Those were my thoughts on what happened to the people behind X3 aka X-Men: The Last Stand.  How else could they botch up The Dark Phoenix Saga story-line. And after a brilliant reboot with X-Men: First Class, this one i.e. X-Men: Days of Future Past  had a lot to do.

It is sort of based on the 80′s Uncanny X-Men story-line of the same name, meaning the original trilogy would be bridged with X-Men: First Class. Which would involve retconning 14 years on cinematic history (which included the earlier mentioned Last Stand) and still stay true to decades of comic lineage which itself has had gazillions of  multiverses.

So does it deliver? Yes it does and it does so while pushing the audience on to a psychedelic trip, which you’ll definitely enjoy more if you are tuned into the whole shindig.

In the dystopian future , Sentinels are exterminating mutants and humans who aid them.  A small band of mutants manage to evade the Sentinels thanks to the powers of Kitty Pryde. They meet with Professor Charles Xavier and Magneto  in a monastery in China. They, then decide to send Wolverine’s consciousness back in time to prevent Mystique from murdering Bolivar Trask , the lead designer of the Sentinels which would effectively change how things pan out in the future.

The past is set in the post-Vietnam-Nixon era America, complete with tons of 70s pop culture references and bell-bottoms. The future is set in a post apocalyptic 2023- dark, grim and very haunting. The time-space continuum is manipulated and put to use so brilliantly in the narrative. The cinematic style is pretty quirky in the way it includes everything from footage shot in style of 70s news reel to that insane bullet time scene which is going to be copied and redone in god knows how many films.

The ensemble cast in fantastic; there’s very little that could wrong with a cast like that (that is if you don’t consider X3: the Last Stand to be an actual film).The mutants from the original trilogy are cameos at best.  Halle Berry’s Storm has a few lines- her role was supposedly shortened due to her surprise pregnancy.

Vintage Professor Xavier (James McAvoy) and vintage Magneto  (Michael Fassbender) are freaking brilliant- the professor is at his worst- a drunken memory of the man he used to be. His portrayal is so spot on that you feel the humanity that is such an internal part of his character. Peter Maximoff (Evan Peters) has a very small but important role in this- my guess is that he is being set up to appear in the next film; X-Men: Apocalypse. Don’t know if they will call him Quicksilver since Marvel Studios are introducing Quicksilver and his twin Scarlet Witch in the next Avengers movie (revealed in the post credits scene of Captain America: Winter Soldier).

This version of Bolivar Trask (Peter Dinklage) is so much better than the previous  government official(who doesn’t really hate mutants) played by Bill Duke in The Last Stand. Director Bryan Singer stated that though Duke’s Trask was originally supposed to be Bolivar Trask, he can be disregarded in the retconned continuity since they never called him that and credited him with just ‘Trask’. Dinklage is nothing like Bolivar Trask in the comics and that’s good. I feel that they should make him the new Trask in the manner they made Samuel L  Jackson the new Nick Fury in the comic multiverse.  He has one great speech where he states how he admires the mutants even though he is hunting them down. So fucking subtle but epic.

Jennifer Lawrence is more known and revered now that she was during the sequel- this is reflected in the increased  screen-time she gets in this one. I think I can’t be unbiased when I am talking about her. I have loved her screen presence since Winter’s Bone and she is stellar in her understated portrayal of Raven/Mystique. I did miss Rebecca Romijn and I always will.

They changed the comic book a bit and sent back Wolverine instead of Kitty Pride- because Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is a lot more popular- but I would want to know how Kitty Pride (Ellen Page) would play out in the scheme of things.

Maybe not…

This film is sort of the spring cleaning required for what is to come- a new set of X-Men movies starting with X-Men: Apocalypse. But it is still an X-Men movie. And if you know anything about the X-Men, you would know how it was sort of inspired by the Civil Rights movement i.e. Magneto = Malcolm X , Charles Xavier = Martin Luther King  and that the later comics drew a parallel with everything from the real world- the holocaust, LGBT themes, the AIDS virus (the Legacy Virus)…

And Bryan Singer maintained that in the two previous films- it was always about acceptance and being inclusive irrespective of one’s differences. And that still lives on in this film. Pop culture and actual world history is so well woven with the plot- it can turn a history buff into a fan boy.

I mean even the film’s promotional websites-http://www.25moments.com and http://www.thebentbullet.com - do just that.

I’ll be biased here, this is my favourite comic book franchise. But even if I wasn’t, it wouldn’t be hard to state that this is how comic book movies should be; fun. I really like Nolan’s dark adaptations (not Man of Steel, yuck) but somehow this and the Marvel Cinematic Universe are taking comic book movies to a better place. Only if Marvel got Spiderman back. Sigh.

X-Men: Days of Future Past is a good acid trip. This is director Bryan Singer’s return to form. I won’t ruin it by rating it. A must watch for the fanboys and a brilliant summer movie for everyone else.

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Follow ‘em on Twitter:

Kanan Gill : @KananGill
Biswa Kalyan Rath: @KalyanRath

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The truth is, it doesn’t matter. People will draw parallels and rectangles but that’s what people do.

Queen is by far one of the most progressive mainstream films to have been made in this country. Yes, some of the racial stereotypes can get on your nerves (but do remember our audiences still laugh at stuff people elsewhere will find horribly racist – except North Korea, cause you know North Korea is the best country in the world.)

But even then, this movie is pretty refreshing. The way the plot is set up is reminiscent of many a movie from our times. But the way it progresses is what caught me off-guard. Director Vikas Bahl and his co-writers Parveez Shaikh and Chaitally Parmar have done a fantastic job.

I’d be honest here, I was horribly skeptical about this. However, every single cliched progression that I expected  - played out differently. We have a girl who defeats a thief and holds onto a passport, and then holds on to her values and idiosyncrasies while experimenting with the unknown.

Indian mainstream films treat female characters either as show pieces or overtly feminist/crazy characters . The fact that these characters can be perfectly normal (at times quirky) human beings is somewhat missing in our films.

And this film sort of fixes that. Here two women can be heard talking of things other than their love life/boyfriends/husbands. 

There is no John Tucker Must Die (Or I’ll bone anyone around, cause my Fiance dumped me)  sub plots here- it is as is.  No revenge story, none of that.

Instead we have something that we can term a coming of age story of a simple girl from Delhi’s Rajouri Garden who finds herself through the events occurring from her lonesome honeymoon, cause her fiance is a Delhi boy.

Her dad’s a mithaiwala and she has studied home science in a nondescript college. Not a setting you would think of a powerful female character- but Rani comes over all adversities to find herself. Something she never believed she could do.  And something I couldn’t believe Ms.Ranaut could do. Ms.Ranaut’s portrayal of the eponymous character is  spot on and perfect. I have never seen Ms.Ranaut this way. It is very difficult to not be affected by her invisible charm.

The more I think of it, the more I am falling in love with her character.

She skypes multiple times with her family, she sends selfies to her (ex?) fiance from a trial room, she even makes gol gappas for some of the folks in Amsterdam (cook to please foreigners cliche :P).

Lisa Hayden as her “half French half Indian” dost wavers a little with her portrayal here and there- but then again this is Kangana’s film. And in any case, Lisa Hayden is so stunning that you really don’t seem to concentrate on what she is saying or how she is saying it. It doesn’t matter. It never did.

What is annoying though is Mr.Amit Trivedi seems to have ripped off not one but two Coldplay Songs to make this one :

At about 1:35 it sounds a lot  like Viva La Vida  and the starting bit is a lot like Fix You meets The Scientist. And this isn’t the first time that Mr.Trivedi has done something that sounds a lot like something else.

Oh and a friend @ayruos pointed out that the end-credit Facebook timeline thing  is pretty much a standard template that you can buy here.

My problem is just that- you make such an awesome movie and then you ruin it like that? I mean would it hurt to obtain the rights from Coldplay or maybe even admit that you have been inspired ? Or is it that hard to hire a motion graphics designer to make you something nice for your end credits?

That way, tools like me can just sit rant about bad movies- even I hate talking about thefts (actually I don’t).

Not cool bros, not cool. But thanks for making this film, we as an audience needed it.

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To understand the film and its sensitive topic, one must read up a bit about Sampat Pal. Pal, belonging to one of the local backward communities, was married off at an early age and received extremely harsh treatment at the hands of her in laws and husband. Refusing to put up with it like the rest of the women in the village, she formed her “Gulabi Gang”, getting together women to take action against these men. Empowering the local illiterate women with pink saris and lathis in order to face their aggressors, Gulabi Gang has now spread from Bundelkhand to the rest of Northern India, having a total strength of approximately 115,000 members.

The film studies specific cases where the Gulabi Gang led by Sampat Pal intervene to ensure that the dignity of women in the country remain unscathed. The camera follows the outspoken, brash, articulate Sampat as she looks into cases of indiscriminate murders and atrocities against women.

Shot beautifully, Nishtha manages to keep the audience glued on to the screen throughout what is probably the most socially relevant film to have hit the theatres in recent times. The use of the colour pink several times on screen acts to justify the nomenclature of the film. At no point of time does this documentary become overtly informative or pretentious in portrayal. By the end of the film the audience feels a connect with not only the brave hearted Pal, but with also Nishtha’s style of powerful story telling.

With a running time of nearly 96 minutes, one feels that the film could have been a few minutes shorter, making it an even more gripping experience.

Interestingly, with Gulabi Gang, producer Sohum Shah establishes himself as a producer to look forward to in the indie film circuit, joining the ranks of Anurag Kashyap, Q and Guneet Monga.

This film is not one which you should watch for entertainment. It has a beautifully endearing but not your quintessentially “sexy heroine”. And there’s not much music to boast of, apart from some chants of the local women of Bundelkhand. But do go ahead and watch this film. It will make you a wiser person. And more importantly, it’s that rare, brilliant attempt at good non fiction cinema.

Find out more about Sampat Pal and the Gulabi Gang: http://www.gulabigang.in/

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Doctor turned director Kamaleswar Mukherjee had impressed the cinephiles with his previous venture Meghe Dhaka Tara based on Ritwik Ghatak‘s life. That, in addition to this being the biggest budget that a Bengali movie has ever had (16 crores), made this a movie which had considerable hype surrounding its release. The film is based on Bibhutibhushan Bandapodhyay’s immensely popular Bengali novel of the same name.

Chander Pahar is the story of a small town Bengali boy in the early 1900s who leaves the country and travels to Africa in search of a more adventurous life. He is posted as a station master to a nondescript village where habitation is sparse, his house is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by man-eating lions and deadly snakes which slither over him while he sleeps.

The movie has spent copious amounts of money on creating original replicas of time pieces and weapons but since they were busy getting funds, they must have forgotten that a film is defined by the actor’s performance and the script, not the amount being invested. Dev as the lead role was horrible to say the least. Every time he is chased by a man-eating tiger or slips while climbing a cliff or even (almost) bitten by a black mamba, the audience feels a sense of relief as they feel he’s going to die and the movie is going to come to an end. However, he survives; and the movie drags on; forever. Without changing a single facial expression, as Dev trudges along towards the Mountain of the Moon, the audience is subjected to a 3 hour montage of South Africa with dull narration, only to be interrupted intermittently by terrible acting.

The film is visually appealing, but not visually exciting. Throughout the movie a ridiculously large number of aerial shots have been used to portray the landscape of South Africa, which started to bore the eyes 20 minutes into the movie. The acting of the supporting actors isn’t up to the mark either. In fact, by the end of the film, none of the actors manage to make a lasting impression.

What made the movie unbearable was its slow pace. The fact that it was stretched out over 3 excruciatingly long and painful hours seemed pointless. The script is absurd and illogical at points. For example when the protagonist is running in an open space with a man-eating lion chasing him at a distance of a few feet, he manages to outrun the lion, reach his house and lock himself in. Or when in an attempt to grab the lion’s attention and kill him, he bathes himself in a bucket full of blood, after already grabbing the lion’s attention by throwing pieces of raw meat around. This was further unnecessary drama that could have been consciously avoided.

The number of continuity errors in the film is appalling. Considering the budget of the film, one can’t help but wonder what it was used up on. Oh wait, false blood! The producers, Shree Venkatesh Films, had stated that this would be the first Bengali movie with animation which would match up to “Hollywood standards”.  I don’t know much about these standards they keep referring to, but I’m pretty sure Hollywood does not animate using Microsoft Paint, or anything an 8 year old can do on his PC.

What is disheartening is that despite all the brilliant Bengali movies we have seen in the recent past, this film made almost 1. 5 crore on the first day, the biggest opening for a Bengali movie. With this movie, director Kamaleshwar Mukherjee successfully joins the likes of Karan Johar and Aditya Chopra in the list of directors making expensive feces for the masses to digest. He also manages to desecrate one of my favourite childhood novels. One can only hope that Dr. Mukherjee was a worse doctor than he is a film maker; otherwise his career move is completely unjustified.

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But this one was pure hogwash. It takes itself so very seriously and in such a lousy manner that you at times forget you are watching a movie from the Dhoom franchise.

The trailer promised you a slick action movie, but I guess they packed all the good looking action sequences into the trailer. Instead we have an overtly melodramatic plot where logic shoots itself in the knee even though it borrows copiously from many a film. This bastardised story starts with Jackie Shroff  in 1890 1990- the man’s confused between being a magician and a circus owner. He owns a gigantic performance venue in Chicago that resembles the New York Supreme Court with the words “Great Indian Circus” chiselled in stone.  And he is in debt cause everyone goes to a circus  to see “girls in skirts” and his circus doesn’t have this. Tch. (His son does make this happen later on)

So Jackie’s character decides to shoot himself in the head because he can’t pay off what he owes the bank. In effect turning his son into believing the fact that a bank wanting it’s money is a bad thing. So the prodigal son decides to end the very bank. Obviously our discerning audience doesn’t care about bad debt and parenthood. And duh, banks will forever be evil. The kid grows up to be Aamir Khan who for no reasons is running down a building aided by some really funny looking CGI. Visual perspective is fucked in the eye. And this isn’t an isolated case. And then we are hit with a scene so grotesque that I wouldn’t be surprised was found to be ghost directed by Rohit Shetty. It re-introduces Jai and Ali while numbing a few brain cells. And just because Aamir Khan, the thief, leaves messages in hindi (patriotic much)- our lads from Mumbai are called on to help out in Chicago because you know the Chicago police can’t handle shit when it come to hindi spewing thieves and all. The rest of the story is well not worth talking about. It is essentially a bad mash up of The Prestige, Now you See Me and The Dark Knight. Bollywood movies have a very skewed perspective of the world. In the name of having “mass appeal” they end up being lobotomized. And there’s this new trend in bollywood that I’d Like to term the “Shettyfication of Bollywod”; basically the laws of inertia go to hell and Newton goes on a mass killing rampage in heaven.

See ripping-off and copying or being inspired is a part of cultural progression. Things generally get bettered in the process but the reverse happens in India and that sucks. And to add to that, barring a few action scenes here and there- the action department sleeps through most of the movie. It’s almost 2014, things have changed. Even a movie like Fast 6 fucks with the laws of physics but to do so in an unconvincing manner is a huge crime. Aamir’s bike is basically a transformer that transforms into stupid things. I am sure it also turned into the batwing bike-wing but the lazy visual effects department shot that idea down. Some of the visual effects are so clean and believable and some of them are so blah that you know for sure that the people behind it were either lazy or were forced to work in a hurry- in a certain frame you’ll find them resorting to re-using footage- like the audience bits inside the “Great Indian Circus” or the double teaming Aamir -multiplied without any change.

The editing is abrupt- the first half is pretty upbeat though illogical. The second half is so abrupt in bits and pieces that the climax seems out of place. Never do you get to watch a single robbery happen… instead you are forced to watch the many faces of Aamir Khan which can be a little hard to stay attuned to- and at time reminiscent of his now famous Satyamev Jayate stare.

Aamir is a brilliant actor and he is brilliant here but with such a lousy script even he fails. His character has been undoubtedly the most fleshed out negative character in any movie from the franchise and that’s also the undoing- there is so much more that you want from it and all you get amounts to a stale banana. The fact that his character ends up looking like a hobbit in front of most of the other actors including Katrina actually added to the whole charismatic portrayal that Aamir puts out. Katrina’s character flaunts it from the word go and I couldn’t complain about it even if I wanted to . I mean Ms.Kaif is not really known for her acting abilities.

Also there is this personal blah moments when bollywood goes ahead and desecrates my  3rd favourite modernist sculpture in the world- the Cloudgate:

The funny thing is that Uday Chopra is the best thing about this film, his unquestioned management quota admission into every Dhoom movie has finally paid off . He strangely has all the funny lines and is probably the most entertaining bit in the film.

My Retirement Plans 1)move to Geneva, join CERN 2)Open wormhole to an alternate universe 3)Enter Universe and proclaim Godhood 4)Live as God — Uday Chopra (@udaychopra) December 15, 2013

What hasn’t worked is the director’s attempt at makingthe film Dhoom 3 could have easily been. Cheesy dialogues, unintentional overtly homoerotic overtones, melodramatic storylines, random songs that are designed to show off the insanely hot but completely irrelevant chiseled shape of the lead actors , ineffective action sequences… this sure was a bummer.

But who cares? Money is what matters and money this shall make. Kids, the banks (and the big corporations) win in the end.

DO NOT watch it in IMAX, it will ruin the terribly executed CGI shots even more than it should. Watching this on IMAX is like playing Contra on a gigantic flatscreen 2K TV.

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The story is set in present day Mumbai and shows the city better than most films have managed to in the recent past. The city is somewhat ingrained in the narrative; the three primary distinctly different characters shown in the film reek of the city as do their respective origins and situations. And then the premise of the film; a lunchbox delivery that goes wrong brings two strangers closer than they would every be. The dabbawallahs and their self proclaimed validation by England ka raja, the painter painting different versions of the same scenario and the stuffy compartments of the Mumbai locals; things that transport you to the city of Mumbai – the fourth primary character of the film, where such a story could totally happen in real life.

Irrfan’s character, the  just about to retire Saajan Fernandez is so well etched and the actor does such a good job of  being the character that  for most parts you give into seeing things from his perspective. The understated acting does wonders to the way the film plays out. On the other side of the wrongly delivered lunch box is Ila (Nimrat Kaur ),  a housewife dealing with a failing marriage and a seemingly meaningless existence. And there is Nawazuddin’s new kid on the block Shaikh who is about to take over Saajan’s position at the office.  Even the secondary characters are so well placed, there’s the unseen neighbour who guides Ila through the narrative and there’s the cheating husband, who doesn’t care what’s for lunch cause he is definitely eating elsewhere. The characters as I mentioned are starkly realistic that you will identify with them on a level that you wouldn’t probably want to.

The film is beautifully anchored, almost following the way serials were directed and written in the golden years of Indian television (i.e. Doordarshan in the 80s); simple, without embellishment yet compelling enough to fall in love with. And the fact it references those programs in the narrative is all the more gratifying. I read even the opening sequence titles paid homage to that. There is honesty in it’s narrative and this is reflected in more than a scene. The film relies a lot on non-dialogue based progression and with Nawazuddin and Irrfan in it, that’s not very difficult to achieve. There were entire phases when I’d just be enamoured by the way Irrfan would react or the way Nawazuddin would break the ice. But the surprise is Nimrat Kaur who was last seen in Love Shuv tey Chicken Khurana and that Cadbury commercial. The plot itself can be compared to the James Stewart starrer Shop Around the Corner (yes, it was a film before being Kathleen’s bookstore in You’ve got mail) and many other television and movie attempts that have tried to create a relationship between two (seemingly) strangers.

What sets this apart is the fact that the letters start from thanking someone and go onto becoming very intensely revelatory, they are hardly conversational and yet they spark a romance. And then there is the use of silence. Silence forms a major component of the director’s story telling arsenal here; there’s hardly any background music. The background music in Ila’s case is actually her neighbours tape recorder and for Saajan it’s the beggar kids on the train. And Irrfan uses silence very well. He does what most can’t do in words. His first encounter with Nawazuddin’s character, his lonesome dinners and him staring into his neighbour’s comparatively happy life are just few of the many instances that the actor uses silence to create magic.

The revelations will not trouble you but they will evoke feelings for those involved with ease; this is one of those films which will make you cry and laugh without much effort and reason. And even technically, it’s an extension of that very thought. The cinematography is non-imposing, it’s minimal and so realistic that you feel this is a documentary from a skewed point of view. The editing breathes life into the films existence, never do you feel that there is something wrong in the way things are going about. And it’s that very flow that makes the ending all that more hard to come to terms with. You are so involved and into it, that by the time the end credits roll, you’ll feel the pangs of detachment with hope for closure.

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But Pawan Kumar’s Lucia really changes a lot of things. For starters, it’s a crowd-invested film and more importantly it’s making people think. Oh did I mention that it has made a lot of money in its release weekend and a lot more from TV rights?  This was a film that was made because of the determination of its director and  the audience that made it happen. It wouldn’t be what it is without them as most industry people had called it an impossible film.

But how is it as a film?  I had my worries and thoughts in place before I entered the movie theatre. I was expecting a lot from it. And it did live up to my expectations. It’s pretty hard to make a non-formula oriented film, especially when you release it in theatres. And even harder, when your audience isn’t used to it. Lucia does a great job of bridging the disconnect.There are song and dance sequences but they are used very effectively as story telling devices and even the proverbial ‘item song’ is in place to draw parallels between reality and the dream. So you get a nice mash-up of mainstream stuff with very distinctly art house elements.

The story is rather straightforward; an insomniac usher (elitist speak for the torch guy at old movie theatres) working at a senile movie theatre starts popping pills called Lucia.  He starts living his dreams and soon the difference between the dreams and his reality flicker. The fact that certain reviews called this hard to follow goes on to show that we are okay with cars flying in the air for hours and aliens in red underpants flying around being a god to all of us, but the moment someone throws in stuff like lucid dreaming, pills that induce lucid dreaming and multiple parallel narratives, we lose our shit on how complicated it is.  It’s simple; everybody dreams of living life in a certain way and the movie is about that, except with drugs and mobsters. Yes some bits of it remind you of Cinema Paradiso, and in spirit , you could draw similarities with the Spanish film Abre los ojos (I am not a huge fan of its American remake Vanilla Sky) but then I could go on and draw similarities with the sci-fi thriller book Ubik by Phillip K. Dick. The fact that the movie takes you on that thought process is reason enough to watch it.

Most actors in the film end up portraying dual roles in the film; one in reality and one in the dream. The tone of acting edges on being dramatic and the cast does a pretty good job of switching between roles with so much ease. Yes, there are moments where you tend to break out from the make believe but the movie sucks you back in. Maybe it’s because they don’t have the baggage a star comes with that makes them very believable in both realms.

I am a technical person and I generally do not write about techniques cause the way you use them is more important than using them at all. Sometimes I feel technique is irrelevant. But man, this movie does a good effort of making me think again. The editing is so thoughtful and exhilarating that you are sucked into the flow of events and a large part of this is because of it’s structure- the clear distinctions between the dream and reality in imagery, pacing and mood. The cinematography is at another level- mindblowing. The director and his cinematographer (Siddharth Nuni) actually take advantage of the Canon 5D DSLR that this movie was shot on, something that most people fail to do. Everybody tries to make a film look like as if it’s shot on a traditional movie camera instead of re-purposing the cinematographic style to a DSLR. There are certain things a DSLR can do that a traditional movie camera can’t. And that’s what the film uses to its advantage. Siddharth Nuni is a very talented man, I have seen his work in the still unreleased indie film  Joint Trip and he just out did himself with this one.

But in the end, none of that matters. It’s a film that will polarise the audience. It’s a film that will make you ask questions. It’s a film that we really needed. Especially in Kannada.

Lucia has released all over India through PVR Director’s Rare and select Cinepolis multiplex. It’s a Kannada film with English sub titles. It’s going to release online soon.

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The film blends in a fictional covert operation that goes wrong with actual facts. It is set primarily in Sri Lanka during its darkest years and comments on India’s role in the scheme of things. Certain things have been obviously changed; LTTE becomes LTF, Velupillai Prabhakaran becomes Anna Bhaskaran, and the Prime Minister is never named. The movie is very engaging and not for a moment does the narrative fail to engross you. John Abraham plays Vikram Singh, an army officer deputed to the Research (&) Analysis Wing headed by the stoic Robin Dutt, a bureaucrat portrayed exceedingly well by Siddharth Basu. Basu’s character sends Vikram right into the heart of action to help bring in a peaceful solution to one of the most violent genocides in the region. There’s a whole lot of unconventional casting in the film; news anchor Dibang plays an ex-RAW agent, there’s Basu and then there is film-maker, thespian and journalist, Prakash Belawadi who fantastically plays Bala, RAW’s Chennai (Madras) based handler/boss. Nargis Fakhri plays Jaya, an International journalist who’s covering the conflict. The film with its realistic approach smartly hides Abraham’s limited acting abilities but he does do a fine job of stepping into his characters shoes. Even Nargis Fakhri is bearable, which is maybe because her lines are in English or maybe the Director’s a freaking genius.

My problem, though, is with the Tamil characters speaking in Hindi; because trying to place a leader of a linguistic based military faction speaking in Hindi is very hard. Also, why does John converse in Hindi when Nargis replies to him in English; the sing-song volley there is a little annoying. Another point is that if John can speak fluent Tamil and Thai, why does he speak in Hindi to the LTF deserter? And then, there is the issue of anachronism – a lot of things are shown to exist before they actually do. But then again, even Mira Nair’s Reluctant Fundamentalist had a Canon 5D camera before 9/11, when in the real world- the 5D Mark I was released in 2005.

The movie is well paced and is executed well at the script level and otherwise. The visuals are edgy with a documentary feel to it, a lot like Paul Greengrass’ films. This is gritty, rustic and raw, very different from the candy floss stuff Bollywood usually goes for nowadays. The editing is so freaking slick and transitions through the narrative very well. The background score is brilliant, I know I’ve been posting other articles about Shantanu Moitra off late; but he’s good in this. And there is something almost everyone will fail to notice – the sound design – it’s so hauntingly real that each scene’s impact owes a lot, if not all, to the sound design. Bishwadeep Chatterjee has done it again.

The movie runs for 130 minutes and apart from the overt use of character stereotypes and a somewhat annoying voiceover, it’s fantastic and is breaking new ground. The climax is recreating one of the worst moments from our political history and yet it’s so well crafted. This is a welcome change especially with the kinds of big budget piles of poop we have seen in the recent past.

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Q’s Tasher Desh (The Land of Cards) is essentially his adaptation of Tagore’s original play caught on camera. It infuses Tagore’s original songs in a modern day context.  As Q had previously described it, it is indeed “Tagore on acid”. A playwright, obsessed with creating a stage version of Tasher Desh starts hallucinating about how he’d recreate Tasher Desh. With elements of imagination mixed with reality, he thinks of a prince and his merchant friend, bored with their monotonous existence, and while tripping on acid to get away from reality they end up reaching the magical land of Tasher Desh, the land of cards.

When they reach Tasher Desh, they are faced by a bunch of human-like tash (card) figures who are obsessed with maintaining the peace, order and discipline of Tasher Desh. When asked what these strangers bring with them, they promptly answer “trouble”. The rest of the film deals with the concept of dissent, and breaking away from a regime which limits our thoughts and expressions, something which finds immense relevance today; especially with the recent uprisings in the Middle East.

The acting is top notch. Kanti and Anubrata are both brilliant! Rii as usual never lets down in a Q film. Imaad Shah too, does an excellent job as well! The Sri Lankan actors, and the other non bengali actors, speaking bangla in their native accent adds to the element of fantasy which the play embodies.

This being a musical, the most interesting thing is probably how the director has managed the sound-scape. Rabindrasangeet has been mixed with elements of dubstep, jazz and electronic music to fit into the current music scenario. Susheela Raman’s voice singing “Gopono Kotha Ti” and Q’s “Elem Notun Deshe” haunts you long after you have left the theatre. “Bnadh Bhenge Dao” having been produced by Asian Dub Foundation lends a feel to the track, which is probably infinitely better than the original track. Q’s rendition which infuses rap with the original song will probably leave a lot of Tagore purists fuming though. Kudos to Neel Adhikari, Miti adhikari and Q for producing a sound so breathtakingly refreshing!

The second half of the film makes up for the slight slow pace of the first half. But then again, Anubrata’s dialogue just before the interval where he says “You probably haven’t understood anything yet. Now is where it all begins” puts a lot into perspective.

The edit is fantastic, and it is probably the reason the movie stands out as an exceptional piece of art.  The non linear narrative makes the story slightly difficult to follow. However, the magnificent story line and the superb use of consumer-grade digital cameras makes it difficult to shift one’s eyes from the screen for even a split second. The whole film is deliberately glitchy and it adds to the surreal nature of the narrative.

Overall, Tasher Desh lives up to the tag of being the biggest independent release this year.  Q’s vision is distinctly original even though he trips through Tagore’s play and Kabuki inspired visual references. It is visually and musically fantastic! A movie like this getting a release beyond the festival circuits was unheard of earlier. Hopefully this changes things for the better. It’s difficult to gauge whether Tagore would have liked it or not, but I’m certain, he would have have tripped his mind off on Q’s adaptation.

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