KAMINEY:The Year of Being Bad
“To, Ezra Pound, the Better Craftsman” — T.S. Eliot in his dedication in his book of verse The Wasteland.
Anurag Kashyap did it in February earlier this year with Dev.D and now this August, Hindi cinema gets meaner with Kaminey. This is not a review of the film. Enough has been written about Kaminey in the past week. India is now sharply divided between those who like Kaminey and those who hate it. I can understand both points of view. I will just try to deconstruct reasons the film does not work for those incredibly strange people.
The media loves it and eulogies abound. The expectations from the film were quite sky rocketing before the release thanks to the snazzy promos and the foot tapping ‘Dhan ta tan…’ However quite surprisingly, after the release, a large segment whom Imtiaz Ali so cornily terms as mango people(common people) especially from North India are failing to relate to even the fun element of the film. I remember one critic wishing fervently that this film works as that would signal the acceptance of intelligent commercial cinema by the masses. Very unfortunately, those prayers were not entirely answered. It seems mango people do not like, for the lack of a better analogy, black berries. Perhaps they do not like cinema that confronts them. Commercial Hindi cinema still remains the opium for the masses. That is why all anomalies of Love Aaj Kal goes unnoticed and the intentions of Kaminey are suspect.
For me, Kaminey is like bitter chocolate or caviar. You have to acquire a taste for it. For that you need an open mind. Not one closeted by dogmas and preconceived notions of equating entertainment to mindless mayhem. Even though this film is a mad hatter’s party, there is a distinct method in this madness. There is not a single moment in the script, (except maybe the ending which I personally perceive to be producers interference) that is not well thought out and debated before execution. Every move is deliberate and that becomes palpable for the discerning audience. That is the pizzazz that garnishes this delectably tangy film. Maybe the junta missed the trees for the woods and are hence raising their eyebrows about the unabashed brashness of the endeavour. People sift uncomfortably as the film speeds at breakneck pace, introduces panoply of colourful rogues and sub-plots and dares to underline its sub-text.
Set strictly within the paradigm of popular cinema, this film deliberately subverts every single idiom associated with such cinema. That is perhaps where the disconnect is, or so I suppose. But then Vishal Bhardwaj is by your leave no average film maker. He is a brave heart who chooses to remain doggedly faithful to his vision. With Kaminey he is not just making yet another film. He is by your leave, redefining Hindi film history. Every single aspect of this film is to my mind, truly path breaking— characterization, twists in the screenplay, mise-en-scene, editing, cinematography, performances, songs, background music, sound designing, virtually everything. Even the positive characters are wee bit twisted. Guddu, the good Shahid has premarital sex unlike his sanitized ‘Rajshree Films’ like predecessors; Sweety essayed sassily by Priyanka is not the saccharine laced heroine. For instance, even when Kareena plays the tomboy, she does not deviate from stereotypes. Priyanka does it so admirably. In fact, she has found her niche as an actress of distinction by daring to do what she does. Sans make up and coquettishness, she defies convention. Maybe that does not work with some people and hence the eyebrows rise. The screenplay is so freewheeling that it becomes slightly dizzying in its excess. A certain segment is averse to such intoxication. In this film you have to constantly pay attention. No time for your popcorn or asides. Hence the feeling of breathlessness. The mise-en-scene is so richly multilayered that is becomes a work of baroque splendour. It is certainly not the staple prescription of surface level variedness. The editing is jagged as a part of a well thought out design. That is mostly misconstrued by some as befuddling. The grey tones create such silhouettes that the contours of the faces do not become distinct. Viewers accustomed to well lit faces feel this to be jarring. Only the songs have cut across the spectrum and have become universally acceptable.
But even if all this were true, Vishal has no reason to sweat. Thankfully, in India, even the minority that is more accepting in its attitude constitutes mammoth numbers. They are the ones endorsing this film. They are the ones who are thronging theatres, they are the ones who are passionately discussing the film and spreading the word of mouth prompting more people like them to flock theatres. They will ensure that Kaminey will also win the numbers game. That is the ultimate victory for good cinema.
As, I wait with bated breath for the release of my film Pankh, I feel immensely encouraged by the very fact that films like Dev.D and now Kaminey find such a staggering response. I also feel so completely humbled by such sheer display of genius by Vishal that I bow with grace for the greater craftsman. That is why I quoted Eliot in the beginning of this post. Thank you Anurag and Vishal for making this the year of being bad.
(I took a sabbatical from my regular to express my feelings about Kaminey. I will return again with my personal journey.)
Tags: Kaminey, Kaminey review
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
Now this is how an unbiased review is written, although I understand that this is not a review of the movie. Good observation and aptly put.
MY REVIEW FOR KAMINEY –
As I read reviews from prominent Indian newspapers and garnered that almost all of them had a rating of 4+, my heart beat with joy that KAMINEY had indeed turned out to be what it promised to be. With a collective sense of vindication that the multiple reviews had granted me, I walked into the theater in Minneapolis which screens Indian movies primarily for the Indian populace. I had also pulled along my American friend so that I could proudly show him that Indian cinema had come of age and that not every film has actors dancing on the Alps at the drop of a hat.
As the reels began to unfold, I found myself waiting. Waiting for those moments on the screen that would give me goose pimples; that would make me jump from my seat witnessing the actions and reactions of the characters; that would just take over my sense of imagery with the images that the maker of the film would print on my mind via the screen. Nothing of that sort happened. No wait, it did happen at its fullest only during two points: one during the Dhan Te Na song, and two, during the finale of the movie—the climactic shootout in which death rules and life is at mercy. It’s a Vishal Bharadwaj film, and I have to wait till the end in order to get the thrill that Mr. Bharadwaj promised and all the newspapers that promised that Mr. Bharadwaj kept his promises? Where was the roller-coaster ride that the newspaper proclaimed was the mainstay of the film? I walked out of the theater and sadly, not much remained in my cinematic conscience that would propel me to recommend the movie to others or to sing paeans of glory.
I do not wish to dwell on the story-line of KAMINEY. It is disappointing to talk about that since I expected more. Of course, there are twists, but in the end, the twists are really not that brainy! They do not make you go, ‘WOW, so that’s why this character earlier said that, or did that! God that’s so sharp! Now it makes sense.’ Scenes that are wittily written are so few and far between and instead of a full-hearted laugh; they just manage to elicit a chuckle out of you. Bhope’s playing along with Mikhail and demoting himself before Mikhail in the rail-car, Guddu, the bridegroom, shyly and reluctantly coming along on a scooter while Sweety, the bride, dances in gay abandon and enjoys the process of getting married to the hilt and thus tearing away years of traditional expectations and depictions where the bride is expected to be coy and demure while the bridegroom to be more in control and demonstrative, Sweety giving in to her basic nature of explosiveness and demanding whether she had raped Guddu to get herself pregnant, the inspector remarking, ‘You two,’ to Guddu and Sweety when they are busy discussing whether the child to be born would be male or female, the singing confession of Guddu, Bhope telling Charlie, ‘ Sa ko Fa nahi bolega to kya ‘La’ bolega?’ And that’s it. This is the short list in the 2 hour 10 minute movie that promised an abundance of witticisms and visual panache. And pray, what is this obsession with hand-held camera work giving us head-ache inducing shots? While the visual tone of the movie is brilliant, the shaky stills are really a pain. It is the same issue with that outstanding movie PUBLIC ENEMIES. Shot in a hitherto unknown clarity using digitization, the resolution is mind-blogging but again the shaky camera-work is such a turn-off. If I want to watch ‘that’ type of reality camera work, I will watch COPS sitting at home! I venture into the theatres because I want to see some stunning camera-work that only film-makers or people having access to the technical marvels and know-how can provide, not to watch something that I can produce amateurishly!
The problem with the movie is, things fall so conveniently into place and the supposed twists and turns turn out to be so spectacularly linear that the emotional reaction of the audience (my reaction, at least) is cold, to say the least. Right before the intermission, it is clear that the main reason Charlie and Guddu are picked up by Bhope—agreed that Bhope quickly realizes that Charlie is not Guddu and adapts to the situation, but still, that doesn’t make up for the fact that it is a convenience-driven scene— and the cops are that they are twins and hence look the same! Why then is an oft-repeated twin brothers’ lost-and-meet formula is scorned at as repetitive by the ‘alternate’ film-makers? Just because the particular shot of Charlie surrounded by Bhope and his thugs in the rail-car and Guddu being accosted in a police-van is shot with an effective background score and good camera work, does it make it any better than Mr. Bachchan’s flicks of yore with the same content albeit shot clumsily? If things like these are what the papers and netizens (especially passionforcinema.com aficionados) are going gaga over, then sorry, I cannot subscribe and clap my hands. It might be a sort of tribute to the yester-years Hindi flicks, but sorry, the old wine in this new bottle is definitely not alluring.
There has been such a talk about the ‘terrific’ ensemble cast that I expected either the single character effects—Sholay (Samba) or Qurbani (Amjad Khan); or a combinatorial magic—Satya (Bhiku Matre’s gang members) or Chashme Buddoor (Siddharth, Om, Jai). I found none. There is not a single character (including Bhope, inspite of a very good portrayal by Gupte) that I take home and wish I could be that.
The good things? Shahid Kapur’s portrayal of the twins, wherein he successfully erases from the audiences’ minds his almost linear portrayals as lead man with a muscled body and a baby face. Not once did I see any lapse of the actor back to the emotional bags that he emptied in all his movies uptil KAMINEY. Priyanka Chopra’s fine act as the feisty Marathi girl is indeed praise-worthy. The climax shot brilliantly in a haze with an outstanding background score and song that rings like an ode to the elements of life like greed, deceit, lies, is a ‘must’ take-away for the audience.
There are so many stereo-typical depictions and ordinary scenes that they make you cringe. The back-story to Charlie and Guddu’s antagonism owing to the ‘inability’ of Charlie to come back with 5000 rupees to release their father from jail is really the last straw. This ‘remorse-filled protagonist’s’ scene has been played out so many times in Hindi movies that it just jolts you when you realize that a man of Mr. Bharadwaj’s talent has succumbed to using this ploy. And pray, what exactly does Tashi—or even the 2 black characters, thrown in only for the ‘international’ feel—say or do in the movie that the newspapers have gone gaga over his portrayal? Well, I take that back since there is one, and only one, scene when he says he would rather have bitches in his life since he is always surrounded by dogs. A smart line, that one. Except this line, all that he does is provide a cosmetic job to the movie; in hats, with a hookah, with huge ear-rings and unruly moustache and a tiny beard, and particularly fluent English and good Hindi. When Bhope starts playing Bhope Tope with Mikhail, I knew right then and there how this would end. Bhope would play along, and eventually kill Mikhail. Contrast this with the scene in SATYA when the character of the politician (Mr. Govind Namdeo) shoots Bhiku Mhatre (Mr. Manoj Bajpai) point blank when Mhatre is actually ecstatic about the politician’s victory in elections. The scene is extremely chilling and effective in its intention and depiction. In one single moment, the director hits the audience with the futility of the machismo of underworld and the power of opportunity. The politician waited for his opportunity to strip Bhiku of his gun-fested machismo, and when the opportunity presented itself, he just grabbed it. In that single shot, the director visually sterilizes the rabid potency that he carefully constructed of the character of Bhikhu Mhatre. All the gun-slinging, weapon brandishing shenanigans of the gang-lord are so disdainfully tossed down the drain that the audience, which all-along enjoyed and wished to be the alter-ego of Bhiku Mhatre, suddenly starts dreading even being around the ‘likes’ of Bhikhu Mhatre. Bhiku might have been a lion many times in the movie, but he actually dies the death of a helpless rat at the hands of a wily fox. This is what the director conveyed brilliantly, and this is what shook the audience and what the audience understood. This is a huge success as a director (writer/screenplay writer – forgive me but I am ignorant of the exact semantics of film-making) in that the same train of thought that emerged from the director’s mind passed on to the audience’s collective interpretation. The scene is so powerful that nothing comes in between the director’s gift and the audience’s receipt.
Apart from 5-6 verbal witticisms in the movie KAMINEY, ask yourself if you take anything else with you after the reels have stopped unfolding. Contrast this with the writing of Mr. Guy Ritchie’s SNATCH. Compare this with gems like the scene when Tyrone reverses his car and smashes it into a 4-tonne truck. The guy in the back seat asks him what in the hell he just did? Tyrone replies,’ I couldn’t see it, it’s at a funny angle.’ The questioner just stares beyond the rear windshield and remarks exasperatedly, ‘Tyrone, you were reversing. When you reverse, things come from behind!!!’ Do you find any writing of such caliber and dead-pan humor in KAMINEY? Please do show me if you find one. And no, I won’t be satisfied with 1 or 2 of such instances. They are in manifold in SNATCH, and I expect at least the same count in KAMINEY.
The reason I am writing this is because I am confused about the mutual admiration society formed by directors like Mr. Anurag Kashyap (who, by the way, went so vehemently after BLACK calling it a ‘deceit’ and ‘pretentious and pseudo-intellectual’, that it seems Mr. Bachchan swore never to work with him). The same analysis that he used for BLACK can very well be used here. Just because it is Vishal Bharadwaj this time doesn’t mean he should be spared. At least, Mr. Sanjay Leela Bhansali was honest when he said that this is the cinema, the narrative, the visuals he believes in and will continue to make movies this way. ‘Over-the-top’, if one may call it so, is the kind of depiction he relishes, and hence that will adorn his creation. You can like it or hate it.
KAMINEY is definitely a better film from the Hindi film industry’s stables that do not often churn out race-horses that could stand out in a crowd. It is a good film yes, but only as far as the Hindi film industry is concerned. Calling Mr. Bharadwaj the ‘Quentin Tarantino’ or ‘Guy Ritchie’ of Indian films is a far-fetched effort in admiration. Mr. Tarantino made a 2 part movie in KILL BILL whose story-line could be explained in less than 8 words. And he kept his audience engrossed for over 4 hours. Achieving that level of mastery over the audience’s minds is no mean stroke. KAMINEY, on the other hand, is a better movie by the standards of entertainment that we have in the Hindi film industry.
I have written this as an honest statement of my feelings after more than ‘eagerly’ waiting for and watching the movie. And I am writing this and want Mr. Kashyap or/and Mr. Bharadwaj to read this because I do believe they have the capacity to take criticism and the intelligence to consider and analyze whatever is written. This is not an effort to run down the movie. I am no film-maker; have done no film-studies or attended any film-making course. I am just a movie fanatic, a worshipper of the motion pictures. And this piece is just that – the honest reaction of an enthusiast to a piece of art. I hope the directors/writers get the essence of what I am trying to say. I might encounter the blog-bullets of directors (no prizes for guessing who) who would again retort to the inane debate of what right a person who hasn’t even shot a single reel of cinema or held a handy-cam for God’s sake have to ‘critically’ analyze months of hard work and creative imagination. Well, there is a simple answer to that. When companies come out with new products based on surveys conducted by their marketing/business managers regarding the customer requirements of a product, they expect honest answers that would help them improve the product further. If a customer says he or she is not happy with the cell phone buttons or SIM card being placed or held a particular way in a cell-phone unit, the electronic/assembly engineers do not go repudiating them with, ‘What the hell do you know about electronic assemblies or manufacturing? You aren’t even an engineer.’ Well yes sir, we are not, but we are paying to buy your product because you promised us that you would provide us with something that would be comfortable to use and would be different from the other products on the shelves. And so, we have the utmost rights to say we are satisfied when we get what we asked for or to say we are not satisfied when we do not get what we asked for and what you promised to deliver.
SATYA moved me by its grittiness, PARINDA shook me with its outstanding canvas of the underworld hitherto never painted on the Hindi screen, AGNEEPATH affected me by showing me how one man’s performance could carry an entire movie, DIL SE wrangled my heart with the purity of undying love and the sensuousness of a man-woman relationship, BLACK arrested me with the lead man’s performance, SHOLAY enthralled me by the very fact that even milli-seconds of the 3+ hour movie dripped with entertainment, and KAMINEY left me sad over what it turned out to be versus what it could have been.
As we sat in an Indian restaurant after the screening over a hot cup of ‘chai’ in one of the chilly nights of Minneapolis, my American friend asked me what I thought of the movie. I said, ‘It’s a good film but I have seen such films before.’ He replied, ‘I agree, and I have seen better.’ I had to concur.
? Aneesh Joshi, Minneapolis, USA
P.S
• Do not go nailing me on the ‘exact’ details of the characters or their names in ‘SNATCH’ or ‘SATYA’. It has been a long time since I watched these movies and I do not remember the precise details. But I do remember the essence of those mesmerizing scenes and writing. And that’s what I have tried to capture.
Ardent fan of all of Vishal Bharadwaj’s earlier movies (and his music). If I had to write a review of Kaminey, I would probably say exactly what you have said here. And I mean EXACTLY. Including the references to Satya, Snatch and Kill Bill that you have made. Thanks for your review. Now I know I am not the only one feeling this way about Kaminey
An Jo
Truest to the T is what I found your review to be…I felt exactly the same…nothing more nothing less!
If someone’s comparing this with the rest of Bollywood, he’ll surely find it mind-blowing, but that’s not even a reference point for someone like VB…he’s already set benchmarks with Maqbool & Omkara, whoch were (rather ‘are’) lasting films. Avishek, add one more to your club!
Good job. Wonder why this review should not be posted on the site!?
As a movie lover I accept to all the points you have said. Read somewhere that Kaminey’s budget is close to 35Cr. With so much money at stake, one should bollywoodize a bit, else such big budget movies coming out of Bollywood would be rare. So in that aspect, we can give the benefit of doubt to Vishal. If the stakes aren’t high I am sure he would have gone all out bending all the rules and even the dialogues.
I concur with Tejas. It should be posted as independent review.
Thanks Tejas and Cherish for your support. I would definitely like to post it as an independent review but I do not know how to go about it. Is there any process as to how I could blog independently here?
http://passionforcinema.com/wp-login.php?action=register
Glad to help!
Anurag said Love Aajkal is some innovation. Now I am yet to understand that.
An Jo, you should seriously think of taking up a career as a film critic/reviewer/analyst. I waited for a while before watching Kaminey. I saw it today. And on my way back, I was making mental notes about what to write on this movie. Your views on the movie are ALL that I wanted to say and much more. Beautiful. Perfectly narrated, analyzed. It didn’t entertain me as much as I expected it to ( going by the rave reviews in here and most everywhere ). Maybe I am in the minority. Vishal tried just too hard this time to churn out something different. There was no fluidity in the narration. Some things were just stuffed in the script. There were certyainly some very very amusing instances. But they were sparse. Give me a Sankat City ANY DAY. By the way, some reviewers who criticized Rimi’s usage of Bengali in Sankat City, went gaga over Priyanka’s Marathi outbursts in Kaminey. Is it just me or did anyone else see some very very obvious similarities between the 2 movies?? I will look forward to your reviews in the future. I can safely say that amongst ALL the reviews that I have read on Kaminey, yours is right up there. Keep writing in here. And not just as a commenter but as a full fledged author.
>> Is it just me or did anyone else see some very very obvious similarities between the 2 movies??
Aarti ji,
To give a very common everyday example, a bra purchased at a roadside shop & that purchased in a Victoria Secret outlet are obviously similar (or atleast serve the same purpose). But that’s where the comparison ends.
Comparing a shoddy product like “Sankat City” to a crafty “Kaminey” is sacrilege of highest order. Rimi’s Bengali dialogues in SC sound at its best – “contrived” and at its worst – “cheap”. Maybe the fault lies in the writing or in Rimi’s poor dialogue delivery. Those lines came across as being forcefully used to make them sound cool. Whereas the “coolness” in Priyanka Chopra’s Marathi lines was “intrinsic” & effortless (ditto for the Bengali dialogues of the Bong Dons).
Kaminet has many obvious flaws. But in the end it delivers (or rather has delivered) despite the flaws.
Yes, Mr Connoisseur. Here’s a middle finger to you too. You’re the best. Such wisdom!! Get it patented!
Thanks for showing the classy side of yours, through your middle finger.
Agreed that comparing Vishal with Tarantino or Guy Rithie is going a bit too far,but one cannot deny the superior talents of the man.Kaminey is a film with many clever scenes and dilogues and is thus a gem.For instance when Francis,the man who double-crosses in the horse race that was fixed goes to sleep in his hotel room,cheekily says”mujhe jaga dena…main sone ja raha hu…ghode bech ke.”Or in the climatic shootout when inspector Lele is killed ,his body rests upon an auto which bears the sign “FOR HIRE” indicating the corrupt character of Lele…This is writing of a very high standard seen very rarely in movies nowdays.I rest my case
Wonder why people have to give away spoilers. Its quite ridiculous.
Good thing you mentioned the ending. For me, personally, the movie was a joyride till the end and I felt really bad when after coming out of the theater, all that my friends were speaking of was the ending. There were comments like :”So much for coming of age. They still can’t do away with the hand of God. The good-do’s and sweetie’s still survive a shootout without so much as a scratch, and since the bad brother has decided to mend his ways, he gets away with a broken arm.”
Frankly, I could not see how after such a brilliantly worked out movie, all that these people could think of is the patched up ending.
An Jo, your reference of Guy Ritchie’s writing dead-pan humor, and absence of it it Kaminey is a disappointment to you. But humor likely anything else is derived for its culture and more importantly the language its spoken in. British and American culture has many ways to laugh at itself, in India is mostly through mimic. Hindi language has its own flow, and it has to match its culture, or else its seems odd and out of place. Kaminey had its moments maybe not the sharpest it can get, but I am not aware of many writers who can do better in Hindi, and as is I think its a like or dislike movie for most viewers.
P.S Although it was not a spoken dialogue, but when Guddu tries to get away from Sweety inside the bathroom; The door has I think Malika Sherawat’s photo and writing on top that said “Apna haath Jaganaath”. Toilet humor is always funny
I agree with you Machismo that humor is culturally derived. And when I talked about Guy Ritchie’s sense of humor in his writing, I was merely using it as a reference. The Bombay underworld culture has many, many interesting references that can sprout terrific humor. Recalling my hazy memory, for instance, in IS RAAT KI SUBAH NAHIN, you have one particular scene where in one of the 3 gang member says something like, ‘ Tum logon ke high society mein aisa hi hota hain na? Biwi naukar ke saat soti hain, pati naukar ke biwi ke saath sota hain, sab kisi na kisi aur ke saath sota hain?’ when he is asked about underworld and why ‘underworld’ is what it is. The entire scene is played out and written so effectively that you just can’t help but laugh merrily at it enactment. Or consider the scene in SANKAT CITY when Yashpal Sharma tells Rimi Sen, ‘Mein coffee jaldi jaldi pi loonga, jaldi jaldi.’ The scene so effectively and hilariously brings out the comic element by way of Yashpal Sharma’s understanding of what it means when women invite you for a ‘cup of coffee.’
The problem I have with Kaminey is from the gut level, there were just 1-2 instances of such razor-sharp writing. Most of the scenes/dialogues were very, very blunt.
An Jo, you said it.
I have just got back from watching Kaminey with my wife. I had real high expectations, especially after reading those reviews and opinions. “Cult movie” said a certain Karan Johar.
Alas!when I turned to my wife during the interval and raised an eyebrow, she said what I had feared. “So this is the great movie everyone’s been raving about? I don’t mind walking out right away.”
I felt sheepish, since I have always maintained that if there’s a director (or two) in India who can win an Oscar, it’s either Mr. Vishal Bharadwaj or Mr.Sriram Raghavan. I tried to defend, saying it will get better after the interval. And in any case, it’s not so bad, is it? And then the movie started again.
Then, it ended. And both of us walked out, not speaking to each other for some time. After some more time, I said, “Let’s just analyse it and see why it’s a…a…letdown?”
Well, we sat in a restaurant and guess what? Our thoughts were the same as yours. Indeed, I visited PFC to post my thoughts but you just beat me to it.
Just like you, I couldn’t help comparing the Bhope-Mikhail scene to Satya’s Bhiku Matre death scene. You’re right. That scene in Satya chilled me to the bone and it was probably the most shocking scene ever. Made me believe RGV was just too good. (Sad he’s lost it now).
I agree Kaminey isn’t a bad film, but coming from Vishal? C’mon, you expect far, far more.
My wife is no big fan of movies like I am, but I surely respect her opinions. She still thinks, like I do, that Johnny Gaddaar was one helluva movie, so Sriram Sir, please don’t let us down with your next Agent Vinod. Hope it rocks.
Another movie we both really liked was AAMIR.
We loved PULP FICTION & KIL BILL 1&2.
And no, we don’t think Vishal’s Kaminey is a patch on those Tarantino movies (I agree he’s also made duds like those horrible Grindhouse flicks…what were the names? Planet Terror? The other I forget.
And yes, An Jo, we all may be just Mango People, but we know what entertains us and what doesn’t. And since we put our faith in such film directors and expect our money to fetch us a good ‘product’, we have all the rights to complain when we don’t get it.
Thanks An Jo, like I said earlier, you said it, bro!
Vishal B and Sriram raghevan. Now thats a bit too much.
Sriram Raghavan for Oscar??
NOT !
I think all people feel they could be film critics, but then get your references and idioms right first. To compare the space of a film like Kaminey with Snatch is sacrilege, to say the least. You know as different as chalk and cheese, in this case, Minneapolis and Mumbra….
Thank you for your observation Ms. Tara. but I beg to differ. One, I am not comparing apples and oranges here. In all his interviews, Mr. Bharadwaj says the inspiration for KAMINEY comes from the caper genre like SNATCH and LOCK STOCK AND 2 SMOKING BARRELS. He says he made his entire team watch these movies to get a ‘feel’ of what sharp caper movies should be. If it should not be compared to SNATCH, pray, what should it be compared to then? Please enlighten me.
And two, I am not writing this as a film REVIEW in a strict sense. You missed point of my writing completely. It is just my reaction as an audience. Never have I written WHAT should have been done. I have only explained what I expected and what I feel I got or didn’t get. And I have explained in detail why it is not the coolest thing to attack a piece just because it is not written by somebody who is a ‘professional’ as per your dictionary.
An Jo: I thought you were expecting Guy Ritchie type humor when you referenced Snatch, so I was just merely pointing out that perhaps a comparison has to be done within a same language, as we all see lots of English very well made movies and we go back to Hindi and our palette is some what tainted in that way. I remember IS RAAT KI and I enjoyed it for different reasons, and I just disliked Sankat City overall, but again I wonder is “Coffee Cup” is a hindi joke or something that has trickled down from English movies. Kaminey is emotionally hollow movie and perhaps that’s why people have a let down. Although we don’t see much sharp comedy writing, it’s more due to our inability to laugh at ourselves and all the blocks writers go through to make sure they don’t offend any class/religion/caste/sect/occupation/ etc. I just think the comedy will not get much sharper unless we stop restricting it.
@ veynz nayr,
The intentionally campy Grindhouse film was a double bill effort between Tarantino and a certain Robert Rodriguez. Tarantino wrote/directed DEATH PROOF.Rodriguez wrote/directed PLANET TERROR.
Though the films didnt do well commercially when first released together-they’ve garnered more than decent reviews from most sources.(check rotten tomatoes)
I for one would love to have you elucidate on your (sic) ‘horrible grindhouse flick’ declaration.
death proof was a coke effect completely …nothing else. QT’s director’s cut speech was even more terrible .
Planet terror ws alright..
I felt it was the other way, so there..
I feel immensely amused by the ferocity and rapidness with which An Jo keeps on repeating the same chant. I did not write this post to create a forum for such vapid speculation which this parley is fast descending into. I urge all of you to put an end to this rabid rabble rousing against a film maker who has dared to do so much without allowing his film to meander into art-house space. And mind you this is coming from me, a film maker who has just made a film(Pankh)that is in the very same art-house space. Please remember, all points of view need to be respected to a certain point of tolerance, Unfortunately, it gets repetitive when one reader(in this case An Jo)keeps one adding one comment upon another in the vain hope of being heard for clamouring the loudest.All of us have got your point An Jo. We have well understood how film literate you are.Now could you spare your breath and allow independent thought. Do not wish to disrespect your opinions but one too many becomes difficult to digest.
Bura mat maniyo lekin Bengali tere tante….
All the best for Pankh.
I am extremely sorry that it appears to you that I am trying to be a publicity-hound and forming an anti-Vishal Bharadwaj group over here. And I am not repeating my points or shouting over and over again. I am merely responding to the queries posed by fellow-bloggers over here. Kindly do not patronize by saying you know how cinema-literate I am. I have made it clear that I am merely responding as an audience that hasn’t taken in too well to the movie, maybe a minority. I know very well that my ‘cinema-literacy’ is only limited to being an audience and I am nowhere near you or any other director for that matter in terms of mastery of film-making grammar.
I have taken all these discussions to be healthy and I am hopeful the bloggers who argued for or against my views have also taken it that way.
The very fact that I am a huge fan of VB has prompted me to invest time in writing 5 pages of my thoughts.
I will surely put an end to this thread if you think I am adding negativity to the ‘atmosphere’ of passionforcinema.com
Thanks for your time.
Sudipto, this isn’t your space. It is as much An Jo’s space as it is yours, mine or anyone else’s. If you don’t have the patience to read 5-6 comments posted by him/her, how do you expect others to read the posts or the literary orgasms that you post in order to promote your movie? This is an interactive medium, not an autocratic one.
@sudipto:
You can disagree with “an jo” but nowhere in his post there was anything like “rabid rubble rousing”.
Even I was disappointed with the film. I’m a fan of films like “Running scared” which is of same style as Kaminey, so it cannot be said about me that I don’t have taste for films like this.
Anyways be respectful to others, especially neutral viewers. I’m writing this post just because of your boastful reply to “an jo”’s point of view.
What have you accomplised that you are commenting about how film literate he is?
Do enlighten us here.
Don’t include “Pankh” in the list as it is yet to be released, moreover you have accepted that you have lost the plot, as you, yourself is warning everyone here that it is from same art house space that means if one does not like it then he is mango.
p.s. I’ll happily be a part of mango people (mango is better than horse shit).
I personally felt Kaminey was a let down. The movie didn’t live up to the promos, hype and the music. I don’t understand why media has unequivocally given it 4+ stars rating. It’s undercooked and it lacked a strong actor as a protagonist. Imagine Gulaal without KK, Kaminey with Shahid kapoor at the lead was a big weakness. I cherished Gulaal and Dev.D way more than Kaminey. Cinematography, acting (Amole Gupte and Priyanka Chopra), some dialogues and some scene conceptions were really good but the movie didn’t hit a peak. It never reached the intensity that it was meant to. Also, after all the smart narrative, the story line in the end was way to puerile. Kaminey is a good movie, but Gulaal and Dev.D were way better movies.
An Jo – WOW! I just wish you had written one of the ‘Kaminey’ pieces, instead of commenting on this. It’s powerful stuff what you write. Enjoyed all the comments that followed this post, even more than the post itself…
@ Sudipto – If I read one more time that ‘Kaminey’ is an acquired taste, or as a particularly obnoxious woman in my viewing group pointed out to me “A Bombay thing”, I’ll scream! Film viewing is the best of indulgences because it doesn’t require great knowledge and style. Like a great Beethoven symphony can be understood by the music master, or the simple average Joe, a great film is meant to be enjoyed by all. Look at the work of Ang Lee. He’s not about to turn off anyone with his films, yet there is poetry in the simplest of shots.
@An Jo (2)
[it is clear that the main reason Charlie and Guddu are picked up by Bhope—agreed that Bhope quickly realizes that Charlie is not Guddu and adapts to the situation, ...— and the cops are that they are twins and hence look the same]
But does not film clearly mention in the very begining that Charlie and Guddu are not only twins but they look alike also? For audience there is never any ambiguity about these two people sharing similar morphology.
Your observation about Bhope and Charlie-Guddu does not look right.
Because, I think, Bhope’s men, while destroying Guddu’s office, see photos of Guddu and Sweetie on a computer’s monitor and one man comments,” are ye to Charlie ka bhai hai”. Bhope’s right hand man, that bearded man, asks,” Kaun Charlie”.
This bearded man goes to the place where Sweetie and Guddu’s marriage ceremony is taking place and Sweetie and Guddu escape from that place.
Bhope, at that time was busy in giving interview for a TV channel.
Bhope cant find Guddu and Sweetie and he and his men knowingly go to the house of Charlie under the impression that Charlie might give any clue about whereabouts of Guddu and Sweetie.
Bhope knows it that it is Charlie, entering the house and standing before him.
Guddu was beaten at the wedding place and Bhope’s man had seen a wounded Guddu.
Director did not leave any room for such a loop hole in such a fast paced film showing events happening hardly within 36-48 hours, (may be even less no of hours) time.
@An Jo : Good writing my friend…you’ve written exactly what a lot of us felt. The problem really is that we had really high expectations from Kaminey. Had it been potrayed as a commercial-slightly off-beat film, I would’ve been happy. Also, after Maqbool, Omkara and Blue Umbrella, you tend to expect something more out of Mr.Bharadwaj. You should’ve tried to publish this as a reviewer in PFC. And you should get your American friend to watch Omkara, am pretty sure he wouldn’t have seen such a powerful interpretation of Shakespeare before.
I think the comments space is free for readers to write whatever they want. And repeat as much as they want. If we write something that is inappropriate, it’ll be removed by the moderator.
Go for it An Jo! You’ve nailed it bang-on!! Right from the time I’ve seen Kaminey….I am feeling terribly out-of-sync.
What is it that makes the world go ga-ga over this silly movie? It’s become more of a fad, or pseudo-intellectualism to say great things about this movie. You sound cool, chilled-out and intelligent if you’ve liked Kaminey, understood it’s nuances…and other such stuff. The likes of Raja Sen in Rediff.
What is it in Kaminey that we haven’t seen before? If poor lighting, shaky camera movement and dis-jointed, fast-paced shots are good cinema, give me a Love Aaj Kal any day!
Atleast LAK doesn’t pretend to be a path-breaking movie.
Kaminey moved like ‘Ek Chalis ki Last Local’ – with about 50-odd characters adding to the confusion in a plot dealing with a single night. The characters were straight out of Satya – minus the intensity. Everyone seemed to be hamming to hilt. What was so exceptional about the Bhope-Tope scene? So expected and predictable.
The movie climaxed like a typical Priyadarshan movie with all the characters converging and adding total insanity and chaos at the end.
Even the twin brother angle and case of switching places – didn’t it all start with Ram aur Shyam & Seeta aur Geeta? Where is the twist bro?
And Shahid Kapoor? Evolution of a great actor? Oh C’mon, gimme a break. He was fine. But nothing exceptional to write home about.
Net-net, a thoroughly disappointing experience. And I sincerely hope that in the coming days the sharp drop in its collections will justify the common man’s verdict. Kaminey just doesn’t work. Not because it’s so off-beat. But just because, it’s so ‘not off-beat’ in the garb of an alternative, dark, meaningful cinema.
Continue shooting off the mutual admirations all ye’ pseudo-intellectuals out here on PFC
Kudos An Jo – for coming out with courage and breaking the myth of Kaminey!
Sincerely feel, we have been a bit too soon in making a maverick out of Vishal Bharadwaj. Despite all his eccentricities off late, a Ramu’s CV still looks mind-blowing! (In comparison to these much glorified non-genuises like VB)
An Jo,
While I thought I agreed with you on everything here, I went back and re-read your post. I must say, there’s one thing I don’t agree with – the climax, the scene where all the guns go blazin’. Not very original. Seen better stuff. For instance, in Road to Perdition.
@ Ranjeet,
What I meant by ‘horrible grindhouse flick’?
Well, I know that Tarantino & Rodriguez meant to pay a tribute (or make fun of) typical Grindhouse flicks, but their efforts ended up looking just that – typical grindhouse flicks. Remove their names from the credits and you’d think they’re made by C-grade directors. If they were making fun of such flicks, well the joke fell flat.
This reminds me of another joke that fell flat in a movie I truly love – Johnny Gaddaar. I’m talking about Dharamji’s death scene. It’s only later that I realised Sriram was making fun of typical Bollywood death scenes, but when I was watching it, I squirmed in my seat. There wasn’t any need for such a scene.
Right from the time I’ve seen Kaminey….I am feeling terribly out-of-sync.
What is it that makes the world go ga-ga over this silly movie? It’s become more of a fad, or pseudo-intellectualism to say great things about this movie. You sound cool, chilled-out and intelligent if you’ve liked Kaminey, understood it’s nuances…and other such stuff. The likes of Raja Sen in Rediff.
What is it in Kaminey that we haven’t seen before? If poor lighting, shaky camera movement and disjointed, fast-paced shots are good cinema, give me a Love Aaj Kal any day!
Atleast LAK doesn’t pretend to be a path-breaking movie.
Kaminey moved like ‘Ek Chalis ki Last Local’ – with about 50-odd characters adding to the confusion in a plot dealing with a single night. The characters were straight out of Satya – minus the intensity. Everyone seemed to be hamming to hilt. What was so exceptional about the Bhope-Tope scene? So expected and predictable.
The movie climaxed like a typical Priyadarshan movie with all the characters converging and adding total insanity and chaos at the end.
Even the twin brother angle and case of switching places – didn’t it all start with Ram aur Shyam & Seeta aur Geeta? Where is the twist bro?
And Shahid Kapoor? Evolution of a great actor? Oh C’mon, gimme a break. He was fine. But nothing exceptional to write home about.
Net-net, a thoroughly disappointing experience. And I sincerely hope that in the coming days the sharp drop in its collections will justify the common man’s verdict. Kaminey just doesn’t work. Not because it’s so off-beat. But just because, it’s so oft-repeated in the garb of an alternative, dark, meaningful cinema.
Kudos An Jo – for coming out with courage and breaking the myth of Kaminey! Check this thread –
http://passionforcinema.com/kamineythe-year-of-being-bad/ for An Jo’s review of Kaminey. Simply Outstanding!
Sincerely feel, we have been a bit too soon in making a maverick out of Vishal Bharadwaj. Despite all his eccentricities off late, a RGV’s CV still looks mind-blowing! (In comparison to these much glorified wannabe geniuses like VB)
General mutual admiration happening here too. One troll admiring another one. Hmmmphhh!!
I don’t know why people keep on comparing VB to QT and Guy Ritchie.Why cant people see Kaminey as a Hindi movie rather then comparing it with movies like pulp fiction, snatch.How many hindi movies have one watched in the recent times touching the caper genre, none springs to my mind.At this point we should be lauding the fearlessness of the filmmaker,for giving the Hindi film audience something they haven’t seen before.Yes people who see lot of hollywood movies will feel letdown from kaminey cuz they have seen this kind of stuff before.But for gods sake think from the view point of Indian audiences.
Go An Jo !…yes, sadly enough, PFC has indeed become a mutual admiration society. Truth is that Kaminey left me cold..there was definitely an emotional disconnect. Sure I enjoyed the razzmatazz, smoke and mirrors etc, but there wasn’t anything even remotely memorable that I took out of the theatre, and that I hadn’t seen a bunch of times before…However the tragedy here in my mind is that if Danny Boyle had made this movie, he would have won a ton of accolades and international awards. Vishal Bharadwaj is as good, if not better than Boyle in serving up stuff like this..
An Jo nails it.
For me KAMINEY is the film of the year so far, much better than AK’S over rated DEV D, better than GULAAL,FIRAAQ & LUCK BY CHANCE.
@venyz nayr,
Since you didn’t recall who Robert Rodriguez is or what he means to the indie film movement-please fall flat. you and your joke. I’ll repeat-BOTH films have got good criti from people and forums that matter. You-do not(matter).Period.
@ ranjeet,
Uh, oh! Someone’s spoiling for a fight. I’m sorry, dude, I’m in no mood for one. I never said I didn’t know about Robert Rodriguez. Ok, maybe I don’t know “what he means to the indie movement” and all that.
But I know one thing – I loved his Mariachi series. And Sin City, which he directed along with Frank Miller (Tarantino was a guest director).
Yet, just because I’m a great fan of such directors doesn’t mean that I have to love each and every movie they churn out. I don’t need to read a dozen reviews or go by the box-office figures to love or hate a movie.
I have loved many movies which were super flops Like Ron Howard’s WILLOW, William Friedkin’s SORCERER (aka The Wages of Fear) and Richard Rush’s THE STUNTMAN.
And I have disliked many movies which were superhits. Like TOP GUN and THE HANGOVER.
So please, man, don’t get personal by saying “You don’t matter” and stuff like that.
If you liked those Grindhouse flicks, good for you. I have no problems with that.
Chill.
I see a lot of (sorry to use the cliched and unscientific term)”negative energy” in this article and the discussions, our opinions may be not be accurate, the comments not articulate enough but why do we have to point fingers at each other and accuse. Can’t people discuss anything in peace anymore.
sorry for the typing error, I only meant the discussion part, not the article itself.
Well, I actually liked Kaminey and after reading so many of these comments, I was beginning to doubt myself, so I decided to list some of the reasons why I liked it.
1. This was of course inspired by the Guy Ritchie kind of movies, but this was not a rip-off. One particular point of difference I felt was that all the characters weren’t mouthing cool dialogues. Cool in the sense of a bulldozer hitting you bang in the head. Most of the dialogues, as many of you pointed out, were really quite ordinary. But what really impressed me was that they were all delivered in-character. I have this theory that even with the simplest of lines, you can have an extraordinary performance if these lines are delivered with the right punch. And I think they did a good job at that. As some examples of some very ordinary lines :
a. Guddu : “Khud ko palne ki aukat nahi hai, bachcha kahan se palenge..”
b. Sweety : “Rehman-ur-rehman ki case mein Kolkata ki commissioner ka transfer ho gaya tha, aapko pata hai na…” and then the extraordinary volte-face from threatening to pleading (infact, she did this a couple of times in the beginning, too, when pleading with Guddu)
c. Charlie : “Aife aife kaife kaife ho gaya ? Aur kaife kaife aife aife ho gaya ? ”
d. Bhope Bhau (Well, frankly, it’s difficult not to get carried away with this character and I am sure someone will accuse me of that, so I am skipping him. Even his “basa basa” to Mikhail was something I could live with for a long time. And the “sarpat sarpat” act….there, I am again in danger of getting carried away.)
e. Mikhail : “Main kyon jayunga ? Jayenge yeh log. Bhope Bhau, nikal lo aapne baraatiyon ke saath.”
f. Lobo (to Afghani Bhai): “Ek kaam karo, aap yahan aa jayo aur guitar le lo.” And then Afghani checking to see if he can get Tashi to reply to this retort and then finding Tashi busy, hence toning himself down.
g. Tashi : “Bhope, tope to humaare paas bhi hai.”
h. Shumon : “Mantushona, tui ki shottyi shottyi bhabli dada toke guli kore debe ?” (But then, I am a Bengali who was also watching the movie in an US theater where every line had a subtitle)
….Well, I totally agree with everyone who says the movie did not have some really cool lines which you could mouth even after coming out of the theatre (maybe, except for doing the f-thing at every opportunity). But, I think every line was written keeping the character in mind and every character brought it out so well— I think this is what Sudipto means to say when he says every scene was well thought out.
2. Coming to individual scenes, I was really blown out by some of them. I’ll give a few examples (again, I can totally understand when Sudipto says every scene was well thought out) :
a. The scene where Charlie and his friends run like hell inside the hotel. What really got me was the fact that his friends who were first to reach the elevator did not wait for him and he dashed against the closed elevator. The intensity of a chase sequence could not be better established.
b. When Guddu comes out with the guitar, he finds all the Bhope gang people with him dead, and he has no idea why. Well, again, just showing the empty swing (with Mikhail not there) was a real touch of brilliance to me.
c. Charlie persisting till the last moment in buying Bhope off the exchange…and even when the cops entered the compartment, he was still saying six crores…
d. The hopelessness after Charlie gave away the guitar to Guddu…now Charlie had nothing to give Tashi, and Guddu was anyway going to get killed by Bhope…the hopelessness was so well brought out in the music and in Charlie’s slow walking…it was so well done that you almost didn’t notice the fact that Charlie actually went to Tashi and Guddu went to the police…
e. Guddu’s interrogation by Lobo and Lele…just when you think Guddu is about to get the worst and there’s no way he could come out of this, it’s his stammering, something he’s ashamed of, that actually almost saves him…
f. …And if there was one cliche VB didn’t resort to, it was that the case of mistaken identities was not dwelt on for too long…Bhope knew right away this was not his man…and Lobo and Lele did not have to struggle with Guddu for long…
Well, after writing this much, I am suddenly having the feeling that I am actually writing what happened in the movie itself scene-by-scene, so I’ll stop here. To be really honest, in a movie where so much thought was put into every detail, I was baffled when I saw so many people saying there was nothing to take from the movie. Sudipto said that this was the kind of movie you have to acquire a taste for. I would just like to add something to that — this was maybe a movie where you should probably look into the individual moments themselves rather than looking at some overall impact. Probably, that and a second viewing (where you know the ending and don’t expect it to blow you out) might help in appreciating the movie better.
Sorry for reviving the Kaminey thread with this lengthy comment, but I just couldn’t help it. And
but did you seriously expect your American friend to appreciate this ? Imagine how much of “Pulp Fiction” or “Snatch” you would appreciate if you didn’t understand English and all those dialogues had, say, Hindi subtitles. And an American usually expects his movies to have some real “badass” dialogues for it to qualify as some “really cool shit”. And, like I said, this was one movie which was not teeming with meaty lines.
@An Jo,
You don’t need to reply to this, if it offends Sudipto
Thanks The Crusader. That was definitely a very good view. However, I do have certain reservations with them which I would be happy to discuss with you. But I will wait till my piece is posted as an independent one. I will reply there. The reason why I wrote my thoughts as a reply to Sudipto’s piece is that this is my first time writing for PFC. I have only been a reader till date. I did not know how to go about posting my views so I just pasted here just as an addition to Sudipto’s piece – one of the many articles on Kaminey.
Now I have put my thoughts as an independent one and we can discuss there at will!!
Looks like they rejected your piece just because you put that in the comment section here. Never mind — you can answer here. I am really curious to hear your reservations.
@ Crusader – here’s what I feel —
Crusader, you have given new perspectives to the scenes you mentioned based on your interpretation. I agree that all the characters might have been in-sync with the dialogues they were g given. Maybe they were not supposed to rattle off cool lines as in SNATCH or ROCK N ROLLA.
The scenes you have pointed out have influenced you in a very discerning way. That you were able to see these nuances and appreciate them is limited to your own perspective. But they did not affect all the viewers that way. Do you think all the viewers/reviewers who watched the movie and rated it highly were able to catch these nuances you mentioned? If the 4 star ratings are BECAUSE they were able to catch such nuances throughout the movie, then it is my failure as an audience to rise up to the discerning level that Vishal expected his audience to. But if not, and if the fans were gushing just because it is a ‘first’ of its kind Bollywood caper movie that has been made in modernity with a realistic visual splendor and not because of these finer details that you mentioned, then isn’t that a sham?
See the point I am trying to make is, firstly, we went to this movie expecting it to be a smart caper movie on the lines of Guy Ritchie movies. Now as you said, KAMINEY of course does not have the in-your-face kind of dialogues that one can find in the films of Ritchie. But of course that is the problem I have. This is a caper movie, and I am expecting at least a decent size of ‘impactful’ dialogues. Once I am hit with them, then I will also be able to perhaps appreciate the finer details you mentioned (but again they are one’s own interpretations – for instance, the scene you mentioned where Charlie and his friends run like hell but do not wait for Charlie; to you the interpretation is that the scene very well established the intensity, but I just perceived it as a case where the 2 guys did not wait for Charlie because they wanted to save their own backs firstly, and secondly, Charlie is not their superior up the ladder and so, they really do not have to sacrifice their skin to save him).
It is a caper movie and this genre has to have weirdos/eccentrics that not only look miles away from the 9-5 people, but also act that way. Not all of them need to be like that, but I would like at least half of the characters that way so that they can impact us viscerally. But what VB has done is, as you mentioned, put in a lot of subtleties and that are not easy to catch. The fact that VB has chosen the genre of ‘caper’ movies but has decided to embellish it with the nuances of a SPARSH is discomfiting for the audience. Hence we are feeling a loss of ‘connection’ that we normally get with this genre. We come out and there are weirdos in the film that really stay in our mind. Because of this difficult marriage of the genre (caper) versus execution (nuances/subtleties) the connection to the audience tends to be weak. And that is where I think KAMINEY lost ground.
And I did expect my American friend to like it. The reason being that there are enough variations and colors in Bombay’s dark alley characters that can blow your mind. It is very true that JAI MAHARASHTRA could mean nothing to him but to us, means a different and very important factor owing to the back-story we are privy to as Indians. I expected him to like it because characters that are eccentric/weirdos can impact you in way that one need not be culture or language-specific. For instance, I could appreciate the weirdness of the 3 robbers in SNATCH even though I had never ever left Indian shores and had no contact with the black drug-peddlers/robbers/muggers. Now in the USA, I do come across some characters as shady as them. But then, even without having any frame of reference, I could appreciate the scene and laugh at it. But there was nothing of this sort in KAMINEY for him (or me) and hence, the disconnect. Come to think of it, if we say that KAMINEY can be appreciate only by people who are familiar with the Indian milieu, isn’t that going against the various proclamations that KAMINEY is of international standards vis-à-vis Quentin and Ritchie?
Finally, do we really want cinema to be an academic exercise? I think subtleties, nuances, should be the sub-set of entertainment and not vice-versa.
Thanks for replying. I was able to understand you much better here. In fact, your saying that “of course, that is the problem I have” really made it very clear. Thanks again for getting straight to the point.
I am sorry if I am being persistent here, but I still can’t help but press you on some of your points.
a. You said a lot of things that go like “It should be like this”,”a caper movie should have this”. Come now, is that right for you as a viewer to do ? See, what you are doing here is defining boundaries for the director beyond which he cannot go. And your idea of those boundaries come from previous movies you have watched. So, in effect, you are not allowing the director to go beyond all the movies that have come out in the past.
And this is why I am pressing on the point — see, for ages, the usual complaint with Bollywood has been that whenever a formula succeeds, it’s played and replayed until it gets stale. Why does that happen— only because people develop a pre-conceived notion of the genre from that movie and then go to the theaters to see that same kind of stuff if the movie belongs to the same genre (I am saying this specifically because you said “we went to this movie expecting it to be a smart caper movie on the lines of Guy Ritchie movies”).
You see, film-makers specially on this site have a tendency to be on the arrogant side and a very common retort they have is “mango people”. Sudipto’s retort to you bears this out very well. I have seen Anurag Kashyap commenting on a guy who didn’t like “Love Aaj Kal” in this fashion :”Imtiaz had the balls to fuck with your expectations.” But, you see, behind this arrogance lies a great deal of frustration. Frustration with the audience, who won’t let them go beyond their (the audience’s) preconceived notions.
When they speak about “mango people”, though it sounds more like “assholes with shit for brains”, they are usually going out for the people who have cramped them and would not take their ideas without pre-conceived bias. I am not a film-maker myself, but I have directed plays — and when they did not succeed and when after interaction with the audience, I discovered they were expecting certain things and did not see those certain things, I was really disheartened. And angry. And hence I can perhaps get a feel for these angry people out here. Well, these are a bunch of directors who don’t churn out formula films simply because they hate the idea of intervention on their ideas. Imagine how frustrating it must be to them when the audience starts saying things like :”You haven’t learnt a thing from Guy Ritchie. Look at those characters — why don’t you do something like that ?”
Bottomline of all that I am trying to say is : why don’t we see a movie objectively and stay away from bashing a movie simply because it did not match up to some standards we had set because of some earlier movie ? Let’s be the second generation of audiences who can cultivate that elusive faculty : an open mind (frankly, while replying here, I keep appreciating more and more what Sudipto was trying to say in this post). I am sorry if I am sounding superior here, I tried my best not to be so.
b. You are probably right about why you expected your American friend to like this movie. But, to be honest, I have a feeling you probably didn’t think enough about my question :”How would you find Pulp Fiction with Hindi subtitles ?” See, though you hadn’t been in the US while watching “Snatch”, I am sure you still knew enough English to get the humor. And a part of why Guy Ritchie and QT are of international standards has to do with the fact that English is an international language and a large section of the world understand it and so understand most of the humour despite not being a part of the culture. So, I have a doubt “Kaminey”, with so much dependance on language, can ever be of international standards, in the sense of a large section of the world population being fanatically devoted to it. A movie with a not-so-awesome-plot like this one and not-so-many cool dialogues, of course, leans heavily on language and culture to score brownie points and someone who doesn’t know the language is sure to miss bulk of the fun. Okay, here’s an idea which might or might not work : I am sure since you knew Hindi, you didn’t look at the English subtitles below. Why don’t you try seeing those sometime and see how much of the essence is conveyed? You’ll probably see what I mean.
c. And as for your last paragraph, I think subtleties, nuances, etc. can entertain you a real lot, only if you grow the habit of noticing them. And noticing them can be a real rewarding experience. I have a lot of envy for the user in the comments section named “dikshit” who noticed that when Lele is killed, his body falls on an auto which says “For hire”. Again, I am compelled to say something here. We here on PFC love to bash all those Yash Raj Films movies which ask you to sit with your brain switched off. Yet, when a movie asks you to sit with your brain switched on, we are the first one to say :”Where’s the entertainment if you have to start noticing things ? Doesn’t that reduce to an academic exercise ? We all have our own sphere of life to concentrate our mental energies on and we come to watch movies just to shear off some of the fatigue. And you are telling us we need to strain our brains on movies, too ?”
Now, if this is the attitude, then I would really like to know exactly what is the kind of movie we expect to see. Something which will blow us off our feet without us having to think too much ? And where exactly does that “too much” end ? Again, my apologies if I sounded superior here, but I really do need an answer to this question.
The Crusader, you are bang on target.
That is a good discussion Crusader. No you do not sound superior at all.
Actually, my language kind of failed me this time. If my writing came across as if I was a person expecting KAMINEY to be a retort to GUY RITCHIE flicks, then I got to do a better job of writing!
See, VB’s caliber of talent knows better than to give us just an Indianized version of SNATCH or LSA2SB. It is true that we had some bit of pre-conceived notion when we walked in to see KAMINEY. It is inevitable that movies will be compared to other movies of the same ilk. Isn’t that why there is a hierarchy of CULT FILM, a STANDARD film, or a movie that is just a patch on the cult film? For instance, SATYA is imprinted on our psyche so much that any underworld film after 1998 would eventually be compared to the cult of SATYA. At the same time, I am confident the audience that went to see KAMINEY was ready to see a new dimension to the CAPER genre. The new dimension just came across as jumbled.
Before QT made KILL BILL, I hadn’t come across any movie that employed the back-story/chapters-from-a-book narrative that he used in KILL BILL. There might have been other European or Hollywood directors that had done that, but I haven’t seen that. Even though it was a new technique for me as an audience, why did it connect to me so strongly? There was a new concept in place, and there was a new execution in place. Both jelled, worked together to create the magic. And then, there were individual brilliant streaks; the cartoonish violence, the brilliant background score, the last scene in vol 2 where DAVID CARRADINE explains about SUPERMAN and the super-human theory. Similarly, DEV D swept me off my feet with its outstanding music, the performances, and the brutally honest language. After one is taken up by these visceral impacts, on subsequent watch—or even during the first watch if it is a discerning mind like you—there might be other nuances that the audience would catch which would make their appreciation of the film even higher.
The thing is, there has to be some commonality that should impact the audience. The nuances are then open to interpretation to the discerning minds. What is missing in KAMINEY is a good percentage of the commonality (the only 2 things that have impacted the viewers all along I think are the DHAN TE NE song and then, to an extent, the climax).
VB for sure did not make KAMINEY for praise by some connoisseurs of cinema. He made it for the audience. And he is intelligent enough to know the demography/mindset of the audience. It is a swoop from a person who expects everything visceral to a person who expects bucket loads of subtleties. And he is smart enough to know that he can address this in a movie like KAMINEY (of course, I do not expect him to care about this huge arc of the audience when he is making THE BLUE UMBRELLA – it is for people with a specific mindset and aesthetics, so when I go to watch it, I wouldn’t complain if the movie is had subtleties printed ALL over it).
Makers like AK or Sudipto need not be frustrated with the audience. I can however understand their frustration with the commerce part of the movie-making business. There are set audiences that are ready to accept new formats and newer stories. But when it does not connect, they have to realize that it just did not connect. In one of his recent posts, Sudipto says what matters is that cinema should connect to you emotionally and should bleed your heart. Isn’t that what should matter? Why this talk of ‘acquired’ taste then?
If the praise for KAMINEY is limited to 6 nuances pointed out by you, 5 by me, and 7 by someone else, does it really account for everything? The audience does not go there to see an abstract painting. Shouldn’t a movie take you in along with its flow and thus impact you? Or should it try to be so smart/enigmatic that it pushes away the audience?
In one of his recent interviews, NASEERUDDIN SHAH says, the parallel movement of the 70s was a big failure. He went on to say the ONLY movie of that era that was good was MANTHAN. This confession just left me shell-shocked since personally I consider ALL Shyam Benegal movies till date master-pieces except for ZUBEIDAA. He says they tried to be too esoteric and hence failed. That is his interpretation and Naseer is welcome to preserve his interpretation. But then there was a sizable audience that took in to those types of movies. That’s why ARDH SATYA worked. Something clicked, that’s why Shyam Benegal has such a long list of movies that he made in his own style during the 70s and 80s without compromising.
This is a good discussion and it could go on endlessly I guess. I do rest my case with the thought that it is true that we as an audience should learn to appreciate finer details in art. But the bottom line is, if cinema turns out to be more text-bookish in its approach in the sense that it expects the audience to be very hard-working with an eye for precision and details, is it really OK? Why did one MUNNABHAI recreate the popularity of Gandhi in a way that 100s of statues across the country and thousands of history books could not do?
– An Jo (aneesh)
Honest, Daring, Pragmatic, well i am short of words MAN! I saw Kaminey 10 Mins back in a country which has only one Cinema HAll showing Kaminey,,,,I agree All your well observed and valauable comments i mean i could relate to it 100 percent,,Baaaki all da reviweres here were highly Hypocritic… or maybe psyched that way,,,Vishal Omkara and Maqbool are much better than K…
@ Aneesh,
I think I got your point. What you are saying is that if a movie made for the masses is supposed to click, it has to have a couple of things which hit below the belt. And Kaminey did not work coz it didn’t have any such thing. Thanks for clarifying this.
I completely respect your view on why you liked Kaminey. Even i liked it!!!! Perhaps, not the way you did though. But i liked it mostly for the same reasons that u have mentioned in ur post. It is path-breaking (Not re-defining Indian Cinema though as u say), very beautiful in terms of structure, technical aspects & all that. Though, Maniratnam had attempted something similer in terms of structure in Dil Se long back!!!
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What i find really disturbing in your post is when u question the sensibilities of “Mango people”!!!
Why do we always want to bring (By questioning we are doing that only) people from the other side of the fence to our side???? Vishal is intelligent enough to say that he had not expected such “Intelligent” response from his audience!!! He is not defending anything. He made his craft, fortunately the way he wanted to & is now sitting back & enjoying the reactions- Good or bad, whatever. Then why are we trying to question people who didn’t like it!! It almost seems like a hue-n-cry!!! Is it some kind of appeal from the “intellectuals” to others to grow up in their taste???
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By reading the reactions specifically on PFC, i also feel that most of them are biased. I mean if u make them forget the name of the director (Or change it to say-RGV) & then see the film, their reactions would be completely different, i am sure.
For me, there seems to be no bias against VB or his film from the audience. They wanted the film to be something, which they didn’t really find it to be & that is why they are dissappointed. Inncocent “Mango People”, craving for a good film that can take them to some other world. They are not “Incredibly strange” & they have liked “cinema that confronts them”…DevD is the most recent example. They probably couldn’t connect to the soul of the film. Plain & simple!! And its perfectly OK. Delhi-6 touched me perfectly, but it didn’t to many!!! What to do???
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For me personally, i missed the lyrical flow that Vishal’s all other films had & Kaminey falls short of it!! And also, the climax, as u already said seems very arranged. But again, my expections!! VB made what he wanted to. And i am all happy for the clarity of his vision & his craft. He could touch me all the four times till now but couldn’t quite touch me this time round….Its Ok!! No need to exaggerate anything.
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I am an aspiring actor myself, doing thetare & I have always liked Cinema that is progressive & is probably changing the paradigms of the craft. And VB, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Raju Hirani, Farhan Akhtar etc are all part of the brigade who are constantly doing that. Slowly but surely. It doesn’t happen with one film as you put it in your excitement.
The bottomline is – Why don’t we simply savour the film that we have liked & share what we have liked in the film rather than questioning people who haven’t!!! The same people have accepted RDB, DCH, Welcome To Sajjanpur & DevD recently. These kind of films were not being made & accepted say- five years back. The audience is acquiring the taste for the “bitter chocolate or caviar” as u put it. Being a director yourself, please don’t question their understanding, rather i hope & pray that u make whatever u have envisioned!!! All the bset for PANKH.”