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Round SIX

The movie to be reviewed by the contestants is Saaransh

Here are the submitted reviews for Round Six! Contestants are listed in order of their rankings after Round Five. If two or more contestants share the same ranking, they are listed alphabetically.

1. Praveen Gopal Krishnan (Bangalore, India)

Saaransh : More than just a gist.

Death and love are recurring themes in most Mahesh Bhatt movies - hardly a surprise for someone who has flicks named Murder and Aashiqui in his filmography. Saaransh is where it all began for Bhatt - before he met Mallika Sherawat on the sets of Murder, who I have a sneaking suspicion cued him in on the fact that leaving little to the imagination might have a greater impact at the box-office. Things have downhill since for Bhatt - and deservedly so (Note: Don’t you find it remarkably easy to resent anyone who’s worked with Mallika Sherawat when you can’t even find a high resolution wallpaper of hers?)

Anupam Kher and Rohini Hattangadi play B.V Pradhan and Parvati Pradhan, an old couple coming to terms with the death of their son - who was mugged and murdered in New York. Relinquishing the dead is never easy, and circumstances in Saaransh make it even less so. It’s a unique theme, the only other story I could think of in this genre was probably Arthur Miller’s ‘All my sons’. Their grief is further complicated by the presence of Sujatha (Soni Razdan),a struggling starlet who stays with the Pradhans as a paying guest. After an affair with the only son of a local politician, Sujatha becomes pregnant and duly abandoned by all except her landlord. The rest of the movie is the struggle of this unlikely trio set against the backdrop of a uncaring system.

While winning two national awards twenty years apart for similar roles may be misconstrued as a sign of stagnation, nothing could be further from the truth here. In an impressive debut performance (I had to rewind and recheck the opening credits to make sure it wasn’t a mistake or god forbid, a publicity stunt) at the age of 28, Kher is, in a word - mindblowing. A lesser actor would have milked you dry in a bid to extract sympathy for the ever-suffering Pradhan, however, Kher presents him to us as a good but flawed man - just like the rest of us. Sure, his son is dead and people harass him (even when he goes to collect his son’s ashes from the customs department) but Pradhan rubs people the wrong way too, especially the ones closest to him. This is real, flesh and blood cinema. Hattangadi and Razdan are undoubtedly excellent, but Saaransh belongs to these two men : Anupam Kher and Mahesh Bhatt.

Ten minutes into the movie, I sat expectantly waiting for the obligatory tirade against the establishment by Pradhan. I was obliged - not once but twice. But here’s the bombshell - at both instances, it is Pradhan who ends up red-faced. When was the last time you saw a movie where the hero’s diatribe was immediately followed by embarrassment? Yes, Saaransh’s administration has the evil politician and the bribe-seeking bureaucrat, but there are good folks too - just like in real life.

There’s an early scene where Pradhan gets assaulted at a subway which perturbs him to the extent of making him suicidal. In my first viewing, I was inclined to dismiss this sequence as one of the commandments of this genre (If thou is the underdog and thou shalt battle the system, everything will go wrong in thy life - at least before the interval) intended just to blatantly mobilize sympathy from the viewer. It was only in my third viewing that the significance of that scene hit me. While fortunate enough to survive the mugging, Pradhan was also cursed with a first-hand experience of the last moments of his son’s ordeal. No wonder he was so shaken by that incident.

Analogies in movies are rare, but good analogies are even rarer. For every Mulholland Drive and Malena, there exists dozens of Gajagaminis and Halla Bols. The best allegories are the ones which acknowledge the audience as their equals - not as clairvoyants or retards. Symbolisms are about concealment and display. While most movies either blind us with floodlights or leave us groping in the dark, Saaransh skillfully shows us a glimmer of light and encourages us to find the way ourselves. I am not saying that comprehending the underlying metaphor is crucial - Saaransh makes engaging viewing even if you restrict yourself to the literal, always a positive sign for any movie.

To state that Saaransh is a pro-life social movie is like saying that Animal Farm is a story about pigs. Of course, the regulatory potshots are taken but at the end of it all, this is a tale of characters and their complex motivations to justify love and death. Sujatha, like any mother, wants her baby safe. Her boyfriend, mirroring his relationship with his father, flip-flops between wanting her to terminate the pregnancy to finally accepting her decision. Parvathi wants her to keep the child since she believes it’s an incarnation of her dead son while Pradhan - seeking redemption from the impotence he feels at losing his own son in a distant land, supports her since he sees it as a cause to battle for. While the subject of fetal rights ostensibly form a crucial plot point in Saaransh, by the end you realize that it was just incidental that a baby happened to be in the middle of it all. The script could have replaced the baby with a doorknob and the basic theme would have remained intact.

And that is the thing about Saaransh. Even after a quarter of a century since its release, it cannot be pigeonholed into any genre - a paradox compounded by Mahesh Bhatt later famously declaring that the concept of originality was overrated. It is one of those rare movies which presents a new facet with every repeat viewing without revealing the whole picture at once. It’s unlikely we will see another Saaransh, least of all from Bhatt - whose last four entries in his filmography read : Murder, Raaz, Jism and Gangster.

Damn you, Mallika.

2. Trasie Stittsworth (Los Angles, USA)

Saaransh : Movie Review

As I grow older, I find that I am losing most of my childhood memories. Only the most profound are staying with me as I age. One of these memories is of a rainy day, laying on the couch reading Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” while my mother was nearby ironing. I must have been about 9 years old, and I began sobbing when the character Beth died. My mother, who by nature is not emotional or demonstrative, came to me and held me with tears in her eyes, telling me of her same reaction to the same passage when she was my age. The next time the 1949 version of the film played on television (her favourite), we both cried together when Beth met her untimely demise on celluloid. My favourite childhood memories from this point forward are of Sunday afternoons, laying on the living room floor, watching movies on television with my mother.

And, crying my way through the first forty-five minutes of Saaransh, I was reminded of these childhood memories. The film opens with a non-linear narrative as B.V. Pradhan (Anupam Kher) and his wife Parvati (Rohini Hattangadi) live in a house of memories, although in this case the memories are of their recently murdered son. Both parents are unable to come to terms with the death, and both deal with it in their own way, Parvati sustained by the hope of his rebirth and by her prayers, B.V. living silently with his thoughts. The elderly couple lives in a small world, rarely leaving their routines, their colony or their memories. The arrival of a boarder, to whom they rent their son’s bedroom to supplement their income, broadens their world, both physically and emotionally.

What makes this film a classic is the mature story, the amazing acting, and ideas that resonate through time. B.V. is a good, quiet person driven to challenge those in power in order to secure his basic rights; the rights to possess what is a parent’s right to possess, the right to fight for the life of an unborn child, the right for people to live free of violence and political machinations. In the hands of a lesser actor or director the character of B.V. would be histrionic, but Kher brings restrained anger and pain to his character, and director Mahesh Bhatt uses a light hand to bring realism to B.V.’s anguish. Unmarried and pregnant Sujata (Soni Razdan) is complex in a way not often shown in film. A struggling actress who in her first scene jokes about the licentious reputation of actors, she is young, in love, and an innocent in unfortunate circumstances, unsure of what decisions she should make, but completely independent and sure of what she expects of her relationship with the baby’s father, Vilas (Madas Jain). Razdan is competent in showing the range of emotions when a strong and independent woman is transformed into a scared and unsure girl when faced with her future as a single mother and her present as a political pawn, a refreshing change from the usual portrayal of an unmarried pregnant woman as either victim or whore. While Kher won the Filmfare Award for Best Actor for his role in this film, Hattangadi almost steals the film from him as his devoted wife. The scenes where she doesn’t speak are among the most powerful in the film; she is the rare actress that can act without words.

While Saaransh deals with the larger themes of unplanned pregnancy and the question of abortion, corrupt politicians, despair, hope, and finding purpose in life, it is the small moments that make the film. A scene in which a meditative guru moves only his eyes to look at a mourning Parvati is heart wrenching. The emotions captured on film when B.V. confronts a customs official and later government minister is as powerful as the words being spoken. A man telling a lie while hiding his shoes which tell his truth, a husband telling his wife how much his life depends on her without ever using the obvious phrases and using the placement of the actors to show, rather than to tell a lifelong love story, Bhatt’s vision and his ability to capture subtle emotions to drive his complicated story nears brilliance, so much so that the plot holes and overlong and overly-sentimental final scenes can be overlooked.

I suppose my childhood fascination with literature and my mother’s introducing me to quality films are the reason that as an adult I do not like Hollywood films that use manipulations to make the viewer feel something. Little Women was written more than 100 years ago, yet it is quality literature that is still read by girls today, and almost every generation is retold as a film. When a story is well written or well acted, when it is universal and plays on the most basic of human emotion in ways that cross generations, cultures, and time, the audience does not need to be prompted to care or to cry. A well written story is one that the audience connects with regardless of personal connection to the characters, but even more so if the characters represent something that an audience member can relate to individually. When a director with the ability to visually capture the small, simple, realistic moments that comprise a great story adds stunning imagery and intelligence to it, cinema magic is the result – regardless of budget and production constraints.

Bollywood is not very different than Hollywood when it comes to creating shallow entertainers, yet Indian “art” or “parallel” cinema is comparable to the best world cinema. While the budgets and production values are usually of a lesser quality than similar films from other countries, the stories, themes and actors are just as compelling and powerful as those produced in the rest of the world. Cinematic brilliance knows no language or country.

Saaransh is a fine example of this.

3. Satish Naidu (Pune, India)

Saaransh : Movie Review

People break down into two groups when it comes to matters of faith. To the first, anything and everything is a sign laid out for them, proof that everything happens for a reason, a reason to hold on to in moments of crisis. The second believe, for reasons of their own, they’ve lost faith in everything, and especially in the guy, up there, who is supposed to be playing dice. It is an illusion, of faithlessness, for they still have faith in that outside chance strings will be pulled. The chance reason enough to set foot on ground, every morning. Oscar Wilde once said – “Skepticism is the beginning of Faith.” I guess, skepticism is at the end of faith as well, and at the beginning of the illusion. Pradhan (Anupam Kher), standing at the epicenter of his crumbling world, is a person of the second kind desperately seeking that last sign to pull him back. His wife, Parvati (Rohini Hattangadi), belongs to the former striving to be the pillar of strength.

That their son, pursuing his higher education in New York, has been snatched away from them in the most devastatingly random act of violence isn’t the reason; it is just the tipping point. Old age does that, I guess. When every little chore you’ve been waking in the morning for the past forty years of your life braving it all has been confiscated from you, and you’re pulled out of the action too, it does that to the best. I’m not sure that feeling ever sinks in, the last fight still in you but no chance on the horizon. Makes you question what you’ve, till now, taken in your stride. Saaransh begins there, in that period of Pradhan’s life, miserable and getting bleaker by the day. It is the key to its effectiveness, that decision. There aren’t any flashbacks, any fond memories of the past to hold on to. Only the glum present of old age, and the tragedy of their son’s death three months back.

The decisions Saaransh takes could be inferred as uncompromising, and indeed, most of them are. Every time the faint idea of a happy development starts to condense, the ugly hood of life pops up to stamp all over it. There’s not much by the way of entertainment here, and neither should there be. Mahesh Bhatt obviously intends to go for long takes, not just narrating a sequence and jumping to the next one but helping us experience them.

Yet, I felt let down, on more than a few occasions. Behind all that stubbornness to rub Pradhan’s nose, I could smell the faintest of the writer’s conceit. The situations depicted are real-life, as they pan out progressively less so, but the way they end, abruptly, smack of deception. Tired of it all, Pradhan braves to commit suicide, and in a moment that betrays the patriarchal beliefs of the film, he asks his wife to join him in the act too. She, as if confirming our doubts, meekly submits. Just as she unzips her lips to swallow the extra-large peg of poison, a development derails the sequence towards the mundane. It is not the development in itself that is the culprit; it is the way the old couple react that sunk me into despair. Pradhan is robbed of any defense as his wife gets on the melodramatic offense, in that typical fashion that enables a cut to the next scene. We’re left stranded, imploring for the sequence to achieve an ending it deserves. The writer in Bhatt wants to touch every possible milestone in this path of distress and he has already made up his mind, and it feels as if, the director submits to that pre-meditative mindset. The film is asked to utter lines when the moment demands silence. It makes an indelible impression on us by its unsaid feelings, and then dilutes it by trying to explain them.

Its strengths, though, lay in its developments and not in how it executes them. The script is solid, and that is the reason why some of the sequences resonate like they do. And then, there is the performance of Anupam Kher. He is a superhero concealed under a beaten man, and if his performance betrays the slightest of vigilantism, I’m not sure it is unintentional. His disillusionment reminded me of Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, and when life finally offers him the final fight left in him, he comes into his own. The character is required to be external, more than internal, and that he still manages to give it such depth is a testament to his quality. Rohini Hattangadi is magnificently layered, and in that melodrama writ large over her face you would find just the slightest impression of mania. Look closely at those eyes. They desperately pretend to be subdued, but lurking beneath is the love that betrays the beast of a mother within.

What to make of that ending though, which is not only undeserving of this incredibly poignant film, but belies it. Pradhan is the superhero, and in that world Parvati is the arch-enemy. Yet, in that downward slope of their life, they miraculously seem to find hope, courtesy the conceit I spoke of. Out of the blue it is inferred it is still a country for old men. I’m not bothered at all by the stock villains, because they’re never the point. They’re just a brigade sampling the wrong in Pradhan’s world. But Saaransh belongs to Parvati too, and when she is reduced to a puppet in this patriarchal world, I cannot help but feel horrified for her. Maybe that is the gravest part of the essence. You might wonder why? I’ll tag along an interesting question of my own.

Who in the gravest moments of a life-altering crisis is hit harder – the faithless or the faithful? Are they both the same? Saaransh might induce interesting arguments out of you, and not necessarily related to this one question.

4. Rajesh R Kallidumbil (Pune, India)

Saaransh : “Closure” with your feelings

Funny that Bollywood factory is never out of surprises.
For instance, movies like Saaransh and Love 86 were from the same era.
Where there was popular demand, money were thrown in that direction.
Mahesh Bhatt once directed movies like Arth, Naam and Daddy . Creative
ability does get stifled, if not strangled, by popular demand. Wow!
This was soon after I reached half-way of the movie. Dark it was, yet
an element of hope can never be denied as the scenes flickered by.
Contrary to the popular belief, it’s actually a little more than a
movie of hope, it is about a journey of a man who goes through a
series of predicaments and with each emergence comes a realization –
may be it is learning to stay alive, may be it is staying happy or may
be just moving on – leading to a complete gist of life.

The then Mahesh Bhatt, with his dialogues and screenplay, made every
moment in Saaransh scream the inevitability of life – ‘Dard Ka Doosra
Naam Hai Zindagi’. And well, Saraansh is about life and it’s meaning –
the gist of life. ‘Introducing Anupam Kher’ on the credits till the
end of the movie shook me up with the fact that a new actor (his first
movie actually was Apmaan) can start off with roles, which requires
maturity that comes with age, with such finesse.

Kher plays an old school teacher B. V. Pradhan who lives a humble
retired existence with his wife Parvati Pradhan played by Rohini
Hattangadi. A call from New York ends all their hope of living. Their
only son is mugged and killed in New York and his ashes are sent back
to them. Pradhan gives up all hope in life whereas his wife finds
solace in religion. Her religious mentor syas that her son’s soul is
looking out for a womb and soon he will reborn. Worth mentioning here
is the scene when Pradhan goes to collect his son’s ashes from the
custom department. One can see the complete surrender of all feelings
displayed by the couple when they insisted that they want only their
son’s ashes and not his belongings.

To make their ends meet, they let in Sujata (played by Soni Razdan),
who was a struggling actress, as a paying guest. She was in love with
Vilas, the son of a local politician who was against their marriage.

One fine day, Pradhan gets harassed and beaten up by some street
goons. Pradhan gets into a emotional quagmire – a situation similar to
what his son must have faced in the US before his death. Pradhan, in
exasperation goes back and plans a suicide with Parvati. However,
Parvati, gets to know that Sujata is carrying Vilas’ child and Vilas
wants her to abort it.

Parvati feels her Guru’s prophecy came true. She persuades Pradhan to
save “their son”. Pradhan thereby, gets into a unwieldy situation
where he has to fight corruption, and his wife’s superstition, later
emerging with the ‘Saaransh’.

Now what is the Saaransh here? Somebody said, ‘It’s easy to die for a
reason but it’s more difficult to live for one’ and then someone else
said, ‘Life is a full circle’. To me, it was more than a closure.
There can never be a closure in life; otherwise we just go around
searching for one till we stop living. What we can do is reconcile
with what life has given us and start living life rather than fighting
it. It’s like building Pindams on the banks of rivers in the memory of
your loved ones.

Mahesh Bhat handled, with great understanding, the loneliness and
desperation in the Pradhans. Hattangadi’s anxiousness mixed with the
parsimony of pushing it too far is something which we observe in all
our mothers. Pradhan’s resolve and reconciliation, which I feel were
the greatest aspects of his characters, were etched very well by
Kher’s acting. Bollywood diaries say that Kher pays Bhatt two thousand
rupees for every movie he does as Dakshina. The plot of the movie was
utterly simple but the screenplay, good dialogues (Kher’s monologue in
the minister’s office) and great cinematorgrpahy (Madhukar Schinde)
made the movie a sensitizing experience.

It was delightfully amazing to know that Sooraj Barjatya was the
assistant director for Saaransh. It corroborates the opening line of
my review. My Saaransh on this one – Please donate some money to these
directors to make movies like this, may be once in a while, rather
than make fancy love stories (oft picked from Hollywood).

5. Mohammed Rashid (London, UK)

Contestant was unable to submit a review

6. Sreehari Nair (Trivandrum, India)

Contestant was unable to submit a review

7. Shantesh Sunil Row (Dubai, UAE)

Saaransh : THE SUM OF ALL PARTS

Circa 1982-83, Shivaji Park, in the then Bombay, was a
sleepy little place where a sea of small kids dressed
in white flannels went through the motions of batting
and bowling in the nets. Somewhere amidst them, a
11-year old precocious boy was taking his first steps
into becoming one of the world’s best batsmen -
battering bowlers all over the dustbowl.

At the same time, a generation of pensioners sat
around the perimeter wall of the kilometer long
circular park - clad in banians and blue striped
shorts - discussing the politics of the day very much
like one would in the ‘addas’ of the then Calcutta.

Concurrently, a multitude of Maharashtrian film
personalities, theatre stalwarts and culture czars and
czarinas went about their daily morning walk -
refreshing their mind for the creative pursuits of the
day that lay ahead in wake.

And in one corner of the park, in an idyliic building
named ‘Gayatri Nilayam’, a 33 year old man obsessed
with telling stories that sprung from his heart, was
directing a 28 year old actor who was enacting the
role of a 65 year old retired freedom
fighter/professor. The director had created waves with
a film named ‘Arth’, a couple of years ago. And the
young actor, a Kashmiri Brahmin, was making his debut
in Hindi films.

The coming together of these two young, dynamic minds
- Mahesh Bhatt and Anupam Kher - resulted in a film
that was to be acclaimed - critically and
commercially. And define the path of both creative men
for decades to come.

‘Saaransh’ (The Gist) is a simple tale of loss and
coming to terms with it. An elderly couple, Professor
Pradhan (Anupam Kher) and his wife (Rohini Hattangady)
have lost their only child, their son, due to a tragic
mugging in the United States. With their life support
gone, the couple now have to face the gamut of
problems that assail them - loneliness, despair,
financial adversity, and personal strife.

To add to their worries, Pradhan almost gets mugged
during city riots and has to face adversities in
getting a job to keep the kitchen fires burning. He
also has to deal with bureacratic red tape and
babugiri in getting his dead son’s ashes back from the
USA.

In comes a young actress, Soni Razdan, who begins to
stay with the couple as a paying guest. But it’s not
just the money she gets home. Accompanying her is her
boyfriend, the son of a powerful politician. Things go
on smoothly, the arrival of the two young people adds
a bit of sunshine into the gloomy lives of the old
couple.

Then, the moment of truth. Razdan is pregnant,
Hattangady sees it as the rebirth of her dead son,
elections are looming and the politician does not want
the beans to spill in order to safeguard his seat.
Instead of bowing to the pressure, Pradhan decides to
take the fight to the establishment - protecting
Razdan as his own daughter. And the couple now find a
reason to live again.

The two things that stand-out as the tale unfolds on
screen are the powerhouse performance of Anupam Kher
and the powerpacked dialogues and screenplay by Mahesh
Bhatt. One cannot but be mesmerised by Kher’s
portrayal. He nails the angst, the despair, the hope
with a body language that defies his age. The scenes
where he confronts Akash Khurana for his son’s ashes
and Deepak Qazir to plead Razdan’s case - are
standouts - and will forever be etched in our
memories.

Bhatt paints a very touching characterization. Besides
dwelling amply on each character and their journey, he
brings in many vignettes that add to their exposition.
When Pradhan goes to take a job as a librarian, he
meets his old student (a wonderful Satish Kaushik).
Kaushik speaks about how his business is roaring and
just how successful he is, when his torn shoes speak
the reality. Pradhan, despite needing the job badly,
gives it up for his student. The sacrifice is a
reminder of how much our freedom fighters put country
and people before self.

The other actors also play their parts well. Bhatt
uses contrasts to highlight their ups and downs.
Hattangady is restrained and emotional in parts,
Razdan is strong willed and gentle. Madan Jain is both
heroic and also a cad. Saaransh is real, in the sense,
that it paints each person in black and white - their
strengths and foibles laid bare.

If Arth was a reflection of Bhatt’s personal trials
and tribulations, Saaransh is a peek into how society
treats the elderly and how corruption gnaws at the
very innards of relationships. No wonder Bhatt shot
the film is his one time home at Shivaji Park, to
really get into the skin of the film.

Circa 2008, Shivaji Park, in the now Bombay, is no
longer a sleepy place. The sea of small kids toiling
away in the cricket nets still remains. But gone are
the days when the game was played in order to play the
game. Now every kid wants to be a Tendulkar, guzzle up
some cola endorsements and make his life cushy.

At the same time, a new generation of pensioners now
sit around the perimeter wall of the kilometer long
circular park. They still discuss the politics of our
time. But around them, are the distractions - young
teenagers with the trappings of modern life, the hum
of big cars, the waste of half-eaten Frankies and
fountain Pepsis, the peekaboo revealing clothes.

Concurrently, a multitude of Maharashtrian film
personalities, theatre stalwarts and culture czars and
czarinas go about their daily morning walk. But their
minds are not on the creative pursuits of the day that
lay ahead in wake. They are busy thinking about the
next attack on art and culture by fanatics.

The soul of Shivaji Park has changed. Middle Class
principles slowly being trampled upon by new-age
values of wealth. What hasn’t changed are the truths
that Saaransh aims to bring to the audience. They are
still relevant. They are still pertinent. They still
hold a mirror to society, pleading for a bit of self
reflection.

And somewhere in Dubai, a man who lived all his life
in Shivaji Park, one who has seen the social milieu
change before his very eyes, someone who saw Saaransh
being shot in the flesh and himself had a blink and
miss role in it, attempts to write a review for the
same.

Life has come a full circle for yours truly.

F.Y.I.

Before signing off, we wish to thank all contestants who took the pains to search high and low for some of the movies we asked them to review in the contest. Not to forget the jury who has stood rock solid with us, taking time off from their busy schedules to read each round of reviews and vote. Also this whole contest would not have been possible if Anurag Kashyap hadn’t helped us out. Finally a big thanks to Tehelka.com for believing in our contest and giving it it’s full support.

The final rankings will be announced on February 23rd. Even if there will be one Ronin, really it takes a lot of courage and strength to ward off the pressure to submit review after review, week after week, standing out there with a ranking next to you. A big round of applause to all the participants who stood rock steady through the entire period of 6 grilling weeks. Hats off!