An Indian “Darshak”, Kaminey and Critics
Today I watched Kaminey for the Fixfth time.
I am not trying to give another review of the movie because I don’t consider myself good enough to review any movie. That is why I could not write here before this. For the past two years I wanted to write but I did not do that. But I can’t stop myself anymore. Kaminey is not a milestone in Indian cinema but it is something. It is the newest wave in Indian cinema. It has nothing to do with Hollywood. It is not Vishal Bhardwaj’s “Javab” to Hollywood (I am sure he will agree on this) and for god sake it is not Indian Pulp Fiction. It will be seen as an important movie in Indian cinema in future because it demonstrates the capability of an Indian film maker. It is a proof that Indian film makers have the courage and are ready to follow a different path for storytelling. It tells how Indian cinema has evolved and where it can go.
My insanity for cinema started when I couldn’t even speak. I lived in a very small town where there was not a single decent theatre where a man could watch a movie with his family. My insanity increased with the increasing age. VCR was the only available option and my family did not have one (I was told that it will come when my father’s friend’s brother in law will come back from Dubai and it never happened). I have watched movies in every possible place, at Durga Puja Pandal, at a video theatre (there were some small rooms where movies were shown on a colour TV and people watched it sitting on the floor), at every neighbours’ house (whom I didn’t even know). I remember I used to go to every baarat because movies were shown there in the night. I remember sitting on the ground and watching movies for the whole night. Those were the days when I could do anything for watching a movie. And what movies I could watch? Bhabhi, Paap ko jalakar rakh kar dunga, Rakhwala, Hamla, sone pe suhaga, Mar mitenge, Aatishbaaj, Billu badshah, Aag ka gola, Humara khandan, Bade ghar ki beti, Laal dupatta malmal ka, Jina teri gali mein, Bahar aane tak and every movie mentioned in the torture series. These are some names. At that time only parameter for deciding whether a movie is good or bad was the no. of villains it has. After a long wait and a lot of hard work watching Naseeb was a great achievement for me because it had Pran, Amrish Puri, Amjad Khan, Kadar Khan, Prem Chopra and Shakti Kapoor together. Even watching the poster of a movie was a great delight.
My insanity continued to grow. Today I have watched almost every Hindi movie, can’t say all but a great number of English movies. I have watched Italian neorealist and pre and post neorealist movies, French poetic realist movies. I have watched movies of Renoir, Godard, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Kiarostami, Bergman, Kurosawa, Antonioni and endless names. I have watched good movies in every Indian language. This is how I evolved as a “Darshak”.
If I say that I did not like the Hindi movies that I watched in my childhood, it would be a lie. At that time I loved them. My passion for cinema started with those movies and today I can’t imagine myself without cinema.
Yes, I love all kinds of movies good, bad or ugly but I know the difference between good, bad and ugly cinema. I don’t read any reviews before actually watching a movie. Critics are causing more damage to cinema than piracy. Today people decide which movie to watch after reading someone else’s views without finding who he is and what he has to do with cinema. Everybody has become a film critic. And they are not doing any good to cinema because they are not qualified enough to criticize even a B grade Hindi movie.
I started with Kaminey because I can’t sit and read the things written about a good movie any more. Everyone is free to say that they don’t like it. But even the critics who praised it mentioned the names of Tarantino or Pulp Fiction. Why it is Indian Pulp fiction? Because people can’t understand what is going on in the movie? Because the story line is not linear? They are not doing justice to the film maker. Critics today know everything about a film more than its maker. They even know the intention behind making a film more than the maker. Someone calls it a spaghetti gangster film. So let it be. It doesn’t make it a bad movie. May be you don’t like it. May this film is not made for an audience like you. But you don’t have to criticize it on false premises.
They assumes something and their review revolve around their assumptions. This is not a good sign for cinema in India. Everybody is free to write anything about anything but the reader is also free to believe it or not. Only the audience can stop them from doing more damage. Please go to the theatre watch a movie and decide what is good and what is not.
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
Okay. I will be the first one to admit. I did not like the movie. It did not live up to it’s hype.
At first I started reading this post with great caution- after all so many reviews/critiques of Kaminey have already come in ( including mine ).But thankfully your post turned out to be different.Even I’m a passionate film lover and watched all the movies mentioned by you.And yes I feel Kaminey was a good movie- but nothing earth shaking.
“Not living up to its hype”.
How is this the movie’s fault that some people went ga-ga after its release and as a reaction some people didnt like it because they thought its not worth the hype!!
I guess some people would have liked the movie much more if they would have “discovered” the movie themselves instead of it being it being oversold to them by critics and media.
Let me make myself clear. I did not like the movie and the movie did not live up to its hype are two different statements which have pearson coefficient “zero”. So even if I had “discovered” the movie, I am pretty sure I wouldn’t have liked it.
Also, I don’t give a fark what critics or media say about the movie. If I want to watch it, I am gonna watch it and I am entitled to my opinion which may be different than yours.
Ok, so you have watched many movies, at many places.
I think if a person wants to seea movie he will see, if a review is not favorable.
I did not like kaminey. Its I dont feel its a change of Indian cinema. if it is then what is being cyrus,little zizou and aamir ?
@sonofabeech
I didnt specifically mean you when i said that but off course it was triggered by your statements.
When many people say that “I did not like the movie. It did not live up to it’s hype. ” then it does mean that there is a degree of correlation. Otherwise your brain wouldnt have put these statements together one after another. And believe me i have heard these statements from many people on this movie.
Off course you might be an exception and your mind works in an isolation which judges a product merely on its quality and is not affected by noise surrounding it. I will grant you that.
I however understand i will have biases and I try to recongnise it as only after understanding it will I be able to control it better.
Even I have heard those statements from a lot of people. It might have prompted my brain to put these statements together. Honestly, I did not imply what you deduced. I should have written more clearly.
@sonofabeech
Also using the word correlation instead of using pearson coefficient would have helped other people ,who dont have the advantage of statistical education, understand it better.
Thanks
If people don’t know it, they might just learn about it when they google it.
Nice post. I liked what you said about the cinema critics. I also feel that critics are, most of the time, biased due to their assumptions, professional associations, personal grudge or something else.
I could not get the gist out of the post.
‘I am not trying to give another review of the movie because I don’t consider myself good enough to review any movie.’- This part is Understood. But still you have given your verdict in 2 -3 sentences, based on self assumed qualification (unless you some some famous personality writing behind pseudonym).
‘They assumes something and their review revolve around their assumptions. ‘- But natural. Even critiques like Ebert is criticized by someone else.
A Movie is like alchohol, some people have never tasted it, some have but didn’t like it, some are hooked to it, and cares two hoots about what others say.
Cheers!
Your bachpan ki story about watching films is quite similar with most of the people on pfc… specilally born in late 70s or early 80s… same was the case here.. Kaminey was very good movie but i dont think it is a path breaking cinema. I dont care what media and critics says about a film, if i feel to watch then i will go for it despite media report or anything. Vishal Bhardwaj is my all time favourite director and i expect more from him… considering the benchmark he has created for himself after Maqbool, omkara, Blue umbrella and blood brothers and i think there is no harm in having his previous films in mind because ultimately it is because of those films that we are so much fond of Vishal Bhardwaj. I am not saying Kaminey is disappointing or bad film, infact it is a very good film but what i think is that it is not that great as everybody is singing about it and i am free to give my opinoun and I will eagerly wait for VB’s next….
@Disturbingbehaviour
I am sure you earn hefty package and hence spending it on Kaminey. 5 times, great man and btw Have you ended this spree or you are going to watch it more times.
Best of luck !!
lol
brother,yesterday i switched on the tv and saw ranbir kapur saying”ayan mukherjee is the answer to woody allen”..i dont know why people need to constantly answer others without questions being asked!!wonder why we need to compare ourselves to others to prove whether we good or not!!anyways, totally got the gist of what u were trying to say..i dont ever reply to articles here and dont read posts much except for few authors..cause very few articles here are honest, but yours is..i agree on your views on critics too, they hardly ever really analyse a movie, just say the story and pronounce whether its good or bad..they hardly go into the story and technical aspects..but wil like to say one thing, dont say stuff like ‘u r not good enough to write a review here man’..u write well, clearly and honestly..pfc, is no place to judge one’s film knowledge..anyways, keep watching movies..tc..
thank god !!
he didnt say he is india’s answer to “Leonardo Di Caprio” or “Tom cruise” :D
Btw who is this Ayan Mukherjee !!
he’s the director of wake up sid…hails from the same khandaan that boasts of rani mukherjee etc…
Jitaditya, Can u confirm me that Abhishek Kapoor who directed “Rock On” also belongs to some khaandhan…I heard so…
Since his Uff ye Mohabbat days, I used to think him son of Jeetendra (I think I read in some newspaper that time) before Tushar made his debut in Mujhe Kuch Kehna hai.
OK, I just did some googling and found that Abhishek Kapoor is son of Jeetendra’s sister. So he is cousin brother of Ekta Kapoor and Tusher.
Thanks bro.. it means another petal of family flower.. Sab ke sab Palash ke fool.
The best thing i liked about this post was the movies you listed and the places where you watched it. My uncles place was something similar. We use to go to the open theatre in his village where first rows were nothing but sand then the benches use be in the rear side. Sitting there in the sand watching the movie under skylight is one of the more chersihed things for me i have done in my life
. Half the time i use to sleep in the sand itself in between the movie only to wake up when the movie use to end 
. Yes I cant forget the Ganesh Aarti before the start of the movie and the sunflower seeds we use to eat during the movie.
Interestingly for me too the first memory of me watching a movie is attached with a video show organised in my village at someone’s home compound. Video shows used to be common those days in north Indian villages at some occasion. If I remember correctly, the movies were Jeevan Ek Sanghursh and Mard.
What is new in ‘Kaminey’??!! That kind of Story Telling is already done by RGV in ‘KshnaKshnam’ with Venkatesh and Sridevi as leads.