GULABO SITABO - A Rose With Thorns - Movie Review !

 An old Muslim man, bent with age,  in a poor neighborhood of Lucknow and his sick wife run a rental property in the old Indian style . The Haveli , which was once a 'mansion' of the rich, is now decrepit and is supported only by bricks and the owner is so poor that he steals light bulbs and cycle bells from tenants and pawns them for a few rupees. There is constant bickering between the old man and one of his young tenants. That is what makes the movie so humorous and real!

The owner complains that the young renter will not increase the rent and the young man replies 'we are not going to do that' and threatens to invite his young friends to beat the old man up!! The old man blocks the renter with his wide arms and wants to charge the young renter for parking his mobike on his property, but the renter unabashedly threatens to run the bike over him if the old man does not get out of the way. The humor is in the Lukhnavi language and the rebellious tone in which the characters speak. 

The Archeological Society jumps in to declare the building a historical site for the  tourist traffic. A builder wants the land to build a property, the old man and a bold lady tenant, who acts as his confidant,  agree to sell it. When the lawyer mentions a 500,000 cut for the old man, the poor man almost passes out and is in shock for the rest of the day. He has never seen that much money.

In the end, we realize that the property belonged to Fatima, his wrinkled wife. She runs away to an old lover and gives the property to the lover for a rupee!! The poor Fatima is now treated like royalty at her new home. The old man and his young tenant are asked to stay outside the gates!!! All the efforts of the old man to ensure that he gets the property when his wife dies are in vain.

As the two sit on the rocks by the sea, towards the end of the movie, the young man asks 'why did you marry Fatima ?' and the old man grunts ' For the Haveli!' and then the young man scans the old man from head to toe and asks ' what did she see in you ?' and the old man replies 'My Jawani (youth)'.

Initially I assumed that Indian cinema has found a new gem in the form of that old man. I was almost past half the movie before I realized that the old man is the popular actor Amitabh Bachchan. He is  well hidden behind the big nose (prosthetics?) and the Muslim dress. There is no loud dialogue and no high bass sarcasm and no fancy dance moves. Just the usual mumbling and grunts associated with old men.

 

IN TIME -> Just A Sec - Movie Review

'I am Time, the all destroyer !'

                                   - God Vishnu in Bhagvada Geeta.

' We do him in the hospital ! '

                        - A Seattle Police Woman over the phone.

PROLOGUE 

This is a movie about a factor in our lives,  the demand for which increases exponentially as one grows up in a technology heavy world. This factor is called TIME because everything is due yesterday and we are always 'behind' in our projects. Weekends, nights, months and years pass you by. You grow old and wrinkled working , working , working.....or looking for work!

The only direct measure of time you have spent in the workplace is your bank balance - but the villains in your lives have an eye on that too ! They are waiting to STEAL your TIME by hook or by crook ! And if you do not have enough money in your bank, you will be nearer to death because you might not have money to pay the hospital bills and you might not have a place to live. You might find peace on the 'bed' in the morgue !! You see, you have run out of TIME.

SYNOPSIS

Which brings us to this movie. In the future 'world' of this movie, the characters each have a digital clock embedded inside and the time remaining in their lives is displayed on their left arm. The factory workers get paid in hours and not cash - each day they work they get a few hours added to their lives. Each purchase deducts a few minutes from their lives. So you see many people lying dead on the streets even at a young age because they have spent all their time. The hero (Justin Timberlake) schedules a dinner with his mom but as she gets delayed due to traffic she runs to her son's arm and dies as the clock on her arm shows 'zero' and the display on her arm becomes blank !!

There are bullies and hooligans who steal time from innocent people by forcibly holding their right arm at gun point as the time gets transferred into their own bodies. The heroine's dad is the main villain - he own a bank that has vast amounts of time inside small devices  which the poor can purchase on loan !! The rich, you see, live forever. The heroine's  dad and mom look as young as her. They do not age. And they keep the poor working by withholding 'Time' !

There is a young gentleman, whom our hero saves from an encounter in a bar. This gentleman is 105 years old and is tired of life. He transfers a millennium worth of time into the hero's body and dies....

So the movie shows us, by discussing various scenarios, what would happen in a world where Time is  the currency!! Which also makes me wonder, are there people even now who think like the rich in the movie.