen its endeavours instead of pre-empting its every victory with bail applications and dismissed cases.

The need to subscribe to the Bollywood formula and an attempt to find a solution to the knapsack problem of clichés, however, can only mean that the idea was destined to go to seed at the first cry of "Action!" Having Sunil Shetty (as Suraj) on the cast roster only seals the deal. Despite being sandwiched between the likes of Vinod Khanna and Danny Denzongpa, this well-done beefcake manages a coup with the stuff he pulls off on the reels:
* he gets to romance the likes of Anjali Jathar
* he gets to write "Anjali Dewan" (Anjali Jathar) as the amount on the clichéd blank cheque that Danny offers him (Java programmers will note that this would cause a NumberFormatException)
* he gets framed in an illicit situation with the likes of Kunika
* he gets tons of tips on life from the likes of Ram Mohan
* he gets to lip-synch to songs sung by the likes of Anu Malik and Kumar Sanu
* he gets to fake it at playing the violin (while la femme Jathar does the sax-y honours)
* he gets to call Dewan (Danny) up and tell him that he plans to rape Anjali (Anjali Jathar)
* he gets to use a rod to knock a plane out of action and cause it to screech to a halt with the sound of car brakes
* he manages to rope in his garment outlet "Mischief" as one of the costume suppliers

Anu Malik's contributions to this tank of tropes cover some more requirements:
* dil maa kaa diinaa (one of many Macarena rip-offs): introduces the hero to the audience, serves as a plug for Air India, gets on your nerves especially when the music director steps up to the microphone
* gussaa ussaa chho.D / dil na meraa to.D (with lines like "just shut up and get lost" and "drop dead" tossed in for effect): introduces the romantic(!) pair, features the obligatory perfunctory anger that melts away
* whisky whisky whisky whisky whisky kisane bolaa whisky hai risky: reiterates the importance of liquor in movies about family, friendship and felons, provides another example of how difficult it is to be convincing as a tipsy toot
* haasil mazaa hai terii mulaaqaat kaa mujhe: attempts to cover the need for a fantasy sequence that emerges as a non sequitur in the narrative, provides evidence of the inability of the lead pair to pretend to play one or more musical instruments
* chhuo naa chhuo naa (with a female chorus lending conviction to refrains like "the night is young, touch me, touch me" and "the night is young, look at me, look at me"): serves as the item song in the presence of the villain of the film, serves as a chance for the actor playing the villain to warble, should he choose to (and in this film, he does)

In fulfilling the need for a comic track that doesn't need to have anything to do with the rest of the film, the film manages a coup by eliciting the services of the late Laxmikant Berde to play the villain's annoying son Dodo (that's his name; I kid you not), who keeps bringing prostitutes home as prospective spouses.

tumane apane paa.Nv se utanii dhuul nahii.n u.Daayii hogii bachche jitanii daulat hamane apane haatho.n se u.Daaii hai

(Dewan to Suraj)

One of the most extended pieces of product placement ever seen in Bollywood comes for Pari Basmati Rice (YT is unsure if this is a real brand or something made up to fill reel time and space in the film). In a scene set in a godown and sporting one of Anil Dhawan's many forgettable cameos, the merits of this brand are extolled ( pure white baasamatii rice, dii best chaawal in the world) and pun-laded groan-inducing one-liners are tossed at the helpless audience within and without the film ( log to pulis kii aa.Nkho.n me.n dhuul jho.nkate hai.n magar ham pulis kii aa.Nkho.n me.n chaawal jho.nke.nge). Anil Dhawan's character Sachdeva notes that although he doesn't drink, he will definitely relish the biryani made from this rice. This serves as a cue for some verbal diarrhoea from the villain dedicated to plugging the brand:

bhuuk lage to chaa.nd bhii roTii nazar aatii hai
(haa haa haa haa haa)
aage hai zamaanaa par bhuuk piichhe piichhe
saarii duniyaa kii baadii are do roTii ke niichhe
are chama.De kii jhopaDiyaa me.n aag lagii hai bhaiyaa
barkhaa naa bujhaaye bas bujhaaye rupaiyaa
aur phir bhii bhare na peT
to yaad aatii hai yaaro.n parii rice plate

Arun Govil might rank second only to Parikshit Sahni in playing characters who are destined to die in the course of a film. He does not disappoint here as he plays the world-weary Devdhar, who pulls out a tuft of hair from a goon's head near the opening of the film and then meets his end several reels later when a truck runs him over. It is probably only when this happens that we find out what his character's name is. His dying nonsense about living an empty life, however, seems like an unnecessary attempt at character development too late in the game. This is Arun Govil. He was meant to die. No words are necessary.

Director Sameer Malkan, writers Rajeev Kaul and Praful Parekh and dialogue writer Madan Joshi seem to have decided to devote all their creative attention to the villain of the piece, Pilot Baba, a name that came from the desire of his father, an airplane mechanic, that he become a pilot. Pilot Baba never managed to learn to fly planes (hawaaii jahaaz u.Daanaa), but managed to earn his chops bumping people off (aadamii u.Daanaa). Amrish Puri plays Pilot Baba with hammy relish right from his introductory scene in a cemetery on a rainy day. Dressed in a pilot's uniform (something that never changes until the end of the film), he looks on as a guy digs his own grave. When the guy protests that it's not right to bury a living man, Pilot Baba settles the issue with cold logic and a fatal bullet and then mouths the first of many snatches of dialogue laced with aerodynamic references: hamaare take-off me.n rukaavaT paidaa karane waale kaa yahii hashr hotaa hai kyo.n ki pilot baabaa kii flight me.n kabhii brake nahii.n lagatii. When one of his aides, who wears a red jacket in what might be an unintentional tribute to the phenomenon unleashed by the original Star Trek, is found to be guilty of betrayal, Pilot Baba snuffs him out and intones usane gaddaarii kii isaliye pilot baabaa ne usakii zi.ndagii kaa engine switch off kar Daalaa . Two of his other metaphor-laden lines appear later, one when referring to Inspector Varun Saxena (Vinod Khanna) (usane mere gusse ke gas station ko maachis dikhaayii hai) and the other when talking to Dewan (Danny) ( chalo mere saath fauran waranaa mai.n usake puliis sTeshan par bulldozer chalaakar use runway banaa duu.Ngaa).

It is with Pilot Baba that this film strikes gold. Aside from that, the iTrans-friendly title and a vertigo zoom in the final moments, this presentation from the JVG Group (which also manages to sneak a shot of its office in the film) suffers for focusing on the clichés instead of the camp.

Cash: the music: it's a gas

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ghutan: breathe easy or die laughing

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

tum dono.n ne use zi.ndaa kabr me.n dafanaakar ek ghuTan-bharii maut dii hai; aur ab tum log is khulii hawaa kii har saa.Ns me.n har pal ghuTan mahasuus karoge
(father james/ amit shankar)

Before they clashed at the boundary of life and undeath in this Ramsay flick, Aryan Vaid and Heena Rehman already had Fun - Can Be Dangerous Sometime in common. Since Payal Rohatgi featured in the cast of that film, it is safe to assume that it wasn't a complex layered film that intelligently explored the shifting dynamic of human relationships.

you devilish devil to the blood
(father james / amit shankar)

Heena Rehman having learnt from her dismal début in I Proud To Be Indian was quite happy swapping her husband, played by Aryan Vaid, with Siddharth Koirala. Acting as a pouting, piano-pumping spouse who gets bumped off by her husband and returns to haunt him and the audience was a natural step forward.

it's loud and clear in the pages of Holy Bible ... ki marane ke baad ruuh jism me.n daakhil nahii.n ho sakatii; it's anti-Christ
(father james / amit shankar)

Aryan Vaid's oeuvre sports an element of confusion. Mixed with movies like the husband-swapping excursion just noted, Chaahat: Ek Nasha and Market are endeavours like Makrand Deshpande's Danav. There's still a conflict of desire: to be an actor or a buffed toned B-movie staple. But the singular quality that might prove useful for Mr. Vaid in years to come is his resemblance to Arun "VikRam" Govil. The day will come when a biopic is dedicated to the life and career of the man who could play Lord Rama, King Vikram, ill-fated police inspectors (like Inspector Deodhar in Dhaal) or elder brothers and even a mute (Himmatwala). Until then Mr. Vaid can thrive on the loyal following for movies like the suffocating subject of this post.

wo ghuT-ghuT ke marii hai; wo hame.n ghuTan-bharii maut degii
(priyaa / pooja bharti)

While Keshu and Tulsi have moved out to production, Shyam Ramsay continues to take the Ramsay horror train forward. His latest scripted/directed effort Ghutan offers enough chortles from its comfortable opening to the final credit, its[sic] RAMSAY entertainment, which fades to black as a church bell tolls. Fans of Bollywood's First Family of horror will be disappointed by the low coefficient of skin (just some bareback work from Heena Rehman and Pooja Bharti) and the almost complete absence of the incongruous song-n-dance breaks. There are other things that persist, however: The lack of anything remotely scary, the absence of any attempt to invest money in sets that look realistic and the insistence on reusing familiar elements (sudden visitations, a lass in a bathtub being dragged under, an exploding bed) in a most unimaginative fashion.

you're a blind man; your eyes are open; but you see nothing
(father james / amit shankar)

Shyam Ramsay wastes no time by opening the film with a minivan approaching the gates of a cemetery. Womaniser Ravi Kapoor and his like-minded friend Jaggi are here to bury Ravi's wife Catherine. After some drama and exposition, it is evident that she ain't quite dead yet. The solution: coerce her into the coffin, strangle her close to death and drop in a torch for company (mai.n chaahataa huu.N tum apanii maut roshanii me.n dekho). Despite all the ghoulish looks and shoddy mise-en-scène, the scariest moment comes when you hear a background female vocal that sounds suspiciously like Anuradha Paudwal.

Ravi and Catherine spend most of their screen time together tossing abuses at each other. He calls her a bitch (even refers to her as such in her absence) and she calls him a bastard. The smart subtitling department, known for raising the ante of obscenity for innocuous dialogue, decides to pay tribute to Thomas Bowdler here. After all, they figured, only the hearing impaired were going to watch this film. So bitch becomes fool, idiot or woman, while bastard becomes scoundrel.

tum hii ho na? jo ravii ko roz (beat) roz ek nayii la.Dakii supply karataa hai? ... you bloody supplier!
(Catherine / heena rehman)

Mr. Ramsay is not interested in exploring the dynamics of inter-faith marriages. He is, however, keen on exploiting the rich Goan/Christian stereotype. He does this using the supporting cast: there's Catherine's faithful maid Nancy, who gets to scream, witness a murder, walk around drenched in shadow and gloom, get possessed and, as the flying leaping lunging screaming clawing launching Nancy, participate in some of the worst wire stunts in recent times; she even gets to pound her legs furiously against the ground accompanied by the electronic sound sample used for punches in video games. Then there's Catherine's uncle Tom NoLastName (played by Gufi Paintal), who doesn't have too much to do except insist that he always compared Ravi to a rotten apple and fake the clichéd Goan/Christian talk spouting axioms like are tum jaanataa hai na ki jab inasaan God ko pyaaraa ho jaataa hai tabiich candle jalataa hai?.

The film's leading lady Heena Rehman has a lot to do: she has to dress in seductive black, look sad and lonely, play Anu Malik's favourite chord progressions on the piano using actions that would lead you to believe she was doing push-ups, lie on her back quoting poetry by Mirza Zaafar Ali 'Hasrat' ( tumhe.n Gairo.n se kab furasat / ham apane Gam se kab Kaalii / chalo ab ho chukaa milanaa / na ham Kaalii na tum Kaalii) and in the next shot vent her frustrations to the calm Father James. After being buried alive during the opening credits, she appears to break free just like Beatrix Kiddo did in Kill Bill 2's The Lonely Grave of Paula Schultz, only to discover that she's merely experiencing a post-death out-of-body experience. The conversation between her and Father James on the subject of her reuniting with her body features some sparkles of dialogue (including some of that old first-English-then-Hindi business) and ghastly grammar:

Father James: Galatii se bhii ye Galatii mat karanaa waranaa tabaahii aa jaayegii
Catherine : why father why? why can't I enter my body?
Father James: because it's against nature; ye kudrat ke Kilaaf hai; ek baar ruuh ne jism kaa saath chho.D diyaa to jism miTTii ho jaataa hai aur aatmaa parawaaz; agar tuune apane jism me.n dobaaraa daakhil hone kii koshish kii to teraa jism zi.ndaa to ho jaayegaa par tuu inasaan nahii.n shaitaan ban jaayegii; an evil; a living dead

Shortly after this, Catherine's spirit heads to the cemetery screaming "I want my body! I want my body!", echoing the thoughts of the few drooling dudes in the nearly empty theatre that may have dared to screen this film.

Although Amit Shankar imbues Father James with a quiet calm reading and manages a good imitation of Sanjeev Kumar with the angry dilated eyes look, he still can't help sticking to that silly "an evil" bit throughout the film. "An evil what/who?" remains unanswered. He also lends the character's authenticity a much-needed kick in the rump by taking the Lord's name in vain. The other bit player who lends his role some gravitas is Shahbaaz Khan who plays the investigating officer Inspector Shaukat Khan. Most other players are limited to ephemeral appearances: Himani Shivpuri as Priya's mother, a well-dressed widow spouting the usual "your father left behind only debt for us" nonsense) and the randomly introduced Professor Siddarth Nath Bhattacharya, who vanishes after delivering one of the film's most promising lines.

is ulajhan ko sulajhaane ke liye ek gaharii concentration kii zaruurat hai
(Professor Siddharth Nath Bhattacharya)

As the film draws to a close with our lead pair back in the cemetery, you realise that you haven't seen a single song-n-dance sequence. As if to make amends, music director Vishwanath Dixit unleashes one of his creations upon us. The plaintive female voice (Alka Yagnik) belting out what proves to the title song offers a howlarious complement to Aryan Vaid racing to Catherine's grave in slow motion. It's not as funny as what Steven Soderbergh did with Berlin's Take My Breath Away in Ocean's Eleven, but it will have to do. If you manage to sit through all this, don't miss the end credits, which give the title song a chance to breathe again. It's part of that rare breed of film songs that drop crucial plot hints (in this case, the ending) and make for a poor listening experience, if you haven't watched the movie:

ye merii kabr me.n mujhako dafanaa diyaa
dekh phir bhii tujhe mai.nne apanaa liyaa

jo thii merii ghuTan ab hai terii ghuTan
(ghuTan hii ghuTan hai ghuTan hii ghuTan) * 3

subtitillation

[cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

Bollywood DVDs continue to scale new depths in transfer quality and new heights in the quality of subtitles. The people working on these subtitles seem to have no clue about the language that the dialogues are being spoken in -- or if they do, they've decided that the original text was too boring and decided to improvise. Here are a few items collected from the numerous hours watching evidence that the idiot box deserved its name.

Consider the odes to surrealism served up in movies like Shabd (kyo.n becomes why? 53 15) and Shikhar (the appearance of the cryptic 0618 10:46:5:12 10:46:54:00).

Consider the influences of jazz in the improvisatory liberties taken on lines of dialogue or fragments of lyrics. In Zeher, saahil kii tarah kaaTe mujhako chaahat kii har lahar is translated as every wave of love hits me like a bank; In Chocolate, beggar outside a temple is offered as the subtitle of ma.ndir kaa pujaarii. The gargantuan Ek Khiladi Ek Haseena took sirf arjun chaahiye? usakaa to ham shaam ko hii ##encounter## kar dete hai.n? and gave us why don't we kill his friend Shyam?. Jaan-E-Mann offered several howlers: ye kitaab mai.nne chaar baar pa.Dhii hai became i've read Picasso four times and i like self-made men became i like good manners. Shrabani Deodhar's made-for-TV-but-didn't-even-deserve-that Pehchaan (The Face of Truth) didn't stop at kachchii umar hamane saath guzaarii hai becoming we spent our prime together; dialogue in the courtroom scenes suffered as well (acts like a drug on the brain becomes the radical astra-block in the brain). In addition to being laden with belly-aching tropes of stupidity, Madhur Bhandarkar's Aan: Men at Work offered a lyrical experiment: ek lailaa ne dil uchhaalaa hai/saare aalam ko maar Daalaa hai ... haaye haaye re cha.Dhaa (etc etc) nashaa nashaa nashaa morphed into one juliet has offered her heart/she has killed the whole atmosphere ... hey, the inebriation has taken effect.

Subtitlers love dealing with profanity: they often bowdlerise screen dialogue, but make up for it by introducing cuss words in subtitles for scenes that were milder in contrast. In Lage Raho Munna Bhai baapuu ko jo karanaa wo kar le became the much stronger i don't give a sparrow's fart!. A wrong keystroke (intentional or not) often serves to introduce profanity in a harmless movie: In Sardar, the innocent junagadh's a mere pawn in the game of chess became the historically egregious junagadh's mere porn in the game of chess.

If you thought this was a problem assailing new movies, think again. In Yash Chopra's Kabhi Kabhie, har ik pal merii jawaanii hai in Sahir's mai.n pal do pal kaa shaayar huu.N got translated as i am the fountainhead of eternal youth. In Sitamgar, Majrooh's lyric took a severe beating (kisake liye marataa hai kaun / jhuuTh se log lete hai.n kaam / sab hai.n ta.Dapate apane liye / dete hai.n usako pyaar kaa naam became no one's dying for anyone / it's just a pack of lies .../ each to his own, orgasm... / yet they call it love...).

Consider now how names and numbers changed. You see a vehicle's licence plate on screen and yet the subtitle insists that it's another number. Mehra becomes Verma (Zeher), 987 becomes 973 (Aitraaz), Indu becomes Andy (Corporate), unniis saal becomes 20 years (Family: Ties of Blood) and Leela Sharma becomes Leela Heera (Film Star).

It ain't over yet folks. It wasn't bad enough that Jag Mundhra's Provoked took drastic liberties with the truth; the subtitlers had a ball twisting the lines of dialogue: they even offered alternative English subtitles to the existing English subtitles for the Hindi/Punjabi dialogue: we've had a tumultuous relationship at best became we've had multiple relationships.

Now's your chance to make a difference. Head over to Bombay TV's page dedicated to movie subtitling and take a shot at adding subtitles to a movie scene: you can choose to become yet another incompetent subtitler or you can do a world of good.

very odd, what happens in a world without children's voices: notes on Children of Men

[Cross-posted on the Passion For Cinema blog]

Alfonso Cuarón achieves a rare and deeply satisfying balance between form and content with Children of Men, a tale set in a dystopian future (2027, we are told) plagued by infertility and hurtling to doom as people and lands are devastated by war, civil and political breakdown and terrorism. We are in the London of the future. The urban landscape is bleak, polluted, filthy and shrouded by depression and gloom. Despite this being years into the future, the vehicles don't look futuristic at all, but merely aged versions of their current selves -- double-decker buses look just as dusty and mundane; only advertising seems to have made big strides: billboards and bus signs are now animated. One of the advertising spots running even informs us that The world has collapsed; only Britain strives on. A nationalist government is aided by a brutal police force and all foreigners are regarded as illegal immigrants and refugees are subjected to shame and torture in camps across the country. The government also disburses anti-depressants, perhaps in response to the widespread apathy and depression; yet, ganja is still illegal. Somehow media spectacle doesn't seem to have ceased: in the opening moments of the film we see people reacting to the death of Diego Ricardo, the youngest person on the planet, who was 18 years, 4 months, 20 days, 16 hours, and 8 minutes old.

All this is part of the texture of the film itself as is the soundtrack that features Deep Purple, King Crimson, Radiohead and John Lennon as well as an evocative use of Franco Battiato's cover of Ruby Tuesday. The content and narrative derive a lot from the P. D. James novel the film is based on, but there are significant differences that necessitate the evaluation of the film on its own terms. Emmanuel Lubezki's camerawork merits recognition and accolades of all kinds for the consistent palette of greys that make London look just as war-beleaguered as it did during the second World War. The Orwellian echoes from 1984 resonate in the trash-laden streets and dark alleys, the woods and fields on the outskirts of the city, the grime and grief of the internment camps for the refugees, and the police officers patrolling the roads with dogs.

Set design plays a crucial role in the film, because a lot of exposition comes not from dialogue, but from the spaces that we see our characters in: the salvaged art represented by Michaelangelo's David (that's missing a leg) and Picasso's Guernica (not to mention the flying pig that shows up, perhaps as a nod to Pink Floyd's Animals), the television ad for a suicide drug called Quietus, the graffiti on the walls.

The cinematographic choices are what seal the deal as far as balancing form and content is concerned. Cuarón eschews quick cuts and dramatic close-ups of any kind, preferring instead to use a lot of extended shots with handheld cameras, thus giving scenes a sense of verisimilitude, honesty and earnestness. Consequently, the film boasts two spectacular sequences. The first one is a 12-minute uninterrupted sequence of dialogue and action filmed from within a car carrying passengers. This employed a modified vehicle as well as a special camera rig and the results are simply astounding. The second sequence, a more explicit example of the cinéma vérité sensibility that Cuarón's approach lends the film, has us following characters through the streets, ducking under and into buildings and eventually making their way into a building, and then back out, all amidst continuous gunfire and explosions. In a spectacularly real stroke of luck, the camera lens is spattered with some (fake) blood and dirt at one point, thus shattering the fourth wall; the spatters vanish subsequently during a transition across a dark space, thus conveying the possibility that a silent cut happened. Not since the continuous opening shot from Orson Welles in Touch Of Evil has the extended take augmented the emotional core of the narrative so much, Scorsese's memorable excursion in Goodfellas notwithstanding.

The performances are all first rate; all the actors seem to have been picked for their ability to inhabit characters instead of being recognisable faces and personalities on screen: from Clive Owen's warm wry Theo Faron, whom both humans and animals seem to trust, to Michael Caine's hippie and former political cartoonist Jasper, to Julianne Moore as Theo's ex-wife Julian Taylor, who is now an underground revolutionary, to Danny Huston as Theo's cousin Nigel, to Claire-Hope Ashitey as Kee, Chiwetel Ejiofor as Luke, Pam Ferris as Miriam, Peter Mullan as Syd, and Oana Pellea as Marichka.

There is a reluctance to reveal more about the elements of the narrative and the plot. I went in to watch the film with just the premise of it being a tale of fading hope in a dystopian future. The rewards of not being forewarned about the details were immense. To find a film that's both intellectually and emotionally rewarding, a film that is compelling both in its content and the stimulating technique employed to present it is rare enough to want to go in blind. I was glad I stayed away from plot synopses (although I wish I had been prepared for the technical wizardry I was about to be treated to). Without revealing too much, I'd have to say that it also became the perfect Christmas Day movie for me.