Tag: farhan akthar

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cinema cinema: hindi Music

What’s Music Doc? Tere Bin

I have been fence sitter when it comes to the song or no song debate, I jump sides often (ya it’s me) . My reasons for this are grounded in the hours and hours of political news coverage by national and regional channels. “Issue based support” being the correct phrase, if you please.

This song from Wazir definitely deserves a WMD post.

tere-bin-story_647_120415045355

I do not know if anything else from Wazir deserves writing about, ok that was quite rude.

You can’t get always what you want, so my dream of ‘seeing’ the songs ONLY along with the film is more than always killed. Technically the songs should ONLY work in the boundaries of the film, yeah the song might be great, composed with a mind that has been aided by the hands of the divine or verses that have been taken right from the surface of a calm lake.

All that is ok, but what is the song doing in the movie, yaar?

Wazir has this genius level intro song, there is no prelude to this introduction(prelude to the introduction a? ennada solre), you have no idea who the characters are and there is no associated speak or visual cues for us to identify with; in other words Bejoy Nambiar was on a ‘wing and a prayer’ (we like to use phrases, kid writers we be) when he begins his film on loss of kids masquerading as a thriller with the absolutely wonderful ‘Tere Bin’

Shot in enjoyable slow motion, which although seems forced at the very beginning comes to its own being towards the end of the song; ever since I heard the song I had wanted to see it and ever since I have seen it, I can now never forget it. Which is success in a way.

But I’ll tell you what real success is, these flash backs are one irksome lot in movies, but the thing is most dramatic films can’t do without them, they lend character to the characters, essentially these are parcels of emotions which make us realize the motivations and why a certain character is behaving in a certain way at present. And this takes up a lot of screen time and when done badly makes you wish you were never born.

In 3 minutes Wazir establishes what most movies take a good part of the ‘first quarter of the post interval’ phase (hehe not that technically, buddy), there are no scenes as to how Daanish (Farhan Akhtar, a disoriented ATS officer) and Ruhana (a very oriented Kathak-ist? played by Aditi Rao Hydari) meet, there are no scenes of their courtship period (this being a Delhi film would have been shot in Humayun’s Tomb etc),there are no scenes to show each doting on the other, how their firstborn was cherished like little Simba and how love was so much part of their family like most Bollywood families tend to be; but all this is there in the song ya. ( director laughs like Blofeld who has plans to take over the world but doesn’t know Bond is lurking somewhere in the shadows)

And all this is very necessary for the audience to feel the weight of child loss when the kid is killed a few minutes later in a rather umm ‘This-is-not-supposed-to-happen-now’ moment (OK I spoiled that for you), so now you see that this is a genius move to open with a song that adds something to your movie and more importantly, doesn’t eat up time. Do not know if it will work every time, but here it did!

While Shreya Ghoshal and Sonu Nigam take you through the lives of the protagonist and family, couldn’t help wondering if these moments are like those carefully selected photos that are seen on facebook, highlighting the happy moments, even more stressing to the general populace that happiness is abound. ALWAYS.

But is it?

That’s for another post. but if only Wazir had been quite as amazing as the song and used judiciously the time created by this number.

 

Yeah, here is the song. 

 

 

Categories
cinema cinema: hindi

Rubber Men in Leather Suits

If there is any book by the name “How to make a blockbuster”, Farhan Akthar will have no need for it. I assume to know the contents of such a book and I can extend my assumption to Akthar.

But he is definitely at an advantage compared to my position viz behind the dusty screen of my aging computer. He has the weapons of nostalgia and homage, and he employs them to its full potential.

In his latest Ocean’s 11 meets Mission Impossible which accommodates healthy bits of Italian Job, Die Hard and the styling of the recent Bond and Bourne films cleverly titled Don2.

The rolling ticker at the right bottom of the screen indicates the country and the city in which the story is set. Don, Asian drug kingpin now eyes the European market and in an opening sequence mirroring the underworld meeting in many a gangster films, his Caucasian counterparts wish him dead.

I will not complain for I did not expect any artistic interpretations of the heist/crime/action genre. The movie only delivers what people expect it to be and it is fairly intelligent in doing so, if you have not seen the aforementioned movies.

It would be fair to slot Don in the Vikram category (remember the 80s Indian Bond starring Kamal Hassan?), an Indian trying the ropes of the west. I enjoy Vikram, every time they show it on TV(which is not much), it is just the notion of some ‘our-man’ playing a spy/agent/smart thief doesn’t go down well with certain people, but enjoyable nevertheless.

Don2 has the all the best plotlines from the best action movies and the problem is that it tries to recreate them in its own pace, only for brief moments in the later part of the movie that there is some respite before everything falls flat like a true Bollywood film to fistfights and kicks.

I do not think I am entitled to find logical loopholes and I didn’t spend much time trying to spot them, it is only the ‘we have seen this before, show us something different’ feeling that makes watching Don 2 not only difficult but quite impossible.

 

Yes yes, they are still maintaining the same dialogues. I can only be satisfied with my assumption that this movie was made in well meaning nostalgia and not with a motive to fool an audience out of their memory.