In a series of columns, I have been paying my tribute to Indian cinema in its centenary year by telling my story as a film viewer.
My experience with some films is that I have watched them several times and each time they have been as fresh as the first time. Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikandar (JJWS) is in this category. One reason the film is evergreen for me is that the world shown in the film itself is evergreen. It is the world of school boys and girls, their pranks, games and rivalries. And their romances.
This world, if shown well and through the eyes of school boys and girls, takes viewers to the time they were in this world. It makes them relive their youth. Everything in JJWS, the story, acting, script, music, choreography, has the vitality and freshness life in school usually has. I saw JJWS the first time in the 9-12 night show in a Mumbai hall in 1992. I have seen a lot of Mumbai taporis in films but the first and last time a met one was outside the hall before the movie. I was standing with a friend when a guy in black trousers and multi-coloured shirt came and stood next to us. The top three buttons of his shirt were open and a golden chain was glittering on his dark, hairy chest. He stood for a while in the typical crooked stance of a tapori, rocking back and forth and sideways all the while. Then he turned to me and said, "Hamla kidhar lagela (In which hall is Hamla movie being shown)IJ" My friend gave him the name of the hall and he went away. Going by what I saw, film taporis look quite close to real life ones.
I had gone to Mumbai for a job interview and had not been selected. I was feeling low and my Mumbai friend took me to just the right movie. I was not expecting much after a disastrous day. The title of the film was clumsy and I hadn't heard of it before. But it made me forget my interview and when it ended, I knew I would see it many times. The cycle race at the end of the movie has been done simply but completely absorbs me every time I see it. The song "Pehla nasha, pehla khumar ..." is in my list of perfect songs. I heard Farah Khan say on TV that it was the first film song she choreographed. She conveys the dreaminess and effervescence needed in the song.
I like movies that stay close to reality. I am not sure why I walked out of the hall before the interval of Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge (DDlJ). Maybe the characters and story looked too unreal to me. But characters and settings are often unreal in movies. To take just one instance, where will you find a college in India where a girl dresses the way Rani Mukerji does in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (KKHH)IJ Movies most of the time are a mix of dream and reality. The art is to make dreams look real, just the way dreams look real to a person when he is sleeping. It's difficult to take flights of fancy while fully awake. KKHH puts me to sleep and the dreams of the movie become acceptable. DDlJ is in the same dreamy league as KKHH. But somehow, DDlJ could not put me to sleep and make me surrender my credulity. Its unreal ambience became unacceptable in a wakeful state after some time.
Sehar is a movie that failed at the box office but is one of my favourites. It's based on real life and is hugely authentic in showing the fight between a team of committed police officers and criminals in Uttar Pradesh. Arshad Warsi gives a brilliant, nuanced performance as a brave and upright IPS officer. Sushant Singh is outstanding as a ruthless don. The story-telling is polished and riveting. The movie doesn't dilute its adherence to reality at all to meet commonly perceived requirements of a hit. There's only one song in it and the hero and villain both die in the end after a shoot-out inside a running train. I am not sure what works at the box-office and what doesn't. If someone says the movie flopped because it is too real and doesn't serve Bollywood masala at all, then Ram Gopal Varma's Sarkar shouldn't have done the good business it did because of the same reasons. I admire Varma's expertise in portraying the underworld.
All the actors have done a superb job in Sarkar. Varma has the capacity to make the thoughts of his characters evident. His camera goes into the minds of his subjects, revealing their inner world. I wonder how Varma researches the underworld. The mannerisms, behaviour, dialogues and thinking of the underworld characters in his films looks chillingly authentic.
Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday is another great film on the underworld. All the performances in the film sparkle. Pavan Malhotra is menacing as Tiger Memon. Malhotra has come a long way as an actor since his days as a character in Nukkad, a TV serial aired on Doordarshan in 1986-87. There is a character named Asgar Mukadam who works for Memon and is interrogated by the police after the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts. He appears briefly in the beginning of the movie. If Amitabh Bachchan is the Kishore Kumar of acting, then Nawazuddin Siddiqui as Asgar Mukadam is Bhismen Joshi. He takes classical alaaps of acting when most big actors can only do a good job in the light music form of acting. Siddiqui's masterly act in Black Friday came in 2004. He remained largely unnoticed for a long time before awards and recognition came to him in 2012 for his roles in Kahaani, Gangs of Wasseypur, Gangs of Wasseypur - Part 2 and Talaash. Both the film industry and audiences can be cruelly indifferent to the highest levels of talent at times. It is reassuring to see Siddiqui getting fame and acclaim.
I end my series on cinema here. In school there used to be endless heated debates to decide the better actor between Amitabh Bachchan and Dilip Kumar. Just like those debates, any commentary on Indian cinema can be endless. Cinema began in India a hundred years ago, but the work done so far makes a hundred years look like a thousand. Cinema is a truly democratic medium-of, for and by the people. I don't know about the four estates of our political democracy, but in the world of artistic democracy, our cinema has excelled in giving the people of India their due.
amitshekhara@gmail.com