It was a year of mixed blessings. 2019 was another year filled with 100-crore plus hits. But some of the best films of the year failed to impress the audience. On the other hand, some films like Kesari and Kabir Singh which I had liked during the first viewing left me with mixed feelings when I returned to them. Here are the 10 that stayed with me as the year came to an end.
Article 15: In one word, Article 15 is spellbinding. It is everything that cinema was always meant to be. Thought-provoking, questioning, disturbing and ultimately cathartic because the cop-hero (played with a simmering intensity by Ayushmann Khurrana) succeeds in getting justice for the wronged. In real life, it is different, though. And in giving the underdogs of the film a satisfying closure director Anubhav Sinha (who has clearly turned a new leaf after Mulk) and his co-writer (Gaurav Solanki) remind us that happy endings are for the movies, and that we are getting one here because, hey, no matter how authentic, Article 15 is a film after all.
Bala: Think. When was the last time you saw a film which didn’t have any superfluous moments? Not one single irrelevant scene or shot? That’s Bala, a breezy yet wounding film that comes to us in a haze of stupid pre-release controversies. This work of grit and gumption is so above the silliness that shrouds our cinema, so superior to what we generally consider a high standard in our cinema. Bala is a film of international calibre in every sense. Stylish and sleek yet utterly and proudly rooted to its Kanpur milieu. It is the story of a prematurely balding man who discovers how to love himself and how to embrace his supposed short-coming. It takes a dark-skinned girl (played with a trademark verve and sincerity that’s becoming Bhumi Pednekar’s signature style) to bring Bala (yup, that’s our hero) to his senses.
The Sky Is Pink: There are innumerable moments when the gravity of the situation is punctuated by bouts of dry humour. It’s as though director Shonali Bose (who has gone through the unimaginable grief of losing a child) wants us to not go away without hope, to not feel the burden of the couple’s grief as they battle death to save their child, and fail. This is no spoiler. We all know the film is a facsimile of a true-life story. And yet this conscious effort to keep the going bouncy and bright in spite of the looming presence of death could have gone horribly wrong. It could have ended up like Joaquin Phoenix’s Joker who just can’t get the laughs that his tragic life cries out for. The war-cry to stay positive is implemented with exceeding delicacy in The Sky is Pink. We never feel the burden of their grief as Aditi and Niren, played with an unostentatious vivacity by Priyanka Chopra and Farhan Akhtar, repel the family’s collective anguish with loads of joyous laughter. There are loads of family holidays in exotic places. And London is a living character in the plot. And yet the dilemma of mortality is never trivialized, glamorized or underplayed. We feel the presence of death underlining every moment in this celebration of life. Shonali Bose’s narrative sparkles with a joie de vivre. There is an unstoppable gusto woven into the story’s sombre spirit, like a shot of rum in coke. Bracing and clarity-inducing.
Chhichhore: There is something ageless about college friendships. Quite often they last for a lifetime. Films about campus camaraderie quite often refer back to Raj Kumar Hirani’s overrated 3 Idiots. Sure enough, Chhichhore will remind you of Hirani’s over-age students (Aamir was well into his 40s) and their infantile pranks. The film leaves behind a feeling of tremendous nostalgia and bonhomie. Much credit for the unflagging spirit of the even-tempered saga must go to Charushree Roy’s editing. The pastiche of past and present is created in a zigzagging design that is held together with threads of warmth and empathy. Indeed the narrative’s back and forth movement never allows itself to get invasive. Somehow we feel, not the weight of time but what Milan Kundera called the unbearable lightness of being.
Super 30: This is a magnificent survivor of a film. It survives Hrithik Roshan’s atrocious ‘Bihari’ accent probably picked from one of the many Lalu Yadav skits on the internet. It not only survives the verbal abomination, but it also stakes its claim among the most inspiring and kindred films on the empowerment of the underprivileged through education. Mathematician par excellence Anand Kumar couldn’t have hoped for a better showcasing of his remarkable work in the field of education. Of course, the original endeavour to give the disempowered students a chance to make a place in the sun has been substantially amplified and dramatized. The climax especially, shot in a hospital premise with the protagonist’s students taking on a gang of professional goons is a hoot. But then, this film survives the onslaught of the outrageous, from the hero’s accent to the film’s climax, to create a very special and precious place in our heart. What comes across is the warmth and empathy of the selfless fearless educationist who would walk that extra mile literally—to educate empower and edify the life of poor students.
Mere Pyare Prime Minister: Rakeysh Om Prakash Mehra’s study of slumming salvation is steeped in sincerity and warmth. I felt I was watching a braver more rounded ripped and gentle version of Mira Nair’s Salaam Bombay. This is the film Mira could have made while Danny Boyle was location-hunting in Dharavi for Slumdog Millionaire. Rakeysh Mehra’s script which he co-wrote with Manoj Mairta and Hussain Dalaal looks at little Kannu and his friends’ wretchedly deprived existence with almost no pity and tremendous empathy. The film is shot like a dream by cinematographer Pawel Dyllus. The contrasts between the slums and the skyscrapers which define Mumbai city here qualify a sense of aching nostalgia for a time when inequality was not so steep, and hence not so dangerous and threatening. In a sequence such as the one where Kanhu and his friends sit staring at the skyscrapers on the other end wondering how many toilets there must be in every building, while there are none in the entire chawl, Mehra nimbly circumvents the sinister insinuations of social inequality. Not that the film paints too rosy a picture of slum squalor. What Mehra’s narrative has done is to transcend the wretchedness in pursuit of that glimmer of hope which defines life at the bottom-most level of the social hierarchy where the super-rich are neither myth nor meme. The tender yet strong narrative is supported by some solid music and unsentimental peeps into the innermost recesses of the human heart.
Sonchiriya: This is much more more than a brilliant dacoit drama. But then the point here is not the brilliance. It is how the rites of accomplished filmmaking are applied to a solid narration that is on your mark and all set to go even before we are fully able to grasp the wide spectrum of characters on the run. Dammit, they are all fugitives, even the vicious vendetta-seeking cop played with an iron ironic meanness by Ashutosh Rana who is so bloodthirsty his venom fills the Chambal valley with echoes of exasperating nemesis. Sonechiriya is the most anguished plea against injustice and oppression since Bimal Roy’s Sujata. The deep silences in Abhishek Chaubey’s clenched narrative reminded me of Roy’s film about a Harijan girl (Nutan) looking for an identity.
Gully Boy: In the magical hands of Zoya Akhtar the familiar tale acquires a texture and tone all of its own. Tone bole toh…the music and the songs of this subtle and rich film abide absolutely and unconditionally with the hip-hop aspirations of its hero. Gully Boy moves in expected yet mysterious ways. Tracking down Murad’s dreams to fruition, Zoya Akhtar doesn’t miss a single heartbeat. She gathers the sound, sights and smells into a warm embrace that expresses a cross between warm acceptance and uncomplaining despair. Embodying this undefeated spirit of Mumbai is Murad, Zoya Akhtar’s hero in a film that has many heroes.
Soni: Netflix’s prized find of this year opens with a girl cycling down a deserted road in the dead of the night. She is being followed by ….for the want of stronger word…an eve-teaser who cycles lasciviously behind and beside her, pelting with his perverse chant. I won’t reveal how this terrifying sequence on Delhi’s horror roadway concludes. Suffice it to say, this unheard-of masterpiece with a cast of completely new actors brings experience from the lives of the women in Delhi’s police force without exaggerating, dramatizing or sentimentalizing their thankless work.
Uri: This film brings the blood of cross-border tension to a boil but avoids a spillover. There is a rush of patriotic pride in the product—and why should there not be?—but it is reined-in, curbed and never allowed to spill over in a gush of irrepressible jingoism. If you want to see soldiers dancing around a bonfire singing about how much they love their country and how much they miss their loved ones, then you’ve got the wrong war film. Uri is a work of many achievements. But to me, a film about national pride without a single shot of the Indian flag is the biggest miracle since the invention of the motion picture camera. This is a glorious beginning to 2019. And if patriotism is the flavour of the year, bring it on, provided it’s not about Paki-bashing. Just getting even.
