IFFLA ‘09 : The Fakir of Venice and Kanchivaram
The Fakir of Venice
If you are one of those who think Farhan Akhtar was good in Rock On! or Luck By Chance, you are so wrong baby. Cause The Fakir of Venice is Farhan’s best work to date.
Directed by Anand Surapur of Phat-Phish (he’s also the producer of Quick Gun Murugan), the story begins with etching out Akhtar’s character, a “ho-jayega” production guy who can get things done for any production unit, be it getting a monkey from across the border to getting “pot” for the “foreign” unit out in India to shoot a movie.
The core story kickstarts when an Italian museum needs a fakir who can be buried in sand for hours together. They have a weeklong exhibition and need such a man. Enter Akhtar who searches high and low for such a guy and when he’s almost about to give up lands up at the door step of Annu Kapoor (brilliant performance), a slum dweller who paints buildings for a living.
The journey of getting Kapoor trained for the job entitles, making him look like a fakir, practicing under the sand, getting his passport ready and above all battling Kapoor’s alcoholism.
Surapur in the entire story keeps the mood simple and the story straight, though there were ample places where this story could have been hacked to create some rip roaring laughter, Surapur’s focus seems to be different, instead stressing to tell his view of the story which takes us into the darker secrets that Annu Kapoor, as the Fakir, holds in his chest.
Kanchivaram
Directed by Priyadarshan. And if you think he is done and out. You are in for a shock.
We found, Kanchivaram, directed by Priyadarshan, to be the best film from India – that we have seen so far in the year 2009. With a power packed performance from Prakash Raj, this is pure genius.
The entire backdrop of Kanchivaram is the 1940s in a small village where weavers are paid meagre salaries to weave the best of silk of clothing. Weaving for all their lives, the weavers don’t make enough to even be able to buy a single piece of silk cloth in their entire lives. That’s when the stage is set – wherein – Prakash Raj promises his newborn that he will present her with a silk saree on the day she gets married. How this journey then on takes place is the crux of the movie.
The movie jumps between two tracks – the first an older Prakash Raj travelling in a bus to his village amidst heavy rains – to – the past where he is a silk weaver saving every penny in an attempt to fulfill his promise.
Shot very simply, the entire movie does not move beyond Prakash Raj’s shack (a cheap hut) to the village, and yet in these limited locations, Priyadarshan holds you so tight that you choke in many a moment in the movie to cry with one of those characters of the story.
Kanchivaram is pure genius. And those who’ve already written Priyadarshan’s professional obituary are in for one of the biggest shocks and surprises of their lives.
We recommend a must see.
Tags: IFFLA
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
Any chance of seeing a theatrical and/or DVD release of either movies?
Thanks for this update on Kanchivaram. Its on my must see list now…
Didn’t know Fakir was by Surapur.
And Priyan chose to make his 12 year dream film in Thamizh with Prakashraj as the lead!! Three cheers to national integration. Once again true art has no boundaries!!!
the days of quick gun murugan seem like history now, where have all those amazingly creative people who made MTV the most watchable channel disappeared? the promos, the fillers, the presnters, mtv was a defining channel, look at it now
@Jaiganesh:
Funny how strong the boundaries within our country are.
Anyways I was hooked on to Kanchivaram ever since Baradwaj Rangan went all ga-ga over the movie. I am looking forward to seeing it soon.
any idea where one can watch these movie in Dubai? There is a serious gap between the guys who want to see these movies which are truly different from the mainstream movies being churned out and the cinema halls showcasing teh regular masal movies.
Unfortunately we miss out on catching these movies unless we happen to catch it on some tv channel. That too if the channels show them.
It seems anyways we are at mercy of either the cinema hall guys or tv channels or dvd release.
Ok, a must see huh? but u forgot to mention where we could see it??
Kanchivaram is a purely pretentious film made by PD. its boring overacted and unrealistic.This film has not even had a single moment to engage us or engulf to turn into an experience. He poked various films he watched in dvd’s in to this so called award film (rechristened now as festival films). If he is s honest film maker, he should have made a film in kerala with the issues which is very near to his heart, instead of making film for the sake of acquiring awards. Indeed it should be the other way around to make a good film. I am sure he can’t learn, since this film is not the first of this sort. He should at least learn to confine himself into his own boundaries as it is very good for him and us.
Are these movie already released?? Where can I find these movies? Also would need subtitles for Kanchivaram. How I wish I could understand Malayalam, Tamil n Telugu :( … Some really great movies come out of these regional industries.