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An important movie

Vishaal Bard-waj’s Mirchand of Varanasi is not only one of the best movies he’s made in the last six months, it’s also an absolutely stunning literary achievement by someone we can only gape at in dumbstruck awe.

One catches an early glimpse of the auteur at work in the opening sequence. Irfan Khan who plays Mirchand tells Anayat Khan (played by Shaahid Kapur) ‘I’ll give you a loan only if you create communal harmony in India’, a subtle nuanced tongue-in-cheek dig at India’s volatile communal situation. Anayat Khan, not to be left behind retorts ‘The loan is to buy bason ka laddoo’. Doesn’t take a genius to catch the reference to Shakespeare there – bason for Bassanio – Wow!

Anayat Khan’s ship sinks in Palk strait – Sri Lanka’s human rights’ situation has never been captured as metaphorically as this – a staggeringly clever take, and he's unable to repay the loan.

Anayat, the Poor Shia (Portia?) has to now defend himself in court – an audacious reduction of wasteful characters and plot. The detailing of the court is exquisite, with a large black board saying ‘Court’ in white letters. Anayat defends himself gamely, his speech peppered with unrelated statements about various important issues thereby distracting the judge.

Mirchand is willing to accept repayment in kind but Anayat, in a hat-tip to the original, says he may take exactly one kg of laddoo and no more – which sort of backfires because Mirchand does do that – a clever departure from the original, nonetheless. The audience is visibly stunned at the denouement and also at the fact that the Bard trilogy now officially has 4 movies so there’s no stopping Vishaal from adapting another of Shakespeare’s works.

Monday, July 28, 2014

Method acting

Piggy : What's the role? It better be something meaty like Janjeer where I had 2 songs
Director : This is a biopic, based on Mari Kom.
P : Eh?
D : She's a boxer
P : So? What's the role?
D : You play her. You play a boxer.
P : God! Let me make this easy. Was this Mari girl rich or poor?
D : Poor.
P : Then say that na? So I play the Agneepath character. Poor chokri with colourful clothes. I can put on my poor girl accent which is easy - just got to say 'Ai' before each sentence.
D : She's from the North east.
P : Dombiville?
D : North east India. Manipur.
P : So? She was poo