Gandhi My father – Butter chicken Gravy -Feroz ‘Ramanand Sagar’ Khan
Gandhi My father – Butter chicken Gravy -Feroz ‘Ramanand Sagar’ Khan
Have u ever eaten Butter chicken gravy ??
For the veggies – ever tried Malai Kofta-less ???
Butter chicken gravy is the most delicious soul stirring gravy served minus the chicken. Malai kofta-less has a fantastic taste except of course the Kofta ….
If you havent done any of the above, please go to your nearest Cinema and watch Gandhi My father. It is a perfect example of a masala dosa without the masala, or the typical italian pizza without any toppings.
Javed akhtar says that the father son relationship has its own share of paradox. The father wants the son do well, but at the same time not better than him because his ego is at stake. At the same time the son wants to follow the father’s footsteps, but wants to achieve and prove more.
In short – there is respect and love but there is also competition.
The premise of Gandhi my father may remind you of the classic Shakti (Dilip Kumar and AB Sr and amazing dialogues by Salim-Javed), but unfortunately the film may just become another Shakti – not in terms of emotional content but in terms of its commercial success(Shakti didn’t do well at the BO).
If you had any doubts watsoever as to whether the film is based on the play (Harilal versus Gandhi), it will be removed after seeing the film. The film tragically, is a play on celluloid.
Harilal versus Gandhi had Kay Kay and Naseer play the respective roles, and “Kay Kay had stolen thunder from Naseer’s performance”.
One of the foremost principles of cinema (I humbly submit) is to SHOW MORE AND TELL LESS. This is where a film differs from a play. I want to see.. i have come to the theater to see … to SEE !!!! NOT TO LISTEN….
The film doesn’t show why there is friction between Harilal and Gandhi from the very onset. The film doesn’t show why Harilal wants to marry Gulabo. The film doesn’t show why a ‘White’ (forgive my racist tendencies please) is installing a shower pump in a pan-indian colony in South Africa when my common sense tells me that it must’ve been the ‘blacks/browns’ doing the menial services. The film doesn’t show what ’swindling’ Harilal does and how he gets into financial trouble. The film doesn’t show why Harilal wants to convert to Islam. The film doesn’t show Gandhi as a human being, right from the start of the fillm – he is THE MAHATMA. The film doesn’t clearly show what exactly is the problem between Harilal and Gandhi.
Instead what I get to see is an elaborate Gujju Dance sequence, Harilal playing football (who cares if he is playing football, cricket, kabaddi or gilli danda), a totally unrelated and misplaced scene with Harilal yelling “I’m the useless son of Gandhi”, the bycycles used in Ahemdabad and women chitter chattering in the household (does it affect the story/drama ? – NO), an amdavadi cracking some silly joke about Harilal’s studies(SHOW ME HARILAL GOING TO A SCHOOL/COLLEGE/ MATRICULATION FAILURES!!!), some maharasthrian saffron group members protesting at the time of Gandhi’s speeches (WHY and HOW is it related to the father-son drama?), a bomb blast with Gandhi crying (oh make that trying to cry) for those who are stampeded (again unrelated to the main drama).
If the filmmaker had used these ‘real life inputs’ for garnishing the central theme, and showing how it affects the relationship/the protaginists’ minds it wouldve been right and perhaps even useful to the story. But sadly, like I said, it is like Butter chicken Gravy without the chicken !!!
Why do the CG scenes look so poorly executed ?
Why does the South African settlement look like the sets of Wai – Maharasthra ??
Why are there Indian trees in the south african soil?
Why is Harilal offering an ORANGE (of all the god forsaken things in the world) to his mother in the train scene?
Why is Harilal unable to find a single job that eventually he is forced to beg ?
Whatever happened to the clothes Harilal bought ?
Why is there more focus on the Charkha than the dynamics of the father-son relationship? Why is Khalid Mohmd praising the film sky high ?
Why does Mumbai Mirror/Bombay Times carry an entire page long advertisment proclaiming Gandhi My father as “cinema of A-class quality” and giving 4 star reviews ??? Why does Vinod khanna say “I have seen the film this film 4 times and each time i have cried ?”
Why does Akshaye Khanna say “after i saw the film i was really moved”?
Why is every time that such an “art house film with a star” releases, every body in the town goes proclaiming the new face of changing Hindi cinema ?
Why is manirathnam’s worst film – Guru or a Sanjay leela bhansali’s mag-Ham opus – Black, or Nagesh Kukonoor’s worst attempt at ’sensitive’ cinema – Dor (IMO) praised so sky high ??
What are these reviewers and media people eating ??
Copying from RGV ki AAG – “Kaun si chakki ka aata khaatey hain ??”
If being art house is enough and the merit of a film is merely the courage and the ability to take up ‘different subjects’ then forgive me, I think Undertrial (father accused of raping his own daughter) and Anwar (hindu Krishna – muslim maulvi or muslim Catholic and krishna Sardar – Kartik stop drinking will u !!!!) are masterpieces !!!!???
I shudder to think if Undertrial had been starred Sanjay Dutt rather than Rajpal yadav, then despite Kader Khan’s presence (please please please RETIRE), the film would’ve got 5 and 1/2 stars by Khalid Mohmd and other esteemed critics.
Now moving on to the Ramanand Sagar Connection.
Forgive my for Blasphemy (after being deemed as a racist and a possibly unpatriotic person – I may labelled an atheist as well), I never liked Ramanand Sagar’s Ramayana. The long dialogues and melodrama was too much for me to handle, other than my parents’ beatings when i expressed my diaspleasure at the same.
Last night i seem to have revisitied the horror of watching Ramayana. The slow excrutiatingly loooooooooooooong takes, with every actor coming into frame and going out of frame, dialogues with pregnant pauses (for some strange alien reason), the words being stretched and pronounced to the maximum extent (as if the audience is a 4 year old kid), the slow – slow – dead slow scenes…. The drama waiting to be unfolded even after the end credits have rolled out. Oh my god.. Heck Mahatma Gandhi walked faster than the pace of the film !!!!
Didn’t the producer Mr Anil Kapoor realise that there exists a department known as EDITING !!! Oh no may be he was too busy asking Akshaye Khanna to promote Gandhi my father in KOFFEE WITH KARAN !!!
Yes Sudhir Mishra sahib, after watching KANK, Eklavya and now Gandhi My father…. we too miss Renu Saluja …..
I’m not saying that the performances of Akshaye khanna and Darshan Zariwala are bad…. in fact after a point of time the performances, dialogues,drama cease to move/affect you. You become numb.You simply become aware of the sound of the fans/AC…. the annoying ring tones of the cellphone carrying audeince, the munching of the pop corns in adjacent row….the painful realisation that you have been cheated of 150 bucks…. the sad fact that the makers of the film had a crackling subject/premise to be explored, a story waiting to be told … and they threw it away.
Butter chicken minus the chicken… Malai kofta minus the kofta … Sex minus foreplay … Whisky without soda/thumsup … Kartik without brains ….
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
dude… you are becoming more like the oz of Desi Train in your reviews… and becoming better than him… darn… I need to find another hobby
Oz – Naaaaa not yet…. this review doesn’t mention blondes :d
oh… and mini me…
kartik i think you are going way overboard… i thought sreekar prasad stitched together the material he got quite beautifully… and dor and guru are bad cinema and you like the ear-splitting screaming of undertrial? what’s wrong with you? you don’t have to trash other movies to say bad things about one… and all those things did happen like the orange at katni station… in fact that was the take off point for feroz’s idea for the play and then the movie… that amidst everyone shouting mahatma gandhi ki jay there was one man shouting kasturba ma ki jay… and akshaye I thought was really good… watch the scene where he comes back to the photo of his dead wife… i was shivering myself as i watched… anil may have done a lot of things he shouldn’t have but co-produced My Wife’s Murder and then Gandhi My Father… like his brother he could have done a No Entry but he at least tried honestly… he could have cast Boman Irani or Naseeruddin Shah as Gandhi but he tried the lesser-known Darshan Jariwalla… give the devil his due, man… don’t worry it will not be a box office success because it was never meant for one…
Pratim – Guru and Dor are “pseudo” films .. they have fakeness and pretence written all over.
Gandhi couldve been so much better in terms of the drama and emotional content…. sadly the film fell through .. audiences were waiting for it to get over.
Undertrial and Anwar was a joke yaar :-)
What i simply wanna convey is that an emotionally richer and better directed version of Gandhi with Kay and Naseer might have gone unnoticed … but a soulless and poorly directed film that Gandhi is at present, is praised sky high ..simply because it is produced by Mr Anil kapoor and stars Akshaye khanna.
Making a film on this subject is courageous ….
however, it is a really bad film …. watch it to discover.
Orange scene – that’s the only good scene in the entire movie .. Besides of course Mona ambigaonkar’s fiugre flaunting 2 minute guest appearance….
and by the way ..im myself a fan of sreekar prasad ….
But pray – why do u need to waste 3 seconds for an actor to enter the fram .. say his lines .. and then exit the frame (another 3 seconds) …
The film couldve been made much more crisp. I’m guessing may be Feroz shot it in such a way that the editor had no choice
kartik i am obviously not saying so much without watching the movie… no what i feel about the pacing is that since there was so much shock value… you know this man changing names to escape south africa and then changing religions like clothes… feroz deliberately slowed it down for the people to soak it in… i thought gandhi my father was a good film which definitely could have been better but from someone who’s only worked in theatre it was a very good start
Pratim – i was ecpecting a lot more …. lot more than just a good start….
Aha…the old “monk” Kartik makes a comeback….if he loves something…he will go to any extent..if he hates something..YOU WILL KNOW….
Havent seen it yet…but, will this week for sure or mebbe dvd
Whew…quite an outbusrt there…though even I have to admit I found it a little ‘overreactive’…membership gone for a month, so please check out my takes on cinema this month on www.nowrunning.com or cinemaparadiso.rediffiland.com
I have not seen DOR, But i agree with everything Kartik is saying!
Kartik,
I am not in anyways in opposition to what you think of GMF(since I am yet to watch it), just had a few general askings to ask..
Why do u think cinema shud be made to see and its plays that prompt you to hear?.. and that it shud always be the visuals in a film that has to be striking point in a film??
Pulp Fiction.. I am damn sure ur a huge fan of that film… the most striking aspect of Pulp Fiction are its dialogues if u ask me.. oK.. I know the circualr narrative was cool, I know the performances were spot-on, I love the sheer energy of the tango that brought Uma and travolta together..
But if you ask me.. the gr8est thing abt Pulp Fiction are its dialogues… Those lines.. They just hold the movie together.. They are the ones here that actually that actually in that movie.. the ones that brings forward the extreme tale of irony that, that movie stands for.. For me Pulp Fiction is all abt irony.. and its those dialogues at various points in the movie that actually bring out that irony..
Be it Jules’s speech on sin and redemption..
Or Wallace’s ,”I am gonna get medeival on your ass’..
Or Christopher Wilken’s long speech to a young Butch..
its the dialogues.. To every movie its own.. The USP of any good movie can be anything that the director thinks would best carry the feel of the movie forward.. Dont you think then that pigeon-holing one aspect of Cinema to be the source of its gr8ness is a tad.. hmm.. wrong?/
Again.. this a general rambling on cinema.. and not a specific take wrt Gandhi My Father..
“Why do u think cinema shud be made to see and its plays that prompt you to hear?.. and that it shud always be the visuals in a film that has to be striking point in a film??”
It aint necessary. That is what is so cool. It is a so called ‘rule’ in general. But if it is to be broken then the dialogues better be awesome!!!!
If it is a dialogue oriented film then it better be in the league of 12 angry Men/ Pulp Fiction/ Memento/Reservoir Dogs/Bheja Fry/Ek ruka hua faisla/ …sadly which GMF isn’t.
And im not talking about the inventive narrative at all. that is incidental ….
Trust me Watch GMF … and then u will realise that it is not in the aforementioned leauge … if we’re talking only talking about Dialogue laced films …
I mean imagine an entire 1 hour long film about a lover and his girlfriend …. starting with lines like “Main tumharey bachchey ki ma banney waali hoon”… It would be pointless.It can be done… but it would be pointless. Either gimme crackling screenplay .. or solid characters ..or WOW dialogues
My arguement is .. if ur breaking a so called “rule” then it better be for a good reason.
And sreehari – great to hear some of the amazing dialogues of pulp fiction after a looooong time. Need to revisit it soon :-)
slightly digressing..i personally feel that Nagesh Kuknoor is a master of making ‘Fake’ films and mixes the right amount of ‘commerciality’ and ‘critical acceptance’ in his movies. He is a clever film maker who knows how to climb the ladder of success with getting good banners as well delivering ‘money making’ movies in our filmdom, where the term ‘Struggler’ is almost a cliche..
The movie was pretty good actually.But i felt that in the 2nd half,the emotions just weren’t expressed effectively enough except maybe by Shefali Shah who is truly astounding.
Sorry dude, I’m a no-brainer with no knowledge of cinema. :d:d:d I’d agree 100% with Pratim on his view of DOR.
I SCREAM OUT ALOUD, that BLACK and GURU were amongst the most overrated films of all time. They are bloody commercials packaged in a see-I’m-so-arty types. Couldn’t really digest a GURU from the man who made NAYAKAN, BOMBAY, ROJA. BLACK, with all its gloss and pretence, gave me no shock since it was from the man who did a Devdas to OUR Sharat Chandra.
But, man, DOR! That’s a film to remember. PRATIM! I raise my hands along with you, friend! Be it the magnificent storyline or sparkling cinematography or stellar performance – DOR did rock. I couldn’t remember any film that moved me so much in years. For the first time in the history of Indian cinema on feminism, a filmmaker showed that a woman needs no man to complete herself. A friend fills up the life. And there isn’t even a pinch of sexuality/ lesbianism in that film. The subtlety makes the film very special and there’s no such “pretence”, if you ask me. That was truly a feminist film in recent types shying away from masquerading Rituparno films like Antarmahal.
Rituparno WAS a filmmaker who really struck me with brilliant films like 19 April, Dahan, Titli. Now, he’s much on the lines of RGV. What say Prats (dare I?)?
erm, Guru, is not an art movie. Since when was Guru classified as an art movie? I do not think Mani Ratnam or anyone associated with the film stated that this film is an art film? I do not even think that it was presented like an art-house film. It is a commercial film and Mani Ratnam has always been making exceptional commercial films.
Only downfall of the movie was that it was sketchy/inept acting. It seemed like they could not decide how to present all the informations or what to include…
H.G: Inept acting in Guru?
by whom- Mithun, Abhishek
or you are pointing towards Aishwarya, Vidha Balan and Mahadevan or Rajendra Gupta or Manoj Joshi or Roshan Seth or Dhritman Chaterjee or Sudhir Pande or Sachin Khedekar and many others?
Downfall?
do we have falls like those shown in film, in otherwise dry Gujarat?
Gujarati crowd singing and dancing on South Indian styled (a must in Mani Ratnam’s films)songs.
you always give material to discuss.:)
had you made any post on Guru in past?
Dor was my favourite film of last year along with Lage Raho Munnabhai… Was not a great fan of Rang De Basanti…
As for Rituparno, I admire the man till this day… Loved Dosar… Really looking forward to Khela and Sunglass… Not so sure about Last Lear, I am convinced AB will overact and ham big time…
Well, as for DOSAR, I certainly liked it but found it too gimmicky at parts. And yes! It was an “inspiration”! I refrain from using the word copy because it isn’t excatly a Sanjay Gupta way. Krzysztof Kieslowski’s Blue. Have you seen it?
I lie my bets along with you on AB hamming. I too hope Ritu strikes back and proves me wrong. His worst to date were Antarmahal and Chhoker bali! The former justifying the last two syllables of his name and the latter? A showcase of Aishwarya’s body and her idiotic countenance. I don’t really know if he read the book or just the summary! Tagore is no easy task! Let’s hope he stops doing adaptions and showcase of Bolly stars. Let him not mess with Utpal Dutt! He is best when he is original. Hay re bangali! He is only director from Bengal we can rely upon.
Lookin’ forward too your next post on Bachchans or SRK and obviously t2! You rock!
P.S.: This is quite funny! I have no political agenda But the weekly article Ritu writes for a magazine ALWAYS concludes at the criticism of WB Govt. Be it Cannes or BBS or Sati Maa!
I have been a constant follower of Kukunoor’s cinema(Bollywood Calling topping the list), but Dor spoiled the dream run for me. I wrote on it long back.
http://bfs.wikia.com/wiki/DOR
Nah RK-ji, I have not written an article on Guru cos I only recently saw the movie and beside, there are already tons of articles on Guru in our library. So did not wanted to sort of repeat myself.
In brief, I though Jr. B could have done much better in second half if he did not concentrate on imitating Vijay Dinnath Chauhan. I wasn’t impressed with Ash. And how did the little girl grown into Viday Balan? A young woman playing that role would have been much better.
okay, it got a bit of praise from the media, but they are weird bunch of people. but do not think they praised the film as something hatke or arty.
Anyway, back to the post, what i am trying to say, why do we read a lot into the reviews when we know most of them are just PR materials? So why, erm, why review the reviews.. review the movie. its just promotion gimmicks.
yes, it is wrong to classify ‘Black’ as an arty movie, but have people (audience) ever seen Big B or Rani do something like that before. No? So people call that film as an arty movie. Where as you people have seen art movies, so you know… but they do not!
also even desi film media in uk classified ‘Black’ as an arty movie and i sort of just laughed it.
Dor did not get the praise from the media or made any money. So I do not know why you think….
we do not have a genre system in india, so people will classify films randomly/differently. i mean, the other day i saw one of Partner promo, in which one of the guy said, ‘it’s a good family movie’. Partner a family movie?
we gotta live with that.
also do aam junta care about reviews – do they know any critics?
ps Kartik, you had written a post about giving credits to the people for working hard, what happened to that, eh? ;-)
kartik, khalid mohammed may give four star ratings to GMF but i go along with oz in giving starry starry appreciation to your reviewing style..going ballistic and not sparing even Ramanand Sagar..Poor guy..May Lord Ram save his soul and your blast..You have some very valid questions that remain unanswered in GMF..And director has his own style of executing the material in hand..GMF may not be cracking cinema but it certainly is not trash and meant to crash like Cash.
Pratim, yes Dor based on a true incident was indeed a refreshing and pleasing change from some of the big-budget ‘bozos’ of last year.
Here is my list of Pseudo/Fake films.
1) PAGE 3 (Madhur is the Master Poseur)
2) BLACK
2) Mr. & Mrs Iyer
3) 15, Park Avenue
4) Chokher Bali
5) Daman
6) Sarkar
7) Most VVC films.
8) Earth, Water
9) Most JP Dutta films.
I will write a post on this topic soon. But for that I will have to watch all these films again.
Last Film – THE HOST(7/10) Finally a good Monster Film. Trust a Korean to do it.
Music – www.pandora.com
Book – Confessions of a Economic Hitman
@Black Feather – I agree with most of the “pseudos” on your list, except Mr & Mrs. Iyer. Come on yaar. It was such a wonderful film, and the characters were so real and the film just powerful. Calling it pseudo or fake is quite harsh. It was one of the most honest efforts of the early part of the decade.
ditto…i also agree to almost all films in the list except two, ‘Mr. & Mr.s Iyer’ and ‘15 park Avenue’..
misfit – Nagesh’s early films Rockford .. HB … Teen dewarein werent fake ….
Bollywood calling, Dor, Iqbal to a certain extent are fake IMO.
Charles – Welcome to the club :-D
I personally feel many lines/dialogues in Dor were corny and fake …. i mean literal translations of american english into hindi/rajasthani….. so with Iqbal
eg: as in iqbal “agar tum apney sapney par vishwaas hai tu saara jahaan saazish karega …. ” literally translated from any motivational american proverb/quoting “If u believe in ur dreams the entire world will conspire to make them true”
Havent seen Kieslowski’s Trilogy .. nor any of Rituporno’s films. Raincoat was quite good
HG – Mani doesnt make “art films” he makes commercial films agreed. But they are uncorrupted and do not insult audience intelligence. Guru was corrupt fake and insulted my intelligence. He just touched the issues on the surface and went ahead …. didnt even dig deeper. unlike Nayagan,Iruvar or Roja
I dunno which post ur talking about … but i do beieve in giving credit to people who worked hard. My point is – hard work hota toh dikhta boss !!!!
Pratim – have been getting feelers from my Bengali friends .. that RituPORNO has become indulgent …. i think someone shld post abt the man on PFC.
Krysh – that is the biggest tragedy. GMF couldve been a classic …. with the premise they had …. but now it is just another film. As compared to Cash and Partner it is certainly better … but all im saying is GMF couldve been a classic ..instead it ends up being just another film
Black Feather – hmmmmm Page 3 seemed ok but looked fake because of the low budget … in fact Page 3 and of course Chandni Bar are two of Madhur’s best (not in that order)
Earth was good .. it was quite good
karthik..do u know nagesh writes his scripts in english and then someone translates them into hindi 4 him
akki – thanks for confirming :-)
see, this is what i think, yes, it could have been better, but since ‘Guru’ was a biographic movie it was likely that the film would end up a bit sketchy intentionally or unintentionally. it is not easy to show a person’s entire life in a 2 hrs package. Dhirubahia had an eventful life. now i do not know if they did any research or not, if they just looked up wiki and thought about adapting those information into the film, then that is wrong. but i don’t think that happened. do you? what more about Dhirubhai you would have liked to seen in the film?
i could say same about his ‘Dil Se’; it only touched the surface of Assam crisis. And concentrated more on the SRK – Manisha angle. No?
Guru ended up being a HERO HERO HERO Hindi film… I was never told about the grey shades in Guru’s character.It was a very lop sided POV> Scenes were cut … there were inconsistecies … Guru ended up being a virtous piuos hero …. i dunno maan it almost pained me to see that the film had mani sir as director.
HG – sincere suggestion. Try watching Manirathnam’s tamil Biopic called Iruvar (see if u can get a subtitled copy) ….. Iruvar is 100 times richer and more complete than Guru.
Dil Se – agreed that the film touched upon the surface only … but the film was always a romantic film for me … the passion with which a normal guy falls in love with a terrorist… the presmise itself tells u that there are gonna be problems .. and not peaceful happyily ever after/ peaceful solutions. it works much more for me than Guru … I think it is an amazing film.
For me the film wasnt abt the problems in assam/North east.
i did not see any sort of heroism in the film. Guru was an arrogant one minded
bastard. a few negative shades of him were shown in the film. i thought there were inconsistencies because they had a lot of information on the hand, but had to cut out some bit… i don’t know why/which they had to….oh the ending was abrupt…
i’ll try watching it, but i cannot guarantee it. :-)
anyway….
I was very disappointed by Guru. the whole end.trying to justify the guy. you almost feel that this is happening because Abhishek B cannot be Grey. why glorify the crook?
Also songs were so irritating. feel asleep a couple of times.
yeah some parts of Guru feel disconnected..n also if that man has made mistakes why to justify them..
Fuck KK…never agreed with u more!! finally saw the film…still wondering abt all teh 4 stars ??…shit gonna miss my drop now. will post a long comment 2mrw…so many questions, i dont have the answers. somone plz be ready 2mrw.
“1″ ???
I dont know wats ur problem dude @KK….y cant u praise a sincere and well researched effort….y everytime u guys have to pull someone legs…..Common dude…this is a well made well thought movie…No doubt its melodramatic..but thats movies all about..
Its Malai kofta less kofta but atleast someone is making an effort to be different.
I pity ur self-fixation and obsession with quality when u urself are piece of Crab Mentality shit