KAMINEY
Director, Music, Screenplay, Dialogues: Vishal Bhardwaj
Lyrics: Gulzar
*ing: Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra & Gang
Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) is having an argument with her boyfriend Guddu (the good Shahid Kapoor) and demanding he marry her coz she is pregnant (btw Guddu is a social worker who distributes condoms and then ironically forgets to wear one himself). Frustrated he locks himself up in the common community toilet. Sweety come to the door and after knocking on it a couple of times, lets out a secret.
She is the sister of the local don Bhope Bhau.
Guddu emerges, shocked & terrified and yet the thing you notice the most in that important scene is a caption which someone has scribbled on the toilet door.
“Apna Haat Jaganath” (which, if you haven’t got it, is a colloquial paean to masturbation).
With hindi movies usually prone to underlining every bit of dialogue lest you don’t get it, its refreshing to finally get a maker who lets you roam free and decide for yourself what to remember and what to ignore. And this movie is packed with so much going on that sometimes its difficult to even keep up.
However this movie is NOT for everyone and I’m pretty sure many may not even like it.
If your favourite actors are from the Govinda, Fardeen, Tusshar etc gang then this movie is probably not for your taste. Not that there is anything wrong with the actors mentioned above.
Like rich oily Chola- Bhautura and Biryani they are perfectly fine but if your tastes are also attuned towards some things more adventurous and bold like Carpaccio, Escargot and Tarantino (Quentin I mean) then this movie is definitely for you.
One thing is for sure. You cannot watch this movie with your mind on auto pilot.
With movies like Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On!, Luck By Chance (incidentally all by the Akhtar siblings) and Omkara, Bollywood also seems to be finally getting over its obsession of larger than life heroes and heroines. What is known in Hollywood as the Ensemble Cast is finally coming to India.
In Kaminey its not just Shahid-Priyanka who are good but almost every character seems to be in perfect sync with the movie.
Amole Gupte (who was the original director of Taare Zameen Par before being sacked and replaced by Aamir Khan) is great as the radical Bhau (which apparently means brother in Marathi but can, if repeated, also sound uncannily like a dog’s bark).
Tashi played by a Tenzing Nima (finally a worthy successor to Danny Denzongpa) is pitch perfect as the don who does not need to scream and shout to show his power. He has it. Simple. And in one brilliant scene on a terrace with a power cut, he faces an African who has just threatened him and smilingly says “Dont worry, I understand. Business is Business” and then the power comes on and still smiling but with steel in his voice he adds “But Power is Power”
Mikhael (as the youngest of the crazy Bengali don trio) is also great and gets a surreal scene with Bhau and his goons in a room where Mikhael, high on drugs, quite literally plays Russian roulette but Indian Style.
Shahid Kapoor is good, definitely and apart from the absolutely rocking Dhan Te Nan song also gets to rock 3 other super tracks.
Mikhael (as the youngest of the crazy Bengali don trio) is also great and gets a surreal scene with Bhau and his goons in a room where Mikhael, high on drugs, quite literally plays Russian roulette but Indian Style.
Shahid Kapoor is good, definitely and apart from the absolutely rocking Dhan Te Nan song also gets to rock 3 other super tracks.
1. RD Burman’s classic ‘Duniya mein, logon ko...’
2. Ftaying Alive Ftaying Alive and
3. Fpiderman, Fpiderman
The best in the movie for me however was Priyanka Chopra. Fiesty, Loud and with virtually no make up, she is so good as the Marathi girl that you almost wonder if she was the same one who also did Dostana.
2. Ftaying Alive Ftaying Alive and
3. Fpiderman, Fpiderman
The best in the movie for me however was Priyanka Chopra. Fiesty, Loud and with virtually no make up, she is so good as the Marathi girl that you almost wonder if she was the same one who also did Dostana.
The titles credit the choreography to just two songs, Fatak (the AIDS song in the beginning) and the Dhan Te Nan number. However the Raat Ke Dhai Baje song during the Guddu-Sweety wedding is so well shot and so in sync that either someone is not getting credit or Vishal, apart from Director, Dialogues, Music & Screenplay is also a Choreographer. Talk of a Renaissance Man.
In the UAE we get movies with mandatory subtitles (in English and Arabic) so I’m not sure how this movie played out in India because at various times it can get pretty confusing with the characters speaking all kinds of different languages. I counted Bengali, Marathi, English, Spanish, French and even Doggy (bhau, bhau).
Kaminey is not for everyone, but if you enjoy cinema that makes you think then it’s probably the best from Bollywood till date.
Think of it as Jagannath for your Brain.
Till next time and another movie
Ciao
Vish
No comments:
Post a Comment