DEOOL (Marathi; 2011)

When abzee initially recommended that we go see Deool, I kept my hopes modest, and for one reason above all others. At least based on my experience with Indian films, we don’t seem to do political films – that is to say, films set in the world of politics and politicking – very well. Even otherwise celebrated directors have faltered (I’d pick the Gulzar of Mausam over the director of Aandhi any day of the week), when they aren’t busy falling flat on their face (Prakash Jha in Rajneeti is a good example), or using it as a vehicle for masala entertainment, where politicians can simply be one kind of villain.

There are several reasons for this failure, but a common thread runs through these films, be they “high-brow” (Gulzar’s Hu Tu Tu); low-brow (Shankar’s Nayak/Muthalvan); chauvinistic (Avdhoot Gupre’s Jhenda); or just plain pretentious and awful (Madhur Bhandarkar’s Satta): in virtually all of them, the purpose of the film is to pander to our prejudices about politics. These films never tell us anything new about ourselves, about the milieu that enables the politicians we all love to berate, because the films are so busy regurgitating what we already know about our leaders. Worse still, many of these films demand the mantle of courage as well (for “exposing” that which no-one has been able to hide to begin with), further confirming the audience in its own complacency.[Mani Rathnam's sublime Iruvar is indeed very special, but what makes it so is not its engagement with politics or ideology, so much as its representation of cinema, memory, and a friendship sundered by politics -- a Tamil archive, but not an archive of Tamil politics.]

Umesh Kulkarni’s Deool ("temple" in Marathi) has no such problem, and is, to put it simply, the finest Indian film set in the world of politics that I have ever seen. It is so, in the first instance, because “the world of politics” is nothing separate and apart from our world, and is not inhabited by caricatures and gangsters worlds removed from the “us” of the audience. Rather, Kulkarni’s film is acute – and acerbic – enough to appreciate the ways in which our reality (our poverty or prosperity; our venality; our religiosity; and our commerce) is already political.

This is certainly true of the village where nearly all of Deool is set: early on in the film, the modest farmer Kesha (Girish Kulkarni, who also wrote the script) tracks down a runaway cow near a ficus tree; worn down by the heat, Kesha goes off to sleep, only to be woken by a vision of Lord Dattatreya (a tripartite deity combining Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva especially popular in the Deccan and Gujarat). Kesha is wonder-struck, and goes around shouting about what he has experienced to the entire village. No-one takes the simple farmer seriously at first – his own mother and much of the rest of the village can barely stir from the TV (the film has several disturbing visuals of people reduced to zombies before their televisions); and Bhauji Gadande (Nana Patekar), the seasoned local politician who owns the runaway cow, is more interested in worthy practical pursuits, like ensuring the village do-gooder Anna (Dilip Prabhavalkar) gets a hospital built. At first. But very soon, Bhauji is at risk of being undermined by the most ambitious of his own men, who see in Kesha’s vision an opportunity, not just for themselves but also for the village (to be fair to them, they might even believe in the vision, as Bhauji’s wife Vahini (Sonali Kulkarni) does); and Bhauji survives the challenge by coopting their enthusiasm; succumbing to pressure from his boss, the local MLA (Mohan Agashe); and embracing popular opinion in the village, coming out in favor of a temple at the now-sacred site. The unnamed political party Bhau and the MLA belong to has not, we were told earlier, hitherto been trafficking in religion. That changes rapidly: a temple is built, and before long the village is transformed into a bustling commercial center, with religion the chief commodity for sale.

The villagers we have been introduced to over the course of the film have all become much wealthier when we see them after the film's intermission, as have the political players. There is no suggestion that any of this wealth has been illegally gained, but Kulkarni is clear that it is ill-gotten, based on the merchandising and consumption of religion (a sequence featuring customers who want bhajans to the tune of the latest Bollywood hits is especially funny). Who’s to complain, if no one is harmed? Here and there, however, we see glimpses of warped priorities, of hospitals not built as land is developed for hotels and entertainment centers. Anna, and in time Kesha, appreciate that the village, more importantly the village’s god, have lost their soul.

If the above makes Deool sound crude and preachy, it does this magnificent film a grave injustice. The Kulkarni brothers are nuanced, even at their most explicit: the final meeting between Bhau and Anna, when the former reminds the Samaritan of how miserable the old days were for the village, is a case in point. In the beginning, Bhau reminds Anna (and us), he wasn’t in favor of this sort of thing. But a few compromises aren’t so bad if they mean electricity, better roads, and greater prosperity. Bhau with his compromises cannot be the hero of this film, but there is chastisement here for Anna too: the sort of man who will do anything rather than get his hands dirty, the village has passed him by, and he has abdicated his responsibility to try and make a difference in the life of his village. From that point on, it is up to the disillusioned Kesha to try something desperate, inspired by a stranger (Naseeruddin Shah) who might or might not be god himself. This isn’t the sort of film where the end means victory: the status quo is jolted, adjusts, and continues.

If Mangesh Khadke’s score had consisted solely of the background to the opening credits, it would nevertheless have been one of the year’s better pieces of film music for me. But there’s more: a soulful, throaty bhajan; and excellent background music throughout the film; not to mention a sleazy item number that gleefully wallows in mediocrity, ramming home the manufactured tawdriness that is about to replace the intimacy of one man’s religious devotion. I could have done without the repetitive “Dutta Dutta” track (with its obvious lyrics) accompanying visuals of devotees performing the pilgrimage, but it is a minor blemish in a very good album.

The acting in Deool is of a uniformly high standard, and just about everyone plays a part in vividly etching the characters to life: Nana Patekar was no surprise, but it must count as an achievement to steer clear of caricature when essaying the role of a politician; Sonali Kulkarni is also superb as his wife, skeptical of her husband’s religious skepticism, and used to lording it over those around her by virtue of her husband’s position (I do wish the script gave her more to do in the film’s second half, although the one scene of her as hostess, in a much spruced up home, to a number of guests eager for the Dattatreya darshan, is very well done). Bhau’s boisterous, loutish underlings are all memorable, effortlessly drawing laughter from the audience (in a notable scene, a casually venal schoolteacher boasts that he has been able to get donations for the temple by threatening to fail his students). As is the initially diffident sarpanch: when we first see her, presumably a beneficiary of reservations for women (and perhaps for “backward” castes?) at the panchayat level, she’s a quavering mess, taking a back seat to Bhau and Vahini – over time, we see her grow in confidence and stature. No dialog announces this – Kulkarni’s modus operandi is to show the audience – and a stance here, a gesture there, complicate the picture: she might well have been a beneficiary of a quota system, but even quotas can help complicate and disturb established power structures.

For me, the most memorable character of all was the landscape: harsh, desolate, and beautiful; and never more so than in the film’s closing sequences. As cinematographer Sudhakar Reddy’s camera follows Kesha through cliffs, caverns, and ending at the sea, the Deccan landscape seems timeless, underscoring (as did the isolated village setting, and even the virtuoso “sand art” performance that accompanies the opening credits) that the Kulkarnis’ classic is a modern-day fable – but also, more darkly, that one man might be (as Anna tells Kesha) no more than a freckle in the cosmos. A freckle, not a speck – because man leaves a trace. Deool fittingly opens with an archaeological dig, and periodically returns to the site: surveying the village’s landscape by film’s end, one is tempted to ask the same question that, as Anna tells Kesha, propels archaeology: centuries later, what will they make of us from our debris?

ROCKSTAR (Hindi; 2011)

Early on in Rockstar, Khatana (Kumud Mishra), the resident sage of Delhi University's Hindu College's canteen, pooh poohs the musical ambitions of Janardhan Jakhar (Ranbir Kapoor): for Khatana, art is borne of suffering, and sorrow in turn of love and a broken heart. The callow Janardhan (who will in time be re-christened "Jordan") promptly decides to fall in love with the next pretty girl he sees, with an artificiality the film knows better than to take seriously. I found myself chuckling at these scenes, reading in them director Imtiaz Ali's send-up of a bourgeois misreading of Romanticism in the arts.

I was wrong: Imtiaz Ali was dead serious. His Jordan really can become, not only a musical success but even a genuine musical talent, only once he has loved and lost Heer (Nargis Fakhri). Not a trace of irony may be discerned here, and the result -- a "rockstar" who might see "Free Tibet" signs at his concerts, but whose military fatigues and lyrics about "Sadda Haq" cannot hide the fact that there is no cause, no politics, nor even any social awareness here but a highly personal loss. Nor is there any of the sex and drugs one might expect: Jordan barely drinks (and is expressly a teetotaler until he no longer has Heer). While the latter might seem like a minor point, both of these underscore just how safe Imtiaz Ali wants to play things (perhaps he, like most others of his directorial generation in Bollywood, simply knows no other way; certainly every other film Ali has made has been utterly conformist, and Rockstar is, in the final analysis, no exception for the most part.)* The story arc sounds epic enough -- struggling musician falls in love; loses the woman in his life by way of her marriage to another man; becomes a celebrity; finds her again before losing her for good; and continues with a tortured and guilt-ridden career -- but its execution, heavily weighted as it is in favor of the love story, left me confused as to whether Ali had made a film on the proverbial rock star, or whether this was a love story where one of the protagonists simply happened to be a popular singer. Imtiaz Ali has clearly lived with this script and this character for a long time -- perhaps far too long: it bears all the hallmarks of adolescence, the sort of film one gets into the film industry in order to make. It shows in the film's "rock" backdrop, more reminiscent of a youngster's investment in icons like Jim Morrisson and Led Zeppelin, than of the wider relevance of that sort of figure in the Indian landscape; in how Heer seems to be a boy's fantasy given form, given her reveling delight in all things bawdy (ranging from skin flicks to strip clubs); and in how indulgent Rockstar is: it is much looser than Ali's other films; the second half feels especially long, and is quite tedious (several people in the Andheri theater I saw the film at were audibly impatient by the end).

Perhaps the film seems so long because of Nargis Fakhri: her acting is so wretched, so abominable in just about every scene, you have to wonder what Imtiaz Ali was thinking by casting a performer this weak as half of his lead pair, in a film that is more a love story than anything else. Fine performances by the likes of the reliably excellent Piyush Mishra (playing a hard-nosed music producer; for those unfamiliar with his work, the scene where he exploits Jordan's need by snapping "mein tujh se bade kuttay paper sign karvaaonga" should suffice) and Shernaz Patel (who plays Heer's mother) cannot make up for it, and it's no use criticizing the actress -- the blame lies squarely with the director, for offering her the role in the first place.

But goddammit, there is a lot I can forgive this film: while intellectually conformist, Rockstar, like Dum Maaro Dum earlier this year, hearkens back to a time when big films could nevertheless be made with passion (not assembled in the way far too many contemporary Hollywood and Bollywood films are). In these times, a film that demands a little bit from its audience, both in the form of sustained attention and the possibility of (gasp!) a Sad Ending, might without more be considered risky. On that front, Rockstar is a world removed from the sort of banality that far too many of Ali's peers churn out: simply put, there is some cost to watching this film. And even if it is less than the sum of its parts, it has some superb parts: the Delhi ambience early on in the film; very brief Bombay sequences much later on; and the most striking Kashmir I have ever seen on film (a cheap nod to Ranbir's genealogy in the form of a reprise of a Shammi Kapoor song notwithstanding). [Ali falters badly in Prague, which could be, as he;s filmed it, anywhere in Europe -- an unpardonable sin where this city is concerned.]

And then there's the music. Not just A.R. Rahman's songs, nor even his background score, but the way Ali has used it in this film: so seamlessly has the music been integrated into the film -- heck it is almost the very texture of the film -- that I would be hard-pressed to pick a high-point: as Mani Rathnam first did with Rahman's music in Guru (2007) (in particular, with the "Ae Hairath-e-Aashiqui" song); and later Rakeysh Mehra (albeit less adroitly) managed in Delhi-6 (2009) (the omission of most of the sublime "Rehna Tu" still smarts), Ali treats Rahman's album as a collection of musical motifs for the most part, and pieces of different songs float in and out, leaving me both incomplete and spellbound -- in this, the music tracks the films chronology (featuring flashbacks within flashbacks, including non-linear ones!), and makes the film. Not since Rang de Basanti (2006) has a major Hindi film been so unimaginable without its music -- and while I still maintain Rahman's album is hardly a rock album, I found myself caring not a whit. Not when "Hawaa Hawaa" easily transcends its origins in Guru's "Maiyya Maiyya" and bewitches the audience; or when "Kun Faya Kun" is given form in and around Nizamuddin (replete with appearances by the shrine's Nizami qawwals): the dargah has featured in many a Hindi film, but never so vividly, in as magical a manner, as here, where it is literally the site of Jordan's awakening. Even on "Nadaan Parindey", where the over-the-top trailer (that is, the video's incongruity with the lyrics) had given me grave misgivings, it all made sense in the film. Not the best musical moment in Rockstar, but perhaps it couldn't be: by then Jakhar is Jordan Inc., the singer's troubled life and controversies simply fodder for the manufacture of his own celebrity.

I'm nearly at the end of this piece, and if I haven't said anything about Ranbir Kapoor's performance yet, it's because there isn't much to say. Beyond that he is superb here, in easily the role of his young career (indeed, he might well go years without getting another opportunity like this one). Prior to Rockstar, I'd never found Ranbir less than competent; but equally, I'd generally found him too groomed, too safe to really surprise the audience. And while there is some of that here (I found his portrayal of the young Janardhan in college condescending, and somewhat implausible -- more a representation of some imagined middle-class boy from Pitampura than Janardhan Jakhar), there is no denying that he really comes into his own once he is kicked out of the family home, rising above the inconsistent characterization the script saddles him with to weave in real nuance and impact. We see Jordan go from epiphanic acolyte at the dargah -- the scenes where he takes a back seat to the qawwals in the singing parties are masterpieces of understatement -- to hack singer at private parties, combining earnestness and disinterest, to bona fide celebrity, to tormented star, and you really feel the change in circumstance, the fact that this character has come a long way. Even in the romantic segments later on in the film, Ranbir manages to make the done-to-death sequences more than watchable; given my limited patience with this Bollywood genre, that's saying something. And then there are all those scenes of the man singing. If, like me, you've been irritated at how unconvincing most actors seem while playing other artists, look no further: I kept forgetting that the man on the screen in "Sadda Haq", every sinew into the song, was simply lip-syncing for Mohit Chauhan's voice. It might not seem like much, but the conviction and variety he brought to these sequences, were integral to his role's -- and the film's -- plausibility. Rockstar isn't a great film, and Jordan isn't an especially well-etched character, but Ranbir doesn't let you see any daylight between him and his avatar once Janardhan Jakhar is out of the way: you suspend disbelief, and stay till the end.

*[But not completely: Ali deserves credit for the fact that this is perhaps the first popular Hindi film I have seen where a woman cheats on her husband, and is nevertheless dealt with as a sympathetic character. The film's final twist is similarly unconventional, inasmuch as it, while quickly buried, does not reflect Jordan in a good light.]

7 Aum Arivu and The Degradation of the Dravidian Movement

Ordinarily, there wouldn't be much to write about 7 Aum Arivu, the latest Surya starrer by Murugadoss (of Ghajini fame): it's a shoddy and thoroughly mediocre masala movie, a promising first twenty minutes -- set in ancient India and China, and tracking the legends surrounding the monk Bodhidharman's founding of the Shao Lin order (now world famous for its Kung Fu martial arts) -- undone by the routine beat 'em up that follows, as the film tracks Bodhidharman's 21st century descendant through his efforts to foil a Chinese bio-terror plot targeting India. Unfortunately, that isn't all there is to it. 7 Aum Arivu, produced by the son of DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi (Stalin), is also an unwitting showcase for the Dravidian movement's degeneration; or rather, of the movement's reduction to its most problematic aspects, and to empty gestures that try to mask its contemporary hollowness with bombast.

7 Aum Arivu isn't just marred by its naked anti-Chinese jingoism (a jingoism that testifies to nothing so much as to a pervasive feeling of inferiority on the part of many in India's bourgeoisie with respect to its gigantic, and economically far more successful, neighbor; as well as to a clandestine envy of the authoritarianism that characterizes the People's Republic); it goes further, and tries to graft this xenophobia onto the gestures of the Dravidian movement, perhaps trying to update the latter even as the politicians and ideologies clamoring about it have long since emptied it of almost everything other than ethnic chauvinism. Thus, in the finest fascist traditions, Tamil identity in this film is about Tamil blood, about the genes as it were -- so much so that Bodhidharman's contemporary descendant doesn't need to learn anything, undergo any training, in order to become like his super-powered ancestor. He simply needs to be made aware of his (biological) heritage (more accurately, a cultural heritage that is simply a biological inheritance); that awareness, married to modern scientific wizardry, suffices to make him a new Bodhidharman. This isn't mere symbolism: time and again, characters in the film (most notably the young scientist played by Shruti Haasan) announce it too. The message is dinned into our heads: it is blood that matters, and "our" inheritance has been stolen by others, and used against us (it is typical of this film's dimwitted ethos that it never pauses to reflect on why Bodhidharman himself taught his learning to the inhabitants of a Chinese village; if nothing else, the ancestor seems to have been far less provincial than his contemporary urban descendant). History is nothing more than ethnic chauvinism -- "we" were the first, the best, the most, and some combination of villainy and our own indifference conspires to keep us in chains. It's a fairy story, and even as tales go, a rather stale and not especially insightful tale.

Murugadoss doesn't stop with the rather standard "supremacist" approach common to revivalists and xenophobes the world over. In fits and starts, his script remembers that it needs to be chauvinistic in an especially Dravidian way, and thus we are treated to the specter of Shruti Haasan being mocked by senior professors for speaking in Tamil (a scene so ludicrous and incongruous given the context, it verges on spoof, of the film closing with Surya's character chiding Hinduism for replacing the scientific/rationalist bases of Indian culture with ritual and cult; the true god of Reason obscured by false idols, as it were. This much is standard, lifted from the texts of Periyar and others -- but whatever one thought of Periyar's ideology, it found expression in a context of resistance and revolt (against Brahminical dominance; the social "backwardness" of various castes; and the Sanskritization that implicitly or explicitly held Tamil culture inferior). Today, after four decades of rule by this or that (more or less) Dravidian party in Tamil Nadu, and a movement that has been rather successful in many of its cultural aims (although not at all in Periyar's anti-Hinduism), Murugadoss' gestures seem lazy and stale, and directed at soft targets.

I might have been more forgiving of these gestures if they were more sincere -- but they are utterly cynical. 7 Aum Arivu is a film where Surya deploys blond highlights for much of the film; just about every song is saturated in the imagery and aesthetics of American music videos (Harris Jayaraj's music is also very far from the rootedness of Ilaiyaraja or Rahman at their Tamil best; in fact it is miles from even the popular Tamil music feel of Jayaraj's own Samurai, and is utterly bland, generic, and forgettable); and then there's Shruti Haasan, whose Tamil accent sounds off even to my non-Tamil ear, and whose Bollywoody, manipulated appearance brings to mind the long tradition of Tamil films casting light-skinned North Indian women as heroines. When Shruti Haasan mouths Tamil nationalist dialogs, I didn't even get to taking offense -- I laughed, and I laughed.