Change Your Image
i_attitude
Reviews
Shaitan (2011)
Next time you see the mirror ,you will see a devil
A yellow Hummer speeding down the road with five youths and an Audi speeds past them almost in a 'catch me if you can" style.Then begins the race.One of the guys in hummer making a video of the race on his mobile to capture the moment of winning,Others cheering him,after sometime Audi quits the race accepting its defeat,turns left on a roundabout.The guy driving Hummer, starts circling the roundabout with a triumphant joy,others cheering him again.Then suddenly they stop to a screeching halt ,everyone tumbles over.They get down to see something which gives them the horror of their lives and sets the plot for the rest of the film.
'Shaitan' looks straight into the face of the reluctant,not-so-eager Indian viewer and shakes him out of the slumber by introducing him to his own dark reality.People get used to complacency and are satisfied that what they are being served is what they only deserve, but when a filmmaker like Anurag Kashyap takes up the cause,he makes sure we get nothing but the best.
The film is about a bunch of kids(as they are supposed to be attending schools) who are rich and carry a devil-may-care attitude.A 'rebel without a clue', 'KC' ,who has a rich god-fearing dad,doesn't mind stealing his mom's jewellery when he and his friends are in trouble and need money.Amy an NRI joins the 'gang' later ,has a destructive mentality because she lost her mother at an early age and holds everyone in her family responsible for that.Tanya,a forced model who does a saree ad because her sister wants her to.Dash is the guy we know least about and 'Zubin' played by neil bhoopalam an ex channel 'v' video jockey a gadget geek who sheepishly smiles when he gets caught by his mom giving himself a hand-job and finally Rajeev Khandelwal as Inspector Mathur who impresses again as 'tough as nail' cop who would rather kick an auto-driver than arguing when he refuses to go to a certain place .
First time director Bejoy seems to have done his homework well and impresses with innovative camera techniques . There's a shot through a beer bottle during a song and the introduction of Insepector Mathur which is done in POV camera style.Producer Anurag kashyap is a prolific director himself and some of the scenes in the film seem like they've been lifted straight from his previous films like there's a scene in the film where a 'good cop' (Rajeev Khandelwal) chases a 'bad cop' through the narrow by-lanes of Bombay slums a la the 'great chase' sequence in his own movie 'Black Friday'.Producer further indulges himself by recreating another scene from his own film 'Paanch' which got shelved after a controversial face-off with the censor-board because of its violent and drug related scenes and still seem like too much for our iron-clad society even after more than 10 years of its making.
'Shaitan' scores some extra points when it shows some real gory and bloody scenes and creates a feeling of horror in the viewer who by so far was enjoying good music and trying to relive his own college days by watching the gang's juvenile antics.This film does, what 'Dil chahta hai' and 'Rang de basanti' did for the decade just went by,which is, showing another facade of the youth which can be all fun-loving at times but has the potential for being the most turbulent when its expected to be at its best.
I feel more films like 'Shaitan' should come out as these films are not made to send a message across but to make one feel that anyone can have an alternative side which he's not aware of and can wreck a havoc if not timely tamed.
Paanch (2003)
paanch is the word...
It was only after i watched 'dev d' and 'gulaal' that i felt an inner urge to watch 'Paanch',the movie which never got to see the light of the day despite being in controversy all this while but for all the wrong reasons. The way Anurag showed the inner turmoil of the male protagonists and unconventional portrayal of women in both the aforementioned movies I was pretty much sure that the movie has something different to offer and boy was i right,Bombay never looked so dark and grim as has been shown in the movie right from the opening credits till the end.
Paanch is a story of five youths including a girl in the form of a not-so-well-to-do rock band which goes by the name of 'parasites'. All down and out on their luck they hatch a plan to kidnap one of their friends who is not a part of the band and ask for the ransom from his rich dad. The plan goes awry and so does their fate,it is only after that we get to witness the destructive mentality of today's youth who want to go to any length to get their dreams fulfilled. Band's lead singer and guitarist is Luke played by Kay Kay Menon, a maniac in his own way and a control-freak with megalomaniac aspirations. The scene where Luke says "baap hoon main sabka" says it all. Aggression and frustration takes a whole new meaning when Luke beats his friend to death with an iron rod.joy played by joy is OK but that doesn't bother you much. Abhishek Shrivastav played his own calm self in 'murgi'.the surprise package of the movie is 'pondi and 'shiuli' played by Vijay Maurya and Tejaswani Kolhapure respectively. Paanch takes you to those dark corners of human psyche where a normal being has least likely to have visited before. Dark,disturbing,destructive,grim and real are the five words to describe Paanch in the best way. A must watch.i would give it an 8.5/10.
LSD: Love, Sex Aur Dhokha (2010)
one of the most dark and disturbing movie in Indian cinema
well,despite being called a movie buff this was first ever time i watched first day first show of any movie and every effort was worth it,intrigued by the film title 'LSD' which is quite similar to the famous 60s drug LSD my first impression was the movie has something to do with drugs+love+sex+betrayal=youth though i was right the movie has everything sans the drugs.the whole movie is shot with hand-held or CCTV camera which gives it a very shaky and grungy look. Though the concept of movie being shot with hand-held camera is quite common in Hollywood and European cinema but these movies are either not available on Dvds or Indian viewers are just not interested in this form of movie-making.the movie has three different stories based on the same concept as the title suggests which later on intertwine towards the end..arguably this movie could well be called darkest movie of Indian cinema as first two of the 3 stories end up on a rather disturbing note.some of the scenes in the movie are brilliantly shot ..the brutally beating and chopping off the bodies of the two lovers with an Axe in the first story being one.the scene shook the spook out of me and as it seems is very much inspired from Gaspar Noe's 'irreversible's cylinder bashing scene.
Actors in the movie are a bunch of nobodies..doing their first movie but no-one lets you down.Each one of the characters has done considerably well .director Dibakar Bannerjee as it seems is on a mission to break every cliché about how movies in India should be made or seen for that matter.After 'khosla K ghosla and 'oye lucky oye' LSD has cemented a berth for him in front row of the top directors.the most talented director after anurag kashyap i would say LSD might not make it big on box office it sure will have a cult following from those crooked minds who just want to lay their hands on everything that has something new to offer.i would give it an 8/10
two thumbs way up for dibakar bannerjee..!!