Court [dir. Chaitanya Tamhane]

Court made waves more than a year back when it was screened at the Venice and Mumbai festivals, and was honored with the National Award for Best Feature Film, which is amazing for a debut feature. After having watched I can say it's worth the hype.

To be frank, it's not for the impatient or people that insist on a dramatic experience. In the film, a social activist (Vira Sathidar) is arrested on charges of having incited a sewer worker to commit suicide with an inflammatory song. The film mainly deals with the proceedings of the trial of this individual. But the script is not focused on the activist character, who in most part is a silent or monosyllabic cipher. Nor, unlike what we usually see in Indian movies, are the trial proceedings a showcase of verbal fireworks. In fact many a time, we see the trial played out with the context of the other proceedings of the court. We see how a court moves from one case to another, making a quick decision in one, postponing another, the debates about whether or not an accused can be given bail in the interim between court hearings.

The spotlight is on the major players of the court - the prosecution (Geetanjali Kulkarni), the defence (Vivek Gomber), the judge (Pradeep Joshi). In a conventional film, the prosecution would be presented as evil and the defense as good. Here, both are just doing their jobs. We also get a look into their personal lives, which go on regardless of their professional duties. The defense lawyer is fighting the case as a social cause, but he himself is rather well-to-do, who doesn't think much of dropping a few thousand rupees for an evening at a pub (perhaps he makes his money working for rich clients indulging the social exploitation his activist client is protesting against). The prosecutor is a lower middle-class lady whose idea of an outing is lunch with her family at an Udipi-type restaurant followed by a local drama. She has to worry a lot more about the cost of living, and in that sense is closer in lifestyle to the accused than her counterpart. There are no personal egos involved in their arguments in court, each one is doing her/his own job, at the end of which they go back to their respective lives. The case comes to an end, a verdict is passed, but is that all? No, life goes on, there are and will be new cases, many same as the old cases. The film also has an epilogue dealing with the personal life of the main judge in the case. Again it drives the point that for everyone, life and the court go on.

Using many non-professional actors and a very grounded visual style, writer-director Chaitanya Tamhane focuses on the realism and bureaucracy of the institution, and thus makes them come alive in a manner we don't normally see in movies (since mainstream Hollywood also tends to have very glamorized dramatic court scenes). Highly recommended for offbeat movie fans.

For the fools like me that didn't catch this at the cinema, Reliance DVD gives a nice A/V presentation of the film (digitally shot), with a decent making of. Watch it.

The Lady Vanishes [dir. Alfred Hitchcock]

The Lady Vanishes was one of the last films Hitchcock made in Britain before moving to Hollywood. Apart from this, I have only seen The Man Who Knew Too Much and The 39 Steps from his Brit period and there's a fair degree of similarity between these films, mainly in the relatively frothy carefree spirit that embodies them, and the typical British deadpan humor.

The first act of the film, set in a crowded resort of a fictitious European country where we are introduced to most of our main cast, is primarily a comic act with some racy verbal humor. Apart from Iris (Margaret Lockwood) and Gilbert (Michael Redgrave) whose spicy spats only convince us they'll be in love before long, there is the archetypal sweet old spinster Miss Froy and the cricket crazy schoolboy-minded stiff-upper-lip duo of Charters and Caldicott. This act concludes with the characters getting on a train as they journey to London.

The second act occurs almost entirely in the confines of the train (shot fantastically on a small stage with use of miniatures, rear/front projection, shaky movements to mimic the train's motion...every trick in the book). Iris, who has received a knock on the head from a mysterious falling flowerpot at the station and made good friends with Miss Froy, falls into deep sleep and wakes up only to find that sweet old lady gone. What's more, no one in the train, including the staff and fellow passengers, is willing to admit to the presence of such a person, insisting that Miss Froy is a figment on Iris' imagination. The headstrong girl, even as she starts to doubt her own sanity, is only more determined to dig deeper into the matter for which she must take flighty Gilbert's help, even if he doesn't entirely believe her. This act is classic Hitchcock suspense, with clever sleight-of-hand and deliberate misdirection. While the plot isn't hard to figure out, it's smoothly executed and a delight to watch. There's a canny mix of humor and thrill in the unfolding that engages the senses and keeps the mind from asking those pesky questions about plausibility. The third act is the rip-roaring off-the-rails (heh) climax, where much mayhem ensues before (British) good triumphs over (foreign) evil.

So what we have here is an easily palatable adventure, but with those delightful character touches and deft writing that raise it well above the norm. Parallels have been drawn between the depiction of the British characters in the film, how they choose to ignore Iris' suspicions in favor of "just getting on with it", and how the British government initially dealt with Hitler and the rise of Nazism. The observation does seem relevant, although it is not a necessary component of one's enjoyment of the film.

A few words on Criterion's blu-ray. The video quality is excellent for a 1938 film, with good contrast, grayscale and fine detail. The mono sound is limited but effective. Extras include a decent critic's commentary, a video essay on the film, a short audio excerpt from the Hitchcock-Truffaut sessions..and yeah, an entire other film - Crook's Tour - featuring the duo of Charters and Caldicott (I saw some 15 min of that and got bored).

An Autumn Afternoon [dir. Yasujiro Ozu]

The story-lines for Yasujiro Ozu's 1949 film Late Spring and 1962's An Autumn Afternoon (incidentally. his last work) read virtually identical - A dependent father realizes he must get his daughter married before she ages past eligibility and ends up an old maid. While contemporary woman's libbers may take umbrage, Ozu's films are a product of their time and social milieu, and the women in his films are strong in their own way.

Anyhow, the similarity between these 2 films is not merely in the outline. Several sequences mirror each other to the extent that Autumn could be considered a remake of Spring. But that interchangeability is true for much of Ozu's output; his specialty is variations on the theme. The major difference between these particular films comes in the socio-political backdrop. Autumn plays out in post-WW2 Japan. Defeated and later occupied by American forces, traditional Japanese society is in the throes of change. It is never emphasized in the narrative, but we see the influence that Western culture is beginning to have. The pre-war generation still gathers in sake bars, talking about old times and arranging reunions (and making fun of their colleague who has taken a young wife about who wears the pants in the house). Their progeny represents a more consumer spirit, acquiring refrigerators and golf clubs. It is also less patriarchy bound, a wife can bully her husband (for his own good or otherwise) without social scorn.

But in both periods, marriage and family remain an important institution, and the father must give up his selfish need to be looked after so that his daughter can have suitable companionship and start her own family. In Autumn, the tone with which this message is delivered is a bit bleaker, especially with the depiction of the father's old school teacher, whose lonely spinster daughter is unhappily chained to the care of her run-down depressed dad.

Ozu's favorite actor Chishu Ryu once again plays the worried patriarch and does so with his characteristic subtlety. In place of his other favorite Setsuko Hara, the daughter is portrayed by Shima Iwashita, which is a good thing since a) Hara at this stage would have been a little too old for the eligible daughter part b) The daughter, while loyal to and worried for her father, is depicted as being more assertive about herself than in Ozu's previous work, another sign of the times. I don't recall if this was the case with the other Ozu films I've seen, but one thing that struck me during the viewing of Autumn was how every scene begins with a couple of frames of the location or set where the scene takes place: the patriarch's house, his office, the bar he frequents, the house of his married son, the street where his school teacher lives. Never does a scene in a different location begin without first establishing the place. As expected with Ozu, the visuals are entirely a function of the framing, with no camera movements at all.

The Naked Prey [dir. Cornel Wilde]

Today I saw The Naked Prey on Eureka's blu-ray.

I got interested in the film when I read the synopsis, which reminded of Mel Gibson's Apocalypto, a film I tremendously enjoyed. Sure enough, actor-director Cornel Wilde's survival drama looks to me a precursor to the later film, even if it is not as relentless and kinetically propulsive. Here Man (specifically White Man, played by an incredibly well-built Wilde), originally part of a hunting party whose arrogant and trigger-happy client refuses to pay tribute to a local tribe and avoid trouble, is given chase in the African wilds by a tribe of native warriors out for his blood.

Apart from a few lines in the beginning, the film is entirely lacking in English dialog and none of the lines spoken by the African characters are translated, putting this film squarely in the perspective of the white man. The cat and mouse games played between Wilde and the natives are pretty well depicted, apart from clumsy heavy-handed symbolism in the form of cuts to instances of animal fighting. These hamper the pace, are mostly taken from stock / second-unit footage and even have a different look depending on the source (sometimes 16mm). But the bulk of the movie remains engaging, and the visuals are supported by a throbbing percussion based score and native chanting/singing, which keeps you rooted in the setting.

The blu-ray gives a solid presentation of the film. Color range seems limited by the setting of the film (heavily skewed towards browns) and it doesn't look as robust as films with recent restorations, but quite good on the whole (except obviously when compromised stock footage is used). The LPCM mono track does a fine job of bringing the action, especially the aforementioned percussion score. The on-disc extra of note is a video essay by Sheldon Hall, who briefly discusses Cornel Wilde's career and dives into the specifics of the making of this film. For someone like me, who had not previously heard of the actor, there is a wealth of information and interesting anecdotes here, very worthwhile sitting through.

Jurassic World [dir. Colin Trevorrow]

Sometimes all you want is to see giant monsters bashing at each other or devouring human fodder. So after watching Gamera 2: Attack of Legion couple days ago I was filled with an urge to check out Jurassic World, the latest entry in the genetically created dinosaurs saga originally written by Michael Crichton.

The first Jurassic Park movie, made at the dawn of mainstream Hollywood's use of computer graphics, was a big thrill at the cinema (of course, it was, like the series has always been, a clever mix of animatronics and optical tricks mixed with CG). The only thing that bugged me was Spielberg-Attenborough's schmaltzy rendition of the Hammond character (unlike the salty bastard of Crichton's novel) and those really annoying kids, who I kept praying would get devoured. The sequel Lost World was mostly lost on me. It had large doses of an annoying Jeff Goldblum saddled with a crap family story, and the first thrill of watching giant reptiles move across the screen was diluted by then. Jurassic Park III may be regarded as a lower entry for not being made by Spielberg (but by his protege Joe Johnston, who later made Captain America - The First Avenger), but I enjoyed it more than its predecessor. I like Sam Neill more and it was an unabashed theme park ride, which brought to life several sequences from Crichton's original novel (the aviary scene, the dino in the lake) that could not for technical reasons be achieved at the time. Also loved that they incorporated in the raptor design the then recent discoveries about the connections between dinosaurs and birds.

Jurassic World, as people have previously noted is practically a reboot / rehash of the first JP film. Isla Nublar is once again open, there is more genetic tinkering to make new, fiercer dinosaurs that provide more excitement to the public (perhaps analogous to how wildlife programs often focus on predatory sequences), stupid kids inside fragile vehicles are attacked by predators, systems go down without any backup, a chaotic final showdown between multiple dinos...you know the drill. Chris Pratt stands in for Sam Neill, although his character seems more rustler than anything else - he apparently has the ability to communicate with raptors and act as the alpha male of the pack, something I find more difficult to swallow than the much-played-up leading lady's tendency to run in heels (the new dino is given some Hannibal Lecter like abilities to out-think his prey, although some are used once, then forgotten). Using the excuse of the dinos being genetically modified to match with public perception, the raptor design has been returned to the original reptilian appearance from JP. So originality is not of the film's strengths but it shines in slick execution. People feared that director Colin Trevorrow's indie film roots may result in a loss of spectacle, but if anything he seems determined to show that he can stage mass scale action as well as the known big movie makers. And technology has come a long way since the days of the original JP. The texturing and movement of the dino-creatures is amazing and they're much better integrated into the environment.

I wish I had seen this in the theater because it's the sort of film I feel should have been seen once in the most immersive format. I doubt I'll ever want to re-watch it.

Shahid [dir. Hansal Mehta]

Rather late in the day, but last night I watched Shahid, director Hansal Mehta's film on activist lawyer Shahid Azmi, who defended several people accused of terrorist activities till his murder.

After the '93 riots in Mumbai, the young Shahid went off to join a Pakistani militant training camp, but returned soon after. The film implies that is after he is made to watch the ritual killing of a man - I find it hard to believe that the trainers would waste time teaching their recruits assault rifle combat before showing them cold blooded murder to weed out the timid. Anyhow, shortly after Shahid's return he is arrested by the Mumbai police under the TADA act and forced to confess his involvement in a terrorist plot, after which he spends time in Tihar jail. Here he meets black & white examples of extremist and moderate Muslims and aligns with the moderates, in the process studying for law. After he is released he practices law, and becomes the messiah for underprivileged people picked up for terrorism allegations and kept in prison while investigations stretch on for years. For this he faces threat calls and even public attacks from political / criminal outfits. Somewhere in the midst is an awkwardly played out romance story with a lady client for whom he fights a property case, then marries.

Shahid is a good film, although it suffers some in execution because of a perceived need to soften and simplify. Namby-pamby songs and musical cues unnecessarily try to direct your attention. While it is based on true events, the script appears to simplify people and events to the point of contrivance. On the other hand, it is definitely a work of passion. The performances are solid (Rajkummar Rao, then known simply as Raj Kumar, holds center-stage and makes it worth your while to gloss over the film's shortcomings, but the supporting cast is also strong), production design is intricate without being obtrusive and director Mehta helms the affair quite well. Worth watching at least once.

Reliance's DVD is terrific in terms of the presentation - image quality is as good as an SD presentation of a digitally shot film gets. The color grading is excellent, generating mood without going overboard. Sound is good too, with very good separation and incorporation of ambient noises (An early scene of the riots is a great showcase). The sole extra is an extended version of Shahid's trip to the militant camp.

A Date with a Serial Killer

...or how I had one of the most memorable evenings in recent time.

Thanks to a post shared by Facebook pal Aseem C (who I should make the effort to meet in real life soon), I got to know of a screening, arranged by Drishyam Films, of director Sriram Raghavan's early effort, a docu-drama on Raman Raghav, the notorious serial killer of 60's Bombay. The film itself for the longest time was almost a myth. It was made by Raghavan sometime in 1991; I recall reading about it around a similar time, while in college. Then I had no clue who Sriram Raghavan was, but I still remember that particular article had a B&W still of actor Raghubir Yadav in the title role (which made me think the film was in B&W, which would be another interesting way of filming it). But Raman Raghav was never ever released anywhere or screened on any television network, so you can imagine my thrill at the prospect of being actually able to watch it.

I registered on the Drishyam Films website last Friday but didn't receive any response communique from them, not even to the message I sent on their "Contact Us" tab about whether or not my registration was confirmed. It was therefore with some trepidation that I made my way towards the venue (the PVR multiplex at Citi Mall, Andheri West - formerly Fame Adlabs), since it meant I had to rush directly from work and jump through multiple modes of transport (including the occasional bits of jogging on and off the pavement, when the Navratri climax evening traffic meant any vehicular transport was useless). Breathlessly I reached the venue just a little after 8pm when the screening was scheduled to begin. The real bit of uh-oh moment occurred when at the counter my name was not present in the participants list and I was asked if I had received any confirmatory message. On giving my whole story (with woebegone face and specific emphasis on the enormous distance I had traveled across the city specifically to be able to watch this film), I and some others were asked to wait with the promise that if some half dozen or more reserved names didn't turn up within the next 10 min when the screening was due to start, the tickets would be handed on a first come basis. While I sympathize with anyone that didn't make it on account of being stuck in Andher Nagri's traffic, I was quite happy to receive a ticket at the end of that interval and bounded happy-puppy-like up the stairs to the screening floor. I was making my way among the crowd to the venue screen when I saw in front of me, Sriram Raghavan himself, chatting with some people I presumed to be part of the organizers. With the mixture of schoolboy glee and tongue-tiedness that invariably hits me upon meeting a celebrity I admire, I announced myself as a fan who had seen all his other films including The Eight Column Affair (a brilliant short made during his FTII stint), Ek Hasina Thi, Johnny Gaddaar and Badlapur (for reasons well-understood I left out a certain overblown where-did-the-fun-go secret agent misfire). Taking advantage of  his soft-spoken thanks I held out my DVD covers of JG and Badlapur for autographs, which he kindly obliged (Woohoo!).

Eat your hearts out, hehehe!

The charmed nature of the evening continued. After being called on stage (the emcee was Atul Sabharwal who had scripted My Wife's Murder), Raghavan briefly explained the history of the film, cautioning repeatedly to temper our expectations with the fact that it was shot nearly 25 years ago on the U-matic videotape format. Even the mandatory pre-movie playing of the national anthem was made more interesting with an all-instrumental interpretation featuring the who's who of Indian classical music. Then, the film rolled.

If Sriram had any fear of the audience being disappointed in this early no-budget effort (3.5 lakhs all inclusive, he later revealed), they proved entirely groundless. Raman Raghav is a testament that a talented director will shine regardless of the budget and format. Even in his maiden feature, he shows the trademarks of his better known films - the long meticulous tracking shots, the careful scene transitions, the jolts of brutal action to punctuate the intensity of the scene than revel in the gratuitous overkill, the ability to introduce sly humor in the midst of suspense, surgically precise editing, astounding attention to detail and almost symphonic arrangement of "movements" in the sound design. The other strong point of the film is of course Raghubir Yadav's portrayal of the killer. The film being based on true events and recorded testimonies, Raman Raghav is not presented as some ultra-genius Hannibal playing cat-and-mouse with the cops, but a morose and simple-minded but highly disturbed individual who killed without any consideration to human life and got away for as long as he did on sheer luck.

Quick snap on a crappy phone-cam, L-R Sriram Raghavan, Raghubir Yadav and Atul Sabharwal.

Anyway, I won't spoil any of the film for you people, and I really hope there is some opportunity for this to come out on home video or on youtube so it can be seen by a wider audience. From Raghavan's own words at the post-film QA, it has only been shown at some festivals (including the first Bombay Film festival). While he does not own the rights, he can connect interested folks to the rights-holders (If that happens, I know there are at least a dozen people on my list of friends alone, who would be thrilled to get this on home video). The other pleasant surprise of the evening was the announcement of Raghubir Yadav to participate in the QA session. In his characteristic impeccable Hindi, a relaxed Mr. Yadav talked about his experience of making the film, shooting in outdoor locations which would not be possible anymore, his preparation, including avoiding baths so that he always had an unclean feeling. Sriram talked about how this was originally conceived as a series of video-films on various high-profile cases the police had solved, but I have not heard of any other films in this line so perhaps it did not materialize as planned. Sriram's own approach to the script changed once he started filming, focusing more on the character of the deranged killer, although he did have to retain a certain amount of police investigation material to meet the producer's requirement.

So a fantastic movie evening for this self-proclaimed film buff. I just had time for a quick bite (a pretty decent chicken burger at a Dunkin' Donuts), then off homewards so I could write you lucky folks this here blog.