Not as bright as the stars
The quartet of quickies that constitutes Bombay Talkies serves a dual purpose. It tells us what it is that has made Mumbai cinema work for a hundred years. At the same time, at a deeper and probably unintended level, it also concedes exactly what it is that prevents Bollywood, as we know it today, from achieving greater heights as a mode of artistic expression.
Three of the four short films here are not even about the medium of cinema per se, and just one of these three is only tangentially about the art of storytelling and mythmaking that sustains the dream machine.
They are essentially about the deep bond that the Indian masses have with the movie megastars. What they say is: the medium isn’t the message; the dreams are.
The first story, directed by Karan Johar, homes in on a hip working couple (Rani Mukherji and Randeep Hooda) whose less-than-perfect relationship is rocked violently by the advent of a rebellious gay drifter (Saqib Saleem) who has the hots for the hubby.
What does a story about alternative sexuality have to do with the essence and history of Hindi cinema? Not much, as far as this reviewer can see, except for the tenuous connection that Johar makes with a couple of timeless Lata Mangeshkar numbers from the 1960s, which are sung by a girl on a railway station over-bridge.
The gloss is in place and the technical attributes are of the highest order. Johar also extracts a great performance from Rani Mukherjee, who looks and acts every inch the part of an entertainment supplement editor. But Onir did a much better job of addressing same-sex love in the crowd-funded 'I Am...'.
Bombay Talkies is bookended by Anurag Kashyap with a lively story of a young Allahabad man who is dispatched by his father to Mumbai with a little piece of home-made murabba for his favourite movie actor, Amitabh Bachchan. It is entertaining but thin.
The third segment, directed by Zoya Akhtar, narrates the slight tale of a boy whose father wants him to be a footballer but whose own ambition is to be a dancer like Katrina Kaif.
The question of gender stereotyping is raised all right, just as Johar’s story touches upon the theme of sexual orientation, but the treatment is strictly surface level.
The segment that stands out is the one crafted by Dibakar Banerjee. It is the second, and is the only one that remains etched in the mind after the two-hour tribute to Hindi cinema has run its course.
It is a loose adaptation of a short story by Satyajit Ray about a lower middle class man, a one-time actor grappling with the drudgery of his dead-end life in a big city, who stumbles upon a moment of ‘stardom’ when he is roped in to play a walk-on part in a big film. The chance break gives the man an ‘exciting’ story to tell his daughter.
Banerjee uses sound, light, and the purity of hand and body gestures to great effect and, with an actor as astounding as Nawazuddin Siddiqui breathing life into the vision, this is a knockout show. The rest of Bombay Talkies, including the scene of two men kissing, isn’t quite that bracing!
The quartet of quickies that constitutes Bombay Talkies serves a dual purpose. It tells us what it is that has made Mumbai cinema work for a hundred years. At the same time, at a deeper and probably unintended level, it also concedes exactly what it is that prevents Bollywood, as we know it today, from achieving greater heights as a mode of artistic expression.
Three of the four short films here are not even about the medium of cinema per se, and just one of these three is only tangentially about the art of storytelling and mythmaking that sustains the dream machine.
They are essentially about the deep bond that the Indian masses have with the movie megastars. What they say is: the medium isn’t the message; the dreams are.
The first story, directed by Karan Johar, homes in on a hip working couple (Rani Mukherji and Randeep Hooda) whose less-than-perfect relationship is rocked violently by the advent of a rebellious gay drifter (Saqib Saleem) who has the hots for the hubby.
What does a story about alternative sexuality have to do with the essence and history of Hindi cinema? Not much, as far as this reviewer can see, except for the tenuous connection that Johar makes with a couple of timeless Lata Mangeshkar numbers from the 1960s, which are sung by a girl on a railway station over-bridge.
The gloss is in place and the technical attributes are of the highest order. Johar also extracts a great performance from Rani Mukherjee, who looks and acts every inch the part of an entertainment supplement editor. But Onir did a much better job of addressing same-sex love in the crowd-funded 'I Am...'.
Bombay Talkies is bookended by Anurag Kashyap with a lively story of a young Allahabad man who is dispatched by his father to Mumbai with a little piece of home-made murabba for his favourite movie actor, Amitabh Bachchan. It is entertaining but thin.
The third segment, directed by Zoya Akhtar, narrates the slight tale of a boy whose father wants him to be a footballer but whose own ambition is to be a dancer like Katrina Kaif.
The question of gender stereotyping is raised all right, just as Johar’s story touches upon the theme of sexual orientation, but the treatment is strictly surface level.
The segment that stands out is the one crafted by Dibakar Banerjee. It is the second, and is the only one that remains etched in the mind after the two-hour tribute to Hindi cinema has run its course.
It is a loose adaptation of a short story by Satyajit Ray about a lower middle class man, a one-time actor grappling with the drudgery of his dead-end life in a big city, who stumbles upon a moment of ‘stardom’ when he is roped in to play a walk-on part in a big film. The chance break gives the man an ‘exciting’ story to tell his daughter.
Banerjee uses sound, light, and the purity of hand and body gestures to great effect and, with an actor as astounding as Nawazuddin Siddiqui breathing life into the vision, this is a knockout show. The rest of Bombay Talkies, including the scene of two men kissing, isn’t quite that bracing!
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