7 Thoughts on 7 Khoon Maaf

7 Khoon Maaf may not be the ambitious masterpiece that Vishal Bhardwaj hoped, but it is easily among the more challenging and conversation-worthy pieces of cinema Bollywood has produced in recent times. Like Bhardwaj and his film, I couldn't quite get my thoughts to cohere to form a full review, so here goes:

1. Maqbool remains my favorite Bhardwaj film, and I can understand the general wave of disappointment with this film. It's not an easy film to like (and appreciate) and there is certainly truth in the claim that this is VB's weakest work to date. Still, a weak VB effort is better than what 90% of the directors out there are capable of making. And anything with this much ambition and complexity needs to be appreciated on a much deeper level.

2. The central role required an extremely versatile actress, capable of expressing genuine insanity at the right moments. Unfortunately, Priyanka Chopra is not that actress; she simply doesn't have the skills to provide the complex shadings that this role requires (her line reading of "I'm going to drink his blood" in the trailers had already made me suspicious of her ability to pull this off). One of the reasons for this could be that the character of Susanna is frustratingly opaque. Is this merely bad screenwriting or is it deliberate: we always see her filtered through the POV of someone who admittedly never understood her (a possibility bolstered by the fact that the only time Susanna's motivations make complete sense are when the film awkwardly shifts to her own voice-over towards the end). The only inkling that we do get into her psychology is when Ghalib narrates the incident where Susanna shot the dog on her way to school -- and even then she remains an enigma. Perhaps she is incapable of being understood by the rest of the world. Still, great actresses can fill in the gaps and elevate under-written roles which Chopra never does. It's a very good performance, great even in parts, but despite the changes in body language and make-up, Chopra is unable to sell the character arc completely.

3. Each of the six "episodes" have something to recommend -- the "John Abraham as rockstar" chapter remains the weakest though -- but the Musafir (Irrfan Khan), Vronsky (Aleksandr Dyachenko) and Keemat (Annu Kapoor) ones are easily the best. It helps, of course, that all three actors are excellent in their respective roles, especially Khan, who is handed one of the rare characters in the history of mainstream Bollywood with an affinity for S&M. Thankfully, he has the range to convey both the mystique of the poet that he portrays and the horror of the transformation he undergoes every night while he is in bed. Dyachenko is supremely entertaining, while Kapoor is appropriately disgusting. Bhardwaj is one of the rare directors who allows his actors brief moments of madness -- remember that fake shoot-out scene between Bhope and Mikhail in Kaminey? Here we get only a few seconds of it, but Harish Khanna absolutely kills in his mimicry of a mad dog!

4. Are we supposed to take the six husbands and their murders literally? I'm not so sure, and I have more than a sneaking suspicion that there is a lot of metaphor at play here. Almost all of them are stereotypes and each one of them seems to have a character flaw of his own. Are these individual problems supposed to be viewed as a representation of masculinity as a whole? Is Susanna merely killing these husbands or is she trying to get rid of these traits from all men? Is it simply a quest for Susanna to find the right soul mate, one without flaws, a quest which eventually leads her to her seventh husband?

5. Despite all the flaws (the scene which plays as the end credits roll is an epic misstep), few directors are capable of understanding the aesthetics of filmmaking the way Bhardwaj does. He may always be adapting from literary works, but he understands that cinema is a wholly different medium -- both visually and aurally, the film is superb. That cut from the menacing night to the white cat in snow will easily rank among the best shots of the year (and how about that splash of blood in the opening sequence for an unforgettable image!). The background score seems to have a life of its own (as was the case with Kaminey's sensational score), and at least two of Bhardwaj's songs are exceptional. As a director, he may not have been able to make everything work together in the end, but he absolutely nails the mood and tone of individual plotlines.

6. I'm still stumped regarding the use of actual historical events in the background during the course of the film. If this was just a novel way to convey the timeline, it seems unnecessary and if it has a deeper meaning or subtext, it hasn't been revealed to me after two full viewings. Any thoughts would be welcome.


SPOILERS BELOW! 


7. Which brings us to the big question, of course: The seventh crime. We know that her seventh "husband" is Jesus, as we see Susanna becoming a nun at the end of the film and accepting Jesus as the only man in her life. The scene which immediately follows shows her confessing her "seven crimes" -- a number of possibilities have come up in discussions and I think two of these can be easily dismissed: It's definitely not Aunt Maggie's death (too literal) and it's certainly not the murder of the dog (too ridiculous). There are two that make enough sense to be equally possible. The first theory suggests that perhaps Susanna is referring to her own metaphorical "murder", where she kills her old self and accepts her new life as a nun. We also see Arun mentioning this to his wife in the last scene ("She is dead for ever"). My own reading of the film makes me believe more in the second theory: that the seventh crime is actually the crucifixion of Christ. As a nun, Susanna realizes that Jesus died for our sins and that all human beings are responsible for his death. It seems to be more in keeping with her constant search for God throughout the film, right from the first marriage and indicates, perhaps, that she has finally realized the gravity of sins committed by her during her life.

Short Notes: Udaan, Lamhaa and Inception

I apologize for this long delay, but the sidebar to the right should tell you why I couldn't muster up enough enthusiasm to write about the several films that were released during this time. Bollywood delivered dud after dud -- and Hollywood gave us only Toy Story 3 -- but thankfully the movie gods have heard our prayers and given us the best films of the year (so far) from both worlds in a single weekend. My brief thoughts on this week's releases:

Udaan (Vikramaditya Motwane)
Bollywood's "Coming of Age" films often end up in a world of their own construct -- one that may bear traces of isolated moments we may have experienced, but never come close to mirroring the real lives we lead and emotions we feel during the turbulent teen-years. In his debut film, Vikramaditya Motwane works with a new template -- Udaan is tinged with the bitter-sweet emotions of life as we know it. This moody, freeflowing film explores the claustrophobic life of a teenager stuck in a small-town with a tyrannic father, dreaming of becoming a writer (his father, of course, has other plans for him). Their relationship is complicated enough to register as completely believable -- and even the most dramatic exchanges between them ring true.

Motwane has a beautiful eye for details: the lived-in feel of the places these characters inhabit, the languid pace of small-town life, and those heady nights spent dreaming of the future. Udaan is anchored by superb performances from Rajat Barmecha, Ronit Roy and Aayan Boradia and boasts of another wonderfully atmospheric score from Amit Trivedi. More than anything, the screenplay -- colored with Motwane's own experiences -- never loses focus or betrays its complicated characters. Bollywood believes that estranged father-son relationships always end with emotional reconciliation -- Motwane and Kashyap understand that sometimes, in real life, walking away and finding your own path is the best solution. A-

Lamhaa (Rahul Dholakia)
Where Udaan becomes universal despite its specificity, Lamha suffers by eschewing individual plot threads in favor of a macroscopic viewpoint about a subject that yearns for a fresh perpective. It crumbles under the weight of too much crammed into too little space -- there's a mish-mash of filmmaking styles and decades of issues fighting for survival in this tale, and unfortunately none of them get fully formed, leaving a half-baked product that may be commendable for its subject, but not much else. Rahul Dholakia made a brilliant debut with Parzania, but bigger stars -- and possibly bigger studio money -- have made him lose his individuality as a director. He can't decide if this film should be a masala thriller (slo-mo, electric-guitar scored star entries) or a documentary. It's not like these two disparate styles are impossible to mix (ask Paul Greengrass), but Dholakia's attempt feels disjointed and pointless -- and the jarring background score doesn't help the narrative. The performances range from a sleepwalking Sanjay Dutt to a hysterical Shernaz Patel, who isn't given enough time or backstory to earn those dramatic line deliveries. Disappointing. C

Inception (Christopher Nolan)
Surrounded by deafening pre-release hype, Inception has generated unexpectedly divisive reactions from the critical community. Count me among its huge fans -- it may not, outright, be Nolan's best product (a case could be made for The Dark Knight or Memento) or his least flawed (The Prestige), but it is easily his most ambitious. The film is helped, more than anything, by Nolan's enhanced ability to compose action sequences -- a skill that he has certainly improved upon, compared to his earlier films -- that jaw-dropping anti-gravity sequence is going to be talked about as much as the freeze frames or the bullet sequence from The Matrix. The core themes are not entirely original -- Mulholland Drive, eXistenZ, Vertigo, Waking Life and this year's Shutter Island immediately come to mind -- but the screenplay manages to distinguish the film from those mentioned by moulding those ideas in the shape of a heist movie.

The chemistry between the ensemble cast stands out more than individual performances here, though Leonardo DiCaprio is excellent (as always, even if this is almost identical to the character he played in Shutter Island) and after being a staple on the indie circuit for the past few years, Joseph-Gordon Levitt finally gets introduced to the mainstream movie-watching world in spectacular fashion. Lee Smith edits the hell out of this thing -- especially post-interval when four different worlds fight for screen-time and audience attention. That the film never sags and the audience never loses interest is testament to both his and Nolan's ability for being able to juggle with so many balls up in the air all at once. The film is not without its flaws -- after two viewings, I feel that the film explains too much through exposition, but that is a minor quibble in what is otherwise an exhilarating movie experience. A

Film Review: Love Sex Aur Dhokha

The moral fabric of a rapidly transforming urban India comes under the scanner in Dibakar Banerjee's audacious new offering: Love, Sex aur Dhokha. Banerjee's is an altogether distinct voice in Indian cinema today -- his attention to detail and complex characters manage to create a completely authentic North Indian milieu (those who've lived in that part of the country will attest to the fact that his characters possess an uncanny resemblance to people they know in real life). Shot entirely in Dogma-style, using hand-held and "hidden" cameras, unknown actors and a complete disregard for vanity, LSD looks destined for cult status.

The triptych narrative features characters caught in a web of familiar human emotions: insecurities, jealousy, despair; and the astonishingly natural performances add to the surprising emotional resonance of this film -- especially during the stunning denouement of the seemingly frivolous and light-hearted initial chapter. This first story lovingly mocks traditional Yash Raj romances -- the film-school student making his diploma film addresses his dialogues to Adi sir while re-creating the Raj/Simran love story for his film (makes sense for such a radically different film to acknowledge the existence of mainstream Bollywood).

The three stories featured here are inspired by real life events -- and LSD makes us realize how desensitized we've become to these shocking stories that appear in our newspapers everyday, thanks to the onslaught of reality television and a hyper-invasive media. The actors here perform as if they are unaware of the cameras focused on them -- ironic, since Nikos Andritsakis's camera is almost a character by itself, an inherent part of this film's voyeuristic impulses. 

The dialogues and interactions between the characters are painfully real. I swear I've seen the disgustingly hilarious conversation that's played out in the second chapter at the store between the day-time store girl and the character played by Raj Kumar Yadav in front of my eyes! This is also the strongest of the film's three chapters -- shot entirely using security cameras and featuring excellent performances by Yadav and Neha Chauhan and scene-stealing turns by the watchman and the actress who plays the day-time store girl (must look up her name!).

I must admit that I was very wary of this film coming off as too gimmick-y when I first read about it months ago -- primarily because the themes handled here have already been explored with varying levels of success in recent movies (MMS porn clips, casting couch and sting operations form the basis for the other two stories). But Banerjee and co-screenwriter Kanu Behl have managed to dig deep into these issues and they pull no punches in embracing the disturbing nature of these pulp-y tales. The narrative is consistently engaging (thanks in no small part to Namrata Rao's superb editing). 

Love, Sex Aur Dhokha may as well have been titled Sex, Lies and Videotape, Steven Soderbergh's Palme d'Or winning 1989 film that went on to shape an entire decade of independent filmmaking in Hollywood. Whether LSD will be as influential as that film remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: with three brilliant films already under his belt, it's time to officially induct Dibakar Banerjee into our list of great Bollywood directors. I can't wait to see what he does next. B+

Film Review: Karthik Calling Karthik

The psychological thriller genre has long been a Hollywood mainstay, and it finally arrives in Bollywood with Vijay Lalwani's Karthik Calling Karthik.

The first few scenes of this film set up a fascinating character study -- anyone who's an introvert of this specific kind (or knows one fairly well) will find it easy to identify with Karthik's suffocating loneliness and lack of social confidence, and Farhan Akhtar seems to be really tapping into this character's inner turmoil in this early stage of the film (he does very well in the rest of the film too). This is a great premise for complex human exploration, but the screenplay chooses to cut the tension with the film's central conceit far too soon: a phone call that Karthik receives from an unknown entity that claims to be (and sounds exactly like) him.

As you may have already seen in the trailers (or read in news articles), Karthik's alter-ego inspires him to undergo a sea change, giving him confidence to stand up against a tyrant boss and helping him in getting the girl of his dreams (Deepike Padukone, acting believably for once). Herein lies the film's biggest flaw, because this transformation never really happens on screen -- there is no connective tissue to explain how this character undergoes such a drastic transition and the film suffers for it. It would've been far more believable if the screenplay would've allowed this change to play out gradually over a few conversations. (Lalwani structures the second half far more believably, where you get to see what could be described as the reverse-transformation of this character).

It's difficult to describe the rest of the plot without giving away spoilers so I'll refrain from revealing any further details. Anyone who's seen enough Hollywood films, though, will be able to stay a couple of steps ahead of the screenplay; and that's part of what ruined the experience for me. Early on in the film, there's a flashback to Karthik's childhood and if, like me, you've seen a fair number of psychological thrillers, you'll easily guess one of the film's central mysteries. (The big reveal comes at the end when it doesn't seem like a reveal at all, destroying any expectations of a crackling climax, which this film needed). 

The second half of this film is much stronger than the first -- the screenplay and editing post-interval are very tight. In contrast, the pacing of the first half can be described as wobbly at best. Cinematographer Sanu John Varughese mixes a number of styles to shoot this film, though the flashbacks have been shot in the same tones (and include the same unnecessary voice-overs) that a lot of Bollywood films seem to be using these days. The scenes switch to black and white at pivotal moments, even as you see a bright red light flickering behind the window.

In the end, Karthik is a film defined by its disappointments almost as much as it is defined by its strengths -- at every stage, the screenplay sets up an interesting character arc and then doesn't seem willing to pursue it for fear of losing audience love. The film succeeds as an exercise in style, and is engaging for most of its runtime, but a number of elements in the story could've been used far more effectively. It refuses to fully embrace its dark side, wimping out of an ending that could've added much more to this story. 

In the closing shot, we're left with an image of the Rubik's cube Karthik has been working on, lying on the table, completely solved (a metaphor for his life you see!). I have a feeling this would've ended differently in Hollywood. Grade: B-

Film Review: My Name is Khan

Karan Johar and Shah Rukh Khan's latest arrives amidst overblown controversy, expected hype and the mainstream critical community firmly on its side. My Name is Khan is the first directorial effort by Johar that isn't based on his own writing, and right from the outset, you can tell that the director is trying to break away from his previous work -- the opening credits do not arrive with a booming chorus or fancy lettering. Instead, they quietly play over the scene as we find our lead character, Rizvan Khan, heading to the airport. We follow him to the security checking area, where his co-passengers look at his behavior with increasing suspicion. With its dramatic camera angles and background score, the strip search scene that follows immediately sets out to plant the viewers on the protagonist's side.

It is here, that Johar makes the most over-abused narrative choice -- the voice-over. We are taken back to Rizvan's childhood in Mumbai. He suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, and the screenplay establishes his relationship with his mother (wonderfully played by Zareena Wahab) which will deeply affect the choices that he will make in his life. By the time these early scenes end, the first of this film's many half-assed sub-plots has already been set up and tossed aside -- that of Rizvan's brother and how Rizvan's condition affects the relationship between him and his mother (as Baradwaj Rangan notes in his review, this angle was already explored by Sanjay Leela Bhansali in Black).

After a series of events that follow, we find Rizvan heading to the US, to live with his brother and his wife. In San Francisco, Rizvan meets Mandira (Kajol), who as we discover later, is a single mother who walked out of an unhappy marriage (the screenplay isn't interested in the effect that this situation may have had on Mandira's son). The early scenes of their relationship are shot extremely well, and cinematographer Ravi K Chandran deserves as much credit as the director for bringing to life the sequences and locations of their early courtship (as well as the gorgeous locales on display in the second half). They're soon married but blissful life doesn't last very long, as the whole family finds itself being affected by the 9/11 and the events that follow in the its wake. The rest of the film follows Rizvan on his journey to meet the President, to tell him that he's not a terrorist.

If that last part makes it sound like this is a movie dealing with terrorism (as the filmmakers and studio would like you to believe), you are in for disappointment. New York and Kurbaan at least set out in that direction -- of trying to understand the mindset of the terrorist and what causes them to cross the line over to the other side -- even if they were failures in the end. My Name Is Khan is not bothered with those details, choosing to focus on its lead character's journey and the challenges he faces in overcoming a life affected with Asperger's Syndrome. The obvious template is Forrest Gump, another simplistic tale of a man beating the odds; "Life is like a box of chocolates" is replaced here by "Duniya mein sirf do tarah ke log hote hain, acche or bure" ("There are only two kinds of people in the world: Good and bad"). But the main ingredients that made Forrest Gump work -- a continuously inventive plot and a focused screenplay, even as it chose to skirt around the complexities of the events that unfolded in the span of Forrest's life -- are evidently missing here.

Human complexity is not Johar's strongest suit -- he failed on almost every level the last time he made an attempt at exploring complicated characters and situations (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna). But I can sense that there is a desire in Johar to prove his "seriousness" as a director. Although his first two films were huge box office hits and were very well received by mainstream critics, he's had his fair share of vocal detractors who've labeled his brand of melodrama and flashiness as "bubble gum" fare. Johar is out to prove that he has matured as a director and is capable of handling serious themes. Sadly, that is also the ultimate undoing of this film, as it sits uncomfortably between an all-out mainstream melodrama and a more serious "message movie". 

The film depends on its lead actor to sell the story and Shah Rukh Khan is mostly effective in that department. It's an uneven performance that has honest, believable moments and self-aware, "look at my performance"  scenes in equal measure but it's certainly among his better performances and has flashes of brilliance that rival his best work in Swades. Kajol has always been a natural performer, and she is exceptionally good here -- even if she's hitting the same notes that we may have seen in her earlier performances. (Johar reigns in any possibilities of the actress going over the top, as she tends to do in excessively comedic or dramatic scenes). Other actors are mostly wasted -- most notably Arjun Mathur, Sonia Jehan and Sugandha Garg who have delivered memorable performances earlier in small roles (Luck By Chance, Khoya Khoya Chaand and Jaane Tu... Ya Jaane Na, respectively) and are relegated to the most troubling part of the film -- the last act.

I'm deliberately trying to avoid writing about the last act, which is as insulting, unfocused and unforgivable as anything you might've seen. The screenplay creates a series of events that are devoid of any realistic emotion or credibility, undoing all the better moments that have worked in the film till that point. It is essentially a repeat of the "Shah Rukh Khan as Messiah" last act from Kal Ho Na Ho, another film that lost its way in the final stretch. At more than two and a half hours, the film overstays its welcome and would have hugely benefited from a more disciplined editing.It is evident that Johar understands mainstream cinema extremely well, and as much as I may choose to ridicule that brand of film-making, I would love for Johar to go back to his strengths in his next project.

In one of the film's most memorable visuals, Shah Rukh Khan holds up a signboard that says "Repair Almost Anything". Unfortunately, this screenplay and film are beyond repair. Grade: C+