SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE : "How does he know all the answers....behan ch" !!!

  Yes that is the central theme of the movie: how can a young uneducated boy named Jamaal raised in a poor Mumbai slum know all the answers in the Indian version of  the TV show "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" !! 

And to get the answer to this question, the local police beats him up and tries to do a jumpstart, as if he is an automobile, by attaching a car battery to his feet! However, Jamaal manages to convince the police officer that he really knew the answers to the questions ! Though not before he is repeatedly slapped by the sub-inspector and cursed with the popular cuss word 'Behan ch...' several times!

The movie starts with Jamaal gradually moving towards the final question on the TV show and ends with him becoming an instant 'crorepati' ! Intertwined in between is the story of him and his three friends including the girl named Latika. They get separated while escaping a slum lord (see below) but meet towards the end - one is on TV, Latika is living a middle class life in bungalow, the third has turned into a young gangster and the fourth was blinded and has become a beggar.

And how does Jamaal know the answers ? To find this out the director does frequent and effective flashbacks to his slum life; where he lived with his poor friends and before he turned into a youth with British accent (Dev Patel). That is where the movie excels by delving into the dirty slums built near the garbage dumps and the public 'tuttees' . And the director's handling of the pre-teen actors who play the slum kids is praiseworthy. We are shown that even the slum kids in India are crazy about their movie stars like Amitabh Bachchan and will gladly ignore their personal hygiene so that they can catch a glimpse of the star!! 

And what else did the director find in the slums?  A crooked slum lord that preys upon poor hungry slum children by enticing them with food and then maiming them so that they can stand at busy intersections of the city and beg small change. I felt repulsed by the scene where a young boy is held down and turned into a blind person by damaging both of his eyes!!! We see that blind boy begging in an underground street cross walk later in the movie. I do not know if that part of the movie is real but we do find many poor blind beggars in some parts of the busy metropolis that is Mumbai.

And that slum boy knew the answers because of the events and conversations he had with his poor friends and the schooling he got by sitting on the floor in the crowded classroom. And we are shown that the Indian men are prone to anger and throw textbooks on the heads of their pupils if they turn up late and throw anger tantrums at their wives/live-in help if the sandwich is not to their liking.

[At least they are alive and not being 'done' in an American hospital!! Behan Ch...]

There is gang violence towards the end. And we have to thank the makers of this movie for diving into a layer of Mumbai which very few have dared to do so bluntly. And for showing the show's host actor Anil Kapoor further repeatedly insulting the young boy as 'chai' wala.....If Danny Boyles , so do I !!

Jai Ho.....

This cruel , uncaring world and its side-effects...

  Recently, I decided to watch two movies that have a mental health hospital as the stage on which stories of their main characters unfold. One is an Indian movie in Hindi!

If you have watched the old classic 'One Flew Over The Cuckoos' Nest' (OFOTC) with Jack Nicholson as the main character then you are in the right neighborhood/Genre/ Category. The mischief that Jack N's character unleashes in the mental health hospital is very humorous. He does get punished with a dose of the much feared electric shock treatment. However, the movie has a serious and sad ending.

The other movie is Girl Interrupted, the movie I watched recently. It is milder than OFOTC with Winona Rider and Angelina Jolie as main characters/patients in a popular mental health hospital . Winona's character is scared and sensitive though somewhat delusional. Angelina is bold and rebellious somewhat like Jack Nicholson in OFOTC ! Tattoos and  rings adorn her thin frame! One meets girls like the two characters in buses, public libraries  and cheap restaurants in many cities in the USA. That is a sad fact....

The Hindi movie is kind of a tragedy also set in a mental hospital. The movie has all the ingredients of a typical Bollywood movie, yet is very different from the other popular movies ! The name of the movie is Khamoshi (pronounced 'Kha + Mow + She'. The word means 'Silence'). 

A young poet (Rajesh Khanna), jilted by a lady, displays signs of paranoia when he suspects that the lady is trying to get him killed. He feels used by the lady whom he loved and who is a professional singer. He is treated by electric shock also! Almost. The doctor assigns a lady nurse (Waheeda Rehman) to cure him  by playing his new lady love. She has expertise in that category, you see, because she has cured another patient earlier (Dharmendra) whom she repeatedly refers to as Dev. Dev has left the hospital after recovery and is now happily married - he was in love with the nurse and the nurse seems to have reciprocated her love. This part of the story is shared with the viewer via flashbacks and a song ('Tum Pukar Lo') ! She is hesitant to take up Rajesh's case initially because she is still suffering from the separation from Dev, the previous patient!! However, she changes her mind after meeting Rajesh....

As the new patient RK recovers and is about to go home, the nurse has a mental breakdown. She confesses to the doctor that she has never 'acted' (like a lover) implying that she really fell in love with the two patients. She is left alone to suffer silently as each patient leaves the hospital. She becomes a  patient in the same hospital where she once cured other patients !!

The Imitation Game :- The Turing Machine.

 I have not heard so much 'British' since I first watched 'The Jewel In The Crown' and 'Heat And Dust' several decades ago!

I had heard of 'Turing' when I was a University student; there was a brief mention of the 'Turing' machine in a formal way  as a  scientific idea that led to the invention of modern computers. However, it was quite different from the 'historical' perspective presented in this emotionally charged movie. The story is about five young people who are hired by British government to decode German encrypted messages which will help Britain save millions of lives by pre-empting the German strikes on their ships.The German submarines had destroyed many British ships  including some carrying food. USA was supplying daily rations![The events took place during the World War 2].

The five young chaps are very smart - their expertise ranges from mathematics to solving  crossword puzzles, you see! They argue and insult each other initially about who has the better idea - but one amongst them is the 27 year old math professor named Allan Turing; who is considered a prodigy. His idea was to invent a machine that will help them decode the messages on the same day - there are trillions of ways to  encode the messages using the small typewriter like German machine named Enigma.

Turing faces a lot of opposition from his bosses as he slowly trudges along building the machine. They threaten to fire him and stop his funding. Finally by sheer luck he notices a pattern in the incoming messages , which dramatically reduces the number of ways a message could have been encoded! Now they have a working model of the machine that will help the British decode German messages fast enough to take action.

Turing names his machine 'Christopher' after his friend by that name who had saved his life and sanity when he was nailed below the wood floor by a few of his mischievous school friends during his school days. That might explain why he did not have any friends and appeared so unemotional!

He even saves his love interest's life(played by Kiera Knightly) by asking her to distance herself from him towards the end when his boss issues a warning that she might be charged for high treason for possession of a few German messages in her bag. She was part of the team that helped Turing in building the machine. Turing confesses of being a homosexual in his younger days when the British law treated homosexuality as a crime. He compromises by accepting psychiatric treatment instead and becomes a sick person. Turing died at the age of 42. [In reality, Turing made many contributions to the field of Computer Science after the Enigma project that led to the building of Modern computers. Can you imagine a world where there were no computers !?]

All the actors play their roles expertly generating appropriate amount  of drama and emotions. The real Turing does not appear as handsome and entertaining in his photographs!

 

Yahee Hai Zindagi (=This indeed is Life !) Can the poor afford Karma ?

  Category : Religious Bollywood! Humor.

Synopsis:

     What would you ask God if he appeared before you unexpectedly ? Will you ask whether he knows anything about real life on earth ? Ask him to explain why some suffer thru poverty while others lead a life of luxury! Ask him if he ever pulled a Rikshaw or ground spices with hand ? Has he missed sleep while worrying over how he will pay his son's school fee and how will he arrange his daughter's marriage without any savings ?? Of course, you being so polite would offer Krishna a cup of chai and a laddu while Krishna pondered over your queries !!

These are the questions that Anand (Sanjeev Kumar), a poor cook in a small Indian restaurant,  asks Lord Krishna as he appears before Anand unexpectedly. You see, Anand does not believe in luck and God's grace vagera and boasts that whatever he has achieved and will achieve is because of his own hard work and Krishna/God has nothing to do with it !

There is one more question Anand asks - why is Krishna visiting a poor man's hut in the middle of night especially when that poor man does not have much faith in God!! Krishna replies that he is appearing before Anand because Krishna wants his money back !!!! Anand had stolen the small amount of money his wife had kept aside for temple donation. Anand tell Krishna "why do you care ! It is the money I earned and so it is mine anyway !"

Anand tells Krishna " if I had money, I would give my kids the best education and the best food and a mansion...". Krishna asks Anand whether money will give him happiness because Anand is going to have lots of it soon. Krishna also mentions that he will need a commission to make that happen!! Anand agrees!!

Soon Anand wins 10k and buys the restaurant where he worked and and slowly becomes rich and  a little later he buys a chain of hotel. Now he has everything he had once desired . But the villains are hiding around the corner - the villainous old restaurant owner, who had grudge against Anand,  drives a wedge between his son and Anand; his daughter has an affair and gets pregnant before marriage which is a big problem in conservative India because the family will be ostracized. Gone are the dinners that the family joyfully enjoyed together when they were not rich. Anand and his family are afflicted with all the evils that haunt the 'rich' in India. 

Meanwhile, Krishna appears just at the right time to irritate as well as teach Anand, who assumes Krishna is there to collect his commission! As Anand boasts that he is setting up hotels in every major country in the world and even Krishna cannot stop that, Krishna advises him that he should not let the horses of Greed lead his mind astray but use the leash of self control guide them !!

The stress created by his family and the business affects Anand to such an extent that he becomes ill with diabetes, blood pressure etc. Now he is a broken man with only his wife by his side. Krishna appears one last time to tease Anand ! Krishna offers Anand rice pudding but Anand refuses because of his diabetes ! Krishna then asks him the names of his medications and Anand recites the names like a parrot "arithro mycin " "terra mycin"....and Krishna repeats, with a twinkle in his eyes, "arithro mysin , terra mysin..." . You see, Krishna in his own inimitable way is teaching Anand that every human being has to pay the price of his past bad Karmas ('my sins' / misdeeds) from this and previous lives! 

Anand thru his entire journey from poor to a rich man had not forgotten his poor friends and helped them financially whenever they asked. Krishna informs Anand that that was his commission and vanishes into the mirror...Anand tries to return to his previous life with his wife by handing over the keys to the mansion and his business to his sons but they are repentant and express their helplessness in handling the complexity involved.... 

GHOST : loving with the dead !

 The movie 'Ghost' is not 'Poltergeist' nor is it 'The Omen' and not even 'Casper'. It is about love and romance that transcend death. I remember watching this movie more than 25 years ago. I watched the last half of the movie again couple of days back on an obscure TV channel.

Patrick Swayze is the hero and Demi Moore, sporting a boyish haircut and looks(which reminds me of college students from New Delhi) is the heroine. Patrick continues to solidify his romantic image after the success of Dirty Dancing. There is great chemistry between the two on the screen. In this movie, the hero's life is cut short when he is abruptly murdered by the villain over money matters !! However, our heroine does not know that. And it is left to Patrick's character, now a ghost, to warn the heroine that her life is in danger as well!! He manages to find a psychic, well played by Whoopi Goldberg, who will act as a medium and help him communicate with the heroine. Hyper active Whoopi manages to do just that with  the ghost Patrick's help by showing a few miracles to convince the heroine that Patrick is still with her!! After that, he seeks vengeance from the villain who is finally killed and so the villain's ghost joins Patrick's ghost in after life!! 

The special effects are still impressive, as we are shown the evil villain and his cohorts being pulled away by dark and scary shadows while many blue shadowy figures wait for Patrick as he walks into the heavenly light!! 

The only other movie that handles the life after death scenario and communication between the living and the dead with such seriousness and in such detail is Shyamalan's 'The Sixth Sense'. The two movies must have given a big boost to the psychic profession. Many people believe in such stories as if these are true....

The Pink Panther - 2.75 UMBRRJERS!

The Pink Panther is at it again. In the movie by this name, Steve Martin inherits the role from the late British actor Peter Sellers who had defined the acting style of the bumbling unapologetic French detectiveClouseau. Can Steve Martin fit the role ? He had shown us a glimpse of how he can switch to the silly idiotiic style in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels . He has  beautifully painted  Beyonce for company. Anyway, the movie is an American production so why not!! By reviewing this movie I am probably reviewing the entire franchise !!

Inspector Clouseau cannot restrain himself from destroying  vases, curtains and other expensive property because he sees villains hidden everywhere. That leads to many hilarious situations in the movie. He even manages to break a leg or two!! It takes lot of patience to work with  Clouseau as you can see from the frustration written on the  faces of his co-workers. However, in the end, the immaculately dressed Clouseau wins by accidentally discovering the location of the Pink Panther diamond and thus saving the reputation of France!! 

My favorite scenes are the scene where  an American coach tries to repair his accent and the farting scene in the Sound proof recording studio where Beyonce is recording a song. Does that remind you of someone you know !?

City Of Joy : Penance in Calcutta....

An American doctor's ( Patrick  Swayze) conscience sends him to  Mother Teresa's Calcutta when he has a nervous breakdown after his efforts to save a young patient fails. On the other side of the world, a very poor family (Om Puri, Shabana Azmi) arrives in Calcutta from a small village to make a living. There their lives intertwine when they meet in a slum.

It is heartbreaking to see the families meager savings being stolen by a con, as they try to find a place to stay. An American nurse and the doctor try to help the family. The father of the poor family becomes a Rickshaw puller to make a living;  such is life of the uneducated, you see! Om plays the Rickshaw puller with such authenticity, that he manages to evoke sympathy at the plight of the poor, who survive by doing physical labor inspite of their  poor diet.
Besides poverty, the other villain is the slumlord and his villainous son who want a cut of the Rickshaw puller meagre earnings. The two resort to physical violence when the poor cannot afford to pay them.
It is remarkable that a movie director from the West (Joffe) manages to recreate the lives of slum dwellers in Calcutta. While Indian actors , Om Puri and Shabana Azmi excel, Patrick is remarkably comfortable among the slum dwellers!!