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Round Two

The movie to be reviewed by the ten contestants is Halla Bol!
The contestants were given an option to review Andrei Rublev, if Halla Bol had not released in their city. - Please note the word count restriction for Round Two was 1000 words.

The panel of judges will review these movies and we should have the rankings of the ten contestants after round one in one week.

Here are the submitted reviews! (Contestants are listed alphabetically)

Shaayon Bhattacharya (Mumbai, India)

Halla Bol: Halla Bowl Over the Front Bench

Two dacoits from the Chambal chart their way into mainstream society. One empowers the masses while the other terrorizes them. Simple small town boy Ashfaque becomes slimy Superstar Sameer Khan. Underlying dualities like these have the potential for an engaging cinematic adventure. But alas,… while the writer in Santoshi knows where all he must go, the director in him plays a lousy second fiddle by not knowing how to get there.

The film opens with a brash, devious, manipulative, exploiting, blackmailing Sameer Khan. We loathe him. Then a murder at a party changes everything. As Sameer Khan sits on the fence of conscience we are taken on a retro ride positioned to endear him to us.

Ashfaque performs with reformed bandit Siddhuji’s street theatre troupe. Siddhuji somehow lauds his mediocre performance that we are witness to with a prized trophy.

The craving for superstardom surpasses Ashfaques love for his girlfriend. He makes it to Mumbai.

After a long and futile stint he suddenly manages to con a caricature of a film director into giving him a break as lead actor ! Ashfaque becomes Sameer Khan. He marries his girlfriend. Goes up the public popularity and evil polarity charts. His arrogance shakes off Siddhuji and his parents…and an “on-set romp” does away with marital bliss. End of retro ride.

We are back with Sameer Khan, still sitting on the fence, ogling at him with empathy now.

He takes the plunge. Reports the two culprits who are sons of a top politician and a liquor baron. All hell breaks loose. The Three Stooges,…oops,…the politician, the liquor baron and a political strategist are up in arms against him. Luckily with his conscience, he also gets back his wife …who has a rather spherical interpretation of courage and conscience.

The baddies win round one by force and fraud.

Disgusted and distraught, Sameer Khan bashes up media persons, goes to lockup, is bailed out and drives down to the politicians house to pee on his Persian carpet. The politician, a stickler for hygiene, demolishes his entire house !

Siddhuji returns with a timely intervention and does a desi Ninja Turtle, winning a ten to one sword fight and then dropping all ten to the hospital !

They plan a street play…Halla Bol to instigate a mass awakening. Surprisingly, even Sameer doesnt come up with suggestions like TV and cinema !

The thousands who turn up for the play are a weird lot. Their motivated Halla Bol war cries fade off in seconds as they passively watch Sameer Khan being beaten up by a bunch of goons. But the recording of the violence transmitted all over the nation fuels a public outcry. Didnt I say TV works better ? Poor videographers got a drubbing down from Siddhuji !

Fast forward magic follows. Suddenly every witness comes clean. The judge passes sentences. Happy ending.

Duh ! What was all that about ? Anyways, the film boasts of two remarkable performances …Pankaj Kapoor who stamps his superiority all over the film and the actor who brilliantly plays Tiwari, the other ex-bandit. Vidya Balan shines through, proving less can be more. Ajay Devgan struggles with his limited range. I didnt notice anybody else acting in the film.

The cinematography has glaring tonal discrepancies across modeled studio lighting, mixed lighting and natural outdoor lighting. One should pay attention to reflections of reflectors and crew in sunglasses for closeups.

Sound is one of the weakest points of the film. Bad dubbing, inconsistencies in equalization and poor Foley FX. One particularly hilarious one is when we “hear” the lathi blows in the street play. The actors dont actually hit,…hence there should be no sound !…What a filmy “dhishum dhishum” hangover !

All said and done, delectable front bench fare.

 

Rajesh R Kallidumbil (Pune, India)

Halla Bol: Citizen Khan

Like a persistent serpent attempting to gobble its own tail, Bollywood
(sorry!) seems to be in race to go back to, parody and reference their
own with an assembly line of self reflexive movies. Rajkumar
Santoshi’s ‘Halla Bol’ being latest off this line.

“They came first for the Communists,
Didn’t speak up – I wasn’t a Communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists,
Didn’t speak up – I wasn’t a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews,
Didn’t speak up – I wasn’t a Jew;
Then . . . they came for me . . . By that time there was no one left
to speak up.”
Attributed to Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892 – 1984), and modified by the Author.

Niemoller’s ‘lesson’ about the dangers of Apathy has been garnished
and served as the theme of Santoshi’s latest offering. The director of
‘Ghayal’, ‘Damini’, ‘The Legend of Bhagat Singh’ and ‘Khakee’ amongst
others sticks with his now favorite Ajay Devgan in an attempt to shine
the torch of ‘Halla Bol’ through the darkness of Apathy.

Devgan essays a movie star named Samir Khan; shallow parts of conceit,
deceit and delusion mixed together in a lecherous stare from the cover
of his biography as the movie opens. Khan is an unlikely hero –
morally, materially and sexually corrupt and worse, bereft of any
redeeming factors (including charm). Sadly the public, his colleagues
and the starlets willing to squirm under him don’t seem to mind.

While it’s always painful to see the once mighty attempt to keep up
with the new guard (as mid-age matrons painted and decked keeping up
with the debutantes), it is multiplied manifold seeing Santoshi turn
to Madhur Bandarkar for satirical inspiration. This means we are
treated to caricatures and stereotypes grappling with contrived
situations. Whether Khan’s industry colleagues, an airline mogul, a
swami, an award ceremony and the over-dose of ads/movie outtakes
featuring Khan (driving home the deceit and love of the lucre); all of
them seem as ill-fitting and fake as his adventures in the casting
couch.

Khan’s Mercedes S Class existence is thrown off gear when he happens
to witnesses a young woman murdered at a party. While he takes the
easy way out (like everyone else) and seals his lips shut; keeping
them shut is difficult because of his pre mortem interaction with the
woman (and her sister) and that she makes him the target oh her pleas
for help to him before going quiet to an inconvenient bullet.
Apologetic, Khan tries to buy respect and self respect by sending the
justice seeking sister home with a million Rupees.

An award function leads Khan to question his now dialectic existence.
Called onstage to accept an award, he is surprised as a larger than
life likeness of him unfurls and amuses the crowd with – “That’s not
me! That’s someone else.”

The story cuts forward by moving back in time to when Samir Khan was
still Ashfaque (but his morality just a shade stronger) and worked a
street theater group run by reformed dacoit Siddhu (Pankaj Kapoor).
Like many with half a face and a quarter of talent, he aspires to go
to Bombay and become a ‘Hero’. Backing him is his lady love Sneha
(Vidya Balan). Ashfaque gets his move, his ‘Hero’dom (in a new name)
and his lady. And goes on to lose everything.

Snapping back, Khan is haunted by the phantom of the woman who died
before him. As his stardom proves thin to cover his shame, Khan
decides to set things right – and almost wishes he hadn’t.

The movie becomes high concept now on. Despite odds, truth prevails
and justice is delayed but not denied. And since this is the 2000’s
and not the 1990’s, we are denied scenes of Ajay Devgan flexing
muscles, breaking bones and jumping (through) walls as he peels off
the Chakravyuh around the villains (minister Gaekwad played by Darshan
Jariwalla and a liquor baron with a Southern surname – caring parents
of the fine gentlemen murderers). Unfortunately, our hero stays true
to his marital and paternal status – preferring to get thrashed and
stay in hospital while a montage wraps the story up, aided ably by the
till then uncaring public. We are left wondering if the scene where an
array of ‘bad men’ gesture ridiculously while receiving their sentence
was left in by mistake.

Devgan shows why he is considered a good actor – and he should stick
to what makes him good. Unfortunately, great acts are a mask, and some
traits seep too deep into the skin to be hidden. Convincing as the
intense and conflicted Khan and okay as delivering punch lines –
Devgan is out of place as the young Ashfaque and uncomfortable trying
to evoke laughs.

Vidya Balan demonstrates she knows to make lemonade if all life gives
you is a lemon and does well as the woman who marries despite knowing
she will be second to her husband’s career.

Separating GOOD from the good is the way Pankaj Kapoor manages to
rescue a role (inspired in parts by Telugu ex-Naxalite and balladeer
Gaddar and Safdar Hashmi) from sliding into camp populist caricature.
Submerged Darshan Jariwalla is a conniving politician flitting between
cheesy and menacing and failing equally at both. But he did have a rug
‘which really ties the room together’!

Special appearances are half a dozen but a misnomer in ‘Halla Bol’;
nothing special in about them.

Santoshi Sir, my schooldays alternated between schoolyard scraps and
looking for colorful ribbons on pigtails. The scraps gave me bruises
and watery eyes – forgotten in a couple of weeks. But some pigtails
still wind around the heart. Subtext!

And yes – Apathy is a problem and grave (probably gravest), but I find
Niemoller’s poem articulates its dangers better than Santoshi’s ‘Halla
Bol’. Or heavens forbid – ‘Rang de Basanti’. Not a big fan of ‘Triumph
of the Will’ though.

 

Praveen Gopal Krishnan (Bangalore, India)

Halla Bol: Hyper Bole

Halla Bol is like the worst air-travel episode you have ever had. It takes-off and lands too quickly for comfort, remains on autopilot in between and periodically experiences turbulence which makes you want to gag into a paper bag.

Ajay Devgan plays Bollywood actor Sameer Khan - who’s vilified in a matter of minutes with a swift montage right when the movie starts. He’s a philanderer, an irresponsible father and the worst mercenary megalomaniac possible. Khan’s meteoric rise from his street theatre days is coupled with his descent into depravity until he witnesses a cold-blooded murder at a party.The murderers, one of whom is the son of Gaekwad, a minister - continually remind us more than once that they possess ‘paisa, power and public’. This largely sets a battle between the guilt-wrecked Khan and Gaekwad, played by a magnificent Darshan Jariwala (What is it about late-blooming Parsi actors? First Boman Irani and now Jariwala). The rest of the movie is a predictable free-for-all culminating in an abbreviated climax.

Unsurprisingly, several characters yell out ‘Halla Bol’ at different junctures in the movie. Yet, not one of them manage to set anything aflame the way Pankaj Kapur’s Sidhu does. As Sameer Khan’s guru from his street theatre days, Kapur is this movie’s Sachin Tendulkar. We can claim that he’s definitely past his peak but he’s still the best we have got. He even manages to make his role of a reformed convict who does street plays and travels around in a bullet-proof truck convincing. Even the percussion set - while crashing horribly to punctuate the soliloquies of the other actors, are silent in hushed reverence to Kapur’s lines.
Watching Halla Bol is like witnessing George Bush’s ‘war on terror’ crusade. There are several allies - most of whom aren’t exactly sure about the reason for their presence and far too many villains - most of whom aren’t remotely sure why they are being targeted in the first place. Meanwhile, the rest of us watch the show - completely clueless about the rationale, but assuming that there must be a valid reason for the entire exercise somewhere.

Halla Bol recruits its ‘coalition of the willing’ unashamedly from the audience. The major religions are all courted with a song each. The other parties : Dalits, women and nationalists-who-piddle-on-carpets are unequivocally enlisted. These were all the allies I could gather, but chances are the Great Indian Bustards in Chennai’s Vandalur zoo would also have been wooed somewhere in Halla Bol. After all, Uncle Santhoshi needs you.

The rest of the movie is like watching an Arundhati Roy essay set to a Rage Against the Machine soundtrack. Instead of fighting just the Axis of Evil, the coalition seemingly take on the rest of the world. Almost everyone is a target here: the politicians, the system, the movie industry, the media, the police and even ‘middle-class values’. Tellingly, the targets are not just restricted to the surface but are carefully sniped at in every level. One of the murderers is the son of a liquor baron - because hey, what’s the point if his father was the owner of a toy store?

The multiple level references do not stop there. As if the impassioned speeches in Halla Bol were not enough, we get extra helpings of it from the movies within the movie. Tushar Kapoor, whose acting prowess is usually described to me in succinct four letter words, blazes his incompetence across despite being two screens away from us in a guest appearance. After a while, it’s almost a relief to see Sameer’s visions of the girl murdered in cold blood during his dubbing sessions instead of watching Kapoor butcher away on screen. Vidya Balan, playing Sneha - Sameer’s on-off-on wife, manages to infuse life into a character which looks like a discard from Santhoshi’s Lajja. Unfortunately, what you take back about Balan in this movie is not her performance - but a semi-expletive uttered by her. It’s all the more tragic since the effect on the audience ends up as a shock-and-awe rather than a shock-and-applaud.

RajKumar Santhoshi, to his credit, is probably one of the few directors in Bollywood without a decent DVD collection. The irony is that he’s also the person who needs it the most. A couple of viewings of Citizen Kane and some of Shankar’s movies from down south would have done wonders to the narrative. His ambitious screenplay - though not regressive, is so fractured that it would be a shoo-in for the next Paralympic games. As it stands now, Halla Bol has more plotholes than a Tom and Jerry cartoon. Scatological humour laced with patriotism is also becoming a Santhoshi trademark (Remember the toilet paper jibe in The Legend of Bhagat Singh?) and Halla Bol carries on the tradition with a bizarre carpet scene. Makes you wonder if such stuff were actually written by the same person who also has the uproarious Andaz Apna Apna in his filmography.
Ajay Devgan makes a brave attempt to prop up a flawed screenplay. He’s not completely successful but his sincerity shines through. However, I do wish his character had been written differently. The greater part of Sameer Khan’s redemption seems externally motivated and a touch fatalistic. Halla Bol is not about Sameer finding his conscience burning inside him but is about it fiercely pursuing him and branding him on his bottom instead. How about showing us Khan’s internal battles without resorting to lonely stairwells, Jack Daniels or shattered glass cabinets? Instead, his dilemma is settled with a desperate Deus ex machina - he discovers that the sister of the murdered girl had donated her kidney to pay the legal fees. This is fiery branding at its best.

After watching Halla Bol, you are not really sure if the movie was about Sameer Khan’s redemption, triumph against the system or about advocating social consciousness. Nobody seemed to knows which.

Not even Halla Bol.

 

Kavita K Meegama (Bethesda, USA)

Halla Bol: HALLA BOL HAS BALLS

Mouthed by one of the most accomplished actresses of recent times,
“My husband has balls”, does not sound vulgar or pretentious.
Nor do any of the many repartees and rejoinders spouted by both
villain and hero alike.
Raj Kumar Santoshi’s strength lies in his ability to project the anger
in all of us
as poetry-on-the-rocks.
The language without being deliberately crude as in Omkaara or
superfluously refined as in Umrao Jaan retains a certain earthy
flavour, unique to the Indian films of yore, that has been consciously
gotten rid of in recent times in favour of the yuppie who says Yo!

But then what legacy, cinematically, are we leaving for our next generation?
No hard hitting dialogues? No angry young man? No all suffering but loving wife?
It is not then a ‘Hindi’ film but a pale Videshi souten trying to rig
her way into multiplexes and malls ridding herself of the ’small town
mentality’ and ‘middle class morality’.

So we aspire to see slick features on our flat screens with techno
music that can be played in underground discos [it should at least be
re-mixable] but God! With Khuda so out of fashion how can you re-mix a
‘More Haji Piya’ [Amjad Sabri] or ‘Shabd Gurbani’
[Sukhwinder Singh] ? And you would need a patriotic nation to march
to the tunes of
‘Jab Tak Hai Dum’ [ Sukhwinder Singh ] not us who are lolling in the
limelight of the well lit stock market.

Agreed it is garish and at times repetitive, from the filmi parties to
the house interiors,
from the selective flashbacks to excessive flashbacks.
It also gets trite and downright cinematic,
from the ‘Main tumsay ek baat kahoon?’ to ‘ Tum bahuth badal gaye ho’,
from the Kidney baychna to Siddhu ka right time pay pahunchna
but Hey! Guess what?
Maybe Santoshi wants to ram it in, in case there are some dyslexic
students who did not get it the first time.

This is the genre we Indians should be proud of, because this is the
only successful genre uptil now that we have mastered. This is what we
are known for across the globe.
An angry man fighting the system.This erstwhile assistant of Govind
Nihalani has remained true to at least Ardh Satya. Which is saying a
lot when directors are no longer aware of what Satya is anymore.

His conscientious activist’s voice speaks out loud and clear through
his alter ego Ajay Devgan [ Ashfaque aka Samir Khan ] yet again. He
has not yet sold his soul to the market or to a trend which
specializes in extra-marital affairs and spouting ’sex’ at regular
intervals to prove that he is mature and grown up. He dances to a much
more difficult rhythm, to the integrity of his intention.

He intends to show us, somewhere between Om Shanti Om and Khoya Khoya Chand,
what the goings on in the much maligned industry look like, with
humour as well as disgust. Here he succeeds exceptionally well be it
the bit parts of Kareena Kapoor, Sridevi Kapoor, Tusshar Kapoor or in
the inadvertent comicality of the adverts these stars sponsor.
“Gateway of India-vests and underwear”, ” Bhalu Chaap- kaala dant
manjan” or “Concord-razor”.

Right after a public murder, Samir Khan hears his Ashfaque voice
through dubbing.
He listens to his ‘zameer’ and ‘atma’, to the harkings of his past
which remind him of his street theatre days, when he was filled with
healthy aspirations and healthier lessons were learnt from Siddhu [a
rivetting Pankaj Kapur]. He makes efforts to rectify his fall from
grace and in the process undergoes harassment from those in power, the
vacillating public and those with paisa.

We are privy to what happens when a STAR takes a stand. He could be
pooh poohed by his co-workers, he could have effigies burnt and his
films banned by religious fanatics, he could be embroiled in sexual
controversies, he could be at the mercy of the media which initially
had licked his droppings or he could summarily be dismissed from the
hearts of his fans as a ‘coward’.

How heroic is he?
Not more than Siddhu, is what we find out to our surprise!
When Samir wants to get even he takes to pissing on Persian Carpets!
But Siddhu, Dronacharya to a reluctant Ekalavya manages to drill a
Harishchandra out of a man who says ‘Practical Sochiye’.
Siddhu’s gaze which could have burnt Chambal to cinders is ablaze in
full bloom in a character which is an unique contribution to cinema.
A reformed Dacait who cries HALLA BOL!
Not less stoic or heroic is a wife who refuses to comply or abandon.
Sneha lends fiery dignity throughout this Volcano of a film with her
lava like presence.

In these times of deathly discord it is heart warming to see an
inter-religious marriage dealt with such off handedness as though it
were not a matter of contention or to see mentor and student patch up
sitting on the steps of the Gurudwara eating khara prashad and
bantering about roads and construction.

Both the introductory and the concluding Street Theatre episodes stand
out for the sheer power that such a performing art possesses. To be
vulnerable and naked in public, to allow them to watch you, judge you
and dismember you while you attempt to tell them that
” Insaan wohi hai jo doosray kay chot ko mahsoos kar sakay”…………….

Wonder if Steven Bernard stepped out of the edit suite for chai
instead of cutting the Court Room Drama in the end because the
repentant head nod by the penitents was a parody of sorts. As did
Natty Subramanian who probably stepped out for coffee instead leaving
the camera on cruise control. Don’t expect to see innovation here or
technical finesse.
That was not the intention.
The intention here is to provoke, arouse and to call out to your conscience.
It does that with absolute elan.

 

Satish Naidu (Pune, India)

Halla Bol Movie Review

It is said Marlon Brando allowed himself the courage to grow into that colossal force on set, to shatter the brand of raw vulnerable masculinity he was the sole owner of. Him and James Dean. “The only reason I’m in Hollywood is that I don’t have the moral courage to refuse the money” – he once said. There’s something profound there in that statement, and that strange life of his. Profound for every artist who has been an actor, and for every actor who has ever been a star.

It was just yesterday when Ms. Sharmila Tagore was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Pune International Film Festival. It was a great ceremony, and there was the obligatory video tour of her characters, very nicely done. Nicely done not just because I and everyone in that 1000+ audience liked it, but Ms. Tagore seemed to be genuinely impressed. She mentioned in her address about the dilemma the actors face, and whether the gamut of expressions visible to us was her true self, or was it something we don’t usually pay to see. Agreed that is one of the items right out of the book titled ‘What is supposed to be said at award functions’, it was effective. Maybe the atmosphere got to me.

Just like the names above, Ajay Devgan plays an actor, his character the very definition of the hackneyed ‘filmstar’. That the character’s original name was Ashfaque Khan and that he has changed it to Sameer Khan is one of the numerous potshots/criticisms disguised as a social comment, prime elements of any Rajkumar Santoshi film. Transformation – internal or external – is a prime theme here, and could have been psychologically deeper still, had the film not showed the eagerness to stick to the Santoshi brand of tried and tested. Take this, apart from the above instance concerning the name – Sidhu, played by Pankaj Kapoor with a great degree of authority, was a dacoit who has now transformed from a dreaded dacoit to a renowned social activist. Or Sameer’s own transformation to the sly superstar of the city, which again, does not take a step away from the conventional track. Thanks to that, we never get to see how the transformation happened, or what the emotional/psychological bearings were. No effects, only cause and result. Cut and dried, that is it.

I agree, it is one of the most difficult aspects of filmmaking, showing the transformation of a character. Convincingly at that, for it requires great writing and even greater skills when filming. But that has never been Santoshi’s forte is it, and it would be sad on our part to dwell on such facets of his films. Though we sure can exclaim, ‘what if’ and ‘alas’. This is a Santoshi film, through and through. And one of the features of his films is that there is seldom anything internal going around, everything is external. There are lines spoken you would want to instinctively clap for, I did. My uncle used to call such lines chavanni dialogues. In case you aren’t clear, chavanni was best used when Sunny Deol thundered – “yeh dhai kilo ka haath jab kisi ke sar pe padta hai, to who uthta nahi, uth jaata hai.” There’re the standard chavanni scenes too, and most of them involve that wonderful actor Pankaj Kapoor. His small figure towers over this film, for he has the chavanni character on him.

And then, there are unimaginative sequences and plot developments backed up by equally unimaginative camera angles and background score. There’s a sequence where Pankaj Kapoor’s Sidhu is talking about his transformation, and how it came about. It has the germ to move us, but that is at least 10 rewrites away. And 100 revisions on the drawing board, if there’s any, on how to take the shot. Rather than gradually moving the camera in, zooming us into the world of Sidhu, it takes tame edits and shots from every which place available, rendering his tale seem an anecdote rather than a profound experience. It is a shame. Incidentally, there was one sequence that seemed to be shot in the same room where Amitabh Bachchan stood by the window 32 years earlier in Deewar. That was the first angry young man; this is the nth in a seemingly endless struggle against the system.

Santoshi’s films have always been against the system. They shout, cry in great angst at the deplorable state of affairs, holding the hackneyed viewpoint where almost every man in power is unscrupulous. Halla Bol, maintains the tradition, where the first half concerning the problem is rather dull and dreary. Santoshi’s mind is never there; it is in the revolution, taking the bull by the horns, which appeals to his cinematic sense. Hence the crescendo is his films have always been the second half, and it is nothing different here. I guess that was the reason he chose to make a film on Bhagat Singh. But as Damien remarks in The Wind that Shakes the Barley – “It’s easy to know what you’re against quite another to know what you’re for.”

Ajay Devgan tries his best, but Santoshi reacts best when he has a volatile chemical to catalyze him, they call that chemical Sunny Deol. There’s a nice sequence where Sameer is receiving an award to the applause of a huge audience, and there’s this towering, intimidating poster of him. With a pair of sunglasses keep in mind. Intimidating in the manner of the famous speech from Citizen Kane. There he was the aura of Kane, here that man is an alter ego. At the end, Sameer’s waving to another huge audience, and there’s the same poster hanging at a significantly lower altitude to him, and rightly so. Curiously the camera doesn’t seem to be aware of this, and instead focuses on the man towering over the audience. I think it was never the audience, the actor always had them. It was his own alter ego he was cross with.

 

Sreehari Nair (Trivandrum, India)

Halla Bol: Terry Malloy vs. Halla Bol

‘Conscience’ as described by Terry Malloy (Brando’s character in ‘On the Waterfront’):
“Conscience. That stuff that can drive you nuts”

It’s not mere irony, maybe just a point of case study for the makers of “Halla Bol” that the best scenes in the film are essentially the street-play scenes. The viewers there are being made to watch an art-form, appreciation for which rests on the persistent belief that the actors are in the midst of playing parts that ought to be caricatures and should be aided by a direct conversation with the audience to drive their point home.

Cut to another form of artistic relief, the movies.
Exhibition of an art form within another art form becomes a dissolved entity; Cinema exists on its own.
And cinema doesn’t know timeliness of a subject, emotional struggles, psychological interventions or spiritual undertones until all of them are made cinematically viable. And that’s where “Halla Bol” flounders primarily. It flounders at the doorstep of cinematic presentation and flounders consistently from then on till the end of its run.
The implied norms of street-play presentation rub onto the movie as well and we cringe. The characters (there are quite few here) move in and out of the movie at their own comfort and make a conscious effort to appease the camera. Forget realism, we are looking at the tampering of basic cinematic principles here.
We see the consciousness in their performance so much so that, they fail to exist as characters. We see them conversing with us, just like in the street-plays in situations where they ought to be conversing with each other. Forget realism, realism is level four.

It is like a solution so chemically incorrect that it fails to gather any precipitate, any afterthoughts.
The demerits that the movie is endowed with are like synecdoche and hence make a reviewer’s job that much simpler. The horrendous mistakes that define the movie as a whole are derived from the smaller compartments of it that suffer from the very same deficiencies. Card paper characters cliched situations and supercilious dialogues, you name them and you have them at your disposal.And by the time it completes running, it becomes a nondescript entity. Pointless should hardly have been the epithet to describe a movie as this, which in its base held such topical relevance but that’s precisely what it eventually becomes.

The basic problem with “Halla Bol” is that it fails to make a dent on the root of all societal evils; Conscience or a lack of it. It essentially had to be about fighting your conscience to arrive at the knowledge of one’s social responsibilities.
Every form of universally applauded artistic piece rests on the one rudimentary belief, “YOU are your biggest evil”.
“Halla Bol” bypasses that important aspect of character study by just casually peeping over it. Ajay Devgan’s lethargic performance in the self-contemptuous parts doesn’t help it in its cause either. And by the time, the personal to societal transformation of evil correction takes shape it becomes a very regular, Good guys VS. Bad guys fare.

Every movie should be judged on the basis of its cinematic throughput, the ratio of the cinematic output that it offers to the intentions that shaped its being. Which is why “Halla Bol” is so disappointing. It takes important social issues and ends up trivializing it.
Pankaj Kapoor’s performance, which isn’t anywhere near his best is still the only thing worth savoring about the movie. And if relative satisfaction is at all considered a parameter in judging movies, that statement should say it all.

It is a venture that dares to explore but goes horribly wrong in the process.
It is for most parts an undernourished film by an over nourished director with a voracious appetite for issues social but deprived of the basic cinematic sensibilities to take it home.

If one were to look carefully, the message at the heart of this effort is the same that Terry Malloy once spoke about in prose. A memorable line from a memorable movie frozen in time as a one-liner but with timeless relevance written all over it. And after two and a half hours of enduring this pointless drivel, I could still go through that single Terry Malloy line and discover it holding its head high in pride basking in absolute ecstasy as a sign of literature’s seamless victory over cinema.

 

Mohammed Rashid (London, UK)

Raise your voice, and…unzip!?

Aesthetically challenged Ashfaq (Devgan) becomes superstar Sameer Khan. That premise itself would be laughable if it weren’t for strange reality. After all few stars have been more super than Mithun and (especially pre KJo-fied) Shah Rukh Khan. Visual fascism aside, Santoshi’s Halla Bol and some of the potboilers of the 80’s and early 90’s are products of a shared formula. There’s some consolation in that we don’t have Dharmendra thumping somebody on the head, only for the poor dupe to be buried upto his neck in earth in the next shot. (I won’t mention Rajnikant).

In a party, Sameer witnesses a young lady being shot in cold-blood by a couple of cokehead scions of the ubiquitous politician and business baron. Initially, our egotistical hero is silent, as are all other bystanders. Soon however, the hollowness of his world impinges upon him to reflect on his journey to stardom. Ashfaq used to be a member of a motley crew performing street-plays taking up social causes, and which was led by Siddhu (Pankaj Kapur), a reformed dacoit.

As conscience starts to prick, Sameer decides to testify, but the politician has ‘power, money and the public’, which he uses to intimidate and terrorise the star and his family, to tamper the evidence, and pervert the legal system. The murderers are acquitted, and Sameer, with the assistance of Siddhu, takes it upon himself to deliver justice.

Sound familiar, so far!? Mercifully, the social injustice here isn’t the hero’s sister being raped, and the movie doesn’t degenerate into a series of half-arsed, blood-soaked action sequences. And thankfully the periodic jhankar beats with the hero and heroine in synchronised cleavage heaving is, similarly, missing.

Aspiring to be a clarion call to revolution, this movie accomplishes something far more ahista ahista. Surprisingly, the topicality of the subject matter doesn’t lend the story much impetus. Even as certain incidents appear to be straight out of newspapers (some from bollywood gossip magazines), the film as a whole left me feeling ambivalent.

Our protagonist is introduced as a selfish, manipulative, single-minded man who has sacrificed his humanity to his stardom. Given this, the awakening of his conscience needed to sway us into believing that he is a sympathetic character after all. That doesn’t quite happen. In the flashback we see, even then, how driven Ashfaq was (blasphemously, for bollywood, he would sacrifice his love for wealth and stardom); the only thing that is remotely redeeming about the man is that he is a part of Siddhu’s group, but even that, it seems, is a stepping-stone for his ambitions. As such, when the transformation comes, it is far from convincing, being a tad abrupt, and without ample justification.

If the writers and director fail here, then so does Ajay Devgan. This isn’t a poor performance, but Devgan never quite reaches the solidity of Omkara, let alone the heights of The Legend of Bhagat Singh. The competent script and direction was really crying out for a leading man with a bit more charisma, and one who could rise above both.

We have Pankaj Kapur to salvage proceedings, but he may be a maestro in off-commercial movies, but here, as in Dus, he comes across as a misfit; and what’s with the eyeliner, man? Vidya Balan’s eyes may be worthy of Gulzar’s poetry, but consequently bollywood has, so far, relegated her to miniscule weepy roles.

And to top it all, the arch-villain is depicted as a clown. Thus the ‘unzip’; I refer to the most potent weapon in this movie, wielded by our hero against the politician. I won’t say anything more.

Even the film-industry pastiche, and cameos by real stars, has neither the goofiness of the recent Om Shanti Om, nor the charm of Khoya Khoya Chand. (Sridevi, why, oh why, Boney Kapoor?).

This movie, like its leading man is, just, well, bland.

 

Shantesh Sunil Row (Dubai, UAE)

Halla Bol: BOL BACHCHAN

Raj Kumar Santoshi is an angry old man. And as usual,
he pours his scorn and loathing for social evils into
his various celluloid interpretations.

Halla Bol is Santoshi Version 5.0 after similar forays
with Ghayal, Lajja, Damini and Khakee. Unfortunately,
this upgrade is akin to bloatware - a whole lot more
of the same thing that makes for very little sense.

So welcome to the world of the new angry young man,
Ashfaque aka Sameer Khan. A superstar who lives in his
own dream world, where he does not realise when the
cameras have shut down and when real life has begun.
As is with Santoshi’s mien, Ashfaque (Ajay Devgan)
goes through the wringer of emotions and is put
through the test, the ‘dharamsankat’ as you would have
it.

You know what to expect when you go to see a Santoshi
flick. The dots can be arranged in a predictable line.
A burning current affair (in this case, the Jessica
Lal murder.) One man caught up inadvertently in this
event. His struggle to keep sanity up in a vortex of
emotional relationships. Trapped between his past and
present. Entangled between his conscience and dreams.

A tale of fame and fortune Vs shame and misfortune.

But where Santoshi digresses is in the way he
approaches the social issue at hand.

As I watched the film with just 5 people in a
multiplex, I kept thinking I was watching 3 films for
the price of 1.

The starting events that showcase the background of
the film industry and its shady shenanigans are very
similar to the voyeuristic oeuvre of Madhur
Bhandarkar’s Page 3 or Corporate. And there’s the
track that shows vignettes of Sameer Khan’s rise and
impact as a superstar and brand ambassador - funny
snatches that would not seem out of place in Farah
Khan’s Main Hoon Na or Om Shanti Om.

Finally, the real Santoshi stands up.

A young girl is murdered in cold blood by two rich
spoilt brats. Sameer Khan (and a host of other
celebrities) are witness to the murder. They keep mum,
wishing for the issue to be swept under the carpet.

All seems well, until Ashfaque is visited by the
ghosts of his past - his sojourn as a street theatre
artiste, his guru-shishya relationship with the
dacoit-turned-Barry Johnesque Siddhu (Pankaj Kapoor)
and his subsequent fallout with his mentor - a
casualty to Sameer Khan’s growing public popularity. A
haunted past that pricks at his conscience and makes
him shed his image to take on all the odds, whatever
the cost may be.

Unfortunately (again), the real Santoshi fails. This
is because his reality was founded in tales of
awakening and retribution from the 80s and 90s. Tales
that are at best stale now. Santoshi seems to be stuck
in a time warp. Where heroes would dish out large
doses of melodrama and heavy scene chewing to fight
the system.

He borrows liberally from the potboilers of yore,
dipping his brush into sources like Aaj Ka Arjun and
Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani. He even doffs his hat to
the more contemporary Rang De Basanti and Lage Raho
Munnabhai - a clarion call for the masses to unite -
using street theatre, radio jockeys and whipping up
hysterical support through the media.

Alas…been there, seen that.

Yes there are the occasional Santoshi flourishes -
scenes where the dialogue bites like a Rottweiler on
steroids. Sameer Khan relieving himself on the
politician’s rare Persian carpet. Him rebuking a Sri
Sri Swami (no guesses who he’s modelled on) who
refuses to testify as a witness. His wife’s (Vidya
Balan) collaring of the media when they keep hounding
him.

But all these are mere short arm jabs that stun and
keep us interested, without the knockout punch
forthcoming.

The performances, as expected, make the cut. Pankaj
Kapoor towers above all - with a glare that’s powerful
enough to dodge bullets (literally!) Devgan looks like
he needs an intravenous drip, and soon, though with
all the film scenes and ad films-within-the-film he
has to portray, one cannot deny him the exhaustion.
Vidya Balan looks glazed, and at points, I almost
expected her to say ‘bodmaash, aami protishodh chaahi’
- a hangover from Bhool Bhulaiyya. The rest of the
characters seem like the ones you’d use to pack stuff
when shifting home - pure cardboard.

So what’s in it for your 200 bucks then?

I suggest you stay at home, spend that kaboodle on a
good dinner and tune in to NDTV.

Indeed, in a time when the ‘real’ stories of
Priyadarshini Mattoo, Manjunath, Jessica Lal and
Satyendra Dubey are having us involved, 24/7, one
really wonders whether Sameer Khan’s ‘fictional’ agony
and ecstasy are worth our time.

 

Trasie Stittsworth (Los Angles, USA)

Andrei Rublev: The Passion of Andrei Rublev

A long, difficult, slow, violent and ultimately rewarding film, Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Andrei Rublev was banned at the time of its release for its political, sexual and violent content, as well as for being much too experimental for its time. And, the today the film is still all of these things, as well as being prescient about the future of Russia and its people.

A beautiful but seemingly out of place opening scene introduces the first of many of Tarkovsky’s themes and to his style – recounting the story of Daedalus, a peasant takes a ride on a medieval hot air balloon, introducing the first of three peasants aspiring to and achieving greatness. This aspiration is one of the underlying themes of the movie as Rublev, a monk of humble beginnings, becomes Russia’s most revered fresco and icon painter. Aspiration is the driving force behind most of the characters in the film, aspiration to fame, glory, the Russian throne, a father’s legacy, yet the main character, Rublev, struggles with his aspirations and a crisis of faith. All characters have the ability, like Daedalus, to construct, build, and create, and the Daedalus analogy is apt as Daedalus is not only the mythological character who was the first to fly, but also the man who was thought to be the first to create images.

Rublev is introduced as an artist of great talent, but is introduced as an artist as one without the religious faith or awe of God to be anything more than a good painter. It is only when he encounters a group of pagans holding a religious ceremony, who catch him and simulate his crucifixion, that Rublev suffers a crisis of faith that transforms his work. The original title of the film was The Passion of Andrei Rublev, and the middle part of the film is a passion play, tracing Rublev’s suffering of the spirit as he grapples with his faith, struggles with the meaning of his work, the role of paganism and its sensuality and sexuality, and the role of religion and its place in the political context of the society in which he lives. While many films in which the central character struggles with his or her faith and religion tend toward the dogmatic, this film never becomes a religious film; the focus is always on Rublev and search for reason and meaning in the complex times in which he lived.

And, for a film loosely based on the life of a revered artist, it is remarkable that little artwork is shown; a glimpse at an icon he is painting, hints about the problems with a fresco he has painted, quick shots of frescos in a Church that has just been destroyed by a Tartar army. Art is very little discussed, and when it is discussed it is either through intellectual discourse, or as a means to interpret and understand faith. Tarkovsky manages to discuss art, to show the tribulations of artists as they struggle with their jealousy, the meaning of their work, the problems of patronage, without showing much actual art at all. Yet, watching this film, Tarkovsky’s artistry is as important as the story itself.

Tarkovsky is a master of long shots, serving to build suspense and tension. Many of his scenes are framed from within windows, doors, plants, creating scenes within scenes. Scenes shot from the sky, or the tops of buildings, are breathtaking and masterfully executed. And, like in the Lion in Winter, Andrei Rublev shows the realities of living in a medieval society – all the harshness, beauty, and danger, without romanticizing the period.

The film comes to an abrupt end, one segment ends and then the black and white film erupts into colour, showing some of the known works of the real Rublev. Most remarkable is the Nativity of Jesus, depicting the Virgin Mary with her back turned to the infant Jesus, staring contemplatively into space, almost mirroring the same looks and thoughts displayed by Anatoli Solonitsyn (Rublev) throughout the conflicted periods in the film.

The film is slow in parts, difficult to follow in others. But, it is an amazing cinematic journey, a story of a medieval man that still resonates in modern times, stunning cinematography and directing, and a remarkable soundtrack of natural sounds with the occasional choir singing and sparingly used music, this film is a treat from both an intellectual standpoint, as well as a technical one.

 

Thani (Mumbai, India)

Halla Bol: Conscience, Goregaon-Style!

Street Theatre practitioner, & Cinema-Hero-aspirant, Ashfaque (AjayDevgan) has just managed to get the go-ahead from his father, to chase his heroic dream in Bombay. He meets the ladylove of his life, Sneha (VidyaBalan), in a farewell-walk in the environs of a Goregaoned small-town India (a Cinecitta-like abode of Bollywood filmmaking called FilmCity). While Sneha has been fully supportive of Ashfaque’s dreams, she still doesn’t resist herself from asking the unfair question of what he would choose if he were to, between her and his acting career. Ashfaque relents honesty, with the fair reply of choosing his acting career. The Ashfaques have become even more endearing to the Snehas, & Shalinis, of the world. Sneha has just elected herself an Amoural Martyr, an equivalent of the much-celebrated male of the species – the unrequited lover!

Ashfaque makes it in Bombay, as soon as he’s over & done-with the much-abused struggle-period. He’s now taken-on his christened name of Sameer Khan – reversing the trend of his predecessors having to mute their Khan surnames. Rightly so as there is wisdom in adopting one, if you aren’t already a Khan! Sameer Khan is forcefully led by his Sneha, into a cinema-hall that’s playing his debut film as a Hero, to gauge audience reaction first-hand. During the film-in-the-film’s climax the hall explodes into celebrating their Hero. Sameer Khan the Star has arrived, & he acknowledges the same with a squeeze of his hand that’s held by Sneha. Director Rajkumar Santoshi has triumphed over his debacles of the recent forgettable past, with this superlative moment! After this said moment in the film, Sneha (as played by VidyaBalan) evokes tears and lumped throats - in a reminder of her intense feeling of affection - everytime she makes even as much as her sheer appearance, in any corner of the frame. Such is the persuasive (AKA manipulative) power of our beloved medium! Rajkumar Santoshi has, by now, garnered an able ally that would appeal-to/represent the protagonist’s, & our own, conscience.

Halla Bol opens a few years after the afore-mentioned flashed-back sequences. Sameer Khan is a successful star now – a bonafide who’s had Hits & the Misses, who’s insecure to the extent of worrying about non-entities (if anybody, it’s today’s non-entity that can retire a reigning star!), who’s maintained a respectable mien of Wife (Sneha) & Kid while accepting sexual favors which are due him irrespective, & who’s a confirmed master at juggling his dates for projects that he deems worthy of his time.

It’s one of those juggle nights at a private-party-in-a-public-place, that’s pregnant with seeds that could sprout a prick up his conscience. A theatre-enthusiast-girl who could, very well, have turned up on his casting couch if she were not to be brutally murdered (by rich-kids that are going-through their corrupt-world oath-taking), awakens the Ashfaque of yore in Sameer Khan, best-captured by Sameer Khan/Ashfaque himself later in the film when articulating (in exclamations) his Yeh Main Nahin Best Actor Award Acceptance Speech, looking perplexed at a huge cut-out of his mirror-self –

I am not this person! It is our faces that bear resemblance! I don’t HAVE what he does! Unlike him, I can do nothing! The Award’s his, but handed-over to me! Yeh Main Nahin! Then who am I? I really have to think about it!

The rest of the film chronicles the protagonist’s attempt, & success, in redeeming himself, & in the process awakening many more beings that could turnout to be reasonable & responsible-enough, only if they were to confront their own conscience. He goes back on his earlier pretense of not being present at the atrocity-scene, turns approver against the perpetrators’ crime, gets maligned for the daring, gets to literally piss on the villain’s Persian Carpet, gets applauded by incumbent-wife Sneha for displaying ‘Balls’, gets hurt physically & meta-physically for his crusades, procures generous help from Mentor Sidhu, & ultimately, in an hurried fashion, as Karma wills, triumphs over Evil.

Amongst other inside asides, Halla Bol has AjayDevgan portraying, chronologically, Shahrukh Khan (through theatre dalliance, Superstar crowning, endorsements for weddings/products), Aamir Khan (a stray cry for the Narmada Valley) & Safdar Hashmi (Theatre Activist, & unfortunate martyrdom) while engaging with a Jessica Lall re-enactment of an awakener. While AjayDevgan pulls off the Quadra-partite biographical inflection in his performance with surprising élan, it is the film’s second conscience of Pankaj Kapur as Sidhu that helps the convergence between the identities the protagonist wills to juggle right. In a rare & for-long-elusive charismatic role, Pankaj Kapur plays the twice-outlawed Sidhu – An Outlaw Dacoit in the Chambal region &, in his reformation, an Outlaw Theatre Activist-Exponent who provides conducive attraction for Actors & Activists alike, through his street-theatre group that Ashfaque spent his formative years at, & earns redemption through; A Dickensian secret benefactor who fills-in wherever the prodigal son (Ashfaque/Sameer Khan) falls short in his crusade.

One in every five Tamil films, & a few Chiranjeevi-Telugus, is a righteous crusade that sides itself with the average-Joe who ends up belling the feline-system (in the good tradition of MGR & Rajini flicks). Halla Bol clues us in understanding the comparative failure of similarly-themed Yuva over an AamirKhan-powered Rang De Basanti; the South & the North of India are, probably, two very different Indias, as apart from each other in their cinema-reception as, say, they are in their food habits.

Rajkumar Santoshi employs confident control over the medium, that’s best evoked in the filming of the songs – an item number constructed almost entirely with the item girl’s sober close-ups, a couple of plural-religious transcendent evocations that frame the chanteurs-messengers alternatively cut with the protagonists’ intent-makings in slo-mo.

As far as meetingorial classification of movies goes, this is a Salim-Javed meets Shankar that has already met a certain Rajkumar Santoshi! Bravo Raju (Santoshi), for kicking-off the year with an auspiciously conscientious entertainer, & for being vociferous in your deriding the ‘DVD filmmakers’ that’s been choking Bollywood!

 

F.Y.I.

Movies for Round 3 will be announced on January 16th by 10pm PST (Jan 17th, 1130am India)
Contestants should submit Round 3 reviews by January 20th 10pm PST
Reviews of Round 3 will be published on January 21st.