Durgeshgorer Guptodhon [dir. Dhrubo Banerjee]

My recent guilty pleasure was the family-friendly Bengali mystery adventure Durgeshgorer Guptodhon (Secret Treasure of Dureshgarh). A sequel to Guptodhoner Sandhane (Hunt for the Secret Treasure - reviewed HERE), this one is practically a re-tread in a different location.

The basic formula of the Guptodhon series is this:
1. At some point in Indian history, typically in the wave of some regional conflict, one of the lesser known historical figures hides / bequeaths a fabulous treasure with some pal (this is explained in an attractive animated panaroma at the beginning of each film).
2. Said pal is an eccentric who, after hiding the treasure in some Rube Goldberg style secret vault in a romantically named place (here it is Bonpukuria village), hatches a series of cryptic clue messages in the form of rhymes and lyrics. In time, the significance of said messages is forgotten by the family (Sherlock Holmes fans will recall a story called The Musgrave Ritual, which would appear to be the progenitor of all such premises).
3. Enter our Three Investigators protagonists, led by Sona-da (Abir Chatterjee), the archaeologist-historian who dresses in smart sports suits and handily beats up goons. They start figuring out the clues, while some slimy villain with an eye on the treasure periodically ambushes them till the climax where all ends well.

Durgeshgorer Guptodhon adheres strictly to the formula and has some sloppy writing where some red herring dealings are never explained. There are major contrivances, one involving a kid called Kucho who you want to murder immediately. But with its fun quasi-historical premise unveiling less known cultural mores and non-cynical innocent-minded tone, Durgeshgorer Guptodhon is comfort viewing for people who liked Guptodhoner Sandhane and in general fans of the Feluda movie adaptations (better than some of the Sandip Ray ventures). Like with the first film, the cinematography is pleasant, (especially the shot of the Durga procession moving across the fields) and composer Bickram Ghosh does an excellent job with the story-advancing songs and background score (he also did wonderful work for Har Har Byomkesh and Byomkesh Pawrbo).

Born Yesterday [dir. George Cukor]

Some of you that have seen Superman III will recall Lorilei (Pamela Stephenson), the stereotype bad guy's squeaky-voiced platinum blond dumb moll (although in a throwaway gag, when no one's around she is reading a tome by Kant). I would not have imagined you could make an entire feature about such a character, but long ago they actually did, as a play on Broadway and subsequently a Hollywood film directed by George Cukor; the bigger surprise is that it works.

Born Yesterday's dumb blond Billie Dawn (Judy Holliday) is a coarse-mannered Bronx territory former chorus girl picked up as a "companion" by bluff junkyard tycoon Harry Brock (Broderick Crawford) who has blustered and bribed his way to success and now hopes to use the same strategy with Washington. In our cynical worldview, this would be easier done than said, but the film presents a more "Capra-esque" America where most politicians are apparently honest and high-minded enough to require a more elegant approach. Therefore our tycoon must make a good impression on the right people. Brock, cheerfully oblivious to his own lack of etiquette (or at least believing he doesn't need it), is embarrassed by his woman's social deficiencies among Washington's elite and his solution is to grab the first journalist that comes for an interview (William Holden) and hire him to "smarten up the dumb broad a little". Holden (pegged somewhere between Cary Grant and Glenn Ford on a scale of accessible charm) takes on the task for the money, but also because he believes "A world full of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in".

Holden has his work cut out for him, because our chorus girl is as unwilling a student as it gets. In an early scene, she delivers an incisive rejoinder about why she is happy the way she is, since she gets what she wants by remaining dumb. But she goes along, mainly because she finds Holden cute (in a racy bit of flirtation, she asks him "Are you one of those talkers, or would you be interested in a little action?"). You can see this is a precursor to the more celebrated My Fair Lady (which Cukor also directed). But Born Yesterday is not so much about outward transformation: Billie does not turn into an elegant socialite or the gifted level IQ Holliday was in real life, but by being educated piecemeal - with an intimidating mixture of art museums, Beethoven concerts and (?!) political philosopher Thomas Paine - and trained to exercise her mind in serious directions, she becomes more aware of the possibilities within herself to be a better person and an informed contributor to society. This of course means that Brock got more than he bargained for his "dumb broad", and that has interesting consequences.

There's the witty script (based on the play by spouses Garson Kanin and Ruth Gordon), and Cukor's adroit direction, but the major miracle of Born Yesterday is Judy Holliday's performance - as Billie, she is brassy, awkward, ignorant, frivolous and a disaster when she opens her mouth. Yet somehow she always finds an empathetic core in the part. In a lesser actor, those uncouth cadences would have quickly grown monotonous and grating. But she plays her vocal cords and facial emotions with the range and precision of a skilled orchestra. I need to see some of her other work,but already it would appear her meager filmography (Only 7 films in the 10 years after this astounding debut lead performance) is something of a tragedy. It helps that the supporting cast is strong. Holden is comfortable playing the wise and charming liberal egalitarian journalist, and Crawford is both funny and intimidating as the tycoon who believes that money gives him the right to run roughshod as he pleases. Also of note is Howard St John as the lawyer who has sacrificed self-esteem to be the tyrant's wheel-greaser.

With Cukor's penchant for long takes, the actors had to repeatedly rehearse their scenes in front of a live audience (culled from studio employees) before the cameras rolled, to feel the rhythm of the scenes and the laughter pulse; the resulting polish is up on the screen, with a smooth flow of the verbal and non-verbal repartee. While the romance angle is never really convincing (It was outright ludicrous in My Fair Lady and ruined that film for me), Born Yesterday is a charming journey of a woman coming to know about the world around her, and in the process learning to respect herself a little more.

Interview with Richard Shrike - Part 2 of 2

Presented here is the concluding 2nd part of my Skype interview with Richard Shrike, the one-man show behind the epic Moria - Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (Facebook page), in which we chat about his passion for genre cinema and the website, personal life and future plans. For Part 1 go HERE

Once again, Apologies for deficiencies in the Audio/Video, they are mostly a limitation of Skype and my own incompetence.

D-Day [dir. Nikhil Advani]

D-Day is the first Nikhil Advani directorial I have sat through. You can't blame me, not fter having burnt my eyes with the crapfest that was Kal Ho Na Ho. Most of his features seemed to be built around the YRF/KJo style and D-Day was never in my horizon at the time it released in cinemas. But now that I've seen it, I find it actually a decent thriller, with some significant flaws.

The film is a fictional account of how covert Indian intelligence tries to secretly abduct a Dawood Ibrahim namesake hiding in Pakistan and conducting illegal operations in India. Now, the interesting story is that at some point before this movie came out, a writer friend called Shatrujeet Nath was shopping the idea of a thriller film / series about extracting Dawood from Pakistan. He had multiple discussions with various industry people, but couldn't get a deal going. It is quite likely that the idea germinated independently with both parties and each takes a different route with that idea, but it's an interesting coincidence. Anyhoo, Shatru did write up his idea as a pretty good thriller novel called The Karachi Deception (originally published in 2013, a few months before D Day's release) and is now more famous as the author of a multi-volume Indian fantasy series called Vikramaditya Veergatha that draws from mythology to present an action packed saga about king Vikramaditya taking on both the Devas and the Asuras in an all-out war to prevent either of them from taking control of the Halahala poison. I've read the first two installments, which were great fun; waiting for the fourth and last book to come out, so that I can go back and finish the series in one go.

Anyhoo, back to Kara..., er, D-Day. It begins with a slickly mounted covert attack where our heroes make their move on the big D (he's called Iqbal / Goldman here, but let's dispense with these allusions). At a cliffhanger point during this assault, the screenplay takes a big leap back to the where it all started. Irrfan Khan plays Indian agent Wali Khan based in Pak since 9 years, waiting for such an opportunity. In this time he even has a Paki family, a wife and child who have no idea of his true identity. This is a wonderful change from the usual depiction of spies as cooler-than-thou James Bond wannabes. When Wali learns that D (Rishi Kapoor, flamboyantly villainous) is going to be personally present at his son's wedding, he signals his superior in India (Nasser) to initiate the extraction mission.

India sends in a Dirty Crew to do the deed, including a RAW agent (Huma Qureshi), a criminal (Aakash Dahiya) and a suspended army officer (Arjun "Kitply" Rampal). This is where D-Day's divided priorities begin to be apparent. On one hand, it wants to be a gritty, realistic thriller, paying great attention to how the spies try to close in on their target and set up their mission. On the other, it wants to be a bicep-flexing bombastic actioner where surly-faced Rampal kick-slams people in slow motion. Considering the delicate nature of the operation, why would Intelligence send a hothead renegade that makes a habit of disregarding orders? There's even a pointless romance tacked on for him (Shruti Haasan as a Paki prostitute). The dichotomy is most jarring in the scene where Rampal realizes that his GF has been 'visited' by the villains. Tracking blood-drops from her door to her bedroom, he mentally recreates the scene of her being bashed around to the tune of a romantic ballad. It's a lovely stylized music video - but it belongs to a different film altogether.

The bulk of the film's goodness comes from Irrfan and Rishi. Their scenes together (if you mentally edit out Rampal) are Bollywood at its best - masaledaar and gripping. Qureshi has a couple of good scenes when she is allowed to emote, especially one where she is talking to her fiancee (a voice-only Rajkummar Rao), as does Shriswara as Wali's Paki wife, but these two are the pillars on which the film stands, and when they go out of the picture, it becomes that less interesting.

Interview with Richard Shrike - Part 1 of 2

For around two decades now, the website Moria - Science-Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review (Facebook page) has proved an invaluable resource for scores of honest reviews, comprehensive recommendations and thoughtfully curated information for genre novices and die-hard fans alike. Behind it all is a single individual - Richard Shrike - who has devoted thousands of man-hours, and continues doing so, towards making it the ultimate guide for connoisseurs of films in these genres.

In a two part interview conducted over Skype, I chat with Richard about his passion for genre cinema and the website, personal life and future plans. Presented here is Part 1 of 2 (Go HERE for Part 2):

(Apologies for deficiencies in the Audio/Video, they are mostly a limitation of Skype, and yes, my own incompetence)

Guptodhoner Sandhane aka Hunt for Hidden Treasure [dir. Dhrubo Banerjee]

It was my weakness for the old-school YA-friendly detective adventure, which eschews cynicism, gruesome violence and tortured psyches, that led me to check out Guptodhoner Sandhane (GS) aka Hunt for Hidden Treasure. GS is Satyajit Ray's Feluda by way of National Treasure. Kollywood's favorite sleuth actor Abir Chatterjee, after having played both Feluda and Byomkesh Bakshi, now dons the part of Subarna Sen alias Sona-da, a history professor from Oxford (represented by overcoat and muffler scarf) with a penchant for solving puzzles, and when called for, fisticuffs too.

Sona-da accompanies his food-obsessed lawyer nephew / companion Abir (Arjun Chakrabarty) to the 350-year old family mansion in Manikantapur village (Oh, these delicious Bong names!), where they find both clues to a hidden ancient treasure as well as mysterious nocturnal sightings. Teaming up with Abir's childhood-friend-now-chirpy-lass Jhinuk (Isha Saha), they set out to solve the mystery while also facing the unfriendly advances of a local politician-goon Dasanan (Rajatabha Datta) who is out to get the treasure for himself. The movie also has cameo appearances from Gautam Ghose and Arindam Sil.

GS is not some scintillating exercise in detective movie-making, but it's good comfort food (and I'm not just referring to the sight of the tasty Bengali dishes shown). There's a smattering of fictionalized history; the treasure is supposed to have been originally the property of prince Shah Shuja, the son of Mughal emperor Jehangir who fought (and lost) with both Dara Shukoh and Aurangzeb, before he fled to Myanmar. The light-hearted tone and the honoring of the family-friendly spirit in which Ray wrote his Feluda spirit keeps the proceedings pleasant and easy to watch. The setting of the family mansion and adjoining ruins is well-realized with some nice night-time photography.

GS could have fared better in the writing. There are too many A-ha! moments that muddy the detective aspects of the story. It also suffers from making Sona-da omnipotent. If our historian puzzle solver can also biff-pow bad guys, what's left for anyone else to do? Abir is mostly reduced to a gluttonous scaredy-cat buffoon, making you wonder why the curious and plucky Jhinuk would have anything but contempt for this friend. A more even spreading of the heroic qualities among the leads would have led to a complimentary dynamic between our desi Three Investigators.

But it does well enough as an easy-to-watch on a lazy afternoon family-friendly mystery adventure, especially for fans of the Feluda stories. Apparently there's a sequel called Durgeshgorer Guptodhon, but from my initial impressions it seems to be almost identical to the first film.

Kettiyollaanu Ente Maalakha aka My Bride is My Angel [dir. Nissam Basheer]

A low-key Malayalam drama from 2019, this one I am rather queasy about. The plot centers on Sleeva (Asif Ali) a progressive farmer who has spent his youth attending to the farm and his responsibilities towards mother and sisters. At 35 he suddenly decides to get married for the sake of having someone to look after his aging mother. But Sleeva is an archetype novice that knows nothing about romance and physical intimacy, and the act of marriage generates a tremendous fear inside, to the extent that he scuttles the arranged honeymoon and avoids any secluded interaction with wife Rincy (Veena Nandakumar). The pressure rises, and goaded on by stupid advice from chauvinist friends and large helpings of alcohol, he decides to take the bull by the horns and ends up raping his wife.

The film then follows the consequences his act has on everyone - himself, his wife, his own family - and his eventual attempt to repair the damage caused. This is where the queasiness quotient steps up for me. Sleeva's sexual naivete is held up as a badge of innocence, and people even in their criticism, treat the matter as the indiscretion of a naughty boy who broke a favorite vase or poured water over the TV. It would have been more acceptable within context if the wife herself had shown the same attitude. But she is obviously quite traumatized by the brutality of a man who didn't even string two words of romance with her before. And Sleeva's immediate behavior after the assault (and barely escaping being reported to the police by a furious doctor) is abominable. Instead of straight out apologizing to the woman and begging her forgiveness, as anyone who has committed a grave error should, he actually tells her not to make a big deal of it. The script again attributes it to his awkwardness before a woman not his mother or sisters, but we're talking basic human empathy here, and Sleeva, who is haloed as a helpful and active do-gooder comes across as a shockingly self-centered prick.

The rest of the film is about Sleeva becoming more martyr-like (think Mohan from Maniratnam's Mouna Ragam), and his wife realizing his "good qualities", especially after he helps out an eloping couple, and a hybrid crop variety he has cultivated garners accolades (What self-respecting woman would stand beside and say good words about a man who raped her and was too awkward to apologize, even if it meant being on TV?). So as we reach the finish line, Sleeva is once again hailed as an upstanding community member, the wife decides she wants to remain with him and we have a romantic all-ends-well.

While the film is performed well, it needed to be more critical of its man-child protagonist or at least adjust the chronology of his actions so that he is seen to be immediately penitent about his brutality, so that his subsequent actions are not seen as, "Alright, ab to sorry bhi bol diya, okay? Jeez!" petulance.