Movie Review : Ae Dil Hai Mushkil Sehna Ise

                                                   

How many times have you watched a movie or read a novel, where a sexy woman is out to "trap" a rich guy? Yes, there exist women who seduce men for money. "Seduce" as in "to cause someone to do something that they would not usually consider doing by being very attractive and difficult to refuse" Let me remind you, confused or not, it's a choice they made!

In Ae Dil Hai Mushkil that choice is made by Ayan, Ranbir Kapoor's character. He finds Lisa played by Lisa Haydon incredibly sexy and is repeatedly shown unable to keep it in his pants. Men can't help indulging in sex at the first sight of a female body, you know! Yet, the fault lies squarely at the door of the woman! 

No, I refuse to use the misleading, sexist expression "femme fatale". It's been used too long to demonize women. It's time we discarded it.  Although the sex is consensual, Lisa is portrayed as vacuous and practically unable to speak. Yet there are allusions to how she's out to get Ayan's money. Now now, Karan Johar, you really need to make up your mind- is she stupid, or is she smart? 

Ayan has no compunctions in kissing and coming on to Alizeh, played by Anushka Sharma. This, the first time he meets her. Obviously, loyalty is not a value he sets great store by. Yet, one act of unfaithfulness by his girlfriend and he dumps her. What was that about sauce for the goose thingy? Forget it! 

Let's be clear, this is the umpteenth movie in which Ranbir Kapoor plays a guy coming of age, and the characters are so cliched you'll be deluged with repeated bouts of deja vu. To confound matters further, Karan Johar is yet to sort out his friendship-versus-love dynamics. Dude, it's 2016. For god's sake, you've done this for twenty-odd years now. Get over it!

Besides, a selfish man-child who refuses to grow up and throws tantrums at the drop of a hat, Ayan expects others to pick up after him. That's our hero, the man you're supposed to root for! Not only does he insist Alizeh fall in love with him, he chases her all around the globe in the effort. She invites him for her wedding and he manages to become the centre of attention there, too! He throws a hissy fit and walks out on the wedding day, making it a memorable day for the bride, indeed! This being Bollywood, however, all is forgiven. Conveniently for Ayan, yet again, Alizeh steps in to pick up after him.

The worst is yet to come, however. Ayan shows his most despicable side when he finds Alizeh struggling alone, dying, and comes on to her! Yes, dear readers, sexual harassment and stalking as love trope is alive and thriving in Bollywood.  

The very frame in which we are introduced to Saba, Aishwarya's character, would have set a million alarm bells ringing for any woman. She's sitting by herself reading a book. Our hero forces himself into her space because he can't sit alone! Where any woman would have called security, Saba smilingly indulges him. Men feel entitled to women's space, time and attention. Men often end violently and horrifically the denial of such attention. This is rape culture and the movie promotes it. 

To attempt to look for feminism in a Karan Johar film is futile, when it doesn't even pass the Bechdel Test. It is peopled with super rich people whose lives run without a hitch. They need not worry where the meals or housing or the education of the next few generations will come from.

You see, I left out Alizeh's character till the end. There really isn't one. We know nothing of who she is, what she does. We vaguely hear of parents, but don't meet hem either. She doesn't seem to have any friends either. Alizeh is another in a long line of women who seem to exist solely for the benefit of the men around her. She also shelves her life to trot all around the globe, wherever her husband's work takes him. Need we tell you, that relationship was doomed from the start? 

Anushka Sharma has put in her considerable acting skills on display, and she comes across as effortless. But I'll repeat my earlier advise to her- make your own goddam movies, Anushka! We want to see well-etched characters, not a sidekick for our hero to hang his emotional towel on, and maybe wipe with. 

Aishwarya looks still, unruffled, and bereft of emotion like a slab of marble just surfaced from under a glacier. She too seems to exist in a vacuum. Although she's portrayed as a no-nonsense person at first, yet she too ends up picking up after Ayan. Such a charmer our boy is. 

Women's work holds up men's world. It's time we gave it a rest.

                                

Movie Review : Two Cheers For Baar Baar Dekho

                                           

If you live in urban India and manage to avoid the media saturation of an upcoming Bollywood movie, you probably live under a rock. Said rock is my roof. I went to watch Baar Baar Dekho oblivious to the fact that  it has a reprise of the 90s hit number kaala chashma.

 I did hope for some semblance of sanity only because I discovered that the director is Nitya Mehra whose bio says she had been the assistant director of movies like Life of Pi and the Don reprise.

To be sure, this is no gritty drama. It has its share of cheesy comedy and cheesier romance at the outset, helped along by typical romantic numbers. And come on! Dharma Productions and fluff go together like bheegi saree me hot nari under barsaat ka pani! 

Between the pretty faces and the beaches and bikinis, you're thrown the mandatory band, baaja and shaadi- obviously! The leads characters are Diya and Jai played by Katrina Kaif and Siddhartha Malhotra, so there's plenty of gorgeousness to gawk at.

A movie about inter-personal relationships, which doesn't let your attention flag, has got to be a winner in my book. It portrays the angst of the woman who alone must do the emotional and caregiving labour to hold her family together, while her husband is busy chasing his career. His singular contribution to family building seems to be donation of sperm. No surprises there! 

While she moves countries and continents so he may pursue his dream career, he couldn't be bothered to make the time to be at the opening of her art exhibition - so real, so predictable! I only wish they hadn't chosen such stereotypical professions for the two protagonists- he's a mathematician and she's a painter. 

There are jarring bits. Hugely uncomfortable making is the sequence when a person with an apparent mental disability is mocked and used as a prop for producing some staged laughs: so unfunny! And when the female protagonist Diya asks her boyfriend/ husband Jai why he loves her, his answers made me cringe each time. Stuff along the lines of "you're my wife" or "you're the mother of my children".   
Way to define a partner in strictly selfish, self-centered terms! I inserted a reminder to self: this is Bollywood and they can deliver only so much with one movie, let's not get ahead of ourselves in the hopes department, please!

 It does dawn upon Jai that relationships have to be built with loving attention and care and that nurturing one's loved ones leads to a more fulfilling existence. The soft, gentle man who is a nurturer, is upheld as the ideal us and it gladdened every pore of my feminist heart! When Jai picks up his daughter and swirls her around while she looks adoringly at him, in a scene crafted to pull at your heartstrings, it manages to do just that.

The movie has a clutch of creditable performances, from the actors playing the smaller roles, like Sarika, who plays Jai's mom and the guy who plays the art gallery owner (whose name I couldn't locate)  Ram Kapoor as Diya's dad tends to ham just the tad bit. Rajit Kapoor as the pandit with the mysterious link to Jai's future seems wasted.

The biggest surprise of the movie: Katrina Kaif has finally learnt to emote in front of the camera-to an extent. Siddharth Malhotra manages to hold his own, though at times the lack of depth in his performance shows.

With all the modern tech available and presumably a big budget, the make-up for aging is surprisingly tacky. The portrayal of the future is meh; it shows absolutely no imagination at all. A little effort in that department would have gone a long way in making this a memorable movie. 

Does the movie pass the bechdel test? Probably not. Yet, even though it's far from perfect I sent up two cheers for this movie's attempts at a feminist tone. It looks to a world centred on loving, fulfilling relationships, where jobs and careers-including men's- take a backseat and nurturance is given primacy. All hail Nitya Mehra!  Hope to see more feminism friendly cinema from her in future!

A version of this film review appeared on the Feminism In India website here here                                                                   

Movie Review: Pink Is Colorless Trite Male Feminism

Pink  is a movie that tries, really hard, to "empower women". And like that empty vacuous phrase, it's nothing more than a shell. Right from the get go, with a name like that, it practically shouts at you: "look at me, I'm talking about WOMEN!" and so it goes. It harangues women, portrays them as weak, silly, and prone to putting themselves in dangerous situations. But seeing as they are all women, what can you expect them to do on their own, hai na?             Patriarchy:1, Women: 0

Enter: the knight in shining armor, the right honorable Mr Amitabh Bachchan. Because as we all know, women, however progressive they may be, need to fall back on men for help and support!

A major part of the movie is a courtroom drama centred around the prosecution of a woman, Meenal. She has hit a man in self defense, causing him head injuries. The man happens to have political connections. Result: he manages to turn the tables on her and get her arrested. She ends up having to spend a horrific time in a police lock up. The performances of the three lead women, specially Meenal played by Tapsee Pannu,  and Kirti Kulhari as Falak Ali, are pitch perfect. Most of the cast does an excellent job, too. 

Enter: Meenal's lawyer, Mr Sehgal, played by Amitabh Bachchan.  For reasons best known to him, he has been creepily watching the women closely. The film treats this as perfectly normal behavior. 

In a scene that made me gag, Mr Sehgal puts Meenal on the stand and asks her pointed, personal questions about her sex life. At this point I almost walked off, unable to take the violence of the language. Someone please tell the director Aniruddha Roy Choudhury that women are used to being insulted, having their character and sexual lives discussed threadbare and then having it used as stick to beat us with. You don't need to spell out the horrors of our lives to us! 

In a more shocking sequence, the culprits kidnap Meenal, and drive around, while apparently assaulting her. The men talk gleefully of raping her, and from all appearances they do. Yet, shockingly, in the rest of the movie, there's no mention of it. More than half the movie occurs in a courtroom. While the lawyers slug it out and police loiter about, the entire horrific incident is swept under the rug. Why is there no mention of it in the rest of the movie? Why aren't the perps brought to justice? 

Another aspect that bothered me was the role of Mamata Shankar. The entire sub-plot with her and her apparent romance (?) with Mr Sehgal was lost on me. What exactly was their relationship is not made clear. Other than to portray one more woman as weak, frail and dependent, and Mr Sehagal as savior, I couldn't fathom the reason for the introduction of the character.

The movie seems to try to reach out to the bollywood watching janata about concepts like consent, and we are supposed to be grateful for the smallest of mercies. "No means no" repeats Mr Sehgal in varying tones of voice, like the audience is hard of hearing. Or maybe a little dense. When talking to women you can never be sure! 

The biggest giveaway to how badly women need rescuing by big, strong, smart men is at the end close of the court case. As Sehgal walks away, victorious, the policewoman on duty looks up at him adoringly and salutes. In case you had any doubts, they made it clear who the hero is. FML, I murmured to myself.

Anti-women attitudes of our society are held up to scrutiny: is it immoral for a woman to drink? Does a woman who laughs and talks with a man, while having a drink and a conversation, send out signals that she's sexually available? To be fair, these conversations around consent are important to have, no doubt. It's the manner in which it is done that leaves you wanting to bash your own head in, rather than sit through this cruel joke.

I've heard people say that this movie plays out like a thriller, it didn't to me. Only if you are skeptical of the women's motives or don't take their word for it, like most of society does. The last sequence of the depiction of the assault as it happened, the events that trigger off the whole drama, from where the movie begins boggles the mind. It's captured in slow-motion, slimy, sneaky smiles of the men intact, making it look like a sneak peak video- voyeurism of misogyny celebrated. 

Alas, asking the right questions does not a feminist movie make. Even though it passes the bechdel test  it's attempts at feminism fail. The depictions of women are cringe worthy. It has the token "north eastern" girl, etched in painful stereotype. It panders to men's fears regarding young, independent women. The discomfort with assertive women and their ownership of their sexuality is moot; it's portrayal left open ended, pandering to the male gaze, safe only under a paternal custody. While the public discourse around sexual assault has grown over the years and Bollywood still seems not geared for it. 

How would this movie have looked with a Nawazuddin or even an Irrfan Khan, in the role of the lawyer Sehgal, I wondered time and again. For reasons best known to the producers and director they chose not have a woman lawyer in a movie about women's emancipation at its core. This reinforces my view that this is about empty, soulless posturing.

The weight of Mr Bachchan's presence is a burden for this movie and causes it to fall quite flat on its face, under the weight of unmanageable aspirations. Surely there are better way to pass on a message, than have Mr Bachchan ham his way through an entire movie. 

Just prior  to the release of Pink, Mr Bachchan had written a letter to his granddaughters talking of "women's empowerment". Take all that paternalism  in the PR stunt, multiply it many times over and you have this movie. It's colourless and full of cliches. Its male director and lead actor in the excitement to do feminism, don the familiar savior complex. They aren't willing to put women centre stage or to listen to them. Instead, their condescension is apparent. 

All of which left me feeling let down. Here was an opportunity to create a sensitive, powerful film, showing strong women take charge of their lives, despite patriarchy. Instead we get a patronizing, preaching piece, putting women right back into their slots, delivered from a male point of view!

In conclusion: dear men, quit the half assed attempts at feminism, will you, because you're spectacularly failing at it!

                                                                                 

Movie Review : Udta Punjab : One More Blow for Misogyny

                                                        

As I endured the torture that was the vast expanse of Udta Punjab, I was left bewildered by the fact that its director is Abhishek Chaubey. That the guy who directed the twin little gems of Ishqiya and Dedh Ishqiya both of which portrayed women as independent characters, with a capacity to think for themselves, should come up with the misogynist fare that is Udta Punjab, boggles the mind.

 

A movie with a surfeit of men and awash with patriarchy is hard enough to digest. To top it, it makes things more difficult for itself by debasing women, dehumanising them and leaving them voiceless.

The movie tries to weave together four different narratives in the backdrop of drug trafficking and addiction in Punjab. However, it fails to bring together the various threads into a coherent narrative. The choppy feel makes the movie seem a dissatisfying experience. Towards the end, the random co-incidences where all characters come together for a resolution, seems awfully contrived.

The two performances that stand out are those of the cop played by  Diljit Dosanjh and Prabhjyot Singh, who plays his younger brother. Prabhjyot, specially, puts in an absolutely stunning performance as a drug addict who gets into all sorts of trouble. He has few scenes but leaves a lasting impression.

Shahid Kapoor plays Tommy, a so called rock/pop/rap star. Surprisingly, all the terms are used interchangeably in the film. Tommy is on a downward spiral, and has one meltdown after another. As he struggles to perform, the character himself attributes his earlier success to drug fuelled chance. Shahid as Tommy is a pain to watch on screen. He is unable to pull off the troubled musician.

Similarly, playing a doctor running a de-addiction centre, Kareena Kapoor does a hatchet job at best. I was gripped with a sense of sense of deja vu to see her reprise the same role she's played multiple times. She leaves no impact whatsoever. Does her character have a name? I seem to have missed it.

The police- politician nexus and the way it is unraveled is so simplistic and comes across as more like watching a scene from Enid Blyton's the five find outers projected on screen. The juvenile attempts at crime busting apart, one small consolation was the romantic pairing of the much older Kareena with the young Daljit. Though I'm not sure of the age of either actor, my guess is there's at least half a decade separating the two, a reversal which is heartening indeed. Yes, we must grasp at straws and be grateful for them.

Then again, the setting up of a drug-induced loosening of tongue for a declaration of love made me very uncomfortable. But that's me.

Shockingly, for a movie with claims to realism, in her final scene, Kareena's character, indulges in actions that defy logic. She seems to forget her training and years of work at a de-addiction centre, and goes on to confront, single-handedly, an addict who is clearly violent and out of control.

Yet again there's a sequence where Alia's character ties a cloth to her stomach and stuffs a rag in her mouth to deal with her withdrawal symptoms, reinforcing the stereotype that overcoming addiction is just a matter of putting your mind to it. As anyone who has worked in the field will tell you this is simplistic and dangerous myth building.

The sequences portraying Alia's character who is forced into addiction as well as the opening sequences with Shahid's character Tommy, both portray the impact of hallucinogens as glamorous and aspirational.

The gore in the movie is enough to want you to throw up. Needless, gratuitous violence which serves no purpose in leading the movie forward or furthering insight into any of the characters.

Which brings me to the biggest problem I have with the movie. The way Alia Bhat's character is etched left me whimpering in my seat, and not in the manner the makers of the movie intended.

This is yet another in the long list of movies which use women's bodies as vehicles to deliver violence, women portrayed as a victims, unable to overcome their circumstances. The movie reinforces the hapless damsel in distress trope. To top it all, Alia's character remains unnamed right till the very end. Erasure of women's identities continues. One more blow for misogyny.

                      

Feminist Movies, Anyone?

I happened to watch two awesome woman-centric movies on two consecutive days, in the midst of trying to figure out Hindi movies which pass the Bechdel Test- an enterprise probably doomed to failure from the start. Right? I will write about one here and maybe a second post on the other one, later.

 The first movie is A Thousand Times Good Night.  Starring  Juliette Binoche , it portrays a woman who works as a photojournalist in conflict regions of the world. She's "driven" and often risks her life - both "male" traits. Visiting these areas of strife and violence, she repeatedly puts her life in danger, in search of the perfect shot. As a friend chides her in a later scene, its the adrenaline rush which keeps her motivated to do the job she does.

As an Indian, I'm used to seeing women as the primary caregivers to their children even when they have full time jobs outside the home - whether paid or unpaid. What struck me most in this movie was the gender role reversal and the ease with which the movie handles it. It seems the most natural thing in the world that one parent  should take care of the kids when the other parent is away - as this movie depicts. It's simply a coincident that the primary care giver parent here happens to be the father.

And ooh, what  a hot dad ! The hunk who plays dad is Nikolaj Coster-Waldu  I haven't come across him earlier but I believe Game of Thrones fanatics will recognize him.

As the movie unfolds we are drawn to its central theme - how Gretta ( the character played by Juliette) going away repeatedly to these conflict zones and coming back wounded, having been in situations where she's come close to losing her life- is a huge drain on her family.

When she returns, there's an emotional distance,specially between Gretta and her husband and with her older daughter.They are wary of becoming close again,  because she will be gone once more. As her husband tells her "you smell of death". He tells her, each time she's gone, they prepare for the worst.

All of which made me think of the awesome role reversal the movie offers. Almost all such movies where the person putting his life in danger is a man, and the person left holding the home front, is almost always a woman. I for one can't recall any other movie with such a role reversal. Can you?

Needless to say Julitte Binoche is ethereal and luminous as is the ocean, the most gorgeous backdrop of the movie where a lot of the movie is set.

There were parts of the movie which I found uncomfortable. Scenes such as Gretta shoving her camera into refugees' faces without their permission, because "the world needs to know" or the whole sequence ( suggestive of Afghanistan ) though it doesn't explicitly say so, of the woman suicide bomber. being a Muslim - tried and tested tropes all, very much part of the white saviour complex. Where would we be without the "civilizing" impact of white people? Sigh.

Yet, all this didn't dilute my thorough enjoyment of the movie. Go watch it if you can. If you already have, tell me about it.