Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Live enjoyment in Peepli

The LIVE word can be construed as live as in live matches or live as we live our lifes.

Peepli Live, most of my friends comprehended, it will be a bore. So what if Aamir Khan is promoting it, it need not be a good movie? And why not Aamir Khan should promote it? He is the producer. When you watch the movie, you realize, you required Aamir Khan to promote this movie? There are interactions, press conferences, you need a face to represent the movie. The posters do reveal a lot about the movie, a poor rural family, few mikes hanging from the top, media swarming from the top, LIVE word in frame and a handpump. So what if the whole caste and the issue is pasted on it? You have little or no idea, how its going to play? One of the rare posters, which captures and narrates the real characters of the movie and summons it at appropriate places.

Take a dig at the other poster pictured below. It a tempu, the mass transporter of rural India. In my native place, it is known as bhoond (Punjabi word for honey bee). It is distastingly painted black with some part of it yellow, may be the front hood or the top part. But the sight of tempu is the same in any part of our truly majestic India, people are hanging from all sides and their daily wares.

Peepli Live is one of the rare movies of Bollywood, which was running without (count it), a named and famed director, no famed actor, no famed actress, no dream sequences, no dances, no item number, no burning issue, no action, no romance, no melodrama, no crying, barely music (definitely can be defined as antonym of musical). What the movie contains? Just the way India was and currently it is progressing. A very nice written and delivered script revolving around a very small incident but a very big issue for India. We should learn to laugh at ourselves that is what director has tried to aim. If you feel ashamed, do something about it? Until then keep laughing at your plight.

Peepli Live is a satire on farmer’s suicide. But I believe, honestly, it is a satire on media and our political system or perhaps the way our country is being run. The moot point the director raises, a farmer may not till his/her land, may not require money/food. All they want is the respect for their lands. We are not able to provide them with a single way of existence, aim, mission, vision and dream of our life.

Media star characters are brilliantly brought to the front. Perhaps a spoof or original cut-outs of Barkha Dutt of NDTV and Chaurasia of AajTak (don’t know if this fellow has switched employers, well must have, we all do). Media is the most creative industry in India. They can make and create a movie and an issue with nobody. This is what they have depicted in the movie. They are trying to address an issue of farmer suicide. Yet it is the last thing, on their mind.

Every character plays to his part with such elegance and poise. The media personnel as they are hogging like dogs and spewing like donkeys. Natha, the real face of the movie, has barely one or two dialogues. But his expressions make his character. I have no idea what is happening in my life, why is it happening and what I am supposed to do about it? Just listens and barely responds. Raghubir Yadav, one of the finest actors in India. The wife, as women are (oh sorry as rural woman are), always screaming and abusing their husbands and in laws.

Politicians and IAS officers, as they are in real life, we are only here to show and project that we are trying to do things. The only beneficiary in the name of WE the people is me, me and me. The handpump in the picture below is granted under the Lal Bahadur Shastri scheme by the District Collector. Natha does ask for the fitting expenses but that is not part of the scheme. Nobody talks about his loan or his land in possession of the bank.

Finally the amma, whose only working limb is her tongue and she uses it to perfection to abuse at every opportunity and appropriate time anybody who comes in front of her. Especially her bahu (daughter in law) with kulta, naaspiti, karamjali, abhouri, naagin, daayein and yes there are few prefixing family relations too.

The ending does not possess a happy ending like a typical Bollywood masala, boy hugging the girl’s parents. Such movies never have a happy ending, instead it creates another level of disruption with no conclusion.

Conclusion or no conclusion, do watch it in theatre and definitely finds a place in the selected DVDs section.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Tere Bin Laden - Watch it or Laugh it

The name of the movie suggests, it’s a satire. It’s a satire on Osama Bin Laden, THE MAN on this earth with $25 million for its headless body and couple of billions or trillions already in the drain for his head. I really admire him for the way; he has made Americans to stalk the Afghanistan. Normally the world wants to stalk or hound Americans till the time they abuse you in public.

For the movie, Mr. Laden raises cocks and hens. He runs a mini poultry farm of his own. He loves and adores his cocks and hens. The irony and parody running in the movie is remarkable and phenomenal. A young Pakistani reporter working with some stupid Danka TV wants to go to America, the land of his dreams. The movie comes at a time when in reality, the Americans have made Pakistan a bigger mess than Afghanistan, that too for supporting America and not fighting them. Though for the reporter, Mr. Ali Zafar should remain stuck to his singing and not acting. He barely knows and seems to show little potential to become an actor.

The irony and parody in the movie, a Pakistani reporter wants to visit America riding on his success of an interview with a fake Osama Bin Laden. What on Earth went in the maker’s mind? Everybody is laughing their way including the producers. I never expected the movie to be a laugh riot. You are laughing and laughing, till it hurts with all the quirky one liners from Noora aka Osama Bin Laden. The best one is “tere behan nu lassi pilawa”. Or Sikander, my star murga, who won the competition; “he, alone has taken control/incharge of 1000 hens”.

The whole effort goes in building the characters, Osama Bin Laden aka Noora, cameraman, owner of the channel, make-up artist, Ted ji, Pakistani brigadiers. Definitely a must watch for all the Asians. In introspection of what we are and what we aim to become and definitely the means we attach to it.