Fighter [dir. Siddharth Anand]

I realize I'm not in the majority when I say this, but Siddharth Anand's movies leave me cold. This was true right from the time he was making rom-coms/rom-drams (I had the misfortune of watching Bachna Ae Haseeno on a bus trip, a reprehensible exercise which, not just the ladies, everyone should beware of). Anand then shifted to more heavy-duty action with Bang Bang (an official remake of the frenetic Knight and Day). Therein he found his true metier, doing desi takes on the stereotype Hollywood tent-pole action movie. He then churned out the exponentially more bombastic War (which I found enjoyable in its embracing of the ludicrous) and Pathaan. The latter was his biggest commercial success, but for me it was a mostly lifeless experience, not even fun in the illogical masala vein. Pathaan was so concerned with being 'hip' I could not give a fuck about anything that happened onscreen (perhaps I was more concerned with the increasing numbness in my butt and brain).

With Fighter, Anand continues his run of feature-length action-VFX showreels, angling for a job on the next Mission Impossible or Top Gun or at least Fast & Furious installment. The film is set in the world of combat pilots hand-picked as an elite team for strike/rescue missions. After 2019's Uri: The Surgical Strike, rah-rah war movies reflecting the 'New India, Aggressive India' image became cool. With titles like Gunjan Saxena, they also became (preachy) vehicles of female empowerment. Fighter collects these trends into a single package - the Hrithik-worship from War continues in an almost identical adoring coverage of bronzed biceps and gold-flecked hair, Balakot and Pulwama are referenced in the cartoonish portrayal of counter maneuvers, and Deepika Padukone's chopper pilot could be an extension of the Gunjan Saxena character.

Fighter fills the frame with a sizable cast and lip-service is paid to 'team bonding', but make no mistake, this is not an ensemble piece. The characters that are not matinee names have no backstory or hook to make them interesting. They're just there, 'reflectors' to bounce more light on the leads. The audience is never given any reason to care for their fate. One character is the token Muslim card that becomes a martyr; his funeral rituals are completely drowned out by a Vande Mataram cover. Even the manner in which characters seem to have carte blanche to enter control centers for ops they are not part of, or just hang around for emotional detours in the middle of setting up covert missions takes away from the immersion.

The movie expects us to feel bad for Hrithik when he is called out for going cowboy and endangering his squad by abandoning team goals in pursuit of individual targets. Curiously, none of his team-mates have an issue with his lone wolf attitude. The calling out is done by his commanding officer Anil Kapoor, who yells out every sentence like an unruly society chairman uncle bawling at the cricket playing kids damaging his window panes. There would be some logic to this narrative if it culminated in Hrithik's becoming more mindful of following orders, which I assume is what the armed forces want of soldiers. But for some reason this PTSD afflicted bloke's self-obsession becomes a virtue.

The action is slick, I'll grant, but it feels rehashed and unexciting - the exhaust pipes shimmering at launch, the jets blowing snow off the trees or spray off the water surface as they zoom by, the loop-de-loop maneuver, we've seen all this before. It's more like Anand studied scenes from Top Gun to showcase his ability to replicate them indigenously at lower cost. Some of the green screen work is less than stellar (when Hrithik and the villain - a Fabio clone with one bloodshot eye to signal his villainy - are slugging it out atop a careening jeep). The film is set in Jammu & Kashmir, but you get Mediterranean beachside and ultrahip-nightclub song sequences that are awkwardly horned in. For tonal consistency, this Fighter is a damp squib.

Cushing Curiosities - Cone of Silence

Included in Cushing Curiosities,  the lavish Peter Cushing centered blu-ray box-set from Severin Films, Cone of Silence (aka Trouble in the Sky) is a legal drama set in the aviation world. Despite his third billing after Michael Craig and Peter Cushing, Bernard 'M' Lee's experienced pilot is actually the film's lead. Known to go wholly by the rulebook, Lee at the beginning is subject to an inquiry after a botched takeoff on the new 'Phoenix' plane. He is sure he has done nothing wrong. The aircraft company and the Phoenix's designer (Noel Willman from Hammer's The Reptile displaying a palpable sensitivity here) are equally adamant that there was no mechanical failure or design flaw.

After he is docked for 'pilot error' Lee finds reprieve when flight trainer Michael Craig clears him after a rigorous examination in which he flies blindfolded. The rakish Craig is also developing feelings for Lee's dad idolizing daughter Elizabeth Seal. But where is Peter Cushing, you ask? Cushing makes an appearance shortly after as another pilot placed rival to Lee. Cushing's character has in some reviews of this film been described as a villain, but that's not so - he is merely a biased individual. He doesn't like the idea of Lee being allowed to resume flying the Phoenix aircraft and allows his prejudices to guide his assessment. It's a small but solid supporting character and Dear Peter gives it his customary good show.

After more takeoff scenes - the film tries to generate a "will-it-won't-it-crash" scenario each time Lee takes the wheel - there is another accident, and this time it's fatal. What remains is for Craig to go over the incident and reassess if Lee was at fault or there was another reason. The exact details were fuzzy to me, but the film seems to suggest that the pilot's rule book did not account for some specific conditions of weather and load, and pilots that followed it to the letter would actually end up botching the takeoff.

This stiff upper lip drama is a fairly mundane "programmer", but it's aided by a dependable cast of British actors - besides the aforementioned, there's Andre Morell, George Sanders and Marne Maitand. There are several shots of actual aircraft takeoffs that don't appear to be random stock footage. It's not the most exciting movie but it a pleasing solidity.

Severin's blu-ray transfer shows some amount of source print damage (lines, scratches), but has good contrast and looks organic. The audio in the dialog sounded to me distractingly boxy and clipped. Extras specific to the movie include a commentary track with genre film historian Jonathan Rigby and a short conversation with the now old Michael Craig (the movie was a routine job for the contract player, but he seems to have pleasant memories of the cast).

The bigger bonus on this disc is the trove of audio interviews with Peter Cushing at various points - The Guardian interview (which I think is the same one that was on Severin's 2011 release of Horror Express) is played over the film, while others are played over selected images / video. The most touching one for me was where he is talking about his home in Whitstable and about his life with and after his beloved wife Helen. If you were looking to these interviews to learn something previously unknown about Mr. Cushing or unlock any secrets about his character and method, you may be disappointed. But I found a certain satisfaction in the confirmation of my image of him as a dedicated professional, and a simple, kindhearted GENTLEMAN.

Manjummel Boys [dir. Chidambaram]

Two years back, there was a Malayalam survival adventure called Malayan Kunju (MK). I had a very divided experience with that film: while the survival aspect - a guy buried under a landslide must claw back to the surface - was well executed, the preceding drama that shows him to be a self-centered casteist prig was a stodgy affair. Manjummel Boys (MB) is in some ways reminiscent of MK. Here too, a guy is deep under the surface, after falling through a pit that seems to go all the way to a netherworld (this hellhole is even called the Devil's Kitchen). But unlike MK's tale of redemption, this is a tale of brotherhood, the enduring bond between friends that will go to any length to look out for each other.

Of course, this also implies that the chaps have a tendency to invite trouble. In the extended introduction, we see these 'boys' (played by actors in their mid-to-late thirties) trade juvenile barbs with a rival tug-of-war club, and even an impromptu dare match which they lose. Later, when out on a guys-only trip to hilly Kodaikanal (Tamil Nadu), they get up to the tomfoolery of boisterous hooligans, sneaking drinks and ignoring the trespass notices. A major element in MB is its tribute to the 1991 Kamalahaasan movie Gunaa, incorporating dialog and song references and most importantly, returning to the striking cave locale used here:

As a setting, the 'Gunaa Cave' is cinematic gold. It exudes an aura of mystery, a primitive stony terrain with high ceilings and precipitous edges that dwarf the human characters tramping through. There's perhaps even an element of nature's revenge - it is after the boys mark their presence with graffiti on the rock surface that one of them (Srinath Bhasi) falls through the aforementioned pit. Following a series of sickening thuds, he appears to have been wiped entirely out of existence. The abruptness of the moment sends a shock, both to the other characters, and to the audience.

After several moments of disbelief - they keep insisting that Subhash must be pranking them, because the alternative is unthinkable - harum-scarum rescue efforts are set into motion. Some of them zoom off to the local police station to get help. There they get beaten and locked up for breaking the rules, possibly even murdering their friend. Those that remain in the cave do futile things like using their bodies to block water from a thunderstorm flowing into the pit. Even the authorities arriving at the site seem reluctant to rise to the call of duty - the firemen are scared of roping down into the depths of Devil's Kitchen and the police seem only too eager to file a fatality report and call it a day. Finally the group leader Siju David aka 'Kuttan' (Soubin Shahir) has to beg for the chance of going down to find and rescue their friend. Balding pot-bellied Kuttan has no experience with spelunking, nor is he some daredevil. But he cannot consider forsaking his fallen companion. What follows is a tense rescue drama - Lowered into impenetrable darkness and aided only by shouted instructions from the people above, Kuttan must tackle the tortuous descent and his own rising panic.

As critic Baradwaj Rangan points out in his excellent review, a film based on true events must be an honest representation, but slavishly adhering to the facts of the case may not always be the best dramatic option. The ensemble of friends is a large one (11 members), and the script doesn't do enough to delineate the members - apart from Kuttan and Subhash, who fell into the pit, I don't recall the names or traits of the other friends. One of them seems to have been chosen for his passing resemblance to Kamalahaasan in Gunaa - he remains in a catatonic state for most of the picture. There is a reliance on cliche flashbacks to give a sense of the longstanding bond between them. But then, the numbers are required as a mechanical device: Remember the tug-of-war at the beginning of the film? You get the pay-off for it later. The flashbacks are a reinforcement of why the friends stick together despite all odds.

MB's extended epilogue hints at Subhash's PTSD after his experience in the caves - he is unable to close his eyes to sleep, to face darkness again, and needs his mother beside him. There could be an interesting short film sequel that deals with this specific aspect. But time is also wasted on a tedious subplot of how Subhash's mother blames Kuttan for his accident and only later comes to know of his brave rescue of her son, leading to an obligatory "tears of gratitude" moment.

Visually, there are some marvelous moments. While not quite Descent level, MB delivers on the claustrophobic near-hallucinatory experience the characters go through. There is a seamless combination of real locations and sets, an intimate communion between the production design (Ajayan Chalissery) and the cinematography (Shyju Khalid - Maheshinthe Prathikaram, Nayattu). If ever my favorite Indian disaster film Kaala Patthar (1979) went in for a remake, I would want the guys who made this to get a crack at it.

Lord Curzon ki Haveli + Shorts [Wench Film Festival]

I didn't actually plan for the Wench Film Festival, attending only one of the 4 days, which is why this is very fragmented coverage. For the record, this is a fest devoted to fantastic genre cinema primarily directed by 'Women and Non-Binary Filmmakers'. It is engineered by Sapna Bhavnani, an enthusiastic maverick who has worked in fashion and film. The screenings were conducted in a little performance space called Veda Black Box. It's about the size of one of those illicit video screening halls and I had the dickens of a time finding it after Google Maps dropped the ball badly. But it works perfectly for a niche segment like this.

Anyhoo, onward to the films I saw. Apart from one feature-length film Lord Curzon ki Haveli, I saw a bunch of short films of varying impact. A number of the shorts shown on this day were commissioned as a collection of horror outings set in the time of the pandemic. Each film was followed by a Q&A with available crew members from the film. There was also some kind of session with Kaizad Gustad, but I opted to go outside for a break in that time, for fear of becoming sufficiently enraged to murder the maker of the atrocity called Bombay Boys.

These were the notable short films I saw:

Entanglement (Yashaswini Nath) - Relationship drama meets SF in this non-linear movie featuring a couple having severe marriage issues...or is it two sets of couples from mirror universes who are having visions of each other? It's not always on the ball script-wise, but its good parts feature strong performances from the leads (Harleen Sethi and Harman Singha) and thoughtful direction.

Demons (Adesh Prasad) - Tumbbad co-director Adesh Prasad does a incredibly gory and immensely funny take on a 'cure' for drug addicts to be free of their demons. I won't bother with a synopsis for such a brief film, but this was a lot of fun, an affectionate twist on the Mohan Bhakri - Vinod Talwar style B-budget Hindi horror cinema.

Landfills of Desire (Sapna Bhavnani) - More music video than narrative, this one shows a vampire making her way through empty Kashmiri locales (it was shot during the pandemic).  It features an avant-garde percussive score, color filters and flashy editing.

Batshit Crazy and Giallo (Yogesh Chandekar) - These were both more overtly message-y, but had a good deal of visual humor and genre homage. BC features the travails of a Naga dude in Hyderabad running from a bunch of goons targeting him as a 'bat-eating Chinese' responsible for the Covid pandemic. I mainly liked the opening shot where a Ramsay-style Gothic structure enshrouded in fog is revealed to be the Charminar as a municipal worker brandishes a fogging machine. As the name would suggest, Giallo openly references the style of genre masters Mario Bava and Dario Argento (hat-tipping them with an 'Argento Pizzeria' and a 'Bava Heights' apartment complex). The gaudy color schemes and Goblin-inspired score make this a chuckle-worthy watch for fans.

The Lurking (Divyansh Sharma) - Shades of EF Benson's eerie stories in this beautifully shot tale of a dysfunctional family living on the edge of the wood. A harsh domineering father (Ajay Mehra), a mother (Snower Sania Vasudev) who is loving but may have psychological issues, and a child that sees something from within the wood. As the film unravels, different facets of the characters are revealed. Furkan Ali's cinematography and careful grading make for an amazing visual experience.

Anshuman Jha's Lord Curzon ki Haveli was the feature-length centerpiece. This one is a (mostly) one-act thriller with a Hitchcock/Polanski influence. A stuffy Indian-origin British doctor (Paresh Pahuja) and his decidedly more desi spouse (Rasika Dugal) visit the house of the wife's friend. This friend (Zoha Rahman) and her partner (Arjun Mathur) are a strange contrast to our couple, liberated bohemian spirits who have no issues about leaving their guests alone to go up for a quickie in the bedroom; not exactly effusive hosts. They also seem to have a mocking attitude towards the pompous doc and his frigid attitude towards his wife, spiking her drink to see what fun ensues. As the evening progresses, we see a clash of personalities. Issues like the status of immigrants, and the doc's pride in his British citizenship provide fuel for a grotesque black comedy. For me the biggest problem was the thin caricature of the doc's character - he is shown to be such an outright heel that the personality clashes are unbalanced. A good black comedy should be able to shift sympathies between characters, but he starts off as an jerk and as the film moves ahead, behaves even more idiotically. This makes the film a bit of an ordeal to sit through. The always easy to watch Rasika Dugal gets a major character shift over the course of the story and she executes it with relish. It's probably not meant to be taken seriously, but the end seems to suggest that immigrants should react to racism and class snobbery by going the Bonnie and Clyde route.