Chintu Ji : Fiesta for entire family
Film’s tag line (This film is part reality, part illusion and part fact, part fiction) summarizes very well the category in which this film can be defined. Rishi Kapoor plays himself, Rishi Kapoor the film star who is better known by his nickname Chintu.
But except using real profession and real names of Rishi Kapoor, Neetu Singh, Raj Kapoor and Krishna Kapoor film does not show a documentary on the life of Rishi Kapoor.
Chintu Ji is as fictitious a character as he has been playing in 100s of other films in last 40 years. Surely here and there references are taken from his real life (like reference of Mera Naam Joker) but these references are also presented by covering them inside a capsule of fiction.
Chintu ji will turn out to be a milestone film in the career of Rishi Kapoor as far as his performance is concerned. His Rolly Kapoor was a revelation in Luck by chance and here he goes far ahead than Rolly Kapoor.
It has been difficult for the actors of hindi cinema to play character of a film actor in the films and most of the times they end up playing these characters in a caricature manner. Exceptions are of course there for example Hritik Roshan in Luck By Chance crossed this limitation.
What is reality and what is fiction and how far an actor can go on imagination while playing himself in a fiction based film, all these factors might affect the actors.
Om Puri could not do it in King of Bollywood though he was good in Bollywood calling.
Rishi Kapoor in Chintu Ji wins over these limitations and gives a thoroughly enjoyable performance. Film is resting on the GREAT performance of Rishi Kapoor.
Chintu ji is a simple story, shown in a most simplistic manner which is possible for a filmmaker. This simple presentation will become its biggest USP in coming time. Whatever will be its performance on BO its DVD will be a pride possession for the audiences as they have been enjoying famous comedies of hindi cinema. Those are the films which a child of 3 years can watch and people crossing the barrier of 90 years also can enjoy those films. There are films which are accepted by the audience when they don’t watch them with any pre conceived expectations.
Sudhir Mishra’s debut film, Ye Manjil Wo to nahin, Prakash Jha’s Hip Hip Hurray and Parinatee, Mahesh Bhatt’s Janam etc are examples of such films. Rather many films jointly produced by NFDC and Doordarshan may be quoted in this category.
One watches them without any expectation and they affect the audience in a positive way.
Kunadan Shah’s Jaane bhee do yaron and Kabhi haan Kabhi Naa also could be quoted in this category though this is A different matter that both the films have got BIG status ilms but when they were released years ago then they had not got much success on BO.
Ranjeet/Ranjit Kapoor, Director of Chintu ji, has been part of Jaane Bhee Do Yaron, Kabhi haan kabhi naa in the capacity of the writer and those funny and heart touching dialogues were created by him in these films. Many of Raj Santoshi’s films are written by him.
Strange are the ways of producers of Hindi cinema as they keep a person of such a high caliber in the waiting list and a well known theatre director and reputed writer gets an opportunity to direct his debut film in his 50s only while he should have got the opportunity when he was in his 20s and 30s. His delayed debut as a director in films is clearly a loss of hindi cinema.
As far as Box office performance is concerned, many things may go against the film, because present age is an era of creating hype about a film.
Rishi Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Annu Kapoor and Priyanshu Chaterjee, are not the names which may draw a big collection on BO. Many other artists have either done TV serials or theatre but they are not well known for their films (if few of them have done few films) done in the past.
There are episodes in the film where one feels that they could be improved or removed but inspite of few weaknesses film work because rest of the film has got a good material.
It is a low budget film and it is a better film than all the other low budget films released in last 1 year.
Those who had enjoyed the word game in Russian and Hindi in Mera Naam Joker played between Raj Kapoor and Kseniya Ryabinkina may actually get pleasure in watching same Da Da- haan haan game played between Russian actress and Rishi Kapoor. This episode is able to create nostalgia about Mera Naam Joker and which may be appeased only by another watch of MNJ.
Film set in a Utopian place, Hadbahedi, looks completely original. It is not easy in present age to play the role of a good man as people general have developed a kind of apathy for goody goody characters seen on screen and often they and such films are ridiculed. Sooraj Badjatya’s Vivah was criticized and ridiculed by critics and audience for this factor. Here a whole place is filled with people having good heart. Here people don’t want to think bad about others, they don’t want to hurt others. Here people are happily living their life in a simple manner, and they follow a complete fast for three days whenever they do something which they think is not good for human being.
They invite a fading film star Rishi Kapoor to their place because it is his birth place. Raj Kapoor and his wife Krishna Kapoor had visited this place and Krishna ji had got labor pain here and a midwife had helped in the delivery of the baby and she had given the name Chintu to the new born baby. That baby is now a film star Rishi Kapoor whose prime has gone past and in his fading days he has cherished an idea to join the politics so that he may enjoy the stardom and power for some more years.
He hires a PR agency to fulfill his desire to remain popular and such invitation is quite helpful in fulfilling his desire.
Film is a good satire on Indian people because they simply adore film stars, politicians and sports stars and now they have started adoring corporate leaders also. Success and fame of these stars have become the criteria for the people to adore them and not their caliber, honesty and true nature as a human being. They may be doing things which go against the society, but people will continue adoring them.
Rishi Kapoor is an arrogant, selfish, greedy and a cynical film star (in the film) and he badly treats the people of Hadbahedi who simply shower their unconditional love and affection on him.
Chintu Ji is the story of a film star whose life is transformed because of his stay at Hadbahedi and film shows the journey of this transformation and how events happening at that place and people living or visiting that place become a tool behind this transformation.
Those who have ever doubted the acting skills of Rishi Kapoor may get a shock after watching the film. He has not allowed any boundaries and has followed a free flowing performance.
Few audiences, who are watching it attentively, may jump from their seats when he shouts “SATYAJIT RAY” in the most energetic, attractive and exciting song (Akira Kurosawa… Wilder…Coppola) of the film.
Songs are good. Chai ke bahane is a romantic song.
Yahan sab theek hai is also a good song.
Not all the actors get such a role as Rishi Kapoor has got in this film. Being a fantastic actor he did not miss the chance and it will be counted among his top five performances given in the last 40 years. Watching Rishi Kapoor in Chintu Ji has created a nostalgia about his good old films.
Saurabh Shukla, Annu Kapoor, Smt Shabnam Kapoor, Grusha Kapoor, Priyanshu Chaterjee, Kulraj Randhawa, Sophie Chaudhary and many other actors in small roles have performed well.
Priyanshu’s overall performance could have won more votes if he had played his apologizing scene with Rishi Kapoor in a better manner. Certain scenes are very important and they affect the overall impression about an actor in a film. They provide the opportunity to attain height and then all previous and other moments in the film are seen under the light of that scene.
This is not a suspense thriller and few dialogues may be quoted. Those who don’t wish to know the dialogues in advance may avoid reading lines given between dotted lines.
…………………………………………………
Saurabh Shukla : Tum ye batao tum kaise train rookwa sakte ho jahan chahe.
Apne Jijaji se keh ke, wo railway minister hain na.
SS: Kya naam hai tumhara
Paplu yadav!
SS: Are ab tak kahan chhupe the tum.
………
SS, a director producer, asks script writer of his film to change it and kill the hero and writer shouts back that he is a reputed writer who has won several awards and he will not change a single word in the script.
SS threatens him and asks his assistant to make account of writer and sends him off.
Writer (now bit worried) : “Hero ko marne mein hamein in koi pareshani nahin hain par action aur suspense dalna padega. Bolo daal doon?”.
Chintu ji says at one place,” Amar Sanghvi, saab aapko kaun nahin janta, aap to hamaree biradari mein aise ghul….
………………………………………….
People are familiar with such people existing in film world and politics and such incidences make film quite interesting.
Years ago Late Manohar Shyam Joshi used to write a series ( Neta ji kahin) in Saptahik Hindustan and later a TV serial (Kakka Ji Kahin) was made on it, where Om Puri had played the title role.
Chintu ji very successfully reminds about that social satire with its crisp dialogues, funny moments and social commentary.
If one is searching a purely vegetarian type entertainment then Chintu Ji is the film for the people of all ages.
Tags: Akira Kurosawa, annu kapoor, Chintu Ji, Coppola, Hritik Roshan, Kakka ji kahin, Luck By Chance, Manohar Shyam Joshi, Mera Naam Joker, Netaji kahin, Om Puri, Raj Kapoor, Ranjeet Kapoor, Rishi Kapoor, Saurabh Shukla, Sooraj Badjatya, Sophie Chaudhary, Vivah
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
Great Post! Finally someone is writing about what should be written at PFC…
Thanks RK!
mlost,
Thanks.
Hey RK.Thanks for the lovely post.To be frank didnt expect a post on this movie in PFC (Thanks for proving me wrong).Had seen the promos and was hoping that it will be nice movie. I am regular visitor to this blog and love most of the posts here. However I am dissapointed that there so many Posts on couple of movies(they are good, no doubt) the very next day and just one post on this and not many replies either. We call it Passionforcinema, but will the passion be only for sleceted movies? I hope atleast PFC authors or readers dont need big names in a movie or hype to watch it.
deepak,
thanks.
As I see,
-If people are filmmakers then they dont have flexibility/liberty to complain that others are not making quality cinema.
-If people are writers they dont have flexibility/liberty to complain that others are not giving quality writing.
Same is true even for the bloggers kind of people. If they are lovers of cinema and they have seen some films about which they want to write/read then best way is to simply write about them without waiting for others to take that initiative.
(I can not get the proper link on the main page of PFC in this new design of PFC, otherwise there used to be a column having detailed information on how one could write a blog on PFC.
Anybody who has seen any film of the world and he has liked it, if he wants he can write on that film. People comment or not is their choice and such things are immaterial. Many people always follow the silent reader’s mode but it can not be said that they don’t get the message and they dont go to watch a good film after reading about it.)
Great post RK. Have not seen the movie yet and will make another attempt to watch this on weekend. It is released in very few theaters.
deep,
thanks. Hope you like it.
Good time pass flick. Loved the tribute song (Akira Kurosawa Vittorio Desica) and actually searched for the gibberish lyrics on net.
I was surprised with the correct use of Hindi words in the movie which is so rare these days because most of the time in movies if there is anything written in Hindi, there happens some mistake in the writing. In this movie even suswagatam was written correctly.
Once its DVD is released, it is possible that it may make a different impression in your mind/heart. Then it may get promotion from a good time pass flick to a cheerful film on which you can rely to get a good laugh while feeling little low.
…
Its director is a renowned theatre personality (writer, director) and writer (mainly dialogues) of films like Jaane Bhee do yaron, Kabhi Haan Kabhi Naa, Bhagat Singh, Lajja etc so it is expected that words will be written with accuracy.
Loved the picturization of this song having gibberish lyrics. It is very hard to forget the way Rishi Kapoor stands up and starts dancing and so energetic dance of that foreigner actor.
And prior to this song, dialogues between Sophia and actor playing Aman Saab and Aman Saab and Saurabh Shukla were so funny.
To me, it didn’t look like a comedy film except few comic moments, rater a light-hearted movie with few human emotions.
.
Rishi Kapoor seemed to be enjoying and having fun while doing that song.
Not something like Chupke Chupke but Something like Guddi.
After a long gap (after Prem Rog and Saagar), Rishi Kapoor has started having a blast in his acting career. Not only this song he seems to be enjoying every single film, he is doing these days.
(LBC)>
“Wahan Script ko property kehte hain, yahan to bhai property ko hee property kehte hain”