What can I say? Brilliant!

Phew…two powerful films in two days! The last time I saw two really effective films back to back was when I devoured Black Friday and Parzania one after the other. This time, two films by the same director but incredibly different in their treatment, scope, narrative, and of course landscape. After the searing complexity of The Prestige, the fast-paced, yet evocative chronicle of the caped crusader in The Dark Knight, one would feel is a let down. Far from it though. This Batman caper is marauding, violent, absolutely unpredictable and of course…dark! And to top it all, the film really, actually moves…as quick as the Batmobile perhaps.
At the same time, it is an absolutely fantastic gangster flick with all the required ingredients. A Mongoloid financier, a motley group of gangster in Gotham city which includes the proverbial Italian and a smattering of street-smart Hispanics…all the trappings of a great gangsta movie. The difference is just…the Joker. That Heath Ledger is brilliant as the invective-spewing, painted-over, psychopathic evil murderer is an understatement. He completely blows you away with his turn as the blood-curdling junkie gangster innovatively named the Joker. And the Joker has a story to tell to all his victims…about why he is, well, called the Joker. His act is grotesque and mesmerizing, both at the same time. It is a pity that the world lost this absolutely and completely astonishing actor, hard to tell if the posthumous Academy Award can compensate the loss.
The setting of the film is stark and the preamble ominous. And the excruciatingly good looking Christian Bale plays the caped crusader to perfection to the extent of nonchalance. He transforms into the dark knight to rid Gotham city of the vile scum. The reviled underbelly undoubtedly led by the petulant Joker. ‘You complete me…’, he says to Batman. Good completes evil…evil completes good…..white and black……….or perhaps grey….the contradictions are marvelous to fathom. As the dark knight rides, quite literally into the dark night after the bad guy, importantly, The Joker have been ground to dust, the landscape (oops! Here I go again) of the film stays with you for a long long time.
Primary deduction: Christopher Nolan is a genius.

The conjuror’s terrifying tale

This is the first Christopher Nolan film that I have seen, but The Prestige would most definitely rank remarkably high on my list (or any list for that matter) of the most tantalizing films ever made. I use the word tantalizing because of the sheer landscape of the film. As he film progresses, layer after layer peels away drawing one into the prescient world of …woof……….Magic! Illusion! Secrets! The imagery is brutal, uncompromising, almost killing…the dead stage assistant, the bloodied, severed finger, love and betrayal, malice, revenge, the dead magician floating in a water tank…the blood soaked wings of a dead bird…a tiny black cat surviving an electrocution…surely, there have been better films made and there will be more to come. But this is perhaps of the best (if not the best) portrayals of human failings.

The lure of the film does not lie in the telling of the story. It attracts the gray cells in a way that completely blows one apart. Not until the very end does one realize that the build up was profound, almost gimmicky towards a climax that raises the bar more than a few notches. This is riveting, tough, genuine stuff. The film might seem jerky to many, the multi-layered characterizations notwithstanding. But that precisely is the pull of this brilliant cinematic creation.

Bringing alive the world of trickery and illusion is a craft that a few film-makers have attempted in the past. Nolan’s film though traverses uncharted territory. It tries to amalgamate the profligacy of science with the make-believe world of magic, all the time keeping the delight, rage, and tenacity of two completely-human men in the foreground. Men who want to lead a normal life but are consumed by such vicious hatred for each other that, the very leading of as normal life is jeopardized. For the marvelously gifted Hugh Jackman who plays Robert Angier, the film unfolds as a kaleidoscope of adventures especially in his travels to America in search of the scientist Tesla who is in the process of completing his experiments on a machine that will aid in Angier’s new illusionist trick called The Transported Man. This he claims, would be the real Transported Man, contrary to his bitter rival Alfred ‘Freddie’ Borden’s trick, also called the Transported Man.

The soul of the film, though is Christian Bale as Freddie Borden—the maddeningly evil, terrifying magician for whom ‘secrets’ are life. But even this genius has his own vulnerabilities, the pretty young stage assistant (Scarlet Johanssen) who dumps Angier for him and his undying love for his daughter are believable yet purely ingenious additions to his personality. Bale plays Borden with amazing finesse, getting each expression and scene right. He is simply mind-blowing. The presence of a discerningly modest Michael Caine lends continuity and grace to the film. Needless to say, he prepares the viewer for this engaging and (to use the same word again) tantalizing piece of cinema by defining a magic trick: the pledge, the turn and the prestige…because whatever disappears has to come back!

(Of course, I admit to a tearing curiosity to go through all of Nolan’s filmography.)

Rajneeti defines politics

Mainstream Hindi cinema, accused often of insensitivity and callousness towards grim realities of the world, and compared, often unsuccessfully with regional, art-house or international cinema for their stark portrayals. Unsuccessfully because mainstream Hindi cinema comes a cropper whenever such comparisons are made, given the surfeit of escapist and superficial material produced by the industry. However, mainstream Hindi cinema or Bollywood, as it is popularly known for its umbilical connection with the bustling Bombay, comes around to produce, every once in a while, a film that propels it, inch by inch, towards the ultimate goal of achieving that elusive goal of being the progenitors of complete, well-rounded and not to forget, grounded cinema. Of late, a number of films, albeit categorized as mainstream have tickled the grey cells of Indian audiences a bit more than what Bollywood is thought to be capable of. Some of these films have addressed overtly political issues and concepts, taken them head on and interpreted the rather complex polity of India in more complex ways than one. Gulaal (2009) traversed the difficult terrain of university politics with more grit than one could credit a mainstream film with. It had its failings, mostly in the way it was cast but the film, with its impressive backdrop of a dust-laden Rajasthan and a simmering confrontation between the Rajputs and the non-Rajputs, epitomized in the personalities of characters like Duki Bana and his eccentric elder brother, made for compelling viewing. Close on the heels of Gulaal, comes director-turned-politician-turned-director Prakash Jha’s magnum opus, Rajneeti; arguably his most ambitious project till date. Jha assembles a plethora of actors and performers to stage what can be easily called one of the most scathing diatribes against the existing political system. The film set extensively in the dust-bowls of North and Central India profiles, in a nutshell, the bloody legacy of a political family. While parallels can be drawn with the reigning dynasty of Indian politics – the Gandhi’s – especially in terms of the violence unleashed against the members of the family, the director quietly and quite successfully keeps the focus on the characters he has built up and does not let the Gandhi story take over. Therein lies the merit of the film. Of course, the coincidence are hard to miss; the characters too seem akin to the many stories one has read about the Gandhis in broadsheets and political weeklies, the film makes a genuine effort to steer clear of overt allusions. Though the image of a heavily-accented Katrina Kaif (Indu Prithvi Pratap nee Sekhsaria) taking the podium at a crowded rally. Clad in a crisp cotton saree and speaking in a clipped accent, Kaif forces the mind to make comparisons. The bespectacled Ranbir Kapoor (Samar Pratap) coolly handling his brother’s election campaign is another enduring image that the film creates. None of these coincidences cripple the film. It remains a taut and mirthless portrayal of the politics of our times. Some have argued that the blood and gore overpowers the moot agenda of the film. Perhaps. Others have said that the film is badly cast and could have done with better performances. Negative. The film rides on its performances. The wide ensemble of actors give the film its true character. The star power of some of them lends it that extra charm. Which explains the fact that despite being a subject that most Indian audiences would pass off as ‘serious’ and ‘boring’, the film has opened to record earnings.
Rajneeti moves deftly between being a well-crafted tale of deceit, intrigue, menace, and violence and a launch vehicle for Bollywood diva Katrina Kaif’s launch vehicle into ‘serious’ cinema. Please be warned, however that Kaif appears in the political heiress garb only in the last 30 minutes of the film. It belongs to the Kapoor heir though. As the quiet and reclusive Samar who enters the political fray by a stroke of fate and slowly but surely decimates his opposition in one calculated move after another to keep his family’s legacy and his brother’s political fortunes alive, Ranbir Kapoor packs in a blistering performance. Watch his eyes for what they have to say. He is brilliant.
As Prithviraj Pratap, Samar’s older brother and the heir apparent to the family’s legacy, Arjun Rampal is boisterous, brash, egoistic and impulsive. After the quiet Joe Mascarenhas of Rock On, Rampal is dazzling. And what’s more, in the crisp khadi and designer politico-wear, he looks like a million bucks!
Critics have also drawn parallels with the Mahabharata. Figures. Especially exemplified in the character of Brij Gopal, played deftly by Nana Patekar who, after a really long hiatus, pitches in with a restrained, minimalist, stupendous turn. Patekar is the archetypal Krishna, the party elder, the advisor, the most astute pillar of them all. Giving him company in the performance department and arguably presenting the modern day Duryodhan is Manoj Bajpayee. As Veerandra Pratap, Prithvi and Samar’s cousin, and a contender for the family’s political legacy, Bajpayee plays the cold-blooded villain with panache.