Barah Anna: A gem at the MIAAC 09, New York City
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Day 4 of the Mahindra Indo-American Film Festival (MIAAC) included a daylong industry panel session that quite frankly was the most productive day for me in the last year or so, ever since I have started hustling as an aspiring writer/ filmmaker. It covered everything from the tremendous growth opportunity that India is presenting as the media and entertainment Mecca of the world to the socio-cultural economics of getting content found and green lit. We are in a very unique time when the east -west confluence and conjugation of content ideas, and more so the business of doing global films, is anchoring it’s foundation stones. MIAAC provided a forum for this discussion, bringing together the agents, trade industry pundits, writers and the ever-challenged producers. Organized in collaboration with the South Asian Media and Marketing Association (SAMMA), this industry panel tapped in to the talent of SAMMA’s members, who are beginning to etch and influence some of the strategy and thinking behind global media and entertainment, that is heavily dominated by India’s growth story in this space.
So lets cut to chase. The only film I saw on Day 4 is Raja Menon’s Barah Anna. A gem of a film! The pace and the design of film was meticulously crafted. Even as I was watching the film, I kept getting reinforced that this could be the next sleeper hit to ring the cash registers for the indo-indie genre, only to find out that the film already had its rather lukewarm run in India. Raja Menon did agree that the fate of the film might have been much more positive had it gotten the “tricolor vermilion finger-tracing” branding of UTV (the studio leader in this space in India).
Barah Anna, at the heart and soul of its premise, cleverly weaves the wide tapestry of stigma in the social class system in urban India (Mumbai) with the most basic human spirit that keeps the “exploited” of this class system alive – respect and dignity! This is the kind of film that I think is truly global. Raja could very well do a “find and replace” on his word processor of Mumbai with Rio De Janeiro, Shanghai, Los Angeles or New York City, Rome, Paris and still tell the story in the compelling manner that he did.
The story starts with Shukla (Naseeruddin Shah) losing his identity and legally dying (a case of the government acknowledging that he no longer exists with a death certificate). That death brings about an ironical metaphor – Shukla becomes muted, literally, even as he is spending his dead life as a chauffeur, living in the slums of Mumbai. His friends, watchman Yadav (Vijay Raaz) and waiter Aman (Arjun Mathur) are chasing their small dreams – a love struck Aman hoping to find fulfillment by courting Kate, a foreign tourist supposedly stuck in India due to financial reasons and the socially repressed and abused Yadav making ends meet with his meager income. These characters were set up so articulately that one cannot but root for them.
The second act leads us to an unassuming series of events that Yadav finds himself in, leading to him bringing back a man, who goes unconscious when Yadav slaps him for instigating anger. The three of them find a benign way to send him back to his family. What starts as a benign objective ends up in an unforced ransom situation that leaves the three with uninvited money. That money brings about a new found pride and confidence in Yadav and Aman. Aman uses that money to help Kate, only to find himself abandoned by her.
Pretty soon, we find the three becoming well-practiced experts of holding people for ransoms. Meanwhile, Shukla’s annoyance and frustration levels with his easily irritable and abusing lady boss reaches its crescendo. He decides that she would be their next “victim” much to the trepidations of his partners in crime. What ensues is a case of deceit and the three characters coming to terms with their lives.
Amidst the trials and tribulations of these three characters, is Tanishtha Chaterjee’s character – she nurtures an interest in Aman using alibis of Aman returning the money he borrows from her. She, quite effortlessly, essays this role, so much so that I was almost convinced that she was born in that neighborhood.
Barah Anna balances the grim socio-political landscape of the screenplay with the unequivocal innocence of Yadav, Shukla and Aman. It’s a celebration of the core human values we live for, it’s a triumph of re-establishing those values in a universe that is capitalistic enough to sometime forget them.
Tags: anjun mathur, Barah Anna, giri, giri coneti, girimohan coneti, MIAAC, naseeruddin shah, Raja Menon, tanishtha chaterjee, Vijay Raaz
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
Indeed, this was a gem of a movie. Unlike most of our blockbusters, it was about SOMETHING. Hope it finds a much larger audience through DVD
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it’s a fantastic film.. hope it does well through DVD
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Barah Aana is definately one of the best films I viewed at the MIAAC film festival this year. It’s such a shame that such a fresh, gripping, and well acted/directed film received little attention in the Indian market. Thankfully festivals like MIAAC give independent work the exposure and appreciation it deserves!
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yeah, but their marketing was pathetic. They hardly had any presence off line or online. There were so many venues they could have gone to for free marketing, I’m not sure they even attempted to. They did some send feelers to PFC, and when I sent them all the things they would need to do they vanished. Never heard from them. I was there in Bombay when the promotions were on (what promotions?) and when the film released. A guy living in Malad didn’t know there was film called Barah Aana in Jogeshwari. What kind of marketing was this?
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yup, the promotion for the film was terrible. BA only got about 55 Google news mentions compared to a film like Kaminey which got 424 Google news mentions… http://passionforcinema.com/kuch-marketing-common-sense/
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If I’m not wrong, there was one more comment after oz’s. I found it genuine too. What happened to that? Got deleted? I thought it was democracy here.
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I watched this film six months back at PIFF(Pune International Film Festival) where the film was screened for the first time. Was lucky enough to see Naseer Sir and the team of this movie in front of my eyes!
But I found the movie very average, the story was loosing it’s grip at regular interval! The point is, the scenes were not striking enough for me to remember after viewing it after six months or so, also there’s no urge in me to watch it again!
The only savior was Vijay Raaz, he just rocked in this film! Even Naseer Sir’s talent was not tapped effectively!
Regards,
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movie is complete waste of talents like vijay raj and nasir sir…punch line is ‘comdey of real line’ but there wont be even a smile through out this strictly below average flim…evertime you anbticipate now movie will pick some pace but it never..its a wannabe smart movie
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@Suraj: I am surprised you highlight vijay raaz’s performance because I thought vijay raaz was being viyay raaz as in his squating and pan chewing from Monsoon wedding. Not that it affected the movie, because the director obviously had that persona in his mind and cast him or rather “typecast” him.
@foz: Is there some place on PFC where we could look for best practices on marketing and more so what can PFC do to propel marketing for such movies
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Girimohan, there is a lab room created for this purpose:
http://passionforcinema.com/club/forum/small-budget-movies-publicity-amp-marketing
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It would be cool if one of the mods could summarize the threads:) but then again I am being greedy. Thanks for sharing Amanda.
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@Girmohan,
It is only Vijay Raaz’s performance I can recollect when I think of this movie!
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I am one of the few who watched this when it released. Nice movie but I would stop short of calling it a gem or fantastic.
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I was rather disappointed by this movie – the (Herapheri inspired) story was predictable and dragging at several places. The ending (Shukla’s decision to kidnap the memsaab) was rather hurried and unconvincing. And I felt that Vijay Raz “overplayed” his character (but then, doesn’t he always?)
Except for Tanishtha Chaterjee’s commendable performance, I found this movie to be an average – bordering on mediocrity.
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