Jalsa Review

Roland Barthes, the famous French literary critic, once said that striptease becomes compelling not because a woman takes off her clothes, but because the process involves an elaborate teasing that builds up the anticipation of the viewer. This technique also works in cinema, but very few films are comfortable holding their cards. Suresh Triveni’s second directorial is one of those.

Jalsa is a trembling story of two women on the opposite spectrum of society. Maya (Vidya Balan) is an affluent journalist living a fancy life with her mother and disabled son. Rukshana (Shefali Shah) is her house-help, who takes wonderful care of Maya’s son, being a devoted helper despite a turbulent personal life.

The story of the film unfolds over a period of one week after Rukhsana’s eighteen-year-old daughter is critically injured in a hit-and-run case. This particular sequence (where the film begins) is shot with a very gothic urgency by cinematographer Saurabh Goswami. There is an echo of what is to come in the early visuals of the film. Anticipation of a dooming climax is apparent, and yet when the moment of friction comes, you are taken by surprise.

Soon enough we are introduced to the world of Jalsa. We follow a normal day in the life of Maya, a woman a short-hand message would categorize as “boss-lady”, a gross inappropriation of a dynamic, rounded character like hers. We see Maya as an unflappable presence early in the film, a contrast to the financially insecure, and societally subordinated Rukhsana, who almost feels like she owes a kind smile to Maya and her family for continuing normalcy in her life.

Writers Prajwal Chandrashekhar, Hussain Dalal, and Abbas Dalal, along with director Suresh Triveni use this premise of a hit-and-run case to give us a two-hour journey of compromised bets, guilt, loss, and the obsession with continuing one’s current normalcy, even at the cost of a life.

Triveni does a brilliant job here of directing this story, not as a whodunnit, but as a complex human story. The style of storytelling, and the story at an interest odd here, which Triveni balances wonderfully. The film baits us into thinking that we are in for a taut thriller, but what we get is a compelling story of human frailty in the midst of chaos.

This becomes apparent in a wonderful scene where Maya yells at Rukhsana for neglecting her son for a call. It is a fantastic scene of confrontation that threads the final twenty minutes of the movie wonderfully. It is a perfect visual catharsis in a film that runs with an inaudible sound of “tick…tick” in the viewer’s mind. As a viewer, you know that something is on the verge of happening, but Triveni holds on to his cards long enough to make us a little greedy for this moment and everything that bursts from here.

It helps that in Balan and Shah, the film boasts of two relentlessly powerful performances. It is as if the two stalwarts are in a world of their own, not just living their parts, but carrying the burden, and bruises of what the story does not show us. It would be wrong to rate one performance over the other because both are exceedingly captivating performances, that elevate this already impressive film into a world of its own.

Jalsa, like most good movies, is about choices, and the consequences that come with each choice. Here is a film that is confident of itself. The writing does not shy away from getting dense, the acting remains devoted to the moment, and the background score by Gaurav Chatterji, comfortable being a healthy aid, and not being obsessed with simplifying ideas and expressions with a thumping roar or a decisive melancholic hum. Jalsa is a rare film where intelligent writing meets fantastic acting. It is special, without pretending to be anything but another story.

Streaming on Amazon Prime

A Thursday Review

A week after Badhaai Do proved that the vague notion of a spiritual sequel can work on occasions, comes A Thursday a spiritual sequel of Neeraj Pandey’s 2008 directorial A Wednesday. Unlike the former, this one works as an unintentional antithesis to the Shah-Kher-starrer. A Thursday works best as a reminder of how problematic the premise of A Wednesday was, hiding the right-wing politics of its filmmaker that found its bloom with Akshay Kumar in later films.
Starring Yami Gautam Dhar, the film revolves around a nursery teacher who takes sixteen kids hostage on what appears to be a random Thursday. Writer-director Behzad Khambata diverts from the predecessor in keeping the stakes more personal here than societal (while also making a sweeping comment on the society).
The film begins well. We meet Naina (Dhar), a teacher who appears to be nothing short of an angel. She remembers the birthday of kids, offers them a safe space, makes them laugh, and feel like they have a trustworthy adult in her. As it turns out, there is more to her than her friendly side.
Khambata does well to build the tension. The stakes are high. More visible in its individualism than A Wednesday. But despite a solid, potentially career-best performance by Yami Gautam Dhar, one wonders if her inability to grasp the role by its throat right from the word go, makes one waver off their attention.
Her performance gets better, and with a stalwart like Atul Kulkarni, and a guest appearance by Dimple Kapadia giving the movie some of its best moments, the film remains watchable if not intriguing. The problem though is how Khambata weaves the social commentary in this world of a thrilling hostage situation. Neeraj Pandey had the luxury of a terrific Naseeruddin Shah at his disposal to deliver a powerful monologue.
To be honest, even that monologue felt a little dragged, and dramatic. But it was Shah who still brought an earnestness to that moment that hid the obvious writing flaws that threatened to dismantle the good work done in the first hour of that movie. Here the weight of a screenplay desperate for some socio-cultural gravitas crumbles too dramatically for Dhar to save it from becoming an easily forgettable film.
A Thursday is a film that fits a very specific sub-genre that bloomed in 2018. The sub-genre did not work then, and in 2022 it feels nothing more than a few artists stuck in a time-loop where they feel an idea that worked in a very specific context in 2008 will work fourteen years later too.
Now Streaming on Disney+Hotstar

Badhaai Do Review

In 2018 when Badhaai Ho released, it stood out amidst films that were obsessed with a social voice but lacked a strong social awareness. In Badhai Ho, everything seemed real. Badhaai Do is far from the brilliance of its spiritual predecessor. The film wobbles, scrambles, and yet, somehow, finds an original voice, and moments that feel authentic, leaving you with a sense of warmth that a narrative like this aims to achieve.
The story, set in Dehradun, follows Shardul Thakur (Rajkumar Rao) a policeman who presents himself as a macho-man, almost annoyingly proud of his muscled body. Suman Singh (Bhumi Pednekar) is a P.E. teacher. Both unmarried, and struggling to evade their respective families’ obsession with the heterosexual idea of marriage, unable to own up to their homosexuality in front of them.
What starts as a “lavender marriage” soon becomes a comedy of errors when Suman starts dating Rimjhim (Chum Darang), who soon shifts with them. With both the families convinced of the honesty of their marriage and a peculiarly nosy family of Shardul, a lot of Badhaai Do tries to work as a situational comedy. That works sporadically while falling flat on other occasions.
A scene involving Shardul trying his hardest to be a heterosexual partner in front of his box works quite well. It is almost reminiscent of Capt. Raymond Holt (Andre Braugher) from Brooklyn Nine-Nine trying to act like a heterosexual man. The scene also has undertones of institutionalized misogyny that Shardul is trapped in.
This trait grows deeper in the second hour of the film when the writing becomes crisper. Writers Suman Adhikary, and Akshat Ghildial are brave enough to show a gay man who is as regressive as his family members, and yet make you feel for him in a long, wonderfully written scene, a drunk Shardul talks about his obsession with masculinity.
Badhaai Do does not do too well as a comedy but scores brilliantly as a social drama. The film acts as a catalyst to give us an important representation of lesbian romance without the shoddiness of Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga Same-sex love stories get a romantic song, much like the kind that heterosexual couples have gotten in Hindi cinema, over the years.
The film reaches its strongest moments in the third act. A scene where Shardul breaks down is one of the most honest, emotive scenes in recent films, making you choke on a culture of oppression.
On the other hand, a scene around a Pride Parade might well become an iconic moment in the (hopefully) long and rich culture of LGBTQ+ representation in commercial cinema. It helps that Rajkumar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar deliver top performances, along with Sheeba Chaddha, Seema Pahwa, and Nitesh Pandey.
Badhaai Do is not a perfect film, but it is a welcome addition to the growing culture of queer stories on the big screen. It is a film that is well-aware of its socio-geographical presence, both within its cinematic world, and the world where it exists as a version of reality – a story – in a nearby cinema theatre.

Cheepatakadumpa Review

In Cheepatakadumpa, Devashish Makhija’s short film that is circling across film festivals in India, we are introduced to a surrealist narrative of female friendship, sexual orientation, and emancipation in an easy, unassuming, light-hearted manner that is quite in contrast to the understanding of Makhija’s cinema.

The story involves three friends. Santo and Teja (Bhumika Dube and Ipshita Chakraborty Singh), images of modern, sexually active urban women. While one does not shy away from having an orgasm on a ride in an amusement park, the other is busy scheduling a couple of hours of sexual intercourse with a married man with two kids.

Soon they meet their friend Tamanna (Annapurna Soni), a woman hidden behind a burqa; married, and too shy to even speak the word “sex” in front of her friends. Together, these three friends go on a rarely discussed, and often poorly depicted coming-of-age journey. Santo and Teja take it upon themselves to introduce their naïve friend to the joys of orgasm.

After a wonderfully sequenced scene of the two friends using tomato to explain the process of masturbation to Tamanna, the film takes an absurdist take that unleashes Makhija at his best, crafting a long, mystical sequence that encapsulates the soul of this film, and the surrealist route that takes it to the beautifully written final scene of the film.

What makes Cheepatakadumpa stand out from other films that attempt to explore women sexuality is the fact that the writing here remains light-hearted, almost assuming this to be a conversation so natural, so undeserving of the shrouded nature of its existence in the real world, that the film reflects it as nothing but three friends having a good time.

Makhija masks this film as a buddy drama but also shows how the truth is still warped by a sense of mischief that many may call a prophecy of the invisible evil. He conveys his point poignantly, but also with ease, making the audience smile at the innocent emancipation of Tamanna as the film nears the end credits. After all, few things give us more joy than a complete, unrestricted acceptance of our own body and the magic it entails under the garb of normalcy.

The Empire: A Victim of Scale and Politics

On paper The Empire, on Hotstar+Disney, is a winner all the way. There are few things that seem more exciting potentially than a six-season idea where each season would follow the life and times of a Mughal emperor. Each of these individuals – their lives – and its impact on the Indian subcontinent is humongous in narrative possibilities.

Despite all that, the first season of the show that focuses on Babur (played here by Kunal Kapoor) feels insipid. A strange cocktail of Bhansali-esque ambition and TV soap-like mediocrity. There are moments where the show hints at what it could have been. There is always something fascinating about the life of someone who starts an empire, a legacy. Babur, as I realized while watching the show, is rarely spoken about under the more dynamic, memorable emperors that the Mughal era is remembered by now.

And yet, the minute there is a whisper of a promise, we are reminded that this is nothing but a mediocre interpretation of a life that was anything but that. Yes, the visual effects are often shoddy (a scene in the first episode is simply atrocious), and the writing is patchy. But what really pulls the show down is the disparity between its scale and ambition, and the acting we see on screen.

This is not to belittle the actors. Kunal Kapoor is an able performer, and he penetrates through to the vulnerable corners of Babur quite well, but the performances by side actors are shockingly bad. In the early episodes of the show (which are also the worst in my opinion), one almost feels bad for Shabana Azmi. Her performance, although a little down from what one comes to expects from her, shines like a diamond lying unattended, surrounded by roughed-up pebbles.

Dhrashti Dhami, with her wide-eyed glare through every emotion, again, is a big disappointment. She brings the kind of acting chops that work well on television, but not in front of Azmi, Kapoor, and a surprisingly good Dino Morea as the Khilji-like antagonist Shaibani Khan.

An understanding behind actors familiarized on television shows appearing on what attempts to be the most ambitious show on the digital format, trying to ace a race owned by the monsters of the entertainment industry, is rooted in the world The Empire exists in.

The story that it attempts to tell is worthy of the scale its makers try to ignite. To depict the Mughal era in all its glory needs a certain style and stage; a canvas worthy of these characters and their lives.

Which is why it needs actors who are not just talented, but who could also carry the gravitas of those individuals. This comes to the foray especially when you see Aditya Seal as Humayun. One wonders how he would carry an entire season (assuming the show progresses to the second season) on his shoulders, portraying a man that demands an artist who can not only embrace his ark but also appear as someone who was born, grew, and triumphed the richest of lives in that era.

As I completed the series, that remained watchable despite piercing flaws, I wished for a recasting of a series like this. I imagined the most dynamic stars – Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Hritik Roshan, even Vicky Kaushal, maybe – among others to lead each season.

In an instant the budget, VFX, and the storytelling could have been improved simply because the show would have had an international presence. Forget emulating Game of Thrones, it could have overpowered what they achieved, simply because on the level of narrative alone; the story of each Mughal emperor is worthy of deep, detailed creative analysis.

There is a reason why stalwarts like Prithviraj Kapoor and Dilip Kumar portrayed the roles of Akbar and Salim in the memorable Mughal-E-Azam, respectively. Years later Hritik Roshan brought a more breezy sense of masculinity to Akbar, only continuing the legacy of memorable representations of Akbar in Hindi cinema.

One wonders how pale a figure like Akbar could be in The Empire if it continues its budgeted story-telling sans any prominent names, owing to the Padmaavat controversy, and the anti-Mughal propaganda that forms the dominant part of our political consciousness right now.

The first season, as it stands now, is a meek reminder of what promise looks like in absence of delivery. It is a stark reminder that some stories work best only with a certain kind of panache, a dynamic host of actors who can ease into not just the arc but dynamism of the characters. Some stories, one is forced to realize, work best with a budget deserving of the scale. In absence of that, as one sees in The Empire, all one does is a disservice to the very story a group of artists decided to put on screen.

Now Streaming on Hotstar+Disney

Sadak 2 Review

 

Sadak 2 marks the return of Mahesh Bhatt on the director’s chair again after a long break and given his appreciable filmography and the talent he brings on screen for this movie, you expect it to be a worthy watch. But the film, that is a sequel to the Sanjay Dutt-Pooja Bhatt-starrer Sadak, feels like it has been teleported into a future it does not belong to.

Sanjay Dutt reprises his role of Ravi, now grieving the loss of the woman who helped him out of his descending mental health in the previous film. The woman of his dreams is dead, and with that Ravi has lost all his will to live. Early in the movie, Ravi tries to hang himself by the ceiling. One cannot help but recall the recent demise of an actor, and the impact that narrative has had on the way the trailer of this film was received.

The only way Sadak 2 could have bounced back after the wide negativity against its trailer was if the film turned out to be a knockout winner. Sadly, what we find on screen is one of the tamest films in recent times with such a rich pool of talent on the screen (incidentally the only recent film that comes to mind as worse than this is Bhatt and Roy-starrer Kalank).

The story is too intrigued by its own love-affair with a kind of dramatic flair that is dated and undesired. There is a twist on every turn, but the emotions that the film wants to churn out of the audience are missing. There is a teary Sanjay Dutt, who does his best to give the narrative a gravity that the writing lacks. Alia Bhatt tries her best to fit into a role that is too simplistic and one-tone for a film where every second character is holding a secret up their sleeves.

After a point, it seems those involved with the film forgot that they needed to marry their obsession with twists with some sense of logic. But to expect even an ounce of logic from Sadak 2 is wrong. This is the kind of terrible film that disregards the intelligence of its audience on every turn (at one point, Aditya Roy Kapoor and Sanjay Dutt sing with the same voice in a song). It is laughable, frustrating and an unendingly agonizing watch that ends as miserably as it began.

Sadak 2 is the kind of movie where the lines of good and evil are distinctly carved. The good is often in the sunshine, wearing clothes of lighter shades, and the evil is indoor, in a darkened space, wearing black clothes. At its crux, its intention to take a dig at the corrupt nature of Godmen is a noble one. But it is better to have an able Aamir Khan and Anushka Sharma do that in an inconsistent but effective PK. Someday, Alia Bhatt will return back to give us a film that supports her talent, but with memories of her fantastic screen presence in Gully Boy fading, one is left wondering if Mahesh Bhatt will ever make a better, more fitting film with his daughter. Until then, the ghastly memories of this torrid experience will persist.

 

Now Streaming on Disney+Hotstar

Mee Raqsam Review

 

In Mee Raqsam director Baba Azmi and producer Shabana Azmi intend to pay a tribute to their father, the great Urdu poet and lyricist Kaifi Azmi. The film is not the story of his life, but a story of a father who stands tall against religious extremism for the sake of his daughter’s happiness, often without realizing the magnitude of his actions. It captures the essence of Azmi – a sense of his ideologies and the political voice and weaves that voice into the narrative, to create a film that is soft, harmless, and for the most part likable.

The story follows Mariam (Aditi Subedi), a teenage girl who deals with the loss of her mother by pursuing her passion for dancing. Her father, Salim (Danish Husain) a tailor, enrolls her in a Bharatnatyam class, triggering a rupture in the social fabric of Mijwan, a small town in U.P., which was also Kaifi Azmi’s hometown. Fanatics from both sides start to accuse Salim of being ignorant and insensitive to his religion. To study Bharatnatyam, which is perceived as a Hindu dance form by the Islamic extremists, is an insult to Islam. With threats of social boycott looming hard, Salim’s love for his daughter is put to test.

At its core, the story of Mee Raqsam is a dramatic one. In places, the drama becomes a little obvious and almost staged, but largely Baba Azmi maintains a sense of restrain in his narrative. Despite a heavy presence of religious fanaticism, the story remains rooted in the relationship of the father and daughter, who fight hate, bias, and isolation together.

Mee Raqsam benefits heavily from the performances that the director gets out of his actor. Danish Husain as the loving, unnerving father is wonderful, especially in scenes where he stands as a pillar of courtesy and hospitality in the face of hate, isolation, and social and professional boycott. His eyes carry a blend of pain and determination. He values his religion, but not the men who have become self-designed voices of Allah; he loves his daughter, and realizes that the only right there is for him is to make his daughter happy. He is a man of simple values, but what makes him extraordinary is his belief in his values, despite the hate around him. As Mariyam, Aditi Subedi is innocent, soft, and palpable enough to come across as convincing. But it is Naseeruddin Shah in the role of a regressive patron of Islam who shines the most, despite a presence that is credited as a guest appearance. Shah, much like in his previous appearance in Bandish Bandits, does something with a simple narrative and elevates it briefly into something special simply by the gaze of his eyes. It is a privilege seeing him on screen, and despite a well-trimmed role, one wishes to see more of his rage, simply because it is him essaying this role.

Mee Raqsam is a delicate story of a father-daughter duo, that makes some pertinent arguments about an increasing division of art forms into religion, and the need for integration, to realize that Bharatnatyam is as much a part of the Indian culture as ghazals and Shayari. The film is an ode to people who stand against such divisive thinking, in the process paying a tribute to the man who rose from Mijwan and became a harsh critic of religious dogmatism, and an advocate of liberalism.

 

Now Streaming on Zee5

Khuda Haafiz Review

 

Khuda Haafiz is a rare Vidyut Jamwal-starrer film where Jamwal has no action sequences till almost the end of the first hour. It is a film that tests the actor in Jamwal, forcing him to find an emotional core to unleash the action hero that he has made a habit of playing. The film, written and directed by Faruk Kabir, takes a long time to give Jamwal the base upon which he can showcase his talent as an action hero. This is both, a risky and a compromised creative call, that words sporadically, but eventually lets the narrative down.

The premise here is quite simple. Set against the backdrop of the 2008 recession, Sameer (Jamwal) marries Nargis (Shivaleeka Oberoi) early in the film, only to find that with the recession, both of them have lost their life. In absence of an income, they take the help of a shady travel agent (Vipin Sharma), to travel to Noman, a fictional country somewhere in the Middle-East (in a weird animated moment, we are actually shown the geographical location of this non-existing country). Here, Nargis is kidnapped and Sameer is on a lookout for the love of his life with the help of a friendly taxi driver (Annu Kapoor), and government officers Faiz Abu Malik (Shiv Panditt) and Tamena Hamid (Aahana Kumra).

The talent on screen is quite good in Khuda Haafiz, despite a dodgy accent here-and-there. This helps in ensuring that the film is not an unwatchable affair, but the film is punctured by clichés that start to appear quite early in the narrative. For an action-thriller, the pace at which the film moves is questionably slow, and the figure of antagonist never fleshed out enough to become a frightening presence in the narrative.

At several points, the film seems to be edging towards making a political, social point, but it wastes every opportunity as a contrived plot-points. A story of a couple left jobless after the recession could have found an unforeseen resonance in the current economic climate, but the film is too busy working up towards the action set-pieces to really interrogate their plight. Similarly, the film could have shown the darker side of trafficking and its ghastly presence, but that too becomes a base upon which Jamwal could beat up a few men.

The female protagonist, Nargis, exists in the film only to look pretty and be scared and powerless, while the other female character, Tamena, is a wasted opportunity of exploring a woman who is more than a face in a male-centric culture. Khuda Haafiz is strictly about men, and that too, men with a vulnerable core.

This gives Jamwal a chance at showing a different side to his screen presence. Jamwal is earnest throughout the film, but the raw vulnerability that the director demands from him also leaves him empty in some crucial moments in the film. For a film that tries to find its roots in emotions, Khuda Haafiz is low on them, while in the process compromising the action that could have elevated this film in moments.

Khuda Haafiz is not a terrible movie. It is a film that works in little moments, but those are rare, and too little to harp on. The film suffers by sidelining its female characters and trying to redefine an actor who probably does not have the depth and gravity that one needs to pull off a role so deeply rooted in fiery melancholy. Jamwal is decent, but not good enough, and a sudden character shift from a curtailed law-abiding citizen to a rogue is so unsettling and unconvincing, that nothing – not even Jamwal’s ability to fight a traitor single-handedly in front of armed officer – could bring Khuda Haafiz to justice.

 

Now Streaming on Disney+Hotstar

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl Review

 

A few days ago, Shakuntala Devi struggled with the problem of blending the personal and professional of the mathematician, inclining towards the former more than the latter. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is a more balanced, mature film about a woman who tries to balance the personal with professional excellence.

However, the biggest merit of the film lies in its ability to go beyond the titular figure whose story it documents. The story is more about a gender’s historical exclusion from the world beyond the four walls of the home. It is a tale of a young woman who dared to dream and found her way through all attacks of institutionalized sexism to live her dream on a canvas where her dreams marry a patriotic accomplishment.

In one of the best scenes of the film Gunjan (Jhanvi Kapoor) is skeptical about her decision to join the Indian Air Force. She argues that her passion is to be a pilot, she is not a very patriotic person. There is a sense of self-disappointment in her voice. She has pictured patriotism as a vocal, vehement love for the idea pf a country. Her father, Anup Saxena (Pankaj Tripathi), gives a counter idea of patriotism, where the very idea of our love for our country is hinged on the proper functioning of the larger machinery of everyone doing their job passionately. They share a smile, and a moment of subtle counter-argument to the chest-thumping idea of patriotism being at the forefront of a military-based story is put in the forefront.

A few scenes later, we see Gunjan in the air force uniform, slowly growing a sense of patriotism, but never turning into someone who kisses the tricolor or yells a cathartic “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” in the climax where she triumphs over systematic sexism that has defined her journey, and the film, till that point.

Writer Nikhil Mehrotra and director Sharan Sharma use these moments smartly to emphasize that the story they are telling belongs to a woman and her passion, not the air force job that she happened to get, as part of her childhood dream of being a pilot. The narrative is inclined more towards the confrontations Gunjan has with sexism.

Here, the film nails the parts where Gunjan is forced to feel secluded and unwanted in a military culture that is structurally patriarchal in nature. From the absence of a ladies’ bathroom to sexist jokes being thrown around casually, the film catches the breath of casual sexism wonderfully. It is in these moments that the film is at its best, both narratively and in its performances.

Pankaj Tripathi alone gives this film a touching emotional core by his simple, soft portrayal of a loving father, reminiscent of his performance in the cheerfully light Bareily Ki Barfi. He is brilliant as Gunjan’s father, as is Angad Bedi as the sexist brother, who carries a misogynist idea of looking after his sister. Bedi infuses the role with love and care, realizing that he stands for all those nameless faces who find reasons to stamp their sexism over women they claim to love and look out for. Vineet Kumar Singh is utilized well here as the arrogant flight commander, who stands for systematic sexism at the workplace, capturing the brutality of a woman’s experience of exploring the uncharted ably.

With such exceptional actors surrounding the canvas of Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl, Jhanvi Kapoor is given the herculean task of staying on the same beat with these stalwarts as the titular figure of the movie. After her debut in Dhadak, Kapoor gives a patchy but decent performance here as Gunjan Saxena. She never catches you by your breath the way Alia Bhatt did in her fantastic portrayal of Veera in Highway, but she finds the heartbeat of her character well, especially in scenes where she emotes quietly in the face of blatant sexism. She still feels rough, and there are moments where she risks at ruining a well-written screenplay by the sheer absence of a coherent presentation of poignancy on her face, but she shines in the latter half of the film, getting increasingly better with each passing scene.

Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl finds a good mix of family drama and Saxena’s personal ambition, and journey of turning her dreams into her reality. The journey she goes through to fulfill this dream, like the film itself, is hiccupped, but eventually a rewarding one. Gunjan Saxena: The Kargil Girl is a film that gets a lot of complexities of the real-life figure right. It is in the parts that feel strictly fictionalized that the film seems to go a little haywire, preventing it from going past a good, watchable affair.

 

Now Streaming on Netflix

Pareeksha Review

 

If to be well-intentioned as a filmmaker was the primary criterion for a film to be good, then Prakash Jha’s directorial Pareeksha would have been a stellar work of art. But the truth is a little more complex than that. In his pursuit of telling a story with a larger social purpose, Jha has faltered to give a coherent, engaging cinematic experience in his latest offering, despite a commendable outing by Adil Hussain.

Jha returns to his concerns with the Indian education system again after the 2011 Aarakshan, this time speaking of the economically underprivileged. The larger arc of the film is quite simple. Bucchi (Adil Hussain) is a rickshaw puller in Ranchi, who wants to do everything to ensure his son Bulbul (Shubham Jha) gets a good shot at a life that is better than the one Bucchi has gained for himself and his family.

A private school becomes the guarantee for a better future, in Bucchi’s mind. A school far from his thin pockets. But Bucchi is determined, and in that determination he goes from white to shades of grey, justifying everything by the simple rationale of everything leading to a better life for his son.

The film at once wants to be a story of emotional turmoil, as well as a thinking guide for the audience to question the system that is unfairly biased towards those with big pockets, Pareeksha functions on a very bland base to work as both. The film is dated and distasteful. It employs clichés like the poor man standing in rains with his son, waiting for the big-school principal to come in her lavish car, or the desperate father trying to commit an immoral act, but still helping an old man up, leading up to him being caught of committing a crime.

Jha, who we are told is adapting the narrative from a real-life story, gets greedy in his pursuit of churning the most out of this story. With an amicable arc, that resembles in parts with the 1948 masterpiece Bicycle Thieves, with a social commentary on the education system peppered along the way, Jha had a potential winner at hand. Sadly, he suffocates his own ambitions by cushioning the story with relentless melodrama and manipulative emotions

There is nothing wrong with the two things, essentially. A story like this comes with the promise of an emotional chord. But the problem is when you start seeing how the filmmaker is trying to birth that emotion out of you. In Pareeksha, the tricks are too repetitive, regressive to make it work. After all these years, there has to be a better way to convey emotions. To spell out everything – every fear, intention, indecision, and injustice – becomes quickly repetitive and ragged as a storytelling device.

The first half of Pareeksha is choppy and half-baked, but a part of you stays invested because of an earnest Adil Hussain trying his best to create an emotional core to a story that forgets him in the second half like his struggle never mattered. It is here that Pareeksha commits its cardinal sin. The creative decision that single-handedly pulls away from all promises and hopes that you might have had with this one.

A high-ranking cop (Sanjay Suri) has a strange, erratic subplot involving him becoming a teacher for the underprivileged, reminiscent of another tired, treacherous subplot in Jha’s Aarakshan. It is here that the film completely crumbles under its own chaos. The story tries to become more about the economically impoverished students as a whole, and not just Bulbul, which the narrative refrains from soon, returning to Bulbul’s cause again before the end credits roll.

Veteran filmmakers like Prakash Jha are often defeated by their desire to hold on to a kind of filmmaking that belongs to a bygone era. Their drama is dated, and their themes, while still explorative, are morphed in a decade that matched with their prime. In that sense, Pareeksha is a reminder that a good film is not made by well-intentions and a big name on the director’s chair, but by remaining true to the times it is being made in and finding the grammatical accuracy best suited for the story being told.

 

Now Streaming on Zee5