1. Black(2005):
Veering passionately away from the norm, creating an entirely new definition of entertainment and giving us a work of art that transcends every given qualification of the motion-picture experience. Sanjay Leela Bhansali created a work that freezes all superlatives and permanently relocates our perceptions of high-quality, intellectually and emotionally stimulating art. From the opening scene, we witness the chance encounter of Michelle (played by Rani Mukherjee), who is both blind and deaf, and her former blind and dying teacher, Debraj (played by Amitabh Bachchan), in the movie “Black.” The emotional grip of the film is established from this moment and continues until the final scene. The movie’s aura is both fragrant and irradiant, exuding fumes of emotions we may have never experienced before. “Black” unleashes an unbridled fury of never-before-felt emotions that profoundly impact the viewer.
As we watch the actors at work, we can sense that they are experiencing emotions that actors rarely do. Their performances evoke feelings that are too deep for tears yet too precious to be concealed. Bhansali, a master-creator, gradually peels away layers of intense pain to reveal the characters’ souls, leaving them exposed for us to see. We cannot look away, as Bhansali does not give us that option. It may take some time to come to terms with the overwhelming emotions of Bhansali’s world. Michelle’s world is challenging to comprehend. It is a twilight zone of resplendent suffering where each hurt is felt like a whiplash. Ravi Chandran’s cinematography and Monty’s background music are so deeply immersed in the ethos of anxious yearnings that we feel the characters’ hearts are constantly on the verge of breaking open.
The film has some such effect on us as well. Never before has a filmmaker created such a frantic and anxious world of looming longings where every gesture of self-negation is also a life cycle renewal. The movie takes us into Michelle’s world of darkness with her teacher, Debraj. Their relationship is marked by irony as the difficult little girl (played by debutante Ayesha Kapoor in Rani’s childhood portions) and her equally challenging teacher grow closer. Debraj helps Michelle “see” the light despite her blindness, but in the process, he goes blind and eventually loses his mind. Some of the most powerful moments in the film occur when Michelle tries to stop Debraj from harming himself by rattling the chains that bind him. This frenzied rattling symbolizes the essence of Bhansali’s grand cinema, which attempts to give shape to the darkest and most inexpressible thoughts. Bhansali’s vision is brought to life by his talented technicians, who find the perfect voice for the director’s tragic feelings.
2. My Brother Nikhil(2005):
An intimate and yet far-reaching study of family ties , social castigation and the resilience that makes the human spirit ride over daunting adversities—much like the swimmer- hero of debutant director Onir’s heartwarming film who rides the oceans …until oceanic events overtake his well-ordered life. My Brother…Nikhil is a film about a very critical social cause, AIDS to be precise….The imprecise parameters of the complex issue are framed in a quaint but never over-emphasized or excessively well-ordered pyramid of montages.
In fact, the narrative moves to a contrary beat whereby sections of the heart-rending story open up to us almost like the petals of a reluctant flower that must blossom before it’s too late. Like many of the new avant- garde directors , Onir uses the Brechtian distancing device whereby the characters speak directly into the camera about the protagonist. We get to ‘know’ Nikhil, the bright promising sportsperson whose career life and selfregard are shattered by tragedy, through the voices of his father Navin Kapoor(Victor Bannerjee), mom Anita(Lillete Dubey), friend and companion Nigel(Purab Kohli) and sister Anu(Juhi Chawla). The multiplicity of voices never crowd the narrative. Could it be because the narrative favours stillness over shrillness? There are great moments of drama in the narrative, specially towards the end when the dying hero has to come to terms with his impending end . Scenes between Nikhil and his loved ones will rip your heart open with their translucent candour.(I get tearful even as I write about those moments). Onir never milks the inherent tragedy of the theme for melodrama. As in the masterful Black, the emphasis in My Brother…Nikhil is on light rather than dark.
The ocean-blue landscape quietly captured by Arvind Kannabiran’s non-judgemental camera, weaves through these flawed lives like a stream winding its way through a craggy valley Not since Shyam Benegal’s Trikal have characters looked so much at-home in Goa. As we peer into Nikhil’s cosy world we, the spectators, are never made to feel like intruders but rather, like welcome guests. The absence of mawkishness in the drama is a constant reminder of the new levels of maturity being attained by our cinema. Less always seems more in My Brother…Nikhil. And that’s part of its innate charm as a story and a slice of life that cuts a deep dent into our hearts without using a sharp knife There are no sharp edges in the narrative, no laboured attempts to get our attention , even in moments of heart-rending tragedy.
3. Page 3(2005):
Often in the course of this mordant view of a decadent elitism, you don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Or just feel sorry for people who abuse little children for pleasure. ….And Lata Mangeshkar’s pain-lashed voice comes on the exceptionally evocative soundtrack singing Kitne ajeeb rishtey hain yahan par…. It’s that rare time in a cineaste’s life when he needs to sit up and shake himself awake from the semi-slumber of watching the same old formulas wrapped up in shiny cellophone.Madhur Bhandkar—God bless his troubled conscience!—peels off the layers of subterfuge and artifice that have become a huge part of our lives, both in and out of the movie theatres, to expose the festering wounds of a world that whips itself into shapes of sickening selfgratification.
Welcome to the beau monde where everything is for sale, specially the conscience…where the rich and famous blow kisses in the air. As the humid room records their passionate pretenses , the emptiness of their ecstacy is exposed in recriminating rings of ricocheting realism. These are people whom you’re bound to run into in your next party at the most happening place in Mumbai. The noise, the smoke, the blaring music , the boasting and bitching….yup, Bhandarkar knows this world like the back of his hand. He cannibalizes characters who colonize these catty congregations to put together a story that grips you by your guts….and refuses to let go.This isn’t the first film to mourn the death of the conscience in a competitive world. What makes Page 3 so deliciously decisive and many pegs(hic!) above other films and plays ripping away the satiny sheets of hypocrisy in the beau monde, is the skilled words and visuals that contextualize saturated people while remaining detached from their depraved and subverted definitions of a full and happy life. Bhandarkar fills the screen with a conflicting collage of smug thrill-seeking characters. They’re either wannabes or have-been-there-done-it-all types. The world of ambition and disappointment, agony and ecstasy comes together in a stunning clasp of resplendent exploration of a decadent lifestyle. It’s easy to attribute the film’s inner strength to the hugely gifted ensemble cast and to the emotionally equipped soundtrack. But above all of these, Page 3 tells a truly riveting story conveying cyclonic changes in the graph of morality as the characters move from one state of yearning to another, kicking off their high heels to plunge into the low life.
Bhandarkar who made the unforgettable Chandni Bar three years ago has been doddering on the brink with his two misfires Satta and Aan: Men At Work. By depicting the redemptive journey of one journalist Madhavi(Konkona Sensharma) who goes from phony page-3 reporting to straight-from-the –morgue crime reportage, Bhandarkar redeems his own compromised creativity. Whereas Chandni Bar was to a large extent redeemed by Tabu’s plot-defining performance the acting talent in Page 3 is scattered uniformly to subsume a wealth of walloping emotions. From the boastful driver bragging about his mater’s exploits to the drivers outside the party, to the party animals ranging from the social-climber to the nymphomaniac , to the cocaine-snorting children of the rich and the blasphemous…..the film takes a tightly telescopic view. The editing( Suresh Pai) and the cinematography(Madhu Rao) harmonize the film’s superbly -filled view of existential emptiness by focusing on the entire personality of the characters rather than just their overt gestures. The actors are almost uniformly first-rate, with Boman Irani as the fair-but-finally-scared newspaper editor, Sandhya Mridul as a spunky airhostess(who marries ‘old’ money), Rehan Engineer as a gay dress designer, Bikram Saluja as a picture-perfect superstar who uses people without meaning to offend them, and the Bhandarkar regular Atul Kulkarni as the conscienctious crime reporter ,taking the lead and leading the takes to heights of expressionism.A special word for Konkona Sen Sharma. How does she manage to pick projects with a relatively longer shelf life? Page 3 is a glorious Hindi beginning for this eminently mouldable actress . She uses her personal emotional and physical sensitivities to make her journalist’s character crisply credible.
Seldom in recent years has an ensemble cast made such articulate space for itself in the narrative. The biting dialogues and the simmering sarcasm of people on the edge spices up Bhandarkar’s emphatic narrative without putting too fine a point to the message about the hypocrisy of the hollow people. The characters are never condemned but depicted savagely nonetheless as casualties of the glamorous world that they think they possess and rule. It’s that sense of phoney splendour that emerges from the narrative to hit us straight in the solar plexus. Bhandarkar had made the same impact earlier with Chandni Bar. Here he seems to be much more in control of his craft and the commodious collection of characters who often move in and out of camera range without slipping away from our attention. You really can’t ignore these fatally flawed people. …Or the return of Madhur Bhandarkar . Page 3 is a fine hard hitting and often jolting film with a climactic corkscrew twist that would shock only those who think the world of illusions, also known as showbiz, is exempted from the harsh reality of disintegrating values and a complete erosion of self questioning morality.
