Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, at the Japan Society

Legendary Prince Rama and evil King Ravana have appeared in many, many Indian films, even the superhero movie Ra.One, which is named for the super-villain, a digit reboot of Ravana. Yet, their story is probably best known to animation fans through films produced outside India. Nina Paley gave Rama’s loyal wife a feminist spin in Sita Sings the Blues. Before that, respected Indian animator Ram Mohan also collaborated with Japanese co-directors Koichi Sasaki and Yugo Sako to create the classic Ramayana: The Legend of Prince Rama, which screens with freshy restored vividness tomorrow at the Japan Society.

Whereas Paley undercut Rama’s heroics, Mohan and company somehow saved all the best fight scenes for his brother Lakshman or their friend, Hanuman. The latter happens to be a mighty flying monkey, so giving him screen time makes perfect sense—but we get ahead of ourselves.

There is first Prince Rama’s courtship of Sita and their banishment from her Kingdom of Mithila. The king had intended to anoint Rama his successor, but he is honor-bound to grant the two boons requested by his second wife, who insists on Rama’s expulsion, in favor of her own son’s ascension. Yet, the couple spent many happy years in the forest, with only Lakshman and a small army of cuddly woodland creatures for comfort, until evil King Ravana kidnaps Sita for himself.

This is where the film really starts getting good. While on the trail of Ravana, Rama and Lakshman meet Hanuman, who introduces them to his master, Sugriv, who has been deposed from his own kingdom. Rather pragmatically, Rama restores Sugriv to his throne, who then mobilizes his army to aid Rama in his quest. However, reaching Ravana’s island stronghold will be their first logistical challenge. Then they will face Ravana’s freakishly giant warrior-retainers.

A lot of Ghibli veterans worked on Ramayana, presumably on the stunning fantastical vistas and awesome battle scenes. From time to time, there is a bit of un-Ghibli-anime awkwardness to the characters’ movement, but that sort of adds an element of nostalgia. Regardless, it is impossible to go wrong with army of monkey warriors. The second half is like a Planet of the Apes movie, wherein apes and men work together to fight the hydra-like Ravana and his batwing minions.

Ramayana is incredibly respectful of the Sanskrit epic. There was a bit of controversy in the early going, but the final product became a symbol of Japanese-Indian cooperation. However, it is still highly watchable for audiences coming from outside Eastern religious traditions. They definitely emphasize the fantasy elements to such an extent, you could almost consider it a Hindu Clash of the Titans (we think of that as a good thing).

RRR, The Telugu Smash is Back

It is one of the highest grossing Indian films of all-time and it was partly shot in Ukraine, but apparently that didn’t mean much to the government of the “world’s largest democracy” when Putin invaded. After all, shooting had already wrapped, on a picture that ironically protests the brutality of British imperialism. In this action epic, the British probably lose more soldiers than they did at Bunker Hill. Such an incident would have surely led to a parliamentary inquiry, especially since a regional governor precipitated the whole mess by abducting a young girl. That just isn’t cricket, you know? Two legendary early Twentieth Century revolutionaries form a fictional friendship and team-up against the British in S.S. Rajaouli’s RRR (a.k.a. Rise Roar Revolt), which has a special one-day return to American theaters this Wednesday.

Governor Scott Buxton and his Lady Macbeth-esque wife Catherine happened to hear a young Gond singer during their trip to Telangana, so they just figured they’d take her with them as a souvenir. As the “shepherd” of the tribe, it is Komaram Bheem’s sworn duty to find her and safely bring her back. To do so, he naturally falls in with Delhi’s revolutionary circles. Unfortunately, his brother comes to the attention of A. Rama Raju (better known as Alluri Sitarama Raju), who was then a hard-charging Indian officer, but secretly harbored revolutionary ambitions.

While chasing Bheem’s brother, Raju stops to rescue an endangered street urchin, with the oblivious help of Bheem himself. Being men of action, a fast-friendship blossoms between them, but when Bheem launches his rescue operation, it forces Raju to make a series of soul-searching decisions.

Despite the patriotic themes (critics would call RRR jingoistic if it were made in America), the reason it traveled so well outside of the subcontinent is the off-the-wall action. The sequences involving CGI-animals might even be a little too off-the-wall, but perhaps they look better on a more spacious big screen. Still, our introduction to Raju is quite a barn-burner and incidentally also a good lesson in crowd control. Arguably, the whole thing morphs into a super-hero movie during the climax, when they become invested with the powers of Lord Rama, but it certainly makes for some wild spectacle.

Osten & Rai’s Shiraz: A Romance of India

When it comes to tragic epics, this one has all the elements. You have a foundling, a noble woman raised as a commoner, and most importantly, a love triangle. However, this is not Shakespeare. It is one of the three great Indian silent films produced by the collaboration of actor-producer Himansu Rai and expatriate German director Franz Osten. Restored to its full striking glory by the BFI, Osten’s Shiraz: A Romance of India is a visual feast for cineastes when it releases today on DVD/BluRay.

Selima was born a princess, but when the caravan taking her family north is ambushed by raiders, the abandoned girl is lucky to be adopted by a common tradesman. Initially, their son Shiraz considers her a sister, but overtime he develops an all-encompassing love for her. Unfortunately, just as Shiraz starts to get serious, Selima is kidnapped by slave traders. Shiraz follows them tenaciously, but he is powerless to intervene when she is auctioned at the slave market.

All is lost for Shiraz, but perhaps not Selima, since she is purchased by an agent of the Moghal court. In fact, Selima and Prince Khurram start to take a shine to each other, but he cannot pursue his feelings for her, because of class restrictions. Of course, that does not stop Dalia, an ambitious social-climbing noble, from growing increasingly jealous of Selima. When she notices Shiraz moping outside the palace, she starts scheming.

There is no question Shiraz is pure 100% melodrama, but it is epic in scale. The sets are big, the locations are sweepingly cinematic, and the cast of extras are worthy of Cecil B. DeMille. The clarity of the restoration makes the film really pop off the screen. Yet, what makes this edition of Shiraz so accessible is the propulsively rhythmic original score composed by Anoushka Shankar (Ravi Shankar’s daughter and Norah Jones’ half-sister).

It is amazing how a contemporary soundtrack can “open up” a classic silent film. Although Shankar is working within a classical Indian framework, her music still has a very modern sensibility. In fact, some sections are quite jazzy and it all has a killer groove. Shankar’s sitar is hypnotic, but contributions from jazz-world hybrid artists like Idris Raham on clarinet and Danny Keane on piano and cello really give the music a lush, full bodied sound.

As for the on-screen business, Rai is a woefully sad-eyed as the tragic title character, but his performance still holds up pretty well by modern standards. Charu Roy certainly looks like a dashing prince, but for contemporary viewers, it is hard to understand why he is so popular with the people when he buys slaves who were kidnapped from their homes and has people executed via elephant trampling. Regardless, Enakshi Rama Rau is appropriately delicate and sensitive, like greenhouse orchid, as Selima.

Spoiler alert: Selima will eventually be known as Mumtaz Mahal, which means the film will take an architectural turn down the stretch—as in that Mahal. Cinematographers Emil Schunemann and Henry Harris really made the Taj and the Moghul palace sparkle. Thanks to the restoration and new score, it all looks great and sounds terrific. Very highly recommended for fans of silent cinema and contemporary classical-crossover Indian music, Shiraz: A Romance of India releases today (8/13) in a DVD/BluRay combo pack.

Sundance ’19: Photograph

If you think Hollywood endings are unrealistic, trying living up to a Bollywood ending. Happily-ever-afters a simply beyond the reach of a poor, marginalized street worker like Rafi. Ostensibly, the educated Miloni has more advantages, but she is also restricted by social norms and her family’s expectations. Yet, maybe, just maybe, they can make some kind of connection in Ritesh Batra’s Photograph, which screens during the 2019 Sundance Film Festival.

Rafi sort of gets by working as a street photographer, selling souvenir photos to tourists at the Gateway of India. One day, he takes Miloni’s picture, but she disappears to avoid her overbearing family before Rafi can complete the transaction. He repurposes her photo, sending it to his grandmother Dadi, hoping to allay her fears he will never marry. When their paths cross again, Miloni agrees to pretend to be his fiancée, for the sake of his Dadi.

As you might expect, Miloni and Rafi start to develop some kind of feelings for each other during the course of their play-acting. Of course, the radical differences in their respective life-experiences lead to complications, but this is not a farce or even a rom-com. Very little is played for laughs. The narrative itself is pretty simple and straightforward. Instead, Batra’s screenplay is all about discrete, fleeting moments of beauty—and the pain that comes later.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Sanya Malhotra will make you absolutely ache for this almost-couple. They have real, heart-felt chemistry as Rafi and Miloni, but their relationship is so chaste, it hurts. There is so much left unsaid between them, because it can’t be said—and it doesn’t need to be verbalized for us to understand it. They are the film, but Farrukh Jaffar ratchets up the poignancy even further as Rafi’s loving but shrewd Dadi.

Batra also makes canny use of the Mumbai locales. Much like the worlds of its characters, the city sometimes looks grand and stately and other times appears to be grubby and desperate. Batra does not exactly wrap things up in a neat little bow, which seems to have divided those at yesterday’s screening, but that is how life goes. You just have to focus on the good parts while they last.

Honestly, Photograph is about as bittersweet as cinema can possibly get. It is a classy film, with Peter Raeburn’s elegant score heightening the wistful vibe. Very highly recommended for mainstream audiences, Photograph screens tomorrow (1/27) and next Saturday (2/2) in Park City, Tuesday (1/29) in Sundance Mountain Resort, and Friday (2/1) in Salt Lake, as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

Neerja: Courage in the Face of Terrorism

There was a time when flying was a glamorous business. Neerja Bhanot brought a little of that back. The part time fashion model was also a flight hostess for Pan Am Airways. Tragically, her first flight as the head purser of her Bombay-based crew was Pan Am 73. Its ultimate destination was New York’s JFK, but so-called “Palestinians” in the Abu Nidal Organization hijacked the plane during its Karachi layover. Thanks to Bhanot’s quick thinking, the terrorists would go no further, but that placed her even more in harm’s way. Bhanot’s courageous story is stirringly dramatized in Ram Madhvani’s Neerja (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

Right from the opening scene, can see Bhanot is the life of the party, as her friends and family wait for her to arrive and inject some vigor into their snoozy get-together. Even though she had made inroads into the glamorous world of modeling, she still loved her job as a flight hostess. Life was pleasant for Bhanot, but it was not always so. During her brief arranged marriage to Kishore Mishra, she was constantly abused, both physically and emotionally. However, surviving his torments gave her strength and insight for dealing with the Abu Nidal terrorists.

Disguised in stolen uniforms, the would-be hijackers shot their way on-board during the stopover in Karachi. However, Bhanot was able to alert the flight crew, who duly followed procedure, evacuating through the cockpit emergency hatch. Being stuck on the ground drastically changed the nature of the operation for the Islamist hijackers. Hoping to regain some leverage, the terrorists instructed Neerja to collect all passports so they could identify Americans. Again, Bhanot foiled their schemes, instructing her crew to hide all American passports. There were forty-one Americans on that flight but only two were murdered.

It is pretty inspiring to watch Bhanot stand-up to the so-called “Palestinian” mass murderers and strategically think two or three steps ahead of them. Madhvani’s cross-cutting between the hijacking and Mishra’s misogynistic cruelty runs the risk of heavy-handedness, but it establishes how she found the resolution and presence-of-mind to undercut the hijacking and hostage executions. Nevertheless, at the risk of being spoilery, those who are not familiar with Bhanot’s story should not expect a happily-ever-after conclusion.

In fact, Madhvani rather viscerally captures a sense of the horror and chaos when the “Palestinian” terrorists open fire on the passengers. He also shows in no uncertain terms what Islamists do best: hit women and point guns at young children. You really start to understand the realities of terrorism in Neerja, up-close and personal. Yet, thanks to Bhanot, there were only twenty fatalities out three hundred sixty-one passengers and a crew of twenty.

Sonam Kapoor not only looks a lot like the historical Bhanot. She also projects the necessary courage, grace, and dignity. She is no martyr caricature. Kapoor’s Bhanot often has to fight off panic and re-summon her courage. It is a forceful but down to earth performance that emphasizes her empathy and resilience, showing us just what a fighter Bhanot was.

Neerja is definitely the sort of film that will choke up viewers, but when the lights go up and you start to think about what happened on Pan Am 73, it will make you mad. When you watch the national rage expressed in Kabir Khan’s Phantom, it is hard to blame India for resenting America’s refusal to extradite Mubai 2008 terrorist David Headley. Yet, what can they expect when they responded to the 1986 hijacking by officially recognizing the supposed state of Palestine and continuing to send aid to the terrorist-dominated Authority? That’s really showing the hijackers. At least there has been some tilting towards the democratic state of Israel following the 2008 Mumbai attack.

Regardless, Neerja puts an acutely human face on the issue of terrorism. Kapoor does awards-caliber work, as does Anna Ipe & Apparna Sud’s production design team, which convincingly recreates the era’s analog airliner and retro-eighties trappings. Madhvani is not shy when it comes to manipulating viewers, but he keeps them focused like a laser beam, ever if they know how it all must end. Highly recommended, Neerja is now playing in New York at the AMC Empire.

Phantom: Justice is Served

David Headley looks Anglo, but he was the American-born son of a high-ranking Pakistani diplomat. Under his mother’s maiden name, he became a drug-trafficker and a terrorist, who was instrumental in planning the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks. He is currently serving a thirty-five year sentence in Federal prison as part of a plea bargain that precludes his extradition to India. The Indian government took exception to the arrangement—and who could blame them? However, Headley and his fellow Islamist terrorists will finally get what’s coming to them in Kabir Khan’s international thriller, Phantom (trailer here), which is now playing in New York.

Former military commando Daniyal Khan is now so far off the grid, it is almost like he never existed in the first place. The chip on his shoulder is still very real though. Altogether, he is the perfect stealth candidate to execute a series of off-the-books assassinations on behalf of India’s Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), their CIA equivalent. Finally, Khan will bring some cold hard justice to the men behind the 26/11 attacks, perpetrated by the Islamist Lashkar-e-Taiba, with some degree of coordination with Pakistani intelligence. Basically, he will be a lone wolf, but from time to time Nawaz Mistry, a military contractor working undercover with an NGO, will lend a helping hand.

Headley is very much a real life figure and just about as odious as J. Brandon Hill portrays him, if not more so. Presumably, everyone on Khan’s hit list are based on historically culpable terrorists (such as the hate-preaching Hariz Saeed), or constitute composites that are close enough for government work. However, the truly eye-opening aspect of the film is the presumed open collusion between Lashkar-e-Taiba and all levels of the Pakistani government. Khan often trades gun fire with Pakistani cops and soldiers, but he is never aiming to miss, like the A-Team. This war is not a very cold one.

In its way, Phantom is quite the education for American audiences. Without question, the Mumbai attacks, Lashkar-e-Taiba, and David Headley have all been woefully under-reported in this country, because the media finds it so uncouth to dwell on Islamist terrorism. Well, anyone traveling to Mumbai would be well advised to get up to speed before leaving, because the wounds there are still raw.

Phantom is absolutely a revenge fantasy thriller and if you expect Kabir Khan to apologize for it, you are in for a long wait. He stages some satisfying high octane action scenes and the plan to get Headley is particularly clever. Frankly, it is rather embarrassing the American film industry never targeted Bin Laden in a similar fashion.

As Daniyal Khan, Saif Ali Khan is so badass he doesn’t even have time to swagger. He’ll just squint you dead. Since this is Bollywood, he does not have much opportunity to develop romantic chemistry with Katrina Kaif’s Mistry either, but she holds her end up in the action sequences. Hill is an apt dead-ringer for Headley, so to speak, but Denzil Smith almost has too much steely gravitas for Haider, the villainous Pakistani intelligence chief.

Kabir Khan keeps Phantom cruising at such a crisp gallop, it seems much shorter than its two hour-plus running time. It is abashedly pro-India and anti-terror, but what’s wrong with that? Unfortunately, it is scheduled to end its midtown run this Thursday (9/10), which seems slightly perverse. If ever there was a day for its cathartic payoff, it would be September 11^th. Recommended for fans of Bollywood action and 24-style payback, Phantom is currently playing limited shows in New York at the AMC Empire.

Tribeca ’15: Sunrise

If Andrew Vachss made a Giallo in Mumbai, you would have to give it your full attention. Arguably, India could use a child protection advocate and cautionary story teller like Vachss, judging the reported 60,000 children that go missing in the country every year. It is a grim statistic that opens Partho Sen-Gupta’s hallucinatory but hard-hitting Sunrise (trailer here), which screens during the 2015 Tribeca Film Festival.

Lakshman Joshi is a social services inspector with the Mumbai police force (think SVU). His own daughter Aruna was kidnapped and the copper still isn’t over it. Neither is his wife Leela. In fact, they might both be losing their grip on reality, but in very different ways. When Joshi starts investigating the suspected abduction of another young girl named Naina, her case and that of his daughter become intertwined with the presumed visions Joshi has had of a seedy nightclub ironically called Paradise.

As Joshi chases a shadowy figure through the city’s rain-drenched streets, he experiences increasing difficulty distinguishing reality from his visions. It might even be bigger than Joshi’s problematic perception, as the film’s border between reality and fantasy becomes increasingly porous.

Sunrise is the sort of massively stylish Lynchian-film-on-acid that can overwhelm even the sturdiest screen presence. However, Adil Hussain’s absolutely riveting work as Joshi stands out and stands tall. It is a haunting, soul-searing performance that is all the more impressive given the gallons upon gallons of water that are dumped on him over the course of the film.

The ultra-noir and uber-surreal tone of Sunrise makes it unlikely to go mainstream, which is too bad, because it has an important message. Coming in the wake of the India’s Daughter censorship controversy, it viscerally addresses another social pathology many Indians are inclined to sweep under the rug. With recent studies suggesting 53% of the nation’s children have suffered some form of sexual abuse, you can quibble with numbers here and there, but the trends and the magnitudes are undeniably alarming.

Be that as it sadly is, Sunrise is a bravura work of auteurist cinema. Sen-Gupta and cinematographer Jean-Marc Ferriere give the film a striking look, using the lurid Giallo color palate and the traditional nocturnal neons of film noir. Highly recommended for fans of high-end mind-benders with a social purpose, Sunrise screens again tonight (4/22) and tomorrow (4/23), as part of this year’s Tribeca Film Festival.

Portland Film Festival ’14: Blemished Light

The Indian subcontinent is a fractious, factionalized region, but the criminalization of homosexuality is an unfortunate constant. Of course, there are violent extremists who seek to further impose their strict Islamist agenda on those they deem unbelievers or apostates. In his split narrative following a closeted lesbian’s desperate attempt to find love and a Muslim terrorist stalking a moderate academic, director-co-writer Raj Amit Kumar issues a plea for tolerance and civility, but finds little of either in Blemished Light (trailer here), which had a special midnight screening at the 2014 Portland Film Festival.

Leela Singh is the apple of her senior police officer father’s eye, but she simply cannot submit to the proper marriage he has arranged for her. The doting but stern Devraj will be scandalized when he learns Singh is a lesbian, who intends to win back her former secret lover, Sakhi Taylor, a bi-sexual Indian-American artist. Taylor holds a downtown hipster image of herself, but she still cares about how she is perceived in Indian society. Their reunion will be uneasy, but for Singh the die is already cast, thanks to the video confessional she left for her father.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Husain has arrived in New York for a grim mission he whole-heartedly embraces. He has been chosen to abduct and execute Fareed Rahmani, a prominent proponent of a more liberal vision of Islam. In his frequent media appearances, Rahmani argues true Muslims do not go about killing people. Husain intends to demonstrate otherwise, but first is supposed to extract a confession of heresy.

While the two discrete storylines never intersect, they are highly compatible thematically and make it difficult to dismiss the film as mere “Islamophobia.” Clearly, Kumar and co-writer suggest prejudice based on religion, gender, and sexual orientation is an issue endemic to the region that transcends demographic categories.

Blemished also benefits from the imprimatur of the legendary Victor Banerjee (best known in the West for A Passage to India and several Satyajit Ray films), whose mastery of his craft remains unabated. As Rahmani, he fully humanizes the potential martyr figure (in an uncorrupted sense of the term), ultimately delivering a devastating punch to the viewer’s gut. In contrast, Adil Hussain’s Devraj Singh is appropriately intense and decidedly disturbing, credibly laying the groundwork for some otherwise unfathomable choices as a father. Bhavani Lee also demonstrates future star power potential and a vivid screen presence as the complicated and contradictory Taylor.

This is a film rich in telling scenes, such as the stilted interactions between Husain and his Americanized support network, many of whom seem to be trying to preserve their plausible deniability. There are issues here and there, including an underdeveloped subplot involving Singh’s pregnant platonic girlfriend and an excursion into surreal imagery that looks quite striking but clashes with the overall tone of social realism. However, the film’s visceral immediacy demands an audience.

Inspired by the verse of Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz, it is a bold and bracing film, featuring an extraordinarily compelling and humanistic performance from Banerjee. Highly recommended for his fans and patrons of accessible Indian Parallel Cinema (or high-end Bollywood), Blemished Light is sure to generate controversy as well as a long life on the Indian and LGBT festival circuits following its special screening at this year’s Portland Film Festival.

CIFF ’14: Monsoon Shootout

It’s sort of like Sliding Doors or Kiewslowski’s Blind Chance with a lot more rain and guns. On his first day with Inspector Khan’s special anti-crime unit, a fresh recruit confronts a suspected murderer, sans back-up. He will either freeze, shoot to kill, or possibly split the difference in Amit Kumar’s muscularly moody crime drama, Monsoon Shootout (clip here), which screens during the 2014 Cleveland International Film Festival.

As the son of a totally above-board cop, the green Adi is a bit shocked by Khan’s borderline vigilante tactics. Mumbai’s top brass makes a show of tut-tutting at the frequency his suspects are shot while trying to escape, but it is clear they are turning a blind eye. Khan is determined to bring down the Slum Lord, Mumbai’s descriptively named vice and extortion kingpin. His best lead is Shiva, one of the Slum Lord’s most reckless and dangerous assassins. After a rocky start, Adi’s brief career goes from bad to worse when he faces Shiva in that classic dark alley setting. Should he shoot or stand there flat-footed letting Shiva escape? Khan will have some choice opinions regarding either decision that he will express as viewers watch Adi’s alternate timelines play out.

One of the cool things about Shootout is the way the competing narratives parallel each other in clever ways, despite the distinctly different choices made by poor hapless Adi. At various times, he seeks treatment from his ex, Anu the nurse with a social conscience. By the same token, he always tracks down Geeta, a prostitute favored by Shiva. Conversely, radically different sides of Khan’s character present themselves during each variation on the theme.

As Khan, Neeraj Kabi excels at grizzled badassery, while bringing out more human qualities when the various circumstances allow. Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s Shiva also delivers enough glowering menace to satisfy any genre fan. While not a lot of heavy lifting is required of model-turned-indie actress Geetanjali Thapa, the more traditional romantic role of Anu represents something of a departure from her migrant workers advocacy films, such as I.D. She has passable screen chemistry with Vijay Varma, who broods as well as anyone could ask, even though Adi is to a large extent a passive puppet of fate.

Even though Shootout has a somewhat gimmicky structure, Kumar deftly uses each take to build and expand the tragic irony. All three parts also hum along quite nicely as gritty procedurals.  It is a quality production with considerable genre appeal, particularly distinguished by cinematography Rajeev Ravi, who makes the rain and nocturnal slums look like visual poetry. Recommended for fans of parallel and popular Indian cinema, Monsoon Shootout screens Saturday (3/22) and Monday (3/24) during this year’s CIFF.

SAIFF ’13: I.D.

It is called Mumbai now, but Charu is living the Bombay Dream.  Young and attractive, the middle class college grad already has potentially lucrative job interviews lined up and shares a swanky pad with her hipster roommate.  However, when an odd jobs laborer collapses in their apartment, she finds herself with a mystery on her hands and a nagging problem for her conscience in Kamal K.M.’s I.D. (trailer here), which screens during the 2013 South Asian International Film Festival in New York.

When the painter arrives a day later than expected, Charu is so annoyed she does not even catch his name.  Then she hears a crashing noise.  Ill-equipped to deal with a crisis, she rushes about the building looking for someone to take charge.  Eventually, she ferries him to a hospital herself, paying to have him admitted.  He does not make it.

Much to Charu’s frustration, nobody is particularly interested in tracking down the nameless man’s family or whatever he might have.  Obviously, he has no I.D. (hence the ironic title) and his cell phone has been deactivated due to lack of payment.  Her friends do not want her to get involved, the cops do not want any extra work, and the contractor who recruited the house painter wants to avoid unwanted scrutiny of his dodgy dealings.  Yet, Charu tries to do the right thing anyway.

Class conscious and scrupulously naturalistic, I.D. is sort of like a Romanian New Wave film with a rational running time and a better sense of pacing.  Through Charu’s eyes, I.D. gives viewers an unvarnished tour of the shantytown, in all its cramped, teeming glory.  Obviously, K.M. has some points to make about the have-nots left out of India’s go-go economy, but the bitterly ironic conclusion calls out human nature in general.

While it would be an exaggeration to say I.D. depicts the awakening of Charu’s social conscience, there is something very compelling about her desperate effort to hold onto the anonymous man’s humanity.  Former model Geetanjali Thapa is quite remarkable as the entitled to disillusioned Charu.  On-screen nearly every second, her nuanced, understated performance easily withstands cinematographer Madhu Neelakandan’s intimate focus.

K.M. is hardly subtle when it comes to I.D.’s message, but he maintains a lingering vibe of ominous uncertainty to keep the audience engaged.  An effective showcase for both director and star, I.D. is recommended for patrons of Indian Parallel Cinema when it screens tomorrow (12/7) at the NYIT auditorium as part of this year’s SAIFF.

Sundance ’13: Gangs of Wasseypur

For three criminal clans in India’s coal country, life is defined by family and their vendettas.  The two are not mutually exclusive in Anurag Kashyap’s epic Gangs of Wasseypur (trailer here), which screens in all its 320 minute glory at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City.

The family tradition began with Shahid Khan, who robbed British trains while masquerading as an infamous Muslim dacoit Sultana.  Expelled by the real Sultana’s clan, Khan toils in the Dhanbad coalmines, working for the ruthless Ramadhir Singh.  After independence, ownership of the mine is transferred to the super-connected Singh, who hires Khan as his chief muscle-man.  Mindful of Khan’s ambitions to replace him, Singh arranges his murder, but the foreman’s young son, Sardar, is rescued by his father’s cousin.

As a boy, Sardar Khan swears vengeance against Singh.  As a man, Khan the budding crime lord is in a position to take it.  However, Singh is shrewd enough to call a temporary truce, while forging a secret alliance with the heir to his father’s old nemesis, Sultan Qureshi.  Distracted by the demands of an increasingly complicated family, consisting of five sons from two wives (and no divorce), Khan effectively defers his vengeance to the next generation.

In part two, there is a changing of the guard within the Khan family.  Leadership duties will fall upon Khan’s hashish addicted second son, Faizal Khan.  Nobody expects much from the spare heir, least of all his mother, but when he starts killing, his ferocity makes everyone sit up and take notice.

Frankly, Wasseypur is truly light years removed from Kashyap’s last film to find American distribution, The Girl with Yellow Boots.  Spanning three generations and seven decades, it is a big film by any measure.  Part one is a bit slow at times, because of all the grudges and betrayals it must establish.  A dark brooder punctuated by moments of grandly operatic violence, the tone of the first half could be described as a provincial Indian Godfather. 

However, the second part segues into Scarface territory, as Faizal Khan goes medieval on everyone standing in his way.  In fact, Wasseypur steadily builds momentum throughout its daunting five and a half hours, culminating with two spectacular action sequences, including a hospital shootout that could hold its own with John Woo’s Hardboiled.

Adding further depth, Wasseypur’s offers some intriguing social context, such as the post-Raj cronyism and corruption western audiences rarely see reflected on film.  It is also fascinating to watch Singh use trade unions and his political office to build a criminal syndicate.  Likewise, Wasseypur clearly attributes the Pashtun Khan organization’s local popularity to their willingness to stand up to the bullying Qureshi Muslim establishment.  Although there are no traditionally splashy musical numbers in Wasseypur, Kashyap shrewdly uses era-specific Bollywood hits to help delineate the passage of years for Indian audiences.

Nawazuddin Siddiqui’s feral, drug-addled Faizal Khan is all kinds of unsettling.  Many viewers will find themselves actively rooting against his protagonist during the second half.  Still, that kind of strong reaction means he is doing something right.   Reema Sen is also quite the domestic femme fatale as wife #2.  Yet, it is Tigmanshu Dhulia, better known as a screenwriter and director, who delivers the most nuanced supporting turn as Singh.

Wasseyrup would be impressive simply for its ambition, but Kashrup rises to the challenge, staging some distinctly stylish action sequences and cogently telling a richly intricate story, based on historical events in the region.  It could even lay a claim to being the Great Indian Crime Story, encompassing multiple generations, ethnic groups, and religions in its nefarious dealings.  Enthusiastically recommended for fans of high-end gangster films, Gangs of Wasseypur screens again tomorrow (1/24) in Park City and Saturday (1/26) in Salt Lake as part of this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

NYFF ’12: Celluloid Man

Here in America, we have the Library of Congress, MoMA, and Martin Scorsese, amongst others, all working on behalf of film preservation.  In India, they had P.K. Nair.  Now retired, Nair was an institution unto himself.  Shivendra Singh Dungarpur profiles the curator, while bemoaning the current state of the archive his subject tirelessly assembled in Celluloid Man, which screens as part of the Cinema Reflected sidebar during the 50^th New York Film Festival.

Accepting a research position at the Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Nair initially harbored his own filmmaking ambitions.  However, with the formation of the National Film Archive of India (NFAI), Nair found his destiny as a archivist.  For over a quarter of a century, he played a central role acquiring prints of historically significant Indian films, representing all of the country’s regional and linguistic traditions, as well as prints of important works from around the world, for FTII students and faculty to analyze and devour. 

Following lead after lead, Nair tracked down many of the only surviving prints, or in some cases mere fragments, of what were popular and critical successes of their day, but are now largely lost.  Of an estimated 1,700 films produced during India’s silent era, only nine have been saved for posterity—entirely through Nair’s efforts.

Indeed, Celluloid is pointedly critical of the lack of attention and resources devoted to the preservation and restoration of classic cinema in contemporary India, which is something of a shock given Bollywood’s economic vitality and its attendant publicity machine.  Yet, according to Celluloid’s interview subjects, after Nair’s retirement, the NFAI has fallen into a dreadful state of neglect and Nair himself has essentially been declared persona non grata, for internal political reasons.

That is a reasonably intriguing story, particularly for those well versed with classic Indian cinema traditions.  The problem with Celluloid is its unwieldy one hundred sixty-four minute running time.  Time after time, talking heads echo each other, almost verbatim, to emphasize points under discussion.  It is a quality cast of commentators, including Krzysztof Zanussi, Naseeruddin Shah, and Shyam Benegal, we just get it already.

An active supporter of the BFI’s restoration efforts, Dungarpur obviously takes this subject to heart.  He also incorporates some interesting film clips into Celluloid, even for viewers not so deeply steeped in Indian film history.  While some disciplined pruning would have tightened and strengthened the overall package, it is nonetheless a worthy cinematic tribute.  Superior to These Amazing Shadows, the documentary tribute to the work of National Film Registry, but lacking the dramatic heft of Golden Slumbers, Davy Chou’s moving elegy for the Cambodian film industry destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, Celluloid Man fits quite nicely into this year’s Cinema Reflected sidebar.  It screens this Thursday (10/4) at the Francesca Beale Theater as part of the 2012 NYFF.

Tough Guys Dance: The Bengali Detective

He dances, but he never sleeps. His story is worthy of a Bollywood movie (technically it would be Bengali, but you get the picture). Rajesh Ji’s Always Investigating & Security Concern has plenty of business on its hands, including its first murder inquiry, as filmmaker Phil Cox documents in The Bengali Detective (trailer here), which premieres this Wednesday on HBO2.

For fifteen years, “Rajesh the boss” has been investigating cases on the mean streets of Kolkata (a.k.a. Calcutta). However, he is also a “husky” family man devoted to his young son and wife Minnie, whom he married in a love match (rather than an arranged marriage). While he has his share of jealous spouses for clients, “brand protection” cases, raiding suppliers and purveyors of knock-off goods, are his bread-and-butter. In a gift from the documentary gods, Ji also takes on his first murder investigation, a triple homicide to be precise, while Cox’s cameras were following the Always detectives.

In Kolkata, the cops are too lazy or corrupt to do much of anything. As a result, seventy percent of homicides remain unsolved. That number should probably be higher, considering the authorities’ reluctance to classify the Always case a homicide, despite the blatantly suspicious circumstances. As the Always agency pursues the case, the stakes begin to rise. Meanwhile, the Bengali Detective must deal with his own personal drama when his diabetic wife’s health takes a turn for the worse. As serious as that might sound, Bengali still has plenty of dancing, like any self-respecting Indian film, when the boss signs up his detectives to audition for a TV dance competition.

Capturing genuine tragedy and legitimate danger, Bengali is about as real as reality gets. For Law & Order junkies, the murder investigation might seem like standard procedural material, but it is important to bear in mind, it is being conducted in real life, by private investigators (not cops), for the first time in their careers. It probably will not be the last time, though. Indeed, Bengali is a rather pointed rebuke of the state of the Indian justice system, largely privatized by default.

Chocked full of subplots, Cox juggles the homicide, brand protection, and cheating husband cases nearly as deftly as Ji, while still devoting plenty of screen time to the dance rehearsals and Minnie. He also shifts gears rather adroitly, from the silly musical numbers to the deadly serious. Composer Dennis Wheatley and the film’s official choreographer Lisa Cazzato-Vierya evoke the Bollywood spirit quite nicely. Mou, the pretty young choreographer assigned by the show to coach the detectives, is also quite game, doing what she can for the motley crew.

Considering there are five or six compelling stories in Bengali, it is not surprising the remake rights were snapped up at Sundance. In fact, it was such a hit at the festival, your faithful correspondent could not get into the final screening, even with a legit press ticket in hand. Those are the breaks. Any regular ticket holders who were also shut out that night can now catch it in the comfort of their own home. Highly recommended, Bengali starts its HBO2 run this Wednesday (11/16) and will be available through HBO On Demand the following day.

RA.ONE: India Cranks the CGI

Two video game characters will continue their epic struggle of good versus evil in the real world. At least one of them also sings and dances. It’s not the super-villain. Combining Bollywood style musical numbers with Terminator and Tron inspired science fiction motifs, Anubhav Sinha’s RA.ONE (trailer here) opens today in New York after already setting box-office presales records in India, (a feat that should stand for at least another month, possibly six weeks).

Shekhar Subramanium is a game designer with a bratty son who prefers villains to heroes. For his birthday, Subramanium obliges him with RA.ONE, the monstrous bad guy more powerful than G.ONE, the good guy in his latest cyber-VR game, modeled on its creator. Lucifer, as the kid dubbed himself in gaming circles, is delighted, kicking RA.ONE’s tail in the game’s first round. However, when Lucifer is pulled away before RA.ONE has a chance for payback in the virtual world, the dark lord decides to go get him some in the real world.

While the film pretends to present a scientifically plausible explanation for RA.ONE and then G.ONE making the big Matrix leap to reality, it is really all just hocus pocus. Yes, there are ample science fiction elements, but the film also diligently hits all the traditional Bollywood and Tamil bases. A father dying before his son can tell him he loves him? Check. Flashbacks in the rain? Check. Redemption arriving by way of a surrogate father figure? Maybe, just maybe.

Though at first just a shortening of “Random Access One,” RA.ONE became a digital reboot of Ravana, the Hindu demon king, during Subramanium’s game development process. Similarly, G.ONE became a derivation of the Hindi word for life. That’s about as Joseph Campbell as the film gets, but there are some cool musical numbers.

It might be impossible not to enjoy “Criminal,” RA.ONE’s theme song by Akon, because it is all about booty and the lovely Kareena Kapoor (playing Lucifer’s mom Sonia) shakes hers like she means it. Likewise, the monster sample of Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” makes “Dildaara” a real guilty pleasure. As a result, the musical interludes deliver the jolt of energy we expect from Bollywood productions.

Shah Rukh Khan (SRK) has probably sold more movie tickets than Harry Potter and James Bond put together, but he is definitely coming from a Bollywood bag. Kapoor’s Sonia Subramanium is considerably more multidimensional with an undeniable screen presence. Unfortunately the kid is rather annoying, but at least Arjun Rampal understands how to chew the scenery with proper malevolent relish as RA.ONE. Rajinikanth also briefly appears as the Tamil superhero Chitti Babu, in a cameo that will thoroughly confuse anyone not familiar with the film Enthiran and makes little sense within the dramatic context of RA.ONE in any event.

The biggest budgeted Indian film to date, RA.ONE did not skimp on the CGI and VFX, supplying plenty of people hanging in mid air, Mission Impossible style. Indeed, the effects look great, easily ranking on-par with major Hollywood tent-poles. Still, the story is more than a little silly (bringing to mind 1984’s Cloak & Dagger far more than it should), but what do you expect? RA.ONE is exactly what you think it is, except perhaps the “Criminal” musical number. For the right audience in the right frame of mind, RA.ONE is good fun to laugh and groove along with. If you don’t think that’s you, it’s not. If it is, RA.ONE opens today (10/26) in New York at the AMC Empire and Village 7.

The Hindi Black Widow: 7 Khoon Maaf

Okay, so maybe Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes killed a few husbands. At least she had good reasons, most of the time. Frankly, she is not a bad person really, she just has bad moments—six or seven of them. Falling somewhere in the spectrum between Shirley MacLaine in What a Way to Go and Theresa Russell in Black Widow, Johannes is profoundly unlucky in love throughout Vishal Bhardwaj’s 7 Khoon Maaf (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

Her mother died in child birth and her beloved father tragically passed during her early formative years. Johannes will never have to worry about money, but love is a different story. Of course, the courtships always start out great, yet once hitched, her hubbies’ bad sides quickly reveal themselves. #1 was a military hero, but his war wounds made him bitter and cruel. Though he vents is frustration on Johannes loyal retainers, they will have the last laugh. This process will repeat.

Naturally, each husband is awful in his own unique way. It is not for a lack of effort on her part either. A devout Christian, Johannes even converts to Islam for Wasiullah Khan. Though his lyric poetry suggested a romantic soul, his violent sexual abuse turns her life into a nightmare. Truly, it will be the death of him. Over the decades, Johannes luck never improves. Even her sixth husband, a holistic doctor played by the great Naseeruddin Shah, turns out to be highly problematic. Eventually, the compounding tragedy of her serial mariticide threatens to engulf her very soul, a descent viewers witness in a series of Noir-style flashbacks.

Sort of a Hindi Anthony Hopkins, Shah is perfectly cast as the sophisticated and mysterious #6. However, Maaf is unquestionably a star vehicle for Priyanka Chopra as Johannes. Convincingly aging forty years, she also preserves a sense of Johannes’ vulnerability and fundamental Christian decency, despite her constant resorts to homicide. Indeed, the latter will take on renewed significance in the third act.

Bhardwaj has a reputation for straddling the boundary of Bollywood and India’s Parallel Cinema. Arguably, Maaf leans sixty-forty to the latter. While there are musical interludes, they usually happen in relatively realistic contexts, like Johannes’ wedding celebrations (of which there are plenty). Of course, there is also a lot of melodramatic messiness to satisfy Bollywood fans. While the tone can be a bit erratic, Bhardwaj keeps the pace brisk. In fact, his sly black humor and a surprisingly substantial emotional payoff give the film a distinctive character. As ambitious Bollywood or accessible Parallel Cinema, Maaf is a good introduction to Hindi films. Considerably better than many recent imports from the subcontinent, it opens today (2/18) in New York at the Big Cinemas Manhattan.

High-End Bollywood: Dhobi Ghat

Mumbai’s washer boys (dhobi) are evidently very photogenic. Perhaps one ambitious dhobi will even be able to realize his Bollywood dreams. He certainly would in a proper Bollywood movie. However, if not exactly Indian “Parallel Cinema,” Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat (a.k.a. Mumbai Diaries) certainly represents the high-end of Bollywood. Featuring no extravagant dance numbers, Rao’s Dhobi (trailer here) opens this Friday in New York.

Arun is not good with people, yet somehow the serious artist hooks up with the privileged Shai at a party. The next morning, she is still rather taken with him, but he would rather forget the whole thing. Awkward. Despite the brush off, Shai is a bit obsessed with the brooding painter. Fortunately, she discovers a link between them: Munna, their dhobi and would-be actor.

At first, Shai merely uses Munna for intel on Arun, but an unlikely if distinctly unequal friendship develops between them. She shoots his headshots and he takes her to the dhobi’s open air laundry, where she captures their proletarian essence on film. She nearly forgets about Arun, which is just as well. The artist has become preoccupied with a secret stash of videotapes recorded by the previous occupant of his new flat. Months after they were recorded, he watches Yasmin’s ostensive video-letters to her brother back home with mounting concern as the pretty young Muslim newlywed becomes increasingly miserable in her arranged marriage.

Although the found video motif is fairly standard movie stuff at this point, it is executed rather well in Ghat. It also lends a topicality to the film, as an attracted, educated Muslim woman finds herself little more than an indentured servant to her husband. Kriti Malhotra is indeed quite touching as the ill-fated Yasmin. Aamir Khan, Rao’s superstar lead actor and producer-husband, nicely expresses Arun’s fascination with the tragically compelling tapes. Indeed, his restraint in Ghat is something of a relief, considering the shameless corniness of his blockbuster Taare Zameen Par, for which the term cloying is entirely insufficient.

While the Shai-Munna threads lack the same dramatic heft, they benefit from diverging from the standard Bollywood playbook. Ordinarily, one would expect the handsome young slumdog to make it big and win the heart of his elite true love. However, class is simply a cold, hard reality in Ghat, which we might bemoan for the sake of all the real life Munnas, but gives a distinctive edge to Rao’s film.

Though often dealing with the melodramatic, Rao’s firm hand on the rudder keeps the film from ever going over the top. Eschewing traditional Bollywood music, it features a classy art cinema soundtrack composed by Gustavo Santaolalla (best known for his Babel and Brokeback Mountain scores). Granted, Ghat is undeniably manipulative, but it is considerably more engaging than one expects. In fact, it is a very promising directorial debut by Rao. One of the better cinematic imports from the subcontinent in a number of months, it opens this Friday (1/21) at the Big Cinemas Manhattan and Big Cinemas Bombay.

MIAAC ’10: Lahore

Nothing says “goodwill” like kick-boxing. Unfortunately, when Dheeru Singh the new young Indian national champion is killed by Noor Muhammad (the Drago-like great Pakistani hope) in the Asian Games, it casts a pall over the upcoming Indian-Pakistani goodwill match. When the games proceed as announced, Singh’s brother Veerender may have some goodwill of his own to spread in Sanjay Puran Singh Chauhan’s Lahore (trailer here), which had its U.S. premiere at this year’s MIAAC Film Festival.

India and Pakistan share quite a bit of difficult history together, some of which involves the Punjab capitol of Lahore. Holding the good will games there would evoke certain historical rivalries under the best of conditions. However, emotions are inflamed after Muhammad kills Singh in the ring with a cheap shot. Neither the international kick-boxing authorities nor the Indian government press the matter though, so as not to jeopardize all that goodwill. Of course, Veerender has different ideas.

Originally a kick-boxer as well, he became a cricketer instead, because he lives in India and that is where all the prestige is. He still has a lot of the moves though, as we see when he lays a beat-down on a gang of toughs hassling his brother’s girlfriend Neela. Can brother Veeru get back into fighting shape fast enough to make the national team and return Muhammad’s good will with interest? He has the support of the esteemed Indian national coach S.K. Rao, as well as Ida, the patronized psychiatric intern with the Pakistani team.

Lahore’s debt to Rocky IV and The Best of the Best is blindingly obvious. Still, it mostly works as a martial arts film thanks to the completely credible fight choreography of Hong Kong action director Kuang Hsiung. Anyone with any familiarity with real world martial arts will be able to buy into his fight sequences. Singh’s tentative Romeo & Juliet romance with the Pakistani Ida is also executed relatively painlessly. Frankly, if the energy is there, the revenge-in-the-ring convention works just about every time. Yet, Chauhan deliberately tries his best to undermine it with an eye-rolling Kumbaya conclusion.

All too conscious of geo-political realities, Lahore tries to have it both ways, emphasizing Pakistan’s enormous human-dwarfing mosques and showing their kick-boxing team training in the mountains in scenes that seem to intentionally call to mind al-Qaeda camps. Yet, it also wants to assure us of our universal brotherhood, which evidently becomes clear after a few rounds of bruising combat.

Aanaahad and Sushant Singh are more or less adequate as the battling Singh brothers. Fortunately, the Pakistani villains supply the necessary color. Mukesh Rishi seethes malevolently as the hulking Muhammad and Sabyasachi Chakraborty chews the scenery with relish as the insidious Pakistani coach, who seems to have more hush-hush political clout than George Soros. He is nicely matched by Farooq Shaikh as the media-savvy Indian coach Rao.

There was a time when it would be unthinkable that India, the de-facto leader of the non-aligned nations, would receive such shabby treatment from any international body. Arguably though, Islamic Islamabad probably trumps the increasingly capitalistic India these days. Given such fundamental differences, whether or not they really can all just get-along remains to be seen. Despite its simplistic moral, Lahore brings plenty of crowd-pleasing fighting, making it a good potential fit for Magnolia Pictures’ Magnet slate of international genre movies. A big hit in India, it seems a more likely Hindi film to eventually score American distribution. While the official selection screenings of this year’s MIAAC have concluded, the Smita Patil sidebar continues at the Walter Reade Theater through Thursday (11/18).

MIAAC ’10: The Japanese Wife

It is hard to find a Japanese translator in rural Bengali. The converse is not so easy in Japan either. Somehow two pen-pal-lovers are able to make do with English, their halting second language, in Aparna Sen’s The Japanese Wife (trailer here), one of the best received films of this year’s MIAAC Film Festival, which is already available on DVD.

Unassuming does not begin to describe Snehamoy Chatterjee. A school teacher in a remote West Bengal village, he makes a mere $100 a month. His only joys are the letters and packages he receives from Miyage, a pen pal he found through a magazine classified. Also quite shy, she recognizes a kindred soul in Chatterjee, but is anchored to Japan and the sick mother she cares for. Nevertheless, she proposes a marriage of the spirit, consummated by the post. For fifteen years, they remain faithful to each other, even as fate brings Sandhya, his aunt’s attractive god-daughter widowed at a tragically young age, to test his fidelity. While their idealized love might endure jealousy and temptation, there are more ominous clouds on the horizon.

Wife is an unabashed, heartstring-tugging tearjerker in the tradition of Il Postino. It might be manipulative as all get-out, but it works in spades. Dubbed a “love poem by Aperna Sen” in the trailer, there is indeed something poetically beautiful about their chaste love and the emotional support they lend each other across geographic and cultural boundaries. Frankly, it seems like its DVD release was premature, because if there was ever an international film tailored made for breakout American art-house success, it would be Wife.

Ironically, Rahul Bose and Chigusa Takaku really do not have the chance to develop chemistry as a couple, but they are both sweetly endearing as Chatterjee and his title wife, respectively. On-screen nearly the entire film, Bose finds the right balance, portraying the schoolteacher as oh-so mild-mannered and withdrawn, yet never to the point of freakishness. Though Takaku is an ethereal presence during most of the film, she is radiantly beautiful and emotionally devastating in her final scene.

Sen grounds viewers in the realities of West Bengal, where the idea of jetting off to Japan is as unrealistic as hitching a shuttle ride to the moon. The viscous mud oozes through her lens, yet ultimately her imagery of the traditional white sari mourning dress defines the tenor of the film.

Wife is international cinema for people who hate foreign films. It will make grown men bawl like babies. Highly recommended, particularly for fans of films like Departures, Wife is currently available at Netflix. It also scored a major hit last night at MIAAC, which continues tomorrow (11/14) at the SVA Theatre.

MIAAC ’10: Smita Patil Sidebar

Perhaps no actor embodied the challenges of India’s “Parallel Cinema,” or non-Bollywood filmmaking, better than Smita Patil (1955-1986). Though she made commercial movies as well, she is more closely associated with more independent art-films from the likes of Satyajit Ray and Shyam Benegal (who discovered her). Yet, one of her best-loved performances was a Bollywood-style Marathi actress. A pioneering Indian feminist, Patil’s daring work, controversial life, and tragic early death make her a perfect subject for a retrospective sidebar of the 2010 Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival, co-presented with the Film Society of Lincoln Center.

The Patil sidebar offers an opportunity to see truly classic films from India often overshadowed by the glitz and glamour of Bollywood. However, Benegal’s Bhumika (The Role) gives viewers a chance to have their Bollywood cake and eat it too. Exploring gender roles and cultural prejudices in early to mid Twentieth Century India, Bhumika still features many lavish musical numbers from the films-within-the-film that Patil’s Usha reluctantly makes under her screen name Urvashi. She never loved the business, not even as a child star, yet her family’s poverty left her little choice.

Unfortunately, her work as an actress somewhat compromises Usha, or at least the public perception of her. This also leads to strife with her manager-husband Keshav Darvi, even though it is he who originally pushes her into the business. A much older family associate of dubious character, it is hard to understand why Usha stays with Darvi, yet for personal and cultural reasons, Usha keeps coming back to him. Of course, there are plenty of other men who show an interest in the actress, including Sunil Verma, a married director. While he is a person of substance, his philosophical materialism is not particularly healthy for Usha. Though she finds a surrogate family as the more-or-less concubine of the wealthy Vinayak Kale, the inequalities of their relationship are even more extreme.

Bhumika is like A Star is Born for India’s Parallel Cinema, with added elements of scandalous 1980’s mini-series, including abortion, spousal abuse, and plenty of infidelity mixed in for spice. Yet, Benegal gives it all an epic sweep, approximating the look of vintage cinema with his extensive black-and-white flashbacks. A role that clearly hit close to home, Patil projects both intensity and a fragility as Usha.

In addition to Patil, many familiar names and faces can be seen in this year’s MIAAC. Perfect as the old rascally government spokesman in Anusha Rizvi’s Peepli Live, one of the better reviewed and widely screened Hindi imports of the year, Naseeruddin Shah is an intriguing presence in Bhumika as Verma. Peepli also featured a catchy soundtrack performed by the world music group Indian Ocean, who are the subject of the documentary Leaving Home. After the triumph of Slumdog Millionaire, Oscar-winning A.R. Rahman is easily the most famous Bollywood composer of the day, whose new score graces Mani Ratnam’s Raavanan. The Tamil film also features Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, dubbed by 60 Minutes “the world’s most beautiful woman,” recognizable to followers of Bollywood for Bride and Prejudice and Jodhaa Akbar.

The 2010 MIAAC offers an interesting opportunity to compare and contrast the screen personas of Patil and Rai Bachchan, two iconic actresses of Indian cinema, from very different eras. With many films considerable longer than two hours, the sidebar also offers good value for the ticket price. The Patil sidebar runs at the Walter Reade Theater November 11th through the 18th, with Bhumika screening this Thursday (11/11) and the following Wednesday (11/17) and Thursday (11/18). The MIAAC film fest proper begins this Wednesday (11/10) at the SVA Theater.