BARFI! (2012)

Tired of sweeping shots of the Andheri sky line and the protagonist being all pensive about the mafia on Marine Drive? Don't fret, because Calcutta is now Bollywood's go-to gritty city with its mysterious (but romantic) alleyways, gritty (but romantic) trams and Durga statues. Anurag Basu's latest film, Barfi! takes us to '70s Darjeeling and Calcutta to present day.

A ridiculously gorgeous girl, Shruti (played by Ileana D'Cruz) moves to Darjeeling and meets the eponymous hero, Barfi, who is a charming rake and was born deaf. They promptly fall in love with each other, even though she is engaged to another man.  She decides to marry her betrothed because Barfi's disability frightens her (although, I'd have empathized if her reason had been his total lack of a job, salary and the desire to get one).  In the meanwhile, Barfi is desperately in need of money and abducts the unloved and autistic daughter of the richest man in Darjeeling, Jhilmil, and hopes to ransom her.  

Ranbir Kapoor as Barfi was great and I applaud him for sticking to what he knows best.  He has played the same charming funny honest optimist in nearly every film he's been in. Barfi is also a similar character, except without the talking and he effortlessly glided.  Priyanka Chopra on the other hand was not convincing;  she clearly put some effort into this role but there was something missing.  Someone should've told her that incessant lip-biting and an odd gait don't constitute character development. I was also unable to look past the sexy bombshell persona she normally inhabits and her self-consciousness was palpable.  That said,  she had a couple of good moments like when she starts becoming conscious of her appearance and her sexual awakening.  

Barfi! was no doubt a beautiful film but it just did not impress. Like Priyanka Chopra's performance, it got so many things right because it took every opportunity possible to remind us that it was quirky and touching and ended up feeling gimmicky from overusing motifs. The raconteur-musicians were a great idea, but in this film, they were jarring and unnecessary.  The Charlie Chaplin routine was cute at first but did not belong in the second half of the film and there were just far, far, far too many chases.  I don't know about you, but I am still recuperating from chase sequence fatigue after Gangs of Wasseypur 2.

And all those movie references and homages-- again, they were cute but to what end? The Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton references and Donald O'Connor's iconic "Make 'em Laugh" tribute were all very well made and nostalgic blah-blah but I still don't understand what their purpose was, apart from providing Anurag Basu several opportunities to flaunt his deep knowledge of film.  Now compare Barfi! with Benny and Joon (1993), starring Johnny Depp.  I wont say that the former is a blatant copy of the latter, but the similarities do pile up.  In Benny and Joon, an eccentric, laconic cinephile (Johnny Depp) enters the lives of siblings Benny and Joon. Joon is a schizophrenic and is unable to live without assistance. Charmed by Johnny Depp's eccentric ways,  Joon falls in love with him and they live happily ever after. Guess how Johnny Depp charmed her?  Chaplin/ Keaton tricks. The Chaplin/Keaton sketches fit in because it reinforced Johnny's character's love for film. What was Ranbir Kapoor's reason?  Anurag Basu had a drawer full of cool ideas and he decided to stick them all into the same movie.  At some points it almost felt as if Basu built his film around the quirkiness rather than let them add colour to the story.

Also, was I the only one who got vaguely creeped out by the Barfi-Jhilmil story line? So here we have this grown man, Barfi, who abducts an intellectually disabled woman who has the faculties of a child, keeps her with him (forcibly in the beginning) for months... and then proceeds to marry her. I get that they were going for the whole love-knows-no-boundaries-and-blossoms-everywhere thing  but Stockholm Syndrome much?

But hey, I'm no h8r. Like I said, the movie looked great and it is difficult to detest it. Darjeeling and Calcutta are lovely places and even though Anurag is a bit obsessed with tracking shots, it was all very lush and pretty.  The story was certainly more than a National Association for the Deaf educational video and it did rise above being one of those preachy, the-disabled-are-just-like-us films (I'm looking at you, Taare Zameen Par).  Was it an obvious tear jerker? Yes, but that isn't such a bad thing.  And we really must encourage this new trend of Bollywood leading ladies de-glamourizing themselves for a role.

IN DEFENCE OF TIM BURTON

Many feel that Tim Burton has become a bit of a one-trick pony; that the whimsical genius behind Big Fish (2003), Edward Scissorhands (1990) and Beetlejuice (1988) has been replaced by a hack with a fetish for checks, swirls and Johnny Depp.  More specifically, Johnny Depp wearing white makeup and doing crazy things with Helena Bonham Carter sporting a crazy ‘do.  They also say that Burton’s typical weird world stories of monsters-that-are-misunderstood are becoming a bit of cliche.  They say that slapping on funny wigs and paint on actors with some creepy Danny Elfman music has been done and done and then done again in every single one of his earlier films.  Be it visual imagery or plot progression, we’ve seen it all (they say).

But allow me to make a case for Burton’s films.  Sure, most of them bear common motifs and trademarks, and many of them (Alice in Wonderland (2010), Planet of the Apes (2001)) cannot hope to be rescued by this apology but all his films are not cut from the same cloth, despite what popular opinion may claim.

Burton’s latest film, Dark Shadows (2012) has been accused of all of the above and panned universally.  Dark Shadows is about a rich philanderer, Barnabas Collins who philanders with the wrong girl, a witch named Angelique who curses him to an eternity in a box as a blood-thirsting vampire. He suffers for two centuries of painful solitude when he is accidentally released in the year 1972.  Imagine that.  To have to suffer the hell of isolation and and then to be subjected to hippies and disco.

Barnabas finds that even though they’re a bit low on fortune, his descendants have persisted in the grand old Collins manor.  But so has Angelique and her thirst for revenge.

The so-called Burton cliches of precocious children with a taste for the weird, Depp as an awkward fish-out-of-water fellow, Helena Bonham Carter in a funny wig and monsters with a heart of gold … are only what anti-Burtons see.  I saw one of the silver screen’s few vampires who is troubled by his eternal existence, who really feels the weight of the centuries on his shoulders, who grasps the meaning of “forever” and is terrified by the knowledge.  I saw Depp’s white face paint and anachronism, but I also saw a bloodthirsty creature unable to control itself.  I saw the beautiful Angelique who wasn’t a misunderstood monster… unless that is, you mistook her for someone who plays nice and doesn’t hold grudges. Even her ability to love is so gloriously twisted.  I saw Roger Collins, who uses his son as a lookout while he screws the coat check lady.  Or the quintessential Burton heroine, the sane-insane Victoria, who sees ghosts.  They’re a wonderful menagerie of well-developed characters, but do they make a wonderful story together?  Let’s put it this way: it isn’t the greatest epic story ever told or even Burton’s best film, but with the help of hilarious dialogue, AWESOME ’70s music that is surprisingly appropriate, Depp’s ability to get angsty without getting maudlin and some serious WTF moments, Burton weaves together an amusing Gothic soap opera that treats its characters with respect without taking itself too seriously.  It certainly doesn’t deserve the flak it’s getting.

That’s all very well, you say, but what about those very relevant criticisms levelled by Burton notfans?  To that I must ask you, are those criticisms REALLY criticisms or are Burton’s naysayers behaving like the pitchfork wielding townspeople in a Burton film, who don’t understand that it takes all kinds to make the world?  Yes, it’s a bit meta and I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that we’re all actually characters in a Burton film and our supposed normalcy is the source of much horror and nervous mirth for an audience somewhere… but bear with me.

One does not say that Martin Scorsese is a one trick pony because of his numerous depictions of mafia, women in white dresses and overuse of Robert DeNiro/ Leonardo Dicaprio.  Many directors have this tendency of latching onto an actor and that shouldn’t automatically disqualify Tim Burton from among the most talented directors we have today.  Does anybody think that Raphael was a hack because he regularly milked the ‘soft shadows/ light reflective colours’ cow?   Well, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood thought so, but nobody cares about them.

Artists have trademarks, artists tend to go back to things they have done before, to actors and muses they enjoyed working with, artists are constantly reworking and polishing their craft and yes, often fall back on things that have worked well in the past.  One can’t fault Woody Allen for making awesome, cerebral films about love and marriage and one can’t fault Burton for his desire to drag ogres and all manner of beings from the shadows and onto the silver screen. I mean, he is practically the latter-day J.M. Barrie.  If creaky, uneven stairs get your pulse racing and you are on first name basis with the monsters under your bed, then you will never tire of Burton.   If Edgar Allan Poe had to clamour for attention with  ’Go Jane, Go’, then possibly, you may not enjoy every one of Burton’s films.

Tim Burton has struck his colours and they are checks, spirals, fog and gorgeously warped monsters. If you don’t like it, then by all means follow the direction the bony, moss-covered hand is pointing at: it will lead you out of that creaky door (with a gargoyle for a knob) to the crumbling old, ivy-covered mansion and off the nearest wind-swept, brambly cliff.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON DONE-TO-DEATH TIDES

How can you tell if summer is really here? No, it’s not the heat or that sudden desire to take long vacations. It’s that slew of big-budget, explosion-filled movies where talented actors embarrass themselves to pay for their designer outfits for Cannes. I often hear people say, “Don’t take these masala movies too seriously.” Jerry Bruckheimer for one, is clearly taking that advice to heart.

Pirates of the Caribbean (POTC): The Curse of the Black Pearl was a superb film that reminded us how roguishly charming bad guys are. The characters were fun, the jokes were fresh, the plot was interesting and funny, Jack Sparrow was suave and magic underscored the plot rather than being a deus ex machina. It all rapidly went downhill from there, unfortunately. I mean, there is only so much you can milk out of a ride in Disneyland.

The fourth installment of the POTC series, On Stranger Tides, sees Captain Jack Sparrow searching for his ship, the Black Pearl blah blah evil pirate searching for some magical MacGuffin must be thwarted revenge blah. Sounds familiar? Probably because we’ve seen it three times already. We’ve seen Jack Sparrow duel with someone on rafters, we’ve made the Gibbs-and-pigs connection, we’ve seen Jack’s hilarious escapes from extremely British and comically inept soldiers, we’ve seen Jack do the old climactic switcheroo and yes, we freaking get that pirates drink rum. The trouble with this running gag thing is that, like memes, they have a very short shelf life. The fifteenth in-joke about hats and marooning on islands makes you roll your eyes like when somebody updated their Facebook status about Rebecca Black one hour after it became mainstream.

Very early on, the film makers realised that the POTC movies were simply a vehicle for Jack Sparrow. Which is why I’m puzzled as to why they would so effectively destroy this character. Jack is a slightly unhinged, no-good pirate who is always stealing stuff and searching for immortality and occasionally, he surprises everyone (including himself) by doing something selfless and immediately regrets it, of course. His brilliance lies in his unpredictability and he is not some grand saviour and defender of justice. When Jack Sparrow’s actions can be predicted in the first scene, when you know that he will be selflessly saving a damsel/Orlando Bloom’s life in the climax and when you know that Jack is the Good Guy of the movie (except for destroying the livelihood of a coal seller, who, probably languished in debtor’s prison for the remainder of his days), it is time to bury him and the series.

As for Penelope Cruz’s Angelica, rolling Will Turner and Elizabeth Swan into one character (who wants to kholor her hair) doesn’t help because Jack Sparrow never needed a love interest. Besides, you’d think that two ridiculously attractive people paired together would set the screen on fire, except, Jack and Gibbs had far more chemistry than those two. I also have some trouble understanding her character’s motivations. When a woman who grew up in a convent finds out that her father is one of the most terrifying and evil pirates that ever lived and who regularly performs needlessly cruel acts in front of her knowing very well that it annoys her, it is hard to believe that she is willing to die for him. Then again, one must have some serious daddy issues to sleep with Jack Sparrow.

Now when I enter a movie hall, I hand over my disbelief along with my stray pack of chewing gum. I expect physics to be defied (to a point) and movie logic to tease my temper (to an extent). I don’t even bat an eyelid when a cartload of coal bursts into a flaming inferno because of a stray spark. I nod along in the spirit of the thing when everybody in London believes that Jack is a magistrate because he has a wig on. Who knows, right? Maybe kaajal was a la mode for judges in them yesteryears. But when the entire movie is centred around searching for the Fountain of Eternal Youth and then you find out that it is actually the Fountain of Maximum 4- 8 Decades Of Extra Life, I feel cheated. I also find it hard to believe that an entire species of intelligent life forms never ever wondered why shiploads of men regularly baited them, caught one of them and made them weep using torture. A word of advise for mermaids: instead of behaving like starving sharks, try capturing a man, interrogate him and stop swimming into the same god-damned trap every single time.

I’m willing to throw this film a bone, though: Captain Barbossa daintily drinking rum out of a china teacup was priceless, the banter between Jack and Barbossa hasn’t (yet) grown old and those mermaids were nightmarishly terrifying till they started channelling Spider-man.

You know a series is finished when it takes tips from the Karan Johar School of Film-making (a.k.a. 5000 pointless celebrity cameos). They should have quit while they were at the top (somewhat-ish) and stopped make POTC sequels 3 movies ago. Unfortunately, judging by how much money this movie has already made, we may as well prepare ourselves for POTC 5, starring that horrid monkey and more apathetic shenanigans from the House of Depp.