Oye Dibakar, Dibakar Oye!
Oye Dibakar, Dibakar Oye!
Why we need more directors like Mr. Bannerjee, who has given us one of the finest movies of this year.
It’s been one hell of a long, depressing weekend for any Mumbaikar. Many of us spent the weekend mostly indoors or in our neighbourhoods, glued to the tube almost out of necessity, seething with righteous anger at inept, impotent politicians and watching and discussing TV debates with furious vigour. Strangely enough, the weather seems to have taken a cue from the citizens of Mumbai; a pallid gloom has descended upon the city. The sky is overcast; the air is thick and heavy. Roads, malls, stations, they’re all wearing a slightly deserted look. Even the people who are coming to these places wear cautious expressions, almost guilty to actually be seen there.
After what must have been the longest 4 days of my life, I ventured out to see “Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye”, a movie I had been awaiting eagerly, but which had almost been driven out of my mind thanks to the incidents. So, I went to watch OLLO, praying fervently that I wouldn’t be disappointed.
Oh boy was I ever. NOT.
If “Khosla Ka Ghosla” heralded a marked rise in the quality of Bollywood comedy fare with its subtlety and razor-sharp characterization, “Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye” is a near-masterpiece – an irresistible blend of ruggedly authentic characterization, masterful treatment, seamless, chameleon-like performances and exquisite panache. It achieves what last years respectable “Johnny Gaddar” could not (even though that was of a different genre) in terms of complete cinematic satisfaction. And, it was the freakin’ funniest movie of this year (that’s right, waay more than “Welcome to Sajjanpur”).
“Oye Lucky..” is a movie that defies any real classification. It is part stylish crime caper, part dark comedy, part sociological analysis. Featuring Dibakar’s incredible familiarity with Delhi life, its nuances, its earthy Punjabi-Jat culture, the film is a microcosm of the city. As Mr. Navdeep Singh has already written on PFC, quite rightly, there are no pointless shots of India Gate, Connaught Place or even the now Johar/Ghai-ofied Chandni Chowk. We have the seedy bylanes of North and West Delhi, the lower-upper-middle class Mukta Vihars and the Kailashes, as well as the snob localities housing the crème de la crème of the city. All these are lovingly captured by DOP Kartik, whose camerawork is masterful and dynamic without being pretentious. It looks like a 2008 film, without having to resort to attaching a camera to the body of an actor.
Dibakar’s direction is exemplary, to put it mildly. Truth be told, the actual subject matter of the movie isn’t much. Even from the promos one can tell that it’s a stylish con-man caper, with only a will they, won’t they ending that could possibly throw up any surprises. However, the zany screenplay (by Urmi Juvekar and Dibakar himself) and the treatment transform this story to something larger. A look at the social divides in India; an India of consumerism and an India still in ‘Darkness’, so what if they have an Archie’s Gallery (I was reminded several times of Aravind Adiga’s “The White Tiger”; this film’s subtext treads very similar territory).
This is a winner of a film in several respects. The performances, to put it mildly (again), are astounding. Paresh Rawal packs a punch in three different roles (and I couldn’t think of any other actor sans perhaps Boman Irani who could’ve pulled this off), Manu Rishi as his spineless childhood friend (astoundingly good; the man also wrote the dialogue), Richa Chadda who played the over-amorous Dolly and Neetu Chandra in an impressive, nuanced performance. Why the hell don’t we see these people in more films? For that matter, why do Amrita Arora, Kim Sharma, Celina Jaitley and around 27 others still get work?
Whew (breathes, counts till 5), okay. Let’s not go there. Another topic, another post.
Abhay Deol OWNS. He is one hell of a RockNRolla. He is the everyman – a small town lad, a rich kid, a Punjabi, a Parsi, you name it. He, whose incredible sincerity and impressive confidence has given him the most enviable roles with the most enviable directors, is an actor who keeps you riveted, simply by being himself. I sincerely, sincerely, sincerely hope that he continues only to do such roles, and gives mainstream Bollywood cinema the good ol’ finger. Respect.
I don’t know if Dibakar Bannerjee has realized this yet, but he is on the path to greatness. With just two films, he has established a distinctive, fresh brand of film-making, something most Bollywood filmmakers haven’t managed to do in decades. His decisions to eschew the city of Mumbai in favour of Delhi (a city he knows inside out, it seems) and focus on the idiosyncrasies of its people, and bring that out into popular culture and consciousness places him in a category that corresponds to two (three) American filmmakers I can think of – Richard Linklater and the Coen Brothers.
Of the two, the Coen brothers are a slightly better analogy I think. While I don’t presume to say that Dibakar is already at that level, or that they even have the same style of film-making (hell, no), they base their movies on many of the same principles – an uncanny understanding of human behaviour, the nuances of a particular dialect, the idiosyncrasies of communities, of inhabitants of a particular area. Also, the understanding of the basic fact that punch-lines and comedy are, in fact, separable.
Watching this movie, I don’t know why, but I was vaguely reminded of the Coen Brothers’ “Fargo”. OLLO is NOTHING like Fargo, it’s not even one-tenth as dark or violent as “Fargo” was, but something about the characterization, the way characters speak, the way they react (even something as flippant as the old lady in the posh Delhi home lying in bed and responding to the name ‘Lucky’ with a satisfied grunt, as Lucky makes off with some goods – this may sound like a bit much on paper but Dibakar and Deol pull it off admirably well), all these things reminded me of some of the delightful exchanges between Frances McDormand’s Margie and the inhabitants of Brainerd.
Just a thought, that.
Thank you, Dibakar Bannerjee, and I hope you continue making better films. I walked out of the theatre, amongst the other few who’d actually ventured out of their homes today, and I couldn’t see a single person who didn’t have a broad grin on their face. To be able to achieve that at such a time is no mean feat.
Now, even if “Dev D” doesn’t turn out to be all that its cracked up to be, I won’t feel that bad.
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
Never laughed louder than the scene where the young Lucky’s flame gets pissed off at the “Get Well Soon” card.
Junior Lucky was so good, I wished the whole movie was about him. Not that the rest of the movie was sub-par. Abhay Deol once again proves he’s the brightest young act in Hindi today.
BGM was awesome. Especially the little twinkle jingles. Its the small little significant things that make this movie endearing – Dreams of a lower middle class teenager, incest in family, father-son relation, Lucky’s yearning for a family.
Just one complaint, the stealing bit looked too easy to happen so many times. All in all, very entertaining. Go Dipakar!
Fantastic film.
So much is happening in the movie in the background. Parallel stories. Interesting layers. Crazy songs (Aisi Laagi Lagan!). One of those rare Hindi films to actually have an atmosphere.
This is definitely a labour of true love.
Just one problem. The story is not very clear at times. Things happen too fast without giving the audience a chance to absorb essential details. Especially in the childhood part.
Except for the father-son track, we don’t know the relationships between the other family members, not much time is given to them. Lucky’s elder brother has just one brief shot in the beginning, and when he comes back in the second half as a grown-up, there is no recollection for the audience, they are confusing him for the crazy young brother or some vague cousin/friend. And when they see the grown-up crazy young brother later, there is more confusion.
Same is the case with Lucky’s mother. We just have two or three inserts of her cooking in the kitchen, that’s it. And the stepmother too is initially confused for the mother since we barely see the actual mother.
Why I am pointing these out is because the whole emotional thrust of the movie is built upon these essential childhood details, why Lucky becomes what he becomes, why he is always hankering for family love, stealing family albums, being manipulated by the adopted ’sister’, looking for father figures…
If the script had spent 4-5 minutes extra in the beginning on Lucky’s family members, just letting the audience get to know them a bit, this film would have been a huge hit. The emotional parts of the second half would have had much more impact then, better connection with the audience.
Looking at it in another way, the script of this film has a certain hit-and-run quality to it, a very non-lingering approach. Small quick scenes, then move on to the next thing. Something we don’t see much in the regular Hindi films, which give a lot more time to exposition, explaining stuff. This one is compact, like a well-written Hollywood script.
However, apart from the fuzzy writing (or editing?) of this particular part, this is a wonderful film. Don’t miss.
sigh. wish i had it in me to go out and watch it… been waiting for this one!
will go soon enough!!
Ye film toh “gali gali gali gali gali gali gali gali….” chalni hi chahiye…awesome man! Abhay Deol has his limitations though. But total paisa wasool!
Dibakar,Pls Pls Pls don’t fall prey to stars and superstars…
Very well said. I’m fervently hoping for this film to do well so Dibakar continues making the movies he wants to make.
On another note, here’s a link for the worst review of Oye Lucky Lucky Oye I have seen so far. Did this woman actually see the film?
http://indiatoday.digitaltoday.in/index.php?option=com_content&issueid=81&task=view&id=21260§ionid=67&Itemid=1
You are absolutely right in your observation that Dibakar is India’s answer to the Coens.
Even while watching this movie I had this feeling that it was similar to fargo in many ways…
With a fully sensible and conscious mind, I write the following:
OLLO is one of the greatest film ever made in India. This will be treated as a classic down the years, in the same or better league than JBDY(hard for me to write but its true).Rarely there is a script having such realism, subtlety and sensitivity in Indian cinema. Whats more, there is a marked improvement over KKG in almost every department of filmmaking. And the climax! DB, yes, you are the Coen of Indian Films, no doubt about that.
Hi is “Dibakar Banerjee” our own,
Don’t compare please,
its a good movie!!!
even one’s fully conscious mind can behave as good as subconscious state of mind.
not the greatest film made in india and am sure the director will come up with something better than this next time around
i hope abhay and dibakar works again