#the bright day is also interesting because it continuously references the writings of kabir a poet who influenced the bhakti movement

[amongxylophonesandglockenspiels]

Bollywood Movies Part CLXX

Rizwan Ahmed’s (Rohan Vinod Mehra) dream is to trade stocks for Shakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan), a businessman with an impressive reputation. With coworker and girlfriend Priya’s (Radhika Apte) help and insider trading, Rizwan gets what he desires but does not realize the lengths Shakun Kothari is willing to go to get what he wants.

Baazaar features some great performances from new performer Rohan Vinod Mehra and Saif Ali Khan. Unfortunately, I didn’t actually care about what was happening in the movie. This may have been a fault of the script or of the premise, I’m not entirely sure which. Maybe it was the breaking of the fourth wall. Favorite songs are Adhura Lafz, Chhod Diya, and Billionaire (Hindi transliteration subtitles). The other two songs don’t have subtitles.

Inspector Abhik Chowdhury (Rahul Bose) chats with journalist Brinda Roy Menon (Radhika Apte) anonymously online, but the two get off on the wrong foot when they first meet in real life. Brinda’s mentor and Abhik’s friend Paro (Aparna Sen) gets a job offer in Mumbai which would take her even farther from her separated husband Ranjan (Kalyan Roy), even though the two still love each other. Meanwhile, Brinda investigates rumors about entrepreneur V.K. Mehra’s (Shauvik Kundagrami) new building project.

Antaheen is a beautiful movie about relationships in various stages and quite impressive for the budget it had. I especially enjoyed how the lives and relationships of the main characters intertwined in various ways. The ending is bittersweet, but I don’t think it could have ended differently because the tragedy helps others heal. I especially enjoyed Mita Vashisht as Shalini Mehra who blames her husband for her daughter’s death. Favorite songs are Muthor Rumaal, Jao Pakhi, and Pherari Mon (no subtitles).

College student Shiv (Sarang Sathaye) leaves behind his mother (Shernaz Patel), his father (Rajit Kapoor), and Rukmini (Radhika Apte) to go find his “musical note.” In Jaisalmer, he meets an American (Kelly Marie Miller) and travels with her, eventually believing himself in love with her. They split on the way to Benares. There, he is taken under Golu’s (Devraya Potdar) wing and meets a sadhu or holy man (Robin Das) who teaches him about becoming.

The Bright Day is wonderfully done, especially the cinematography. Mohit Takalkar’s film directorial debut is quite a watch, with messages about finding spirituality in a materialistic world and how finding yourself can require great change. There are parts at the beginning that foreshadow and even tell us what happens after the movie has ended. The movie starts a bit slow and is a bit stilted at times, but it really hits its stride in Benares There’s so much to unpack in this movie that rewatches would be useful. I have only found three of the songs for this movie online. All three are originally recorded by the Kabir Project and have English and Hindi subtitles. These songs are Ab Thaara Laal Samandada Ra, Mann Laago Fakiri Mein, and Mann Mast Hua Phir Kya Bole.

[iwanttobeyourwonderwoman]

Nobody Gives A Shit, Git (5)

Act 1, scene 1.

Brahmpur, India.

-Enter Lata-

-Spotlight shines on first box-

Kabir Durrani swinging his bat and looks out to the crowd

-Spotlight dims, and shines on second box-

Amit Chatterji, legs stretched out on a bench, jotting down lines of poetry.

-Spotlight dims and shines on third box-

Haresh Khanna placing the contents of his bag neatly on his desk.

-Spotlight dims on all 3 as Lata stares into the darkness-

-Exit Lata-

HELLO HELLOOOOOO and welcome back. Totally steering away from the tension of the elections for this post because I just finished watching A Suitable Boy on netflix the other day and as usual I have certain scenes stuck in my head that need to be discussed.

So an introduction, (And lots of spoilers ahead!)

Netflix’s latest indian release has been A Suitable Boy, an adaptation of a best selling book written by Vikram Seth (which i now kinda wanna read) and in collaboration with BBC studios,  follows the lives of primarily Lata and Maan. Set in post partition independent India, it highlights the journey of self discovery as well as what the title suggests, the search for a suitable boy. Intertwined with lots of secrets and scandals, the show is overall captivating and takes a little bit of a modern twist, mainly because of the fact that the characters mostly speak in English!

The main actress, Lata, was portrayed beautifully as such a well educated and independent woman trying to follow her mother’s wishes of finding her a husband but battles with her own secret love for the dashing Kabir Durrani, a muslim star cricketeer of their school; amongst her slight attraction to her sister-in-law’s younger brother Amit Chatterji, a witty poet who holds the power to charm Lata’s brain as much as her heart, although much to her mother’s disapproval. Lastly, we have Haresh Khanna, a humble and talented cobbler who Lata’s mother has introduced her to as her choice of a suitable boy who is  constantly fighting for Lata and her mother’s approval. Overall this aspect of the show somehow reminded me of GIlmore Girls, because of how close mother and daughter were, as were Lorelai and Rory and also how it was always a battle between Dean, Jess and Logan. But who did Rory, and Lata in this instance, really want to be with in the end amongst their romances with each of the 3 men.

So before starting on the show I had only heard of the title and that the lead role of Maan was played by Ishaan Khatter. The rest of the cast included Tabu, Ram Kapoor and so on. A stellar cast to bring out the dramatic tones of the show and highlight the political and religious unrest, scandals and romance all across the 6 episodes. I mean look at the stellar performance and chemistry between Ishaan and Tabu throughout the show!

Starting the first episode, I realise like I mentioned above, that most of the show is in English which is great for a potato like me so I don’t have to read subtitles. Did it match the setting of 1950s India? Initially I wasn’t sure because how do you portray the accuracy in culture if it’s all in English and then I realised a damn good cast is all you need, which they definately had. Also because its a collaboration with BBC, the show has some actors with stronger British or American accents than others, and yet they transition from speaking in English to Hindi or Urdu very seamlessly. I think this would really help to attract the non Indian crowd to also take an interest in the show, as well as the culture.

Now the whole series has been made to be very theatrical, hence the introduction to my post. Throwing in a little fun fact some might not know about me is that I used to study Theatre and Drama, which made my appreciation grow for this style of directing/acting because I feel like it’s hardly being used nowadays. That being said, i feel like having the show in English was key to bring out all the dramatic aspects of the series. I think many people did not like that or maybe could not understand little aspects of it. I loved it though I thought it was a clever way to show off the historical side as well as attract a bigger audience.

*More spoilers ahead!!*

 My favourite scene though, was the ending of Episode 5!

Maan, in a fit of drunk rage and jealousy, had just stabbed his best fried Firoz.

Firoz enters the scene dragging his feet, hands clutched to his side, as blood gushes out of his stab wound. He stumbles and finally gives up as he falls to the ground and continues to bleed out as the scene ends. The best part is, the whole scene was set to be red in colour with very dim lighting all around but a huge spotlight on Firoz. Wow I cant even explain how well thought-out that scene was and how impactful of an ending they were able to portray in that episode. It’s like creating a whole other air of suspense and drama as you watch him as an audience bleeding out. I mean they could have just shown him bleeding out on the naturally lit street (but then again were streets ever well lit at night in that era???) But what I’m trying to say is that the whole show could have taken a very different direction but i very much enjoyed the theatrical direction. 

Overall, I really liked the series, took me some time to get through all 6 episodes though, but it was worth it. It’s also quite a nice and simple reminder while watching that that was what people were doing at that time, without technology and so on. It also makes us think back to (the unfortunately stereotypical) topic of parents thinking that they have to find a suitable partner for their child after a certain age. I mean as bright as Lata was, she was still made to believe that she had to follow the path laid out for her by her mother when she was portrayed to be an excellent student of English Literature. I mean you could actually cross refer this series to A suitable Girl on netflix (a documentary focusing on 3 indian girls and how they’re parents and society pressurise them to get married as well how their married life ends up looking like) and the problem comes back to society, expectations, religion, pressure and just the indian culture. 

So yes to end it all off, I do definitely recommend this show for primarily Indians but also to non indians to have a better understanding of issues ad culture of that time.

Cast - 5/5!!

Plot - 4/5

Ending - 3.5/5 (Why does she end up with Haresh!!!?????) 

Acting - 5/5!!!

Set/costumes - 5/5

That’s about all I’ve got on this show to end off yet another topic really nobody cares about! Well I’m off to watch The bonus episode of Hookup Plan/ Plan Coeur on netflix which is a French series, which I also previously reviewd back in season . So as usual, my other writings can be found in the gituuuu tab so knock yourselves out folks!!