UDAAN - The stroy of a caged bird

Udaan portrays a heart touching story of a troubled relationship between a man and his son. It feels good to see many out of the league small to medium budget movies from Bollywood making their way to the screens of the multiplex these days. Udaan falls into that league. It’s a story of a 17 year old boy who gets expelled from his hostel and is forced to live with his estranged father whom he hasn’t met in last eight years. The film depicts the suffering, loneliness, angst and frustration of a young guy who is devoid of love from his single parent and longs to fulfill his career dream of becoming a writer against all odds. After Taare Zameen Par, here is another movie which deals with the problem of kids being burdened and almost suffocated under the pressure of parental expectations. The protagonist of the story, played brilliantly by Rajat Barmecha has to deal with a psycho, tyrant, violent, drunkard and self obsessed father who subjects the hero to physical and mental torture. After returning home, he is shocked to find out that he has got a six years old step brother. A fragile relationship of hatred between 2 immature teenagers turns into a strong bond of sibling love and affection during the course of the movie. The father assumes responsibilities of taking decisions from daily routine activities to career paths of his son. Any kind of resistance from the son is meted out with verbal and physical abuse. He almost treats his both sons as if they are his slaves. The protagonist has got an inborn talent to be a writer and his talent has been showcased at several times in the movie. However, his father makes every effort to prevent him from becoming a writer. Although it is difficult for me to imagine that such a devil-in-disguise father can exist in today’s world, a quick search of Google revealed to me a sad and shocking statistic that almost 35% of children in India suffer from the domestic violence at the hands of their parents. In spite of suffering from similar harsh treatment from his father in his childhood, the father of the protagonist in the movie has been shown to justify and follow the same path of violence in bringing up his kids. I expected the film to reveal the reasons for such behavior; however I could get only few clues about it. The film throws light on a classical problem of today’s middle class urban Indian family. The tremendous money and proportionate effort which parents have to put in to provide high quality of education to their children raises the stakes involved. Every parent expects his kid to excel in the field of academics. He expects his child to become successful in the popular and traditional careers and discourages him from following alternate career paths especially those related to liberal arts and humanity. Coming back to the film, the film has beautifully depicted the rebellion spirit of an adolescent boy who confronts his father many times. Those scenes are quite intense and appealed to my heart. As the story progresses further, few softer shades of the stone hearted father are unfolded in front of the audience. Very much characteristic of a teenager, the hero steals some moments of joy and enjoyment through his escapades out of home at night. He smokes cigarettes and drinks alcohol to distress and relax himself with his newly found friends at a bar. Those lighter moments are respite to the hero and the viewer in this otherwise intense and hard hitting film. The director has resisted himself from the temptation of showing an unrealistic and sudden change of heart at the end resulting into an all happy finish to the movie.
Overall I found the movie to possess a realistic look. The director, Vikramaditya Motwane has made an impressive debut and made a movie which creates a lasting impression on the minds of the viewer. The superb, natural acting by all the actors in the movie, accompanied by an engaging screen play makes it an outstanding movie. The soul stirring music by Amit Trivedi is awesome and in sync with the movie. The songs are according to the situation and help to take the story forward. Although I did not come out of the movie hall humming the songs, I would love to hear them whenever I am in a mood for that kind of music. If you are in a mood to watch a meaningful, heart touching, serious movie, I would recommend you to definitely watch this movie. I bet you won’t be disappointed.

Slumdog Millionaire is awesome !

The heightened interest of westren world in India is manifested by many films made recently by several western and NRI directors with themes based on Indians. Slumdog Millionaire is the latest one in this series. It is based on the book 'Q & A' written by Indian diplomat Vikas Swaroop. Since I have not read the book, I can not comment on whether the director, Danny Boyle has been successful in accurately translating the book into film or which one of the two is better. But Kudos to Danny Boyle for creating an awesome film ! True to his reputation, the film has been directed exceptionally well. It is a story of an impoverished slum youngster, Jamal winning on the tv show 'Who wants to be a Millionaire'. With each question of the quiz, the story takes you to different incidents of his life which have helped him to answer questions correctly. However this extraordinary success on the game show lands Jamal into trouble with suspicions



of cheating in the game. Anyways, some scenes of the film touch your heart and make you realize and appreciate what a struggle it is to live life for such children from slums. But you never feel pity about it and believe in the strength and courage of characters to handle all situations. The film has a fast paced story line and a bit of humour sprinkled in between. The performances of all artists are amazing especially the kids have done a brilliant job. No surprise that the film has won 4 Grammy awards and 10 BAFTA nominations so far !
The other films which I have seen recently include Australia, The man from earth and Taxi driver. On a scale of 1 to 5, I would rate them as 3, 4 and 2 respectively.

Annual perdiction: Movie time

If the first few days of 2009 are any indications of the future and specifically rest of the year, I would say I have become a couch potato (bed potato in my case) watching movies one after the other for endless time. With the economic slowdown, I guess, its natural for a person to indulge in reel world and get rid of tensions of real world. Anyways, my movie watching spree began at the end of 2008 with Ghazini, one of the most awaited and talked about movie of 2008. But the movie did not meet my expectations. I would say its a bad copy of the cult film 'Memento'.
For me it was a long movie with over stretched end with lots of crying and shouting in between. In Memento, the director has been able to turn a nonsensical story line into an extra ordinary fiction with the idea of shooting the film in reverse chronological order. That keeps the viewer engaged till end. However, Ghazini lacks this quality. It seems the director was in a dilemma as to whether he should make a total romantic or an all out action movie. In trying to conjure both, he made a film with distinctive patches of romance and action stitched together. On music front, Rehman disappointed me. Except 2 songs which I am sure will fed away from popular imagination in 3-4 months, rest songs are just ordinary and forgettable.
Next in my list of movies is one more movie shot in reverse chronological order i.e. 'Irreversible'. The dark movie with nerve wrecking scenes of a gruesome killing in the pub and 9 minute long terrible Rape scene shot in a subway, evokes extreme reactions in viewer. It reminded me of Bandit Queen, another disturbing movie. Many scenes here start with wide rotating camera in dimly lit background, triggering dizziness in your head and strain on your eyes. But the film does not loose its intensity till end and grip on viewer's attention. And the end is a pleasure for eyes with full display of perfectly carved out Monica Belucci in her most natural form :p This reminds you that you are watching a french movie after all :)
The best movie which I have seen so far this year is Slumdog Millionaire. I think it deserves a separate post. So bye for now. Will write more on tomorrow. Goodnite...

Movie review: Mere Baap Pehle Aap

I went to see this movie with my friends in aurangabad, just one day before i left for delhi..it turned out to be a fiasco...The movie fails miserably to keep you engaged after 1 hr. At the time of Intermission, you get to know the entire plot and can predict the end. Even that would do, if there was highly humorous, situational and excellent timing comedy on offer. These expectations from Priyadarshan fell flat here. The music is forgettable. Genelia looks good but doesn't know how to act naturally. Every expression of her in the movie is exaggerated one.Her Hindi sucks! The movie tries to portray Akshaye khanna as strict and matured son who tries to discipline his father( Paresh Rawal). However, throughout the movie you get the impression of him being a rude and angry and insensitive son disrespecting his father at his will. Its all boring and disappointing...