Autograph

I've just seen the Bengali movie Autograph. Before I say anything further I should accept that many of the people involved with the making of the movie are very well known to me - they include Srijit, the director, Priyam, the assistant music director, Anupam, lyricist and composer of a few songs and also the singer of perhaps the most popular track from the movie and Saptarshi, who has sung one of the songs. So I may be a little prejudiced while writing the review of the movie. But let me say that even if hadn't known anyone of these people still I would have written the same things that I'm going to write now.

Some information about the movie.

Some info about the songs

Listen to the songs

As Srijit has declared at the beginning, the movie is a fitting tribute to Satyajit Ray and Uttam Kumar, perhaps the two most prominent figures of all times in Bengali movies. The movie is about a director who wants to remake Nayak that Satyajit Ray had made in the sixties with Uttam Kumar in the lead. Nayak was a movie about a very successful movie star, about his stardom, about his past, about his continuous struggle to be in the top and about his constant inner fights that he fights alone. In Autograph an aspiring, confident and also extremely talented young director wants to remake Nayak with Arun Kumar Chatterjee in the lead role. Arun Kumar's role is played by Prasenjit. The name Arun Kumar itself has some significance - it's the real name of Uttam Kumar. A great part of the movie is about the making of the remake of Nayak - people who have seen Nayak will just love the way Srijit has shown the shooting of some of the very important scenes of the remake. As the shooting progresses the relation between Arun Kumar (Prasenjit), the director and his girlfriend Srin (Nandana Sen) moves in an unpredictable but quite logical way - that's the main essence of the movie. The director wants success at any cost and Arun Kumar himself has invested enough in his own movie - all these are very common things which you might have seen many times in many movies. But what makes the movie special is the climax and the ending - like the relations in the movie, the climax is also unpredictable but quite logical.

Nothing happens in the movie that shouldn't have happened. At the end you come out of the hall with only positive things - each turn of event, each nuance in the multi layered relations, each development either in the movie within in the movie or in the movie itself leaves you satisfied at the end - you don't feel excessively bad for anyone, neither do you feel extremely sorry for anyone. Neither you feel dejected nor you feel, ish eta ki holo, shit, why did it happen! I feel the ish eta ki holo feeling is very easy to evoke and most film makers titillate the viewers with it. But to make a movie without evoking any of the titillation, either in sentiments or testosterones, is indeed a great thing.

Go and watch the movie for a really positive feeling and off course some good music!

Riju, all the best to you!! I hope you make many more movies like this.

Thanks Maa

I don't know if you've noticed in today's TOI that a movie called "Thanks Maa" has been given a 4 Star rating. The movie is special to me because the writer of the movie, Vishal, has already become a good friend of mine. I have seen the movie a year back when it was screened at the Lankesh Film award (in the name of P Lankesh, the father of Kavita & Indrajit Lankesh, two successful, mainstream, new age, young Kannada directors). After seeing the movie I knew very well that this movie would surely make waves

and it did!! The main character got the National Award this year in the best child actor category!!

Today is the theatrical release of the movie. If you get a chance please go ahead and watch the movies. Creativity always needs sponsors. That's why most of the greatest painters and singers in history flourished in Royal courts. Now that we don't have the kings, and the common man is the king, it's our responsibility to make sure that creativity doesn't die down!! We all love creativity and I'm sure we'd love to see more and more creative things.

TOI review by Nikhat Kazmi:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/moviereview/5641226.cms

My review:

http://sudiptounplugged.blogspot.com/2009/03/lesser-known-tale-of-better-known.html

My Name is Khan & I'm Not a Terrorist

Finally Karan Johar has also grown up. That's the first reaction I'd after watching MNIK - My Name Is Khan. It was very tough to accept the fact that the movie was made by the same Karan Johar, who specializes in creating the most unrealistic of scenarios with the most weird settings around. Remember the story where Rahul could marry both the girls, he loved, in series, one after another when the first one died? Wow, what a great idea. No question of divorce or alimony. The first wife dies and enters the other love!! And what about the story of 'loving your parents' where the same Rahul, a little grown up now, has to leave his step father (with a baritone voice and a Himalaya of ego) because his love interest is not accepted at home - but then again sheds a Ganga of tears on Himalaya's shoulder at the end? And not to forget the songs where 1000 girls would be dancing around frantically practically to each and every occasion!! Compared to that MNIK is just such an awesome experience. It's no doubt one of the best films made in Hindi ever.

Many films were made on the topic of division of the world in the aftermath of 9/11 and the plights of the Muslims. But very few movies touched such a sensitive chord in such a simple way. Despite some of the little absurd turn of events, still the main theme was portrayed so well just through one sentence - My Name is Khan and I'm not a terrorist. Very few films can stand on just one line. You speak that line and you tell a story. That's like telling an epic in just a moment's silence, that's like that silent stare that sparks a zillion love and that quiet romantic evening where you talk a life's talk. And so endearing was San Francisco, a city that I love so much. SFO may not be one of the MUST SEE destinations for international tourists - people go more to New York or Las Vegas or Los Angeles - but still SFO has its own charm. It's truly a city that you fall in love with when only you see it from a close distance. MNIK caresses SFO so nicely!!

I hope Karan doesn't go back to Rahul and stays with his Khan!!

3 Idiots - some thoughts

by Kanishka Lahiri

Most of the bytes that are being expended on Bollywood's latest money spinner is either gushing praise for the bold portrayal of "the way it is" in India's education system, or fawn-like admirations for the film's ability to be "socially relevant", yet entertaining. A pleased-as-punch media is now indulgently gloating over the spat between Chetan Bhagat (on who's novel "Five

Point Someone" the film is based) and the producers of the film. The latter buried Chetan's name credit between the janitor and the tea-boy at the end of the movie, and are claiming that they did it only for contractual reasons, and that the story is an essentially original. But I digress. Reading a sample of reviews, I find it interesting that like the naked Emperor, no one seems to be talking about some of the big problems with the movie.

There is a scene in 3 Idiots that depicts the family of one of the protagonists: his father is a postman with an income, we are told, of Rs 2500 a month. He is bed ridden with illness, and the entire family believes the only hope for their survival is for the son to complete his engineering degree. This is not an uncommon scenario in India, where it's elite institutions are for the most part, accessible to students of poor backgrounds who have demonstrated sufficient academic merit. In fact, one can argue that this facet is among the most creditable attributes of these institutions.

Interestingly, the film's makers chose to portray this scene comically, claiming that entering the student's house was like a flashback into the 1950s, a seemingly bygone era that was characterized by perpetual shortages and misery. Bygone era? The Tendulkar Committee report published a few weeks ago places 42% of rural India and 26% of urban India below poverty line. That's only 407 million people.

The troubling aspects of this scene are numerous, and form the heart of a flippancy with which complex issues are depicted by 3 Idiots. This scene suggests that poverty, where it exists, is an abberation from the norm, an exception, something to be looked upon from an outsider's perspective, and when the viewing angle is just right, one can even laugh at it. What's shocking is

that the scene works. The audience follows the lead of the makers of the film, and bursts into peals of laughter at the sight of the poor household. When they are uncertain if the ploy will work, the screenplay stoops to levels that transcend all sense of reality (and decency) to guarantee the giggles (and the rupees). The poor mother scratches the old man's chest with the same rolling pin she is using to make rotis for her guests. Then, notwithstanding the body hairs stuck to the pin (which the camera cunningly zooms in on), she continues to make new ones. Our protagonists wisely refuse, and the audience erupts into laughter.

It's very clear in this scene who the audience is supposed to identify with. Or is it? What if you really are a postal service service employee? What if you do have shortages at home? Or even if you are rich - are you so insulated from the poverty that surrounds you, that this scene does not offend? Would this scene have generated the same guffaws 20 years ago? If not, you start wondering what has changed. Last week the Prime Minister categorically stated that the

reforms that he spearheaded in 1991 have so far failed to accelerate poverty reduction rates. We have more poor people in India today than ever before. How is it that such scenes are suddenly considered acceptable, let alone entertaining? What does it say about sensibilities of modern audiences?

I suspect the filmmakers know fully well this scene will elicit fewer laughs in the universal "Galaxy Theater" in small-town India than in upscale Koramangala's PVR multiplex. Fundamentally, it's a business decision: they know their audience, and have devised a successful strategy for entrapping it by taking advantage of its increasing insularity from the masses and its apathy towards the country's real problems.

In a later scene, the same lower middle-class houselhold doesn't have the creative or financial resources to transport the dying postman to the hospital. However, our upper-class imaginative hero steps in with the solution of using his girlfriend's scooter to move the patient when the ambulances fail to show up. The audience rapturously swallows this up as well, thanks to the comedy. The thin veil works astonishingly well. The audience fails to notice that the film

has shamelessly made Aamir "save the savages from themselves", just like the numerous European imperial protagonists who executed the "white man's burden" in racist depictions of their nobilty in lending a helping hand to the so-called third world. The isolation of India's suave urban rich from the reality of India's poor and lower middle classes appears to be complete, and condescension is taken for granted. The former sits back in air conditioned multiplexes with

reclining seats, pays Rs 300 for a movie ticket and finds it acceptable that urban poverty is justified material for comedy. It's self-gratifying that that one of their own is stepping up to save the poor from the clutches of the "system". Not suprising in a movie where the opening credits pay homage to shining India's new royalty such as "Mukesh Ambani, Chairman". The credits do

not say of what - simply chairman. Why not take the obsequiousness the full length and crown him Emperor of Shining India?

With intentional, intelligent but in the end purely commercial strategy, the film succeeds in creating yet another bubble (alongside gated communities, multiplex theaters, special economic zones) in which the well-endowed urban India can have a good laugh and "enjoy life jingalala" explkoiting, but not unerstanding the real issues out there. The film's makers should be credited for being able to pull this off while at the same time have the audience leave the theaters with a feel-good hypocrisy of having watched a film with a "message". They on the other hand will laugh their way to the box office, thanks to the gullibility and naivety of the modern multiplex audience.

The shameful hypocrisy of the film stands out when it is pitched by its multi-million dollar publicity machine as social commentary: a so-called indictment of the system of education in India's premier institutions. In truth, the movie's depiction of the problems associated with this country's elite institutions is one-dimensional, callous, and disgustingly shallow. This would

be perfectly acceptable if this was pitched a caper movie: (think Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Matthew Broderick's high school caper classic). 3 Idiots tries to have it both ways: dish out cheap jokes in order to rake in the moolah, while garlanding itself with the honour of serving a public purpose. Even that might be excusable, if it were done subtely, with due respect shown for the thousands of people who work within the system, but do not embody the problems

associated with it. But no, that would have hurt the movie's profit margin. Also, it is convenient (and profitable) to just "blame the system". If the film is sincere in its attempt at social commentary, how come it doesn't waste any reel time on the problems created and perpetrated by the student body itself?

No, in fact, it endorses the exact types of student behaviors that have contributed to academic rot that we see in many of our best institutes today. The audience applauds when Aamir and his friends trick the professor into accepting their answer scripts 30 minutes beyond the stipulated writing time (forget about the glaring plot hole in their use of that technique), and never

questions the rampant brazenness or drunkeness on display by the protagonists. When on occasion it does, it does so through the Hitler-like Director of the institute, which as a indictment is less than half hearted, and fundamentally dead-on-arrival, since his character is a comic personification of all that is supposedly wrong with the faculty body. So again there are no surprises for guessing how audience sentiment will align.

While it is undeniable that "all is *not* well" in our academic institutions, this film is hardly the the kind of testimony that will help improve the system. Once you dispel that illusion (one created by the publicity machine and lapped up by the media and audiences nationwide), you're left with an above average comedy (by Bollywood standards), with some scenes that are guilty of shockingly poor taste. The real tragedy is that urban society is so divided today, that it would be wrong to say that the filmmakers have failed to judge people's sensitivities. They have judged things to a nicety: they are spot on in assessing that the crowd at PVR is insensitive, and that they are likely to hoot and scream at anything as long as the packaging is right. And sadly, in their scheme of things, the crowd at Galaxy simply doesn't matter any more.

Mother of all Plagiarization

People who have seen 3 Idiots and have seen the name of Chetan Bhagat and his '5 Point Someone' at the very end among the names of the spot boys and the hair dresser and many other people involved with the film would very well understand that it's no doubt the mother of all plagiarization. The producers of the movie have claimed it's barely related to 5 points someone. It's true that there are lots of new things in the movie but anyone, who even barely remembers the book (not because the book is bad but because he/she might have read it long time back), can also tell you that the most of the story line, turn of events (stealing the question paper, suicide attempt of one of the trio, the suicide of the son of the principal and the very fact that the principal always believed that his son dies in accident and many more), and characterizations (the principal, the over serious south Indian student) follow the book hubahu. Still not putting Chetan's name as the writer of the story is really disgusting. Just imagine, Chetan is the highest selling English writer in India. Still Bollywood dares to not give him his due credit. What would be the fate of the much lesser known writers? More disgusting is Amir Khan's comment: "I think he is trying to get publicity to sell more copies of ‘Five Point Someone’. In fact, I told Vinod that he should take him to court as he is maligning both Vinod and Raju" - he may not know that 5 Point Someone has already sold more copies than any other English novel written by an Indians till date. The book was already a best seller for long time even before the movie came into being.

I wish Chetan goes to court. What Taiwan does in the areas of semiconductors Bollywood does the same in the filed of art and culture!! It's high time that some big shot in Bollywood is ripped in public!!

Don't miss the Idiots

There used to be a time when we used to see Govinda's fims on the first day!! Perhaps Govinda had the highest standard deviation among his fans - at one side there are all of us in all the engineering and medical and management schools and at the other end there are the auto-walas!! After a very long time I again managed to see a film on the first day... well not even the first day but the premier show. No points for guessing, it's indeed another movie which would be liked by all IITians (I doubt though if the autowallas would like this that much).

It's just awesome. It will surely fill everyone with nostalgia - with all the typical legendary engineer jokes (like how does a DC machine start and many more). Though very loosely based on 5 Point Someone, but the essence is same. Few weeks back I read in a column, where Chetan Bhagat had mentioned about the screwed up education system of India with all the unreasonable pressures it puts on the students, the flimsy parameters to measure success and the total lack of any importance to creativity. This movie has just expressed each of these points so nicely!! You can call it a documentary on Indian education system, but at no point it bores you at all. It conveys some very good messages but never it sounds like Gyan!! And above all.... Amir Khan is just too good!!

Again Raju Hirani has proved that Indian cinemas can be serious stuff and not just hundred people with designer dresses dancing on the streets of New York or the exotic locales of Ladakh. Munnabhai MBBS and Lage Raho Munnabhai were also very made movies with every character well researched. I've read somewhere that the medical terms used in Munnabhai MBBS were all very authentic and truly depicted. Same here with the engineering terms and the various other things shown in the movie. I hope more and more people come forward and make meaningful and well researched movies like this.

Each and every character in 3 Idiots appear so real. Roughly the story line follows 5 Point Someone. Here also there are three friends who start feeling a spark between them from the very first day in engineering college. The ragging scenes are little different from what's there in the book. Nevertheless Raju Hirani has captured many of the common ragging practices across various engineering colleges - like dancing with undies, being asked to pee on an electric heater and getting electrified etc. IIT Delhi has become Imperial College of Engineering, which we all know is actually the IIMB. The director of the engineering college could have been no one other than Boman Irani. He has been given an Einsteinish look and he is just fabulous in the role of a ruthless and heartless professor who just judges one by the grades and nothing else. Amitabh Bachchan in Mohabbatein was also supposed to be a similar type of person, but you need to really see the difference in the way these two characters with similar shade have been treated. Mohabbatein was just a crap making a caricature of the principal, and here the director so neatly represents a typical crude face of the Indian education system which is nothing but a ghost of the clerk making system started by the British more than hundred years back. Amir Khan represents what the education should have been in reality - s0me thing that Rabindranath would have aspired of creating in his Shantiniketan or any educationist anywhere on earth would have talked about. Vivekananda defined education so simply as the manifestation of perfection already in man. The role of a school is to just bring out the perfection. The role of school is something like a gardener who nurtures a sapling to grow into a big tree. The gardener never makes a pine out of a rose plant. A rose plant will always grow into rose tree whatever you feed. The basic fault in our education system is, as mentioned in the movie, to force a Lata Mangeshkar to become a fast bowler and a Sachin a singer. Some of the dialogues are so nice. Like "don't go after success, just learn whatever you can and success will come running after you". In fact the last scene of the movie is exactly an enactment of this.

Those who have read 5 Point Someone will any way know the story. So there's no suspense. But still the creators of the movie have created some extra suspense and parallel story lines just to make sure that not everyone predicts everything that's happening. One major difference is that the main character of the movie is shown as the topper, who doesn't believe in the education system, but still manages to score high grades because he actually loves to learn engineering and doesn't always run after grades. Whatever he does, he does with passion. Apart from that there's not much of difference in the characterization of the three 'idiots'. Amir falls in love with Boman Irani's daughter, Samran Joshi's father is paralyzed and Madhavan's father has forced him to study engineering against his wishes to become a wild life photographer. Finally there's also the suicide attempt of Samran and stealing the question papers by the trio. The rooftop escapades are also retained so nicely in the movie. This is one of the very few cases where a successful book is converted into even a better movie.

The most entertaining thing about the movie is undoubtedly the dialogues - they are so humorous. Raju Hirani and his team has kept their signature prominently in this movie also with all the witty scenes and dialogues. Even the underlining pathos in some of the scenes have been given such a wonderful touch of humor!!

Overall - too good a movie!! Go and watch!!