As an audience I Can See ……
iView Author:
LUNE (Bangalore, India)
I dont watch too many movies as I would like to, but I saw a movie recently. I probably have watched it before – but I was compelled to watch it all over again.
To give a brief –
It was the story of a man losing his sight – regaining it only to lose it again. He has 2 women to support him in this crisis. His girlfriend and his sister. He has a lot of people who dont believe in him – his father, the society.
Pretty impressive opponents you might think. What is compelling about this movie are the small moments that are thrown in – they are everyday events made more glorious by their portrayal and the direction. The girlfriends desire to appear attractive and wanted, the fulfillment of ones need to be needed by another, the desire to want to be a better person and to live a fuller life. It is a heart wrenching story but is made only more beautiful by the simple way it is told. The turmoil of hte girlfriend, the ego of the blind man, the possessiveness of the sister, the ignorance of the father.. all together create an explosive effect of story telling. Yes, there are those general American cliches thrown in, but at that point you are almost ready to burst and say enough – life give this guy a better chance to live and to be more than himself, inspite of himself..
This led me to thinking about our movies back home. When was the last time a Hindi movie idea inspired me or one of my friends.. inspired me enough to want to be a better person, to be a better human being.
Was it Swades? Naa, it was too preachy and bollywoodish in some areas with SRK hamming it up in others. Some tighter direction could have lifted it higher, but it had its heart in the right place.
Was it LRM – nope, Sanju baba didnt click with me. He look old and tired and maybe he appealed only to his fans and the tapori junta who I guess were more than happy to see their representation in Indian cinema.
Was it Chak De.. then? Nope, again – I am not a sports person and whatever anyone might say – I didnt think the film was patriotic. It was a good amount of “just the right” characters thrown in to want you to make it like it. Well, I am no different and I liked it. But no, it didnt inspire me to play hockey or go out there and “Chak De” to my boss.
I am trying real hard to think of that one desi movie that I can proudly call my own. It doesnt have to be arty, it doesn’t have to be grand, it doesnt have to be in your face – it just has to appeal to something called “being human”.;)
I swear I didnt take it from Sallu bhaiya who take it from some(y) behena..:D
Now, dont get me wrong. I am all for cinema for the heck of it – for the mind and not for the soul. Hey, I am not the next Ayn Rand or Paulo C. But it is the soul dramas which brings out those once in a while cinema visions (ok lets forget the inspiration bit for now) that you hold close to your heart while sipping chai on a rainy day. It makes the world seem different. It somehow brings you closer to poetry and life in a strange way.
I still can see the shot of the father waving to his son (hiding in a bin) while he was being taken down by a Nazi soldier. No prizes for guessing which movie. Perhaps one of the most brilliant scenes and definitely the most worth remembering ones, I would say.
Or what about the scene at the end of a movie called Babettes Feast where the sisters ask the cook to go live her life and her answer to them (well, its a lil more than that..).
If only there were some more closer to home, it would make the rememberance worthwhile.
Whats your favourite cinema vision?
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
hmm …movies which inspire …. ..the one scene which inspired me (for that moment)is the one from RDB ..the scene in which siddharth speaks on radio ..specially the lines :
“Koi bhi desh perfect nahin hota, usse perfect bannana padta hai. Police mein bharti honge, military join kareinge, IAS banenge, politics ka hissa bankar is desh ki sarkar chaleynge. Yeh desh badlega. Hum badlenge isse”… ..it stirred me from inside ..made me numb..to do something …dont just comment ..take part and change things .. ..
The bulb lighting up in the old lady’s hut in Swades,one awe-inspiring scene.dude,have u seen lagaan,guess u’d like that
I don’t know if I can say if this movie inspired me or not, as it does not inspire people in the conventional sense but it definitely made me think for weeks, it inspired me to look at life differently and that movie was Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.
When I was a kid, I saw one movie that disturbed me a lot for years. It was “Prathighatana” starring Vijayshanti and Charanraj. There was a scene where Charanraj strips Vijayshanti naked in the middle of the road.
For years, whenever I used to think about that movie, I used to have this hollow pit in the stomach. I used to dream about taking revenge on Charanraj and saving Vijayshanti, used to day dream just like in “The secret life of Walter Mitty”. I wanted to become strong, a superman.
Well, after so many years, I again felt queasy, uneasy watching HKA. The inspired me to value each moment, fight for the truth and taught me to never take things for granted.
Well, apart from that, most of the Shankar movies (even though they were really really Masala filled) actually did inspire me to be a better human being.
After watching Anniyan, I became more careful about the way I drive, I never cut lanes and never drive rashly. I don’t think any movie has to be Oscar quality to inspire you, they can be totally mass oriented movies but if a good message reaches the audience and fans and they follow it, it definitely is a great movie.
Well, I am the kind of guy who sends letters and emails to newspapers, TV channels and people’s representatives if I see any issue that moves me. It is always my dream to make a movie that has something to say.
Talk of inspiration from cinema and the first thought to come to my mind is that of a movie set in small town Bihar. An engineer who takes up an intermediate job as a football coach in a school. And his experiences with the bunch of brutes he has to coach. Watched it only once…20 years ago…and its still fresh in my mind. Nice performances by Raj Kiran, Deepti Naval and Shafi Inamdar. Is the movie available anywhere?
The movie? Prakash Jha’s Hip Hip Hurray.
I disagree with the fact that Swades was preachy.
The story about an NRI coming back home and doing good things is probably quite dated and must have been seen many time over. But that
@ Abhinav ,
Also in swades.. when the title song plays at the end ..its so beautifully shown and is really touching …specially when its shown that srk is designing the satellite and the thoughts that flow through is mind abt lighting a bulb …two worlds totally apart …just amazing
Lakshya was an inspiring movie.It inspired one to stay focussed and work hard to get whatever they wanted.Yuva was an inspirational movie(although a little flawed).I’d say that it was a precursor to RDB
@ naricisst: Hip Hip Hurray was absolutely brilliant…
But to share my vision – swades had some great moment..but to understand swades..one should have seen poverty or indian villages at close quarters…one cannot fathom the depth of the film without understanding india and its villages…where there is no light…where children sell water at unknown railway stations for 25paise…. the movie is one of the most brilliant humane films i have seen…
but i find iqbaal to be the most inspiring movie..about hope and victory against odds…
all the movie’s mentioned above by u guys are really inspiring one’s…
i would second machchar’s thoughts about HKA…
i saw it on tv and couldnt sleep for two nights…
i could just see geeta being raped by the policeman
and helpless siddharth …
i just could not get it out my head……
also the scene in the end when vikram is beaten up by saurabh shukla and his accomplice….
it evoked something in me that i never felt….
and Baawra mann has to be one of the most inspirational songs…..simply brilliant….
an afterthought..
i just hope the No Smoking is inspiring enough rather scary and spooky enough for smokers to
quit.
wat say
@Macchar
I think that movie was remade in Hindi as Pratighaat with the same villain and a similar scene by N Chandra, although I am not sure about this. But I think I watched the hindi version.
I dont remember much from the movie, but that disrobing scene (done in blue) was extremely disturbing (I was just entering college then), it was a “raungtey-khadey-kardey” kind of scene.
And yes .. Shankar movies have a way of building a patriotic feeling inside you – the I-am-the-one-who-is-going-to-make-a-difference feeling, like no others can.
@Abhinav
Fully agree with you on Swades. I have the same
feelings when i see it. SRK at his best after KHKN.
@turrtle
Yes it was Pratighaat indeed and the main role was played by Sujata Mehta.
it can be hard to find one good inspirational movie when there’s such a spate of mediocrity. But memorable movie moments there are galore – my fave is the scene/slideshow from Mr. and Mrs. Iyer with Rahul Bose photographing the old man’s possessions scattered around the brook, and Zakir Hussain’s Gustaakh Akhiyaan playing in the background… every time since I’ve heard that song it wrenches my gut.
@Abhinav
I was disappointed with Swades some how… The Star Cast (apart from SRK and heroine to a little extent) was handled very casually and the characters and there screen presence desired a lot more contribution like Lagaan where the supporting cast was very much in the film..
But Rahaman’s Rendition and AG’s Placement of Ye Jo Des Hai Tera was the high point of the film and it could easily got back me in to the film…
As for My Inspirations are concerned, the first few I can think of right now are .. Anand always at first place and then Zara Si Zindagi (specially the Climax) was too inspiring.. another film that inspired me a lot is Alaap.. and yes KHKN too to some extent (of education vs passion)
(First one was a fight with death while the others were Fight with Life against all odds)…
Swades was inspiring. There are many poignant moments in the film. It was simplictic to the core. Rahman’s music was awesome, especially “Yeh jo Des”. The lead actress left something for wanting. If only it Had better known faces in the strong charcater roles, it might have done better at the BO. But Ashutosh, SRK, AR Rahman made it worthwhile. Everytime I watch it, I enjoy it. Wonder why people call it preachy. It has tremendous repeat value for me.
Ashutosh Gowarikar has made 2 good films, Lagaan and Swades.
Lets hope Jodha-Akbar lives up to expectations too.
Lines from movie Anand about how Rajesh Khanna looks at life are really touching n inspiring…
I third Vikram’s point — the old woman watching the buib light up in Swades remains as vivid in my memory as if it was a personal experience.
One of things I love about Indian movies is they still try to inspire the viewer to do better, while Hollywood corners the market on cynicism and broken souls. I can think of numerous re-humanizing moments, such as:
When we see the suffering on the face of Nandkishor’s face in Chatri Chor/Blue Umbrella and we forgive the crooked shopkeeper even before the little girl does…
In Dhoop, when the grieving father played by Om Puri, paints the names of slain soldiers on the walls as a sign of triumph over corrupt officials who tried to get in his way, and reminds us that we never take “no” as final…
When the old gent takes off his clothes in the welfare bureau in Laage Raho Munna Bhai and you realize that courage can belong to anyone…
When Jaya Bachchan’s character watches a friend of hers get slain after her long journey to become an activist in Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Maa, and you realize much work is left to be done…
In Black Friday, when Rakesh Maria lays out in plain language how terrorists take advantage of religious adherents’ passion to serve their own purposes (in spite of his own questionable end-justifies-the-means tactics)…
In Shwaas, when the grandfather takes off with his little grandson so he can take in all of the wonderful sights of life on the last day he can see anything…
Anyhow, to me an inspiration shouldn’t just be an emotion you experience in the theater and then forget in a few hours. It has to be something that stays with you and changes you — either how you behave or the art that you make.
Ashwin, I was disturbed in the same way. And yes, I remember seeing a poster of Prathighaat with Sujatha Mehta. I had major hots for Sujatha and I guess I still have ;) What is she up to these days? I last saw her in a movie of Kukkunoors, trying to seduce someone on the stairs…Was it Teen Deewarein?
Hey people,
Swades was an EXCELLENT movie…No 2 thoughts about it…
all the scenes mentioned above like the boy selling water on the railway station…
the old women seeing the lightening of the bulb….
&
The food being offered to SRK by the poor villager at his hut..
Brilliant piece of work by A.Gowarikar…
My favourite—————————
Go for the movie – EK RUKAA HUA FAISLAA — released somtime back in 80’s , may be u dont find the DVD very easily…
but , U will come 2 know the brilliance of the Scriptwriter, dialogue writer and the Eminent paasouts of NSD (Pankaj kapoor,annu kapoor, k k raina etc.)
just check it out guys….. its really good…
@Avinash
Its a copy of Hollywood classic ‘12 Angry Men’! :( Even i felt bad when i got to know tht.
I havnt seen 12 Angry Men but whole scenario is same.
thanx 4 the info Parth…
I m also feeling bad…
:((
but still… I dont think there is a match 4 the brilliance of Pankaj Kapoor …
Wonder why nobody mentioned Lagey Raho MunnaBhai ? I remember some amazing “moving” moments.
Dr. Kotnis ki amar kahani…Do aankhen barah haath…haqueeqat…ghayal..arjun…my bests!!
I just rem.. Omkara.. when Omkara considers his next heir as Vivek’s character. Saif was brilliant and the shot of the villagers below was fantastic..
Well, not inspiring, but a cinema moment:)
I liked the Swades concept – back it 100% percent, but somehow somewhere…
I agree to some extent with Pavan Jha’s view on Swades.. The supporting star cast was handled very casually and there were some flaws .. dont know how it did not click mr Gorwariker…
Have watched the movie once and i feel that
1. Kaveri Amma’s character is more like a South Indian Character than north indian.
2. You show UP and you shoot your movie in Maharashtra.. No problem in shooting the movie here.. You dont take care of the set-up.. even show a Maharashtra Police van on the screen.. The soil and the location is nowhere close to how a village in UP is..the Bullocks shown in the movie are not the ones found in UP.. Some minor things which i know dont make much of a difference but cud shld have been taken care of considering the team’s claim that they study a subject 4 XX amt of years and are knwn for perfection..
These small things change the entire look..It may not make much of a difference to ppl who hve not seen a typical UP village but i personally feel it still makes a difference to the movie.. To site an example.. Check the Village in Mother India or any other Old movie..Mother India brilliantly executes Rural India.
I guess the rational behind selecting maharastra wud have been operational logistics.. Also the setup required to execute the scene of generating electricity is difficult to get in UP where you dont hav a rocky terrain..
3. the interior of a Kaveri Amma’s house shown does not resemble a typical UP village house.. Somehow it passes as a Village in South India.
4. The makers has not kept en eye on the screen presence of the crowd and junior artist..watch it again and u wud knw what iam talkin abt.. check the old woman who says bijli..
I guess the focus was more to get the NASA setup executed correctly than the rural india.
But i still liked the movie with all the minor flaws.. It was a beautiful subject and certain scenes were executed very well timed with the right background score..
The village boy selling water is actually a true thing in rural area..
@Alone,
Quite agree with your observation. That was the first reaction as soon as SRK starts his journey to reach the villege where Kaveri Amma lives. Though her name also suggests that she must be South Indian as in North India people dont use such address, Kaveri Amma.
Village looked more like set of Malgudi Days and less of a village in a state near to New Delhi.
The temple, the lake place where they go after playing wrestling, they all were screaming about South Indian set up.
Ashutosh perhaps was very very confident about the concept of the film and he was sure that audience will not be able to look for this shortcomings because visual naration will be very powerful. But somehow eyes catch these glitches in very first viewing.
And moreover he was not facing any short of money in this film. He was riding on the sucess of Lagan and it was a SRK starrer film so he could have taken care of obvious shortcomings of the film. He handled casually these aspects.
Compltly agree about those southie things in north india set-up but still swades remains an all time fav somehow. never felt tht its precahy or so. infact the song…ye jo desh hai tera…can watch the full film only bcz of the song and the way it has been shot. its simply beautiful. infact in recnt times,swades had one of the most sexy teasers n promos. SRK in plane,in train, in bike n then on boat and many like that. also, loved the way the screening of film is handled in d film n the song after that. as a kid hav seen few films on those open air big white cloth screens. after long time,saw somebdy capturing that moment. too many reasons to b bit senti,i gues. its srk’s best film also i think. give me srk in check shirts n plain jeans anyday. cant watch him in big black overcoats anymore!!
Kaveri amma being a South Indian,the interior of the house,the soil these things do not reduce the *inspiration* value that the movie has
. I did not find a boring moment in the whole movie. It was an excellent screenplay. In fact I saw this movie again as soon as I finished watching it the first time. And this movie wasn
@Phoenixnu,
ya, Swades is good. Dont know if it was intentional or not but the scene where SRK goes to meet old poor man in his hut is like taken from some old documentary, means you find different sound and some lines falling on screen like they used to fall whenever documentaries were screened in theatres. It can happen that scene has got direct voices and no dubbing was made for that scene. May be Ashutosh wanted to create Pather Panchali kind of impression in this scene.
Film is good but Ashutosh could have made it far better if script was made more tight.
SRK is a hard working person but if we dont go on character’s shades and see from Actor’s POV then he did more hard work in KANK. in Swades he needed to follow “not doing much and remain in normal mode” while in KANK he tried very hard to create an impressive character. Mohan Bhargav of Swades is definitely more impressive than Dev of KANk but actor SRK burnt more mid night oil in KANK to be in to the skin of character.
Its about naked SRK (means minus any kind of dress and mode given to his characters in two films):). He had got a good story in Swades on which he could sail nicely and in KANK he did not get any script backing but he made his character what it meant to be, irritating, confused, frustrated, jealous, MCP, and what not.
Film’s bad structure killed SRK’s efforts.:-?
We need a separate full post to cover Swades. It deserves more discussion.
@turtle (10)
Pratighat was N Chandra’s second film after Ankush. Sujata Mehta was quite known and liked actress because of her successful TV serial on DD.
Nana Patekar had quite small but very effective role of a mad suspended police sub inspector.
Similar role has been repeated again and again in hindi films later.
Sujata Mehta chops off Charan Raj’s head in the climax while he as a politician was addressing a public gathering.
It was very hard hitting violent film.
and strange thing is N Chandra has been AD of Gulzar saab but he mostly made violent films, Ankush, Pratighat, Tezaab, NarSimha.
As he said, he saw violent life closely as he lived in slums since childhood.
RK .. useful trivia. Thnks.
And that movie was produced by Usha Kiran Movies of Ramoji Rao, the media baron of the south, the man behind RFC, ETV, Eanadu and Priya pickles plus some chit fund company too!
He is the same guy who made “Mayuri”(Naache Mayuri) starring Sudha Chandran.
Coming back to Prathighaat, I don’t think Sujatha Mehta gave the same explosive performance as Vijayshanti.
Macchar
You had the privelege of seeing both the movies, hence you can compare. Come to think of it, I dont recollect ANY hindi remake having a better acting performance than its predecessor.
Its only now that I have begun watching other regional language movies with subtitles .. my last watch were ‘Boys’ and ‘Ghajini’. IMO, Boys was awesome and Ghajini was a good opportunity wasted. And yes …. Sujata was quite hot.
Machchar…i for some reason like Sujata mehta’s role than Vijayshanthi…..though Vijayshanti’s carrer sky-rocketed after this performance and Sujata Mehta’s fell flat…
VS..played more to the gallery..all the emotions looked very conceived and structured…on a deeper level..if i rememebr right…one cud tell something is gonna happen wen u see VS’s role…unlike Sujata mehta’s
“Boys” is a good movie! Thoroughly enjoyed it. I heard they are planning to dub it in Hindi though. Music by AR Rahman was awesome, especially the song Boom Boom and Enakoka Girlfriend.
BTW, it was RDB Siddharth’s first movie. See, the movie has worked in the South because of its simplicity and the treatment. I have been analyzing a lot of recent hit Hindi movies and feel that the Hindi audience don’t have patience with slow paced stories or anything that is close to middle class realities(I can be wrong). They are more awed by the grandeur and gimmicks.
Forget Boys, which is a Shankar-Rahman combination, there are lot of south movies with simple subjects but actually make you get involved with the story.(I have stopped watching south movies regularly from the last 6 years except for some exceptionally good movies so I am talking about movies before that…)
Coming back to Hindi, the audience here don’t have the patience to see the characters to evolve. They are not worried or moved by simple emotions. It’s all dhan dhanadhan here…
I just want to understand why the audience in the north is so impatient? Does their likes and dislikes reflect the lifestyle and society of the North? In south, life is still very slow paced. You can still see your neighbors early in the morning through your Balcony (comparing Hyderabad and Chennai to Mumbai and Delhi).
In South, even if you leave your home half an hour before, you can reach your office on time.
In south, all your relatives are just a few minutes away so regularly meeting them is not really an issue. (My sibling and I stay in the same city in Mumbai and I get to meet them once in 3 months)
The day is much longer in the South. Here its too short….
Okay, this is the Urban lifestyle…Going to smaller towns, life is much slower in the South than in the North…Towns and Villages in Andhra, TN and Kerala are very laid back and they don’t even bother about a clock. They lead a simple lifestyle and everyone including rich farmers just want their children to study further….
In the North, Punjabi’s are more interested in Shosha…A Sardar is always thinking about various plans to make more money and buy the latest car. In the UP-Bihar belt, people are neither interested in enterprise or education…Politics takes center stage in their life. I was in a village in UP for a month for a shoot. The only thing anyone would discuss is about Politics! Raja Bhaiyya woh, Mayavati yeh aur Mulayam woh!
Jat’s are only worried about how to seduce the next woman. I find them the most frustrated men on earth.
Compare this to a South village. People are more interested in new technology around the world, movies that are being made etc. I was surprised when one farmer started talking to me about Satellites!
Well…The reason for all this bhashan was…does your social and cultural setup play an important role in the kinds of subjects you would like to see in a movie? Is this a reason why most south hits are flops in North and vice versa?
Virasat and Nayak were huge hits down south, they were washouts here…Khushi was a blockbuster there….here, well…
A subject like Maatrubhoomi will not movie any person in the South because such issues don’t really exist there…
There are many such examples…Are there no universal subjects? Does a film maker have to study the cultural and social aspects of his audience before trying to tell them a story?
Time to remove the HR-tribute cap and put on the thinking cap .. :-?
@ Macchar…
“In South, even if you leave your home half an hour before, you can reach your office on time. ”
Dude.. where do you live man???!! you must be joking.. try living in bangalore..or in chennai.. then we can talk haha!!
I am not sure what prompted you to delve into the great Indian “divide” like that. Maybe you should also target the differnces between Indians here and Indians in UK..OF course there will be a difference! d-uh.. its a common world-wide phenomenon.. not suffered by Indians only..
Firstly – southies are more towards education and not business and northies are the reverse..which leads to lifestyle changes and options and choices.. and hence it filters down to your movies…
ANd oh! I hate it when Indians like you try to bring out the difference or analyze it unecess.. and most southies do it.. have to painfully determine if one is a Brahmin..
Leave it at that.. be secular..
Well, the only universal subject that makes money is Love and money of course..and sometimes religion..
for eg.. water is a problem in most states in India, but is nto a problem in developed countries..only emotions can talk..
Lune, Incidentally I lived in both Chennai and Bangalore for major parts of my life.
Try living in Mumbai or Delhi and then compare it with those cities. Anyway, the main point is not the exact commuting time from home to work, but the pace.
I am still trying to understand what you are trying to say? I am stumped by the “secular” talk? How did this even come into the picture? I was just commenting on how your lifestyle and cultural background makes a difference in the choice of your films…I guess you said the same thing…toh problem kya hain?
@Mosquito..Its not what you say.. its how you say it.
I have stayed in Mumbai for most of my life.. and Bangalore traffic just kills!