Apparently Shoaib Mansoor's film, "Bol", is a big hit in India, and this may be cause to celebrate for some, but really, its hardly a surprise. A patriarchal protagonist, Hakim Sahib, who single handedly oppresses all his daughters, impregnates his wife every year in the futile hope of a male heir but he is cursed with girl sperm, and almost strangulates a baby girl to preserve her honor - it all adds up nicely to what many oblivious middle class Indians and even the upper class ones would imagine a Pakistani male to be. Also adds up nicely to narratives that make successful novels in the west about the east, Brick Lane, Kite Runner - the triumphs and annihilations of women and minorities against oppressive patriarchal cultures - which in turn allow for military actions and drone campaigns against such cultures - by super powers.
Hold that expression while we send over drones...
So it disturbs me - and also while I appreciated "Bol's" effort to handle many social issues, some of its music, its shots, its characters, its politics were throughly liberal --blame the individual for the failings of the state - they could just reproduce less so they have fewer mouths to feed.
But this blog is not about Pakistani films, its about Indian films - our main fare for entertainment in Pakistan. When "Delhi Belly" did not make it to the screens in Karachi, I was a little disappointed because I thought it was an rebellious film made by a maverick studio, and now I'd be watching a grainier version. But just because you use the "che" word in every other sentence does not make the film rebellious. If you're trying so hard to show that Indian youth are cool, tough, not bothered by traditions, bored with reverence, then also show them to be fighting oppressive trends in society - and victims, if not entirely economically, but at some psychological level so the ordinary viewer can relate to them, connect to them as human beings.
But these three, supposedly suffering roommates are hardly people one would feel sorry for. They have jobs, they drink cartons of orange juice; the protagonist, Tashi, played by Imran Khan, (poor little rich boy) has a car and an apartment waiting in dowry for him once he marries his financee, a pretty flight attendant, played by Shehnaz Treasurywala. Why she is working as a flight attendant is a mystery because her parents seem more than comfortable. Only one of them, a shady photographer, who takes photos of corpses and for blackmailing, seems to be struggling. In sum, they are the "ches" or lets just say "fools" in order to be deliberately respectful. The plot is simple enough - a mix up of bags, drug lords getting stool instead of diamonds, and then chasing the roommates to recover their property.
But these three, supposedly suffering roommates are hardly people one would feel sorry for. They have jobs, they drink cartons of orange juice; the protagonist, Tashi, played by Imran Khan, (poor little rich boy) has a car and an apartment waiting in dowry for him once he marries his financee, a pretty flight attendant, played by Shehnaz Treasurywala. Why she is working as a flight attendant is a mystery because her parents seem more than comfortable. Only one of them, a shady photographer, who takes photos of corpses and for blackmailing, seems to be struggling. In sum, they are the "ches" or lets just say "fools" in order to be deliberately respectful. The plot is simple enough - a mix up of bags, drug lords getting stool instead of diamonds, and then chasing the roommates to recover their property.
Intestopan?
In one of the earlier scenes, Imran Khan's character and his future love interest, a suitably hip and sexually liberated woman, (ya sure, call her Bohemian) interview a flaky star who wants to "sing, dance, direct, and write." She then sings for them a song that is predictably awful, so our two much cooler protagonists can laugh and display their own enlightened state, and actually appear like the bigger fools because of the sheer contrived nature of the scene. Later at the end of the movie, clad in burqas, and after a narrow escape from the bad guys, the two jump each other, and make out. Two people clad in burqas making out - the imagery is screaming for attention - Muslim lesbians --when in reality the couple is a straight Hindu couple. The chemistry between the two characters is so missing, you feel awkward for them as actors that they have to kiss each other even if you are made to believe that its the adrenaline induced spontaneity.
please make it stop
Amir Khan Productions attempted to be kitschy and pulp fiction-esque, but they forgot to make the characters endearing and engaged in each other's life. If you can't like the characters, then you do not ever really care about their hopes and dreams either. You can't just insert galis, men scratching and serving cases of Delhi belly, scatological humor, spunk, and over the top craziness hoping to shock and awe the audience - but have no substance the audience can emotionally connect with, and weak male centered, hetero normative messaging. There is a song in the film where one of the characters, a cartoonist bogged down by uncreative bosses, fantasizes after he is dumped by his girlfriend. He walks into her wedding and announces how she has been with him. Her family is scandalized - and the woman humiliated as she is thrust about like live flesh. You can't laugh at it, as its a desi girl's nightmare scenario, and yet the scene is trying so hard to be funny and empower young creative men who've been abandoned for better options like American engineers.
At the end of the day, what has bothers me most about recent Indian cinema is its sense of superiority - the NRI has arrived politics of "Zindagi Na Milegi", the belief that they can turn Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" and "True Romance" on its head without a glitch -- without a sense of how unoriginal they are being. Curse words absent a cause. Pulp minus the gooda. Cuteness without a calling. Plagiarism and grit without reflection and compassion. Even the filthy apartment, an uncomfortable closeness with decaying, dirty wcs, and the sense of apathy and disorderliness seems borrowed from the film"Trainspotting" but incongruous with the characters in Delhi Belly.
I mean, guys, I am happy to be a "buddhi rooh" here. I know I am in good company. Get over Congress and Gandhi, and how Mumbai reminds you of New York; take a position on the Indian army's role in Kashmir, stop gloating about how after Soviet collapse, the Valad-a-mirs and the Russian models are dancing to your tunes. Old white couples come to vacation in India, but Indians are not bending over backwards for them anymore - they are just sexy, their fake orgasms shock and awe the elderly couple. Later they deal with an explosion as they celebrate their anniversary over a glass of wine -- the woman yells. "We should have just gone to Disneyland." We just can't get over how quirky we Indians can be - but you can't help thinking the white couple as a prop display the film-makers naked desire for the western gaze.
I mean, guys, I am happy to be a "buddhi rooh" here. I know I am in good company. Get over Congress and Gandhi, and how Mumbai reminds you of New York; take a position on the Indian army's role in Kashmir, stop gloating about how after Soviet collapse, the Valad-a-mirs and the Russian models are dancing to your tunes. Old white couples come to vacation in India, but Indians are not bending over backwards for them anymore - they are just sexy, their fake orgasms shock and awe the elderly couple. Later they deal with an explosion as they celebrate their anniversary over a glass of wine -- the woman yells. "We should have just gone to Disneyland." We just can't get over how quirky we Indians can be - but you can't help thinking the white couple as a prop display the film-makers naked desire for the western gaze.
Nach Natasha.
I hope this most painfully supercilious and itchy trend in Indian film making will be over soon, but why should it when the imperative is Cannes and Big Cash; and Peepli Live on farmer suicides simply don't do enough. In contrast, "Tere Bin Laden" is raunchier and has more of the Indie spirit as Ali Zafar has zest.
2 comments:
lol for once i can disagree with you here. Delhi Belly has been criticized for creating a false class identity which is noticeable in its absence of any obligations, or as one critic called it, transactional obligations. your critique of the lack of chemistry (imraan khan is easily the deadest weight amongst the cast) and the desire for the western gaze is also fair.
but i think that the film is not as vacuous, or even when it is, as pointless as has been made out.
for starters, within the annals of hindi cinema, a film which explicitly breaks free from the conventions of the narrative being driven forward by disruptions in the moral universe - and the need for their resolution - is good going. the hero doesn't turn into a decent middle class white collared worker, he finds someone who is also rebellious. regardless of how hammy it is, it's a significant difference.
secondly, while the language can grate, it's also refreshing to have a film use bazaari zaban without it being some super gritty film. the use of the gaalis is also pretty inventive - 'your gaand is a solar eclipse man' - and it's important that audiences can adjust to desi films with gaaliyan (and not just having ghunday use them) because it's very limiting as a dialogue writer. tarantino can do great pulp stories, as does trainspotting, but in both cases they are not trapped by the constricted censorship which only lets you say five words, none of them believable.
the final issue, one which i have wrestled with myself, is whether there is a point to films which are almost completely escapist. and while the responsible adult in me finds it hard to rationalise, the 16 year old kid who had never any access to brown people doing fun yet believable (aka no DDLJ, HAKHK tamasha) films it does make a lot of sense just to have something which isn't obviously repressed, and which is based in a desi setting then it is extremely relatable.
also, which desi doesn't like potty jokes? :)
kk,
I liked that it tried to break conventions of narrative; I liked the gaalis, also the break from regular morality. I liked that they had a female character feign an orgasm, which was quite unique. My only problem was the way the film was made. It made the characters seems bratty and not likable, the coolness was forced and put on and not organic. And more than breaking conventions, what were the politics behind the film? Did they show young people struggling in anyway? Do they show some of the real problems of unemployment youth may be facing? Imran's character seems to be doing pretty well.
Yes, escapist films are fine too, but I think all art carries some innate message. But compare this to Tere Bin Laden, also an indie film, and somehow the director was able to present things in a thoroughly funny manner, and represented a humorous relationship with Pakistan. A sign at a press conference reading Seema Hall, Ranchodline references.
Delhi Belly fails to deliver..also very male centric humor, does not include women in potty humor as that is still too taboo. So broke some taboos but within constraints, while maintaining an ordinary moral sense of heterosexism with the happy ending. Imran's mangaitar does not have any agency of her own and only wants to wed, and then gets heart broken when she loses her man.
otherwise, I agree with you. :)
Post a Comment