Brham – Not Bad | PassionforCinema

Brham – Not Bad

Vivek Kumar | Movies, Talking-Points | May 18, 2008 at 1:13 pm

Hi Folks,

Late in the day for this (actually not the moment the Brahm DVD was delivered to RAAGA, since I know the onwer and his spouse, she unrapped and rented it out to me), but got a chance to see BRHAM.

While I won’t call it a classic, actually was not bad. I put it in the same overall category as Jhonny Gaddar and Manorma (from an audience perspective)- not a bad watch at all and certainly kept you engaged on the events unfolding in the screen. Plus it was probably one of the best performances by Milind Soman and actually all of the actors, plenty of them Television one’s. Although, I was watching it wiht my film club group (3 guys and 4 gals) and about the actor Chetan Hansraj the following comments were heard by the gals (yeh kaun taxi driver hain, ekdam sadak chaap lagta hain, reminds me of pappu from chandni chowk, to chakka).

The positives: Good controlled acting by all, a partly believable story, consistent characterization, good visuals, nice music which went in well with the glamour image that was trying to be created. The twist is good too.

The negatives: From the story perspetive, the screenwriter in me had a hard time believing the fact that Soman’s character could have an iota of believability. I mean if he is all over the news all the time then surely there must be someone or somebody, other than the protagonist, who is aware of his secret. I mean she does not have to meet him at a party to “discover” him, he is all over the news and she is shown to be someone who is pretty worldly wise. So almost seemed to be a story starting to recreate the Mumbai society life and then meandering it’s way to a whodunn it mystery. The title was misleading too, it is just alluded that the character suffers from Brahm, but no visits to a psychatrist,etc prove that (as in no visual corroboration of why that character can be accused of not disciphering fact from ficton, when she otherwise appears to be quite a sensible girl).

The dialogues reminded me of Dus Kahaniyan, sometimes it is not a regular conversation, but a series of “subtle hints”. Probably better off depicting visually, as opposed to dialigues which rarely happen in the real world, when on the other hand characters are being created as real world. Also some dilaogues which have no particular rationale aka Chetan telling Dino in the beginning of the film that he likes to see Dino loose. But throughout the film they are buddies and not competitors, so then why the dialogue of a competitor. Almost seemed like “forced sensationalism.” Talking of which it appears that Mumbai filmmakers (cause I don’t see it in the Mumbai audience) are sufferring from a sex obsession complex. Or so it seems in the dialogues. Ditto for Dus Kahaniyan. A city centric movie is correlated with a sleeping around story. And don’t get me wrong it is not about morals and being a conventinal person, like I said, I am the son of a part time model, so I have lived through glamour in Mumbai…….dude there is more to it than bed hopping….believe me…..in all this people, including models, go about their lives in a very professional and very 9 to 5 approach, much like the folks working in Nariman Point, Express Towers, or in Glaxo, Turbhe or Kirloskar in Pimpri Chinchwad or a software company in SEEPZ or Pune. The point being research is heavily lacking.

It may appear that I am hihglighting the negatives, but overall I still maintain it was a pleasant watch and one which kept us glued. Just that it had the potential to become a lot more, especially since the director got super performances from the actors.

What is heartening is, I am pretty sure that when the dust has settled, movies like Brham, JG and Manorma, actually made some money for all and entertained us way more than an “aalegedly arthouse piece of crap” like Sirf or Shaurya.

On the other news, congratulations go to Rajeev Dassani, University of Southern
California, for winning the Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences‘ 35th Annual Student Academy Awards competition, in the category of -Narratives-

for his film “A Day’s Work.”

Sincerely,

Vivek “models/page 3/mumbai socialites also have to get up in the morning, buy their groceries, get ready for work, report to work, come home, pay their bijli ka bill, cook home food so they don’t put on weight…………..if all they did was sleep around and smoke pot all models would die by 25….get real and depict their true life as working professionals” Kumar

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