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“So was it after Kasturba’s death that Abha and Manu moved in with Gandhiji?” - This question from a good friend of mine – a generation Y graphic designer, made stand up and think. We as Indians have a particular habit. We tend to ‘divinize’ or ‘devilize’ leaders. Mahatma is one such historic figure who has been canonized that any reference to him had to be made with reverence. The obvious defect in such an approach is that the future generations tend to become ignorant of them as human beings with all the failings, worship them and in a weird turn of events, tend to trivialize them. No offence mend to any Christians, I distinctly remember discussing sexuality with some friends during my school days and a friend of mine (who is from a devote catholic family) wondered if Jesus Christ was a homosexual!
Back to our main topic, for over a month I waited patiently for “Gandhi my father” to be released and on the day of the release I managed to get a ticket. The private screening for Nelson Mandela and his subsequent praising the crew only piqued my interest in the film. Alas what a disappointment it was…
Sir Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi made “Mahatma” the symbol of moral force to the world and from then on even western directors never attempted to see the human side of him. Hence Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi as a father and that too as a failed father and a failed husband was an interesting and ambitious theme for any director to attempt. Feroz Khan tried his best to bring out the tumultuous relation between Gandhi and his elder son Harilal Gandhi but failed to convince the audience totally. Akshay Khanna failed miserably as Harilal Gandhi but going by the raves the TV channels are making, I have no doubts that even with this mediocre performance, he would be nominated for national award! And then, if Saif Ali Khan’s cool dude act in “Hum Tum” and Amitabh Bachan’s hysteria and baritone in “Black” could earn them the national best actor awards, there isn’t any reason why Akshay Khanna be denied the honors for his “lame act”?
"Gandhi my father" would have been a decent documentary, had it not been for the historical inaccuracies. In 1915 Gandhi is shown as exhorting his country men to boycott british goods and textiles while in reality, Gandhi British during the First World War by raising and leading an ambulance corps. It was only in 1920 after he launched the Non co-operation movement that Gandhiji started promoting Khadi and gave the call for Swadesi and boycott of British textiles.
While there were a lot of scope for depicting poignant questions like “Does the parents have the right to decide the life of their children” and “Is it fair on the part of a father to expect his family and children to follow his ideals?”, Feroz Khan wasted this opportunity. Thought provoking is the quote ascribed to Kasturba "You want my sons to be holy men before they are men!"
“Gandhi's Prisoner? The life of Gandhi's son Manilal” by Uma Dhupelia-Mesthrie would be a good read to understand Ganhi’s persona as a normal human being, which most of the biographers have neglected.
Verdict: 4/10. Avoidable movie and defiantly not great work on Mahatma as the reviewers claim!
A lot have been said and have been written about how innocent and naive the Germans were and how the the Nazis took this to their best advantage. A lot have been said about the 'good germans' and how evil the Nazis were. To be honest, if I were living in those troubled times, there is every possibility that I would have been a willing collaborator of the Nazis. when I say this, I don't mean that I support anti-antisemitism, the violent pan Germanism and the ludicrous racial theories.
The Weimar republic Post Gustav Stresemann was morally corrupt and was defeatist in attitude. In those troubled times, the Nazis were the only ones who inspired hope and had a plan for the revival of Germany. The guilt of the Germans were not in their collaboration with the Nazis but as Albert Seer rightly points out in his memoirs written while spending his 20 year term in Spandau (I will write detailed reviews of his works "Inside the Third Reich" and "Spandau - The secret diaries" on a later date) was in not putting to see the truth, not taking the effort to know about the violent and cruel nature of the Nazi Germany. This "Faustian deal" is the eternal shame of Germany. Oliver Hirschbiegel re-iterates this point thought the recorded words of real life Traudl Junge, which is the the crescendo of his film.
"Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn't able to see the connection with my own past. I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things. I wasn't aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me,and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out."
- Traudl Junge
History is the best teacher but sadly human beings are the worst students! The experience of Germans is an eye opener for us Indians who off late have been experimenting with extreme rightist views.
Downfall depicts the final 6 days in the life of Adolf Hitler in Führerbunker (The bunker was the 13th and last of Hitler's Führerhauptquartiere or Führer Headquarters) and the death throes of Nazi Germany. Written by Bernd Eichinger and directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, it was based on the book "Inside Hitler's Bunker" by Joachim Fest, Albert Speer's memoirs, and the memoirs of Traudl Junge, secretary of Adolf Hitler.
The film begins with an interview with the real-life Traudl Junge, who regrets not recognizing the Nazi horrors and her remorse at her younger self for not realizing what kind of a monster she was dealing with. The Swiss-German actor Bruno Ganz gives a great performance as Adolf Hitler in this film, which details the last ten days of the Third Reich. Hitler and his cronies are holed in the Führerbunker underneath the Reich Chancellery in Berlin as they are surrounded by the Red army. Despite the pleading from all, Hitler refuses to budge and refuses to evacuate. His iron will, which saw Nazi Germany through a lot of Military campaigns is not enough against the waves of Red army invading Germany. Hitler is shown as a human being whose beliefs are failing right infort of his eyes.
Treatment of the Third Reich is still a sensitive subject among Germans even 60 years after World War II's end and the film broke one of the last remaining taboos by its depiction of Adolf Hitler in a central role by a German speaking actor. Hilter's failing health and his sorry end is an irony and is true analogy, describing the fate of "12 year of Third Reich" which was supposed to last a thousand years. Director Oliver Hirschbiegel said that his purpose was to give Hitler a three-dimensional personality. "We know from all accounts that he was a very charming man —a man who managed to seduce a whole people into barbarism."
The film was widely criticised for humanizing Hitler. Germany's tabloid newspaper Bild asked during the time of its release - "Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?" It was also criticized for presenting characters like a SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke and SS doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck into honorable human beings. Despite all misgivings, all critics and historians accept the fact that it was the most authentic portrayal of the last days of Hitler and Third Reich!
Downfall was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the 77th Academy Awards but lost to "Sea Inside" (I shall write a detailed review on the same on a later date) . The film also won the BBC's 2005 BBC 4 World Cinema award and currently holds a strong position in the Internet Movie Database's Top 250 Movies list.
Verdict: 8.5/10. A must watch and watch it three to four times, if you are interested in periodic films/making periodic films.
Antonio Gramsci , the Italian Marxist thinker of WW2 era came up with the theory of ‘Cultural hegemony’ which he believed was the root cause why communist revolutions didn’t occur in industrialized Europe, where the conditions were ideal for the same. In simple words, the reason why marginally paid industrial workers didn’t raise against the oppressive managements was because the hegemonic (ruling) culture indoctrinated workers to a ‘false consciousness’ through hegemonic instruments like schooling, mass media, and popular culture.
The movie ‘Shootout at Lokhandwala’ would have had wider implication on the collective psyche of Indians if it had a stronger script, better direction and some element of acting talent in its lead actors. For the first time in my life I was thankful for the absolute lack of those skills in some of our venerated directors/script writers and actors, as a successful S@L (Shootout at Lokhandwala) would have become handy in the ‘War of positions’ favouring the extremists who wants to convert India into another.
Is it a mere coincidence that this movie was released at this very same time when a lot of questions are being raised on the extrajudicial encounter killings in Gujarat? Though the director tried a couple of times in the course of the movie to see the whole incident in a different light, from beginning to end it was portrayed as the story of ‘Good cops Vs bad elements’ and how difficult it was for the good cops to follow the frameworks set down by the constitution. The movie is a kind of appeal to the masses to accept the extrajudicial liberty taken by the state and what is more dangerous in this glorification is that the masses are told that the basic constitutional right ‘Right to live’ is taken away in their own interest.
We can understand the fact that law takes its own time and course and in some cases law is subverted to aid the powerful. But that should never serve as a cause to give absolute power – the power over life to any state machinery. As the adage goes, power corrupts and ultimate power corrupts ultimately! Again, is it again a mere coincidence that all the encounter specialists glorified by media later turned out to have wealth beyond their means?
From the articles/ review and the official website, S@L is based on the story of A A Khan and his team’s encounter with Mahindra Dolas (the aid of the Dubai based don Dawood) and his henchmen in an apartment in Lokhandwala housing complex. I don’t have many a facts regarding the incident and hence I would like to believe that A A Khan , who was exonerated by the court must be innocent. However in the movie, he is portrayed as a trigger happy cop. In one of the scenes, he shoots a wounded aid of the Dolas' gang member after he was captured – The assumption we as audience has to make here is that these law breakers are anyway going to go scout free and only way before Shansher Khan to save the country was to exterminate him! So much for the Indian Constitution!
The film moves in 2 tracks. In the main one, Shansher Khan (real life A A Khan) and his officers are interviewed by retired Chief Justice turned private prosecutor (Can a Chief Justice become a private prosecutor post retirement? I am not sure) Dhingra played by Amitabh Bachan before representing them and the main story of the shootout is told through the flashbacks they share.
The shocking part is that the only argument Dhingra, puts before the court to redeem the officers is the question “Whom do you want armed standing outside your door – the gangsters or the police?” By acquitting them on the strength of this argument, indirectly Apoorva Lakhia & Sanjay Gupta is implicating that extra power in the hands of state is justifiable.
The best part about the movie is that everything stands out as a sore thump (and hence the final product is a badly bruised body, a la victim of ATS post interrogation). Tussar Kapoor tries his best to come out as a rough and tough gangster and fails miserably in that. He is as menacing as a 4 year old kid. Vivek Oberoi is as good as he was in any other movie and he has proved that he was a one film wonder. Amithab Bachan’s character lacks depth and nowhere in the film is his defending the accused despite his convictions justified.
The flow of the movie is disrupted frequently by the songs and item numbers. I don’t know when bollywood will grow out of its ‘Bar girl’ fantasy. In fact if you take a survey of the hindi films released last year, a good percentage of the lead actresses in them were bar dancers. If this percentage is true in real life, Manjit Singh Sethi (President, Dance Bar Owners' Association) should seriously think of converting his organization into political party! Imagine with so many MLAs/MPs how powerful would that party become?
The whole movie is a standard masala hindi flick, with sentiments for the sake of sentiments, family crisis for the sake of it, tons and tons of flesh, and songs at every 15 minute interval. Did arms drop happen just in Purulia? It seems the rounds fired in the encounter scene were enough to win Kargil war twice! In fact I firmly believe that Apoorva Lakhia and Sanjay Gupta need to apprentice at least for 10 years to Anurag Kashyap before attempting any movie on real life incidents.
I have nothing against Masala flicks but it sucks when a ‘Bangalore Times’ article is praised as noteworthy as the works of the bard from Avon!
Verdict: 2/10. You won’t lose anything by missing this movie.
