DOSTANA - mainstream Bollywood tackles homophobia

DOSTANA is being touted as a breakthrough Bollywood movie but I think it's absolutely typical in its slippery depiction of modern sexuality. After all, Bollywood cinema delights in showing us waxed and bronzed men and women, scimpily clad, gyrating provocatively. But god forbid you actually show two people kissing!

DOSTANA takes this paradoxical attitude to modern sexuality and applies it to gay relationships. So, on one hand, this is a brave movie. It's telling Indian parents not to be so judgmental that their kids are forced to stay in the closet. Surely, loving parents should want an honest and open relationship with their children? But on the other hand, this is a movie that still wants to make money and can't afford to offend its conservative audience. As a result, the two gay characters are, in fact, only faking it. And faking it in such a crass manner that it makes Robin Williams' performance in BIRDCAGE look restrained. The message seems to be: yes, it's fine to be gay, but just so you know, I'm most definitely NOT GAY! In a Western movie - such as I PRONOUNCE YOU CHUCK AND LARRY - I would excoriate the hypocrisy and cowardice of the film-makers. But given that this is Hindi cinema I can only give thanks that we are finally inching toward maturity.

So, back to the nuts and bolts. DOSTANA is a movie about young single Indians living in Miami and enjoying a measure of freedom that they wouldn't enjoy at home. Kunal (John Abraham) and Sameer (Abhishek Bachchan) pretend to be gay so that they can share an apartment with Neha (Priyanka Chopra) whose conservative aunt won't allow co-habitation with straight single men. Problems arise when Sam's mother thinks he really IS gay and both guys realise that they are in love with Neha and try to ruin her incipient romance with her boss Abhi (Bobby Deol). The situations are resolved thanks to lots of typical Bollywood broad humour, farcical mix-ups, glycerine tears and ludicrously opulent romantic gestures.

Despite the fact that this movie is written and directed by Tarun Manusukhani, the movie has the look, feel and self-referential narcissism of your typical Karan Johar film. It's all lush location shots, designer clothes, over-styled actors and ludicrous over-acting. Having said that, in embracing his camp sensibility, Johar has finally found a narrative that suits his style and the result is highly entertaining. Let's face it, Priyanka is just a clothes-horse, and John Abraham is just there to flash his well-oiled pecs, but Abhishek Bachchan turns out to be very gifted at physical comedy, carrying the movie until the mid-way mark when Kiron Kher and Boman Irani show up. Irani is a scene stealer as flamboyantly gay magazine editor M - like a Hindi Mugatu for all you ZOOLANDER fans! - and Kiron Kher, as Sameer's devestated mother, has by far the best musical number in the movie, beautifully spoofing her performance in DEVDAS. Admittely, the movie starts to flag when we get into a tortously drawn out denouement, but at least it ends on a high with the dance number "Desi girl" and the first mainstream Bollywood gay (or at least man-on-man) kiss.

DOSTANA went on global release on November 14th.

FANAA - bipolar Bollywood

FANAA is a film that follows the conventions of Bollywood to its own undoing. The first half is a typical sugary romance. Kajol plays a blind tourist called Zooni who falls in love with Aamir Khan's plain-talking tour guide, Rehan. It's a typical Hindi love story complete with songs, dancing and the obligatory rain-soaked love scene. It's all very conventional and even Kajol's innate charm can't rescue piss-poor songs like Des Rangila. Naturally, having fallen in love, Zooni regains her sight miraculously - a jump-the-shark moment if ever there was one.

After the interval, FANAA turns into a completely different film. It turns out that Rehan is actually a terrorist on the run from the police. He abandons Zooni and their unborn child only to resurface years later, by which time the movie has turned into a cross between SOMERSBY and a snow-bound thriller. It's all deeply unedifying and a waste of everyone's time. It's also totally unsurprising that the woman who penned this implausible drivel was also behind the tedious weepy, KABHI ALVIDA NA KEHNA.

If I have to look for a plus side, I guess I could make the dull point that all Bollywood films tends to look fabulous these days. After years of shite production values, the cinematography and special effects are of Hollywood standards. Shame about the content. Director Kunal Kohli is nothing without a good script: his previous hit HUM TUM must have been down to good chemistry between the leads.

FANAA was released in May 2006 and is available on DVD.

RANG DE BASANTI - a noble failure

RANG DE BASANTI is a brave and noble failure. Why brave? Because it is a Bollywood film that eschews materialistic escapism for a substantive discussion of contemporary Indian society. The film focuses on a bunch of University students in Delhi. They are part of the "new India" of middle-class affluence, IIT graduates and swankly jobs in MNCs. Apart from one of the group who is an Indian airforce pilot, the rest regard India as a "shit-hole", riddled by poverty, corruption and unemployment. What is shocking to a western eye is their nihilism: all they want is to graduate and leave the country and in the mean time get pissed and ride around on cool motorcycles. I have no idea whether this attitude really does reflect the thinking of India's metropolitan youth, but if so, it's a sad look-out for India.

This is presumably the thinking of writer-director Rakesh Omprakash Mehra. Into this mix he throws a young Britsh girl called Sue - a documentary-maker who has walked out of her job because she wants to make a film about something other than Gandhi. She goes to Delhi to produce an independent movie about Bhagat Singh - a legendary Indian freedom-fighter who died at the hands of the Raj. Initially she can't engage the Indian kids - they find that Bhagat Singh and his ilk have no relevance to their lives, and while they agree to act in her film it's basically because the gang-leader fancies her. Naturally, this being a three-hour Bollywood epic, being part of the movie awakens the kids political consciousness.

Now, I am all in favour of a Bollywood movie that tackles issues of contemporary Indian life head-on. But I can see why RANG DE BASANTI would ruffle feathers. It seems rather insulting that India's political conscience can only be awakened by an English woman - but perhaps that's what the director was aiming for. After all, the tone of the first hour of the film is rather dismissive of the crass materialism of metro kids.

But the bigger issue with RANG DE BASANTI is not that it advocates political engagement but the precise kind of political engagement that it advocates. In the final hour of the flick it becomes an altogether darker, more violent film, advocating short-circuiting established political systems for direct action of the most violent kind. I found this utterly alienating as a message and as depressing as the nihilism of the first half of the film.

Substance aside, RANG DE BASANTI has other problems. While condemning materialism on the one hand, the movie is photographed like a glossy commercial for a MNC - unsurprising given the director's experience. The actors are largely mis-cast. The English actress (daughter of Fat Pang) playing the English documentary-maker has made a valiant attempt to learn Hindi but has a hopeless accent. Similarly, Aamir Khan (LAGAAN, THE BALLAD OF MANGAL PANDEY) who plays the lead male role, is at least ten years too old for the role, and struggles with his Punjabi accent too.

RANG DE BASANTI was released in January 2006 and is now available on DVD. It is India's official entry for the Best Foreign Film category at the Oscars this year.

KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA/NEVER SAY GOODBYE - Crass Bollywood melodrama

Man. I thought I was bored watching MIAMI VICE. If you choose to disregard my advice (rant) and see this movie you will get very little change from four hours. Of course, long isn't bad all on its own. THE SORROW AND THE PITY is one of the films I admire most and it clocks in at well over four hours. But why take four hours to say something that could easily be said in the regular ninety minutes?

The plot is insultingly simple and I'm going to go ahead and tell you what it is. Don't worry, this doesn't constitute a spoiler. There is barely any plot to spoil and what does happen can be seen half an hour before it actually happens. So, we are in contemporary New York and there is an embittered ex-pro soccer player* called Dev (Shah Rukh Khan) whose career ended after an injury. He resents his high-earning wife, Rhea (Preity Zinta) and is abusive to his young son. Also in New York there is a barren primary school teacher called Maya (Rani Mukherji) who has married a man, Rishi (Abishek Bachchan) who loves her and settled for cotentment rather than love. They are sexually incompatible. An hour into the movie, Maya and Dev start hanging out and half an hour later they declare their love for each other. Then there is an intermission. After the intermission, Maya and Dev sleep with each other. Then they confess to their other halves who kick them out of their respective houses. Three years later (an hour and a half in movie time but it really does seem like three years) the other halves have moved on and found new loves. But Maya and Dev are alone and miserable because for some odd reason they didn't tell each other that they had been dumped. Rishi and Rhea tell Maya and Dev to get it together (such magnanimity!) and they do. The End.

Like I said, the plot is simple and does not need four hours. We have writer/director Karan Johar to thank for it. Karan Johar is a supreme hack with delusions of profundity. He wants to tell us that the only foundation for a successful marriage is love. Hmmm. Thanks for that, Mr. Johar, but I'm seriously not going to take any advice on adult relationships from a man who writes "I love you, mom" on a credit at the start of his film. And yes, I know that the concept of sanctioned marital infidelity is a novelty in mainstream Bollywood cinema, but KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA is hardly an adult, insightful treatment of this theme. For all its pretensions, this movie is not remotely in the same league as PAGE THREE or SILSILA. I mean, come on, how can you tackle marital infidelity when you haven't got the balls to show two adults so much as kissing on screen?

So this movie sucks. The script and directing are superficial and hammy and Karan Johar cannot do discreet or subdued. Everything is egregious to the point where you want to vomit. At the key "declaration of love" scene between Maya and Dev, he says to her, tearfully: "I'll buy a blue car. I like blue. You like blue..?" She replies, tearfully, "I like blue!" (Audience laughs maniacally.) Everyone on the train platform is now miraculously wearing blue. And now Maya and Dev are wearing blue. I had this compulsion to do an Alan Patridge and keep shouting "A-ha!"

The over the top camera work and production design continue throughout. Someone should tell the photographer that he can use shots other than tight close-ups. Someone should tell the production designer that real houses don't look like pictures from the Heal's home catalogue. Real women don't wear fake eyelashes and hot curlers every day. And they don't go out in the rain without an umbrella. Someone should tell Karan Johar that great directors don't use Manhattan city scape as a vapid picture-postcard, but capture the energy and spirit of the city. They should also tell him that Burberry and Louis Vuitton aren't aspirational but chav. And while they're at it, they should point out just how crass it is to have a couple about to embark on adultery singing to each other as they walk up the aisle of a Catholic church making the sign of the cross.

In fairness, KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA is delivered by a competent but hamstrung cast. That is, with the exception of lead actor Shah Rukh Khan. Khan's apparent desire to be David Beckham and/or an MTV star is induldged to the hilt and his "acting" is absurdly over the top.

All in all, KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA feels like a delusional attempt at profundity from a director best known for creating crappy, melodramatic B movies. It is the most expensive Bollywood movie ever made, apparently, and that will guarantee it some publicity. Maybe it will have a large box office taking. Frankly, the whole exercise looks like a shameless cash-in. Why else would Johar give small cameos to stars such as Kajol, Arjun Rampal and John Abraham if not to lure in their respective fan-bases? Oh yeah, and the music sucks. The dance numbers are derivative and sound like shitty Euro-house with the odd tabla beat and Hindi lyrics.

KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA is on release in India, the US, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia. *I know, I fell off my seat laughing at that one, too.