Thalapathi (The Leader, India 1991)

Rajnikanth

Even watching this classic Mani Ratnam film on a terrible DVD with a degraded image and Hindi dubbing couldn’t diminish its power. Thalapathi represents the ultimate in Tamil Cinema during the early 1990s. Director Mani Ratnam, composer Illayaraja and cinematographer Santosh Sivan combine to present the superstars of Tamil and Malayalam Cinema, Rajnikanth and Mammootty in an epic gangster melodrama.

The outline narrative is based on the Indian epic narrative the Mahābhārata. I can’t pretend to be able to explain how the connection is made, but it is mentioned by several commentators. The film’s plot sees a teenage mother abandon her newborn baby during the Holi festival. The baby is later found by children and eventually brought up by a woman in a poor community. Twenty-five years later, the abandoned baby is now a man, a child of the community and fast becoming its protector and moral conscience. This is Suraj/Surya (Rajnikanth). In defending a woman, Surya beats up man who eventually dies from his injuries. The dead man worked for the local crime lord Devaraj (Mammootty), who recognising his qualities recruits Surya. The two soon become very close, saving each other’s lives at various points and gaining control in a community who fear the (corrupt) police and the threat of rival gangs. Devaraj and Surya are criminal and violent in retribution but they support the members of the local community. Surya becomes the man to go to for help – the ‘Thalapathi’ of the community.

The new power regime is then threatened by the arrival of a new District Collector, a young man (played by Arvind Swamy, later to star in Roja and Bombay) who is determined to ‘clean up’ the city. It is at this point that all the coincidences of melodrama come into play. Everyone turns out to be related to one of the other characters in some way and cross-loyalties are inevitable. At the centre of everything is Surya’s hurt at still being an ‘abandoned son’. (He rationalises the action of the mother he has never known by saying that he was a ‘black baby’ that she didn’t want.) ‘Mothers’ become important characters in the narrative, both in a functional and symbolic way. The audience knows that the narrative can only be resolved by violence and death. (The connection to the epic is partly in relation to the cross-loyalties to friends and families.)

The high melodrama is played out in terms of music, compositions, colours and highly choreographed dance and fight sequences. I confess that in the first half of the film, I found Surya’s excessive violence to be deeply disturbing. It occurred to me that the character was rather like Clint Eastwood’s Dirty Harry – a fascist cop who was morally right but prepared to break every law and to punish the bad guys. I still thought this in part two but as the melodrama intensified, it did become more understandable if not more acceptable.

The real value of the film for me was simply to see Rajnikanth in action. This is his only Mani Ratnam film which seems a surprise. I can see why he is a superstar. He exudes charisma despite lacking the pale features, aristocratic face and toned body of so many Bollywood male leads and in this film sporting a mane of seemingly back-combed hair. Like the beefy moustachioed Mammootty, he could only be a superstar in the South. There is something warm and vulnerable about him. He cries and comforts small children quite naturally – and a moment later beats opponents to a pulp without blinking. 

I’m wondering now whether I can bring myself to watch Mani Ratnam’s earlier Nayakan, another gangster epic starring the other Tamil superstar, Kamal Hassan. Like Thalapathi, this sees a working-class boy take on rival gangsters and the police in another massively successful film. But the DVD that I rented looks unwatchable, so perhaps I’ll look for a better copy.

Jia Zhangke’s ‘Hometown’ trilogy

Director Jia Zhangke dropped beneath my radar, for some reason, until I saw Still Life (Sanxia Haoren, 2006); that presented me with the enticing prospect of ‘catching up’ on some terrific films. Xiao Wu (China-Hong Kong, 1997), his first feature, was heavily influenced by Italian neo realists and Bresson’s Pickpocket (France, 1959); his film was also known as Pickpocket in some countries. Xiao Wu features location shooting and non-actors in a tale of a petty thief who finds life in ‘new’ China is passing him by.

Trapped by the future

Xiao Wu became the first of the ‘hometown’ trilogy and it focuses on one character who’s failing to engage with the emerging capitalism. The second film, Platform (Zhantai, Hong Kong-China-Japan-France, 2000), is more ambitious in its scope as portrays the changes in a state-run theatre troupe from the late ‘70s to the late ‘80s of the Tiananmen Square massacre by which time it has been privatised. The third film, Unknown Pleasures (Ren xiao yao, S.Korea-Japan-France-China, 2002), portrays a whole ‘lost generation’; born post-Mao they don’t have any meaning in their lives other than the pursuit of money and women (the protagonists are a pair of male teenagers).

All the films shot are shot in and around Fenyang, a ‘middle of nowhere’ place, and one of the fascinating aspects of the trilogy is this rundown setting and the people (who are real and not extras) in it. ‘Middle of nowhere’ in the middle of China is a long way away from most places but children play skipping in alleys, just as the do everywhere else in the world.

Although not as surreal as the later Venice Golden Lion winner Still Life, the naturalism Xiao Wu’s visual style – much of it handheld camera – doesn’t mean the mise en scene isn’t expressive. Greens and reds are prominent sometimes submerging scenes in colour expressionately reflecting the protagonist’s stagnation. Whilst his boyhood companions make something of their lives, though their ’success’ is not something that Jia is necessarily celebrating, Xiao Wu drifts through petty theft unable to connect with women or his family: a character also common in all nations. The final shot of Xiao’s humiliation lingers long after the credits.

The film was initially banned in China and lauded in the West; we like celebrating what others ban as it shows off our tolerance. In the west censorship is often economic: if it can’t make money we’re not going to show it. Clearly the censors noticed the lack of celebration of China’s growing economic prosperity. As in Still Life we see characters that are living lives in transition, looking for roots where they no longer exist.

A society in transition

Whilst Xiao Wu focused on one individual experiencing the transition to capitalism, Platform follows a theatrical troupe during the 1980s, a period of vast change as Deng Xiaoping instituted economic changes. Jia Zhangke’s second feature is stylistically very different from the handheld realism of Xiao Wu; often the motionless camera observes the action in long takes. Micheal Berry, in his excellent BFI Film Classic book on the trilogy, compares the style to Ozu; I was reminded of Miklos Jansco where action often wonders offscreen only to return.

Despite the stylisation the film still feels realist; location shooting and non-professional actors and the ordinary lives of the protagonists suggest we’re seeing an authentic vision of a Chinese backwater. Berry mentions that the DVD cut, Jia’s preferred version, is an hour shorter than the original and a lot of explicatory material has been excised. That might be one of the reasons I was occasionally confused as to what was going on. Similarly, I didn’t pick up on all the cultural references; however, that’s part of the point of watching ‘world’ cinema: to learn.

Although there are realist aspects, the film also has almost-surreal moments. For example when Zhong Ping goes to a meeting with a new perm, a signifier of modernity, she’s the butt of jokes; ‘you look like a flamenco dancer’. Cut to the same setting, a run-down hall, with Zhong dancing in a resplendent red flamenco dress. Similarly, another scene is interrupted by a ‘one child parade’; however that wasn’t contrived as these occurred during the late ’70s.

Jia also swamps the mise en scene in blue (all trucks in China seem to be blue!), red and green also predominate. This stylisation aesthetises the film suggesting the film is more than reflecting people’s lives but a statement about ’80s China.

The 'glamour' of the west

Unknown Pleasures is probably the grimmest of the three. If the eponymous character of Xiao Wu is one person being left behind by economic development in China, the teenage protagonists of Unknown Pleasures represent a whole generation whose lives are being destroyed by wholesale changes in society.

The title, as in Platform, is a reference to a Taiwanese pop song (and, also, tangentially, to Joy Division) and western, and westernised, popular culture infuses the film from the ‘bob’ wig worn by would-be singer Qiao Qiao to the attempted bank robbery – both inspired by Pulp Fiction (US, 1994). Qiao, though, is in the hands of local gangster and her performances are purely commercial; adverts for King Mongolian beer. It’s the logical progression from Platform, where the theatrical troupe start as state-run and end up as a business. In Unknown Pleasures selling is all that matters.

Jia portrays capitalism as soulless; or rather, it eats away at our souls as all we want is money. In China, of course, everything is magnified because of its size, so there are a lot of soulless people ‘growing up’ in China. Jia focuses on the losers, but no doubt the winners will also be spiritually empty.

Looking for Eric (UK/Fra/Bel/Sp/Italy 2009)

Steve Evets as Eric the postie

The last Ken Loach film before this one (It’s a Free World, 2007) was released first on television in the UK and it dealt with the new brutalism of capitalism with its exploitation of migrant labour. For me it was the least enjoyable of the Loach team’s work in recent years. Looking for Eric is a return to mainstream Loach territory and a very enjoyable movie for a cinema visit. However, I guess that in the circumstances it is perhaps a little too ‘comfortable’ – although it has its moments in exposing current political issues. Perhaps it is the ‘happy ending’ and the football focus that has led some critics to see the film as a departure, a mainstream breakout film. I don’t think it’s either.

If you know Loach, I think that the two other films Looking for Eric most resembles are Raining Stones (1993) and My Name is Joe (1998). Raining Stones, written by the late and very great Jim Allen, is also set in Manchester with another well-meaning but hopeless working-class man this time caught in a spiral of financial doom. It is also one of the bleakest and funniest films to come out of the UK. My Name is Joe is a romance (one of Paul Laverty’s early scripts for Loach) bringing together a man seemingly trapped by his demons with a sensible woman from social services and set in Glasgow. If you’ve seen either of these films, you’ll not be surprised by what happens in Eric. Laverty has become a skilled scriptwriter and the whole thing works very well – although audiences will be puzzled by some of the relationships in Postman Eric’s dysfunctional family. (I’m grateful for an IMDB poster for explaining at least one plot point.)

Looking for Eric features a Manchester postman (brilliantly played by Steve Evets) who is helped out of his crisis of self-confidence by the appearance of the ex-Manchester United footballer Eric Cantona (playing himself – who could possibly impersonate him?). This is woven into the plot quite cleverly so that we understand why ‘little Eric’ might imagine himself talking to his idol. Don’t believe all those stories about this being a big departure for Loach. In 45 years he’s used all sorts of surrealist touches – remember the on-screen football score when the PE teacher pretends to be Bobby Charlton in Kes?

Cantona was famous in the UK for both his fantastic football skills and his assured way of dealing with the media via a series of wonderfully gnomic utterances – don’t leave the cinema before the end of the credits or you will miss Cantona’s most famous press conference. The film isn’t really about football, even if there are a few minutes of Cantona magic in video clips of his famous goals. Watching United usually gives me the same pleasure as root canal work at the dentist’s, but even I would admit that Cantona was a genius on the football field. Now he’s an actor and he brought the initial idea to Loach and Laverty. Cantona the alter ego offers sensible advice to Eric, both in terms of his relationship with his ex-wife and his problems with his stepsons. His most important advice is that Eric must rely on his teammates – the other posties who do care about him. What we see in the film is the ’saving’ of little Eric when he takes the advice offered. The warmth of feeling and the humour in the film is there in most Loach-Laverty films, but in this case there does seem to be something that might be called a happy ending. However, along the way we do get a firm and convincing message about how solidarity and collective action is the way to solve problems.

I must mention Stephanie Bishop’s performance as Eric’s ex-wife, Lily. Loach’s films always feature inspired casting and Kathleen Crawford, based in Glasgow, has worked as casting director on the last few Loach features. She’s done a great job. All the cast are Mancunians, or at least Lancastrians, as far as I can work out. Stephanie Bishop has no previous credits but I thought she was terrific. As Loach says on the film’s website, casting an actor like John Henshaw opens up so many possibilities because he can switch from serious drama to broad comedy in a flash. He matches the performances of Ricky Tomlinson in previous films. He becomes the team leader of the posties – most of whom are played by comedians from local Manchester clubs. Overall, the policy of ‘local casting’ means that we do believe that all of this could happen in a ‘real’ community.

Only one negative came from the screening – the print. You can never tell with digital prints whether the fault was in the original footage, the conversion to digital or the projection itself and the computer, but several sequences were presented in a way that made me feel like I was watching the film through a pair of old tights. Since Barry Ackroyd’s cinematography is usually one of the pluses for a Loach film, this was a real disappointment. Still, it couldn’t prevent my enjoyment. If you have a choice, try to see the analogue print.

As usual, this Ken Loach film opened earlier and wider in France where it will end up earning considerably more than the £1 million it has so far earned in the UK.

Edinburgh Film Festival 2009: Antichrist

Antichrist has many of the qualities of previous Lars von Trier films and I have to use the ‘m’ word (‘misogyny’) immediately.  It came up quickly in the Q & A at Edinburgh with its cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle – and continued to come up during the subsequent discussion, and it was clear that many in the audience rightly had issues with its politics. I can only offer my view below, as someone who has frequently ‘had problems’ with Von Trier’s representations of women – and I‘ve found that (two days on) I’ve not quite had the response I would have expected. I hope that my few thoughts might stimulate some discussion because I think it’s an interesting and brave film. The furore at its release is interesting  as well, as it conforms to type. Without a comprehensive knowledge of the history of censorship, Antichrist falls into that category of film that creates a huge outcry, mainly from parts of the media that represent audiences who would never choose to go to see it and make it represent an evil that it simply does not equate to (Crash springs to mind as a worthy antecedent at the centre of a similar furore).

Antichrist is a powerful cinematic experience. The use of the image is tested to certain limits within a popular cinema context. Put this film in an art gallery, and you wouldn’t have the same kind of responses or issues. The fact that Von Trier chooses to work in a popular medium, deliberately with a view to changing the constitution and perception of that medium, means that his films can exist in a context that struggles to accommodate it. The particular challenge of his films is interesting when we are routinely able to ‘handle’ the unquestioned misogyny of mainstream cinema and extremes of representations of sex and violence that exist there. And it’s not that Von Trier’s film contains representations that are more realistic – as in the effects or results of violence or sexual obsession – the film is shot with his trademark attention to an ‘alienation effect’ to ensure that you are constantly aware that you are contemplating a work of art. And I mean ‘contemplating’ – Dod Mantle talked about the deliberate decision to slow the frame rate in order to allow the viewer to study the images being shown as you would contemplate a work of art in a gallery. Using high speed camera equipment (Phantom) some sequences were shot at 1,000 frames per second (compared to the usual 25).  It is similarly relevant that Von Trier does overtly credit the influence of Tarkovsky on this film. The particular quality of an artwork is, I think, enhanced as it is completely shot on digital. Other filmic devices Dod Mantle discussed were the deliberate decision to abandon the 180 degree rule in the sequences at the family home (post tragedy), which creates a dynamic contrast against the more static sequences. This was very clear as you watched it – the disintegration and the disassociation taking place within the marriage. This does work incredibly effectively as well as the single framing that results for each of the protagonists, emphasising their painful, painful isolation in this grieving couple. In lesser hands, it could just appear chaotic and disorientating. In the context of this, the female genital mutilation is not (as has been portrayed in some responses) the central narrative focus, but occurs at a specific narrative moment and expresses a particular emotion of Gainsbourg’s character. Is it gratuitous? I read an article in last week’s Observer Film supplement that felt it was, and decried the film’s casual use of it, quoting Ousmane Sembène Moolaadé as a far more sensitive treatment of this issue. This seems to imply that the film lacked humanity in its representation of its subjects. But this seems a different kind of human expression – of intense misery, grief – of darkness and despair – recreated through visual symbolism in a highly-aestheticised piece of art. Inevitably, it will always be testing and challenging our ability to feel connection – empathy, sympathy – because of this self-consciousness but I do not think it necessarily ‘achieved’ alienation. Somehow, through the extreme events and high art aesthetic, those people and their emotions were real. The intensity of the chamber-piece style and the particular actors involved is, as in other Von Trier films, a vital factor in that communicating the emotions convincingly. Despite what he must put them through, you would guess Von Trier is an actors’ director – the aesthetics serve the performance and foreground it rather than detract.

So, back to the misogyny. The narrative does superficially present a story that warns of the atavistic and illogical and dangerous influence and acts of women. A bald telling of the plot details would make this clear (which obviously I won’t do). However, this film (more than others I have watched by Von Trier) does create a powerful balance between its apparent mistrust of women and the ineffectual nature of patriarchal behaviour. Dafoe’s character is clearly the logic and control of male patriarchal authority which the film consistently questions, even whilst representing female extremes. It is clear that these extremes are produced in the context of this kind of patriarchal control and the lighting and colour choices emphasise the theme. The institutional look of the apartment they inhabit (the bathroom especially with the utilitarian basin and toilet and bland hospital-style tiles) together with the greenish colour bias seem to emphasise this unbalanced pathology within the marriage. The role of nature (conceived as its own separate character) is also a central theme – through the evil that men do, a battle between instincts and logic and a questioning of our relationship to the ‘beasts of the field’ – all represented visually in a highly aestheticised and anti-naturalistic form.

The final, fine balance is achieved through the dominance of the role ascribed to Charlotte Gainsbourg (who won the acting award at Cannes) compared to Dafoe – her dominance of the screentime and her devastating performance is a strong argument for credible female empowerment in this dark and challenging story.

Katyn (Poland 2007)

The General attempts to lift the spirits of his Polish officers on Christmas Eve 1939.

I’ve waited a long time to see this film and I wasn’t disappointed. It may be the best film released in the UK this year – not in terms of technical accomplishment or artistic endeavour (whatever that means), but simply as a personal statement and a representation of enormous emotional feeling. Director Andrzej Wajda was 13 when the war began and his father, a cavalry officer, went off never to return. In the 1950s Wajda became one of the leading figures in the humanist art cinema celebrated across the world. For fifty years he has waited for the opportunity to make this film in which inevitably he would have to explore not just what happened in 1940, but also what it meant for the Wajda family and for Polish society.

If the name ‘Katyn’ doesn’t mean much to you, you should know that in 1940 Stalin authorised the murder of 20,000 and more Polish military officers and intelligentsia who were being held by the Red Army. The subsequent massacre in the Katyn forest outside Smolensk in Western Russia was uncovered by the Nazis in 1943 when they invaded Russia and used to make anti-Russian propaganda. It was then claimed as a German atrocity by the Russians in 1945 when they liberated Poland. The British fare badly as well since they refused to confirm the Russian responsibility for the massacre in 1943 for fear of offending Stalin as an essential ally.

What I found surprising (because I didn’t read about the film beforehand) was how Wajda tackled something so close and painful. Like many recent films about the ‘Eastern European War’, the outcome of the events is well-known so the script can’t really aim for surprising twists or narrative suspense. Wajda makes important structural decisions such as focusing primarily on the women at home rather than the men captured in 1939 when the Red Army invaded Poland soon after the Nazi attack. He selects characters who are archetypal Polish officers and their families – the General, the captain, the lieutenant, the engineer/pilot. He moves the story on quickly to show us the methodical actions of the Nazi and Soviet administrations and their attempts to remove all the potential leaders of Polish resistance. He shows us the immediate aftermath of the Russian occupation of all Poland in 1945 and compares the Nazi and Russian attempts to use Polish deaths for propaganda purposes. He hones in on the terrible decision for the survivors – to knuckle down and build the new Poland under Russian hegemony or to remain true to history – and perish nobly. When he does eventually show us the executions, we are aware of the true horror of what these events mean, not just in 1945 when the reality of the deaths is confirmed, but over the next 45 years of a Polish state established on lies.

I got home from the screening and read long screeds of complaints about the film on IMDB from people who found it ‘boring’ or ‘amateurish’. I’m always a little wary of such comments, especially when they come from Poles who recognise soap stars in the cast etc. and of course I can’t comment on the Polish dialogue, only on what the subtitler has offered. (I did recognise one of the players from We Are All Christs and from my perspective the casting was very good.) On the whole though I think these comments come from younger viewers whose sense of film language has been dulled by American action movies and holocaust melodramas. They seem incapable of following the plot and easily lost if the film moves slowly. On the other hand, I have to admit that Wajda himself takes no prisoners. If you don’t know the history it is easy to get lost. Next to me in the cinema were a young couple who talked through the opening credits and I had to bite my lip to stop myself telling them to shut up. Possibly they were young Poles not used to an art cinema ambience? Anyway, they soon quietened and watched the film in silence.

For me though this was a beautifully made film with a strong sense that every image was considered and every moment filled with subtle gestures and symbols – or perhaps they were heavy-handed for some taste? Inevitably there have been comparisons with Wajda’s 1950s trilogy of films about the Warsaw risings and their aftermath. I was prompted to think about these in the sequences in which young resistance fighters return to Kracow and attempt to avoid the soldiers of the new regime in 1945 as they refuse to accept the Russian view. I’m an old romantic, but for me the women were all believable and very beautiful, which made the pain of the narrative even sharper. The young women made me think of the German film about Sophie Scholl and I hope that this will be a film that young people will watch and will be moved by.

For a long time, I thought that Katyn would not be released in the UK. There are strong Polish communities in the UK dating from the arrival of Polish forces who escaped in 1939. They supported the Allied war effort and became part of British as well as Polish history. Wajda points to the difficult relationship between Britain and Poland in the dialogue amongst the Polish prisoners held by the Russians. There is another story to be told about Britain and Poland. I’m pleased that the UK Film Council supported Katyn’s release. I hope as many people as possible get to see it.

Edinburgh Film Festival 2009: Andrea Arnold and Fish Tank

Andrea Arnold (and interviewer) during the 'post-match' interview

Andrea Arnold’s second feature has blazed the trail in a similar way to her first, this one winning the Jury Prize (shared with Park Chan-Wook’s Thirst) at the Cannes Film Festival. It made its second public appearance at the Edinburgh Film Festival this weekend to an enthusiastic reception for the director and her actors who were there for the Q & A after the screening.

It’s familiar territory to the astonishing Red Road – high rise flats and desperate existences of the people within them and has the same poetic take on the social realist genre. However, before I lazily lock down an Arnold auteur style, this is a very different kind of film. And the problem with this blog entry is that I really don’t want to give anything away – and to say that I am really glad that I hadn’t read anything about the film before I saw it.  This meant that the terrible and effective tension that built through the film, based on not knowing where the different elements of the story might lead, worked a treat to wrack your nerves. However, this was only because the performances from this tightly woven ensemble cast were completely convincing, even when the character themselves might have easily veered into a social realist stereotype.  As someone astutely commented during the post-film Q&A session, Michael Fassbender doesn’t stand out despite his intense and charismatic performance and this said everything about the strength of the combined playing between all the actors.

Central to all of this – and destined to be singled out for praise – is the breakout performance by Katie Jarvis, as the gobby, aggressive fifteen year old daughter of a single mum. She’s everything of the frustrated, angry teenager who should/might repel but who entirely has you on her side, quickly, without having done anything that traditionally should gain your sympathy. Everything is conveyed through her body language and her dialogue without the need for clunky back story or exchanges between characters. It’s a brilliant performance.  But so is the playing from the subsidiary characters (such as Kierston Wareing as mum or Harry Treadaway as Kyle) which do not see their limited screen time as needing them to over-emphasise their roles. Less is definitely more in this claustrophobic, unravelling piece.

Arnold discussed the great luxury she had of filming in narrative order for this film and said that, for the first time, she worked by giving the script piecemeal to the characters (both techniques that Ken Loach has used to create authenticity of performances). Jarvis was cast having been observed having a row with her boyfriend on a train platform, but she isn’t just being herself.  She does give a real full-on performance of incredible nuance and sensitivity and she matches Fassbender’s quality in several key scenes, making them unbearably involving.

Arnold says (of awards pressure) that she concentrates on writing things that are personal to her – not in an autobiographical sense, but things that she feels strongly about, stories she wants to tell.  That kind of authenticity really is a hallmark, the emotions radiate through the characters as they do so powerfully in Red Road and so that as in real-life experience)  you know them, but don’t know what they might do.  Honestly, go without reading anything.

The production team is worth examining – producers with eclectic and interesting backgrounds working with Peter Greenaway, Michael Winterbottom.  There is Christine Langan –  for her background, see http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/05_may/10/langan.shtml, another constant reminder of British television’s vital influence on the film industry. And also the UK Film Council. All these a reminder of the hand to mouth just-about sustainability of the British film industry.

Rock On!! (India 2008)

Rock On!! is an interesting Hindi film recommended by one of itpworld’s Indian commenters. It scores highly on IMDB (8.2) and was clearly popular in India on urban multiplex screens as an example of a new kind of Bollywood film. However, in the UK it died at the box office, faring badly compared to most Hindi releases with a screen average below £1,000 and being trounced by a Tamil release, Dhaam Dhoom (which has a very low IMDB score).

Viewed from the UK, Rock On!! feels like a fairly conventional take on a rock nostalgia story. Magik were a band that ten years ago were on the verge of ‘making it’ but the compromises they would have been forced to take in order to get a recording deal caused a split and the band broke up. Now there is a chance to re-form for the four band members. Will they take it? Wikipedia suggests that the film draws on the UK film Stir Crazy (1998) and a Korean film about which I know nothing. Maybe, but the genre is so well known that such comparisons can be easily made and I don’t think we should take too much notice. More interesting is the attempt to portray four characters from different backgrounds – two middle-class college boys, an Indian Christian and an Indian character from a European background. The film has music sequences but they are used much more like the performance pieces in a (fictional) music biopic than in a typical Bollywood film. The music itself is what I would call mainstream AOR with some Bollywood flavour. It’s melodic and pleasant but very smooth. The lyrics are sung in Hindi and the relatively old-fashioned feel is emphasised by two songs played by other acts, one in English and both much closer to modern US/UK sounds.

The story itself is not particularly interesting apart from the sociological details but I watched it quite happily. What is important, I think, is that the film provides an opportunity for the young urban middle-class in India to identify with a genuinely Indian take on a global cultural form. The production context too is interesting. Excel films was founded by Farhan Akhtar and Ritesh Sidhwani in 1999. Akhtar is clearly a young man with a future. At 35 he has directed four features, produced others and in Rock On!! takes one of the lead roles as the wealthy young man who writes the lyrics, acts as lead singer and then turns to investment banking when the band splits up.

Another interesting feature of the film’s release was the appearance of the four leads on the cover of the Indian edition of Rolling Stone magazine – another example of the Americanisation of middle-class Indian youth? Rolling Stone lost all its credibility as a serious music and culture magazine a long time ago. The quartet went on to play concerts in various Indian cities.

When I think about it, I can see the connection between this film and Rang De Basanti in terms of a kind of youthful romanticism. I think it could have had a bit more edge though. I’m a bit fed up of the American college kid thing now. Couldn’t we have some Hindi movies about working class kids who become great cricketers? (I was heartened to see that the Bollywood box-office, coming out of the strike between multiplexes and producers, was unable to recover during the weeks of the IPL and then the 20-20 World Cup).

Danny Boyle – life after Slumdog

Screen International this week reported that Danny Boyle has signed a three year deal with Fox Searchlight and Pathé, the two companies behind the successful distribution of Slumdog Millionaire. Slumdog is still making money around the world with theatrical currently showing $358 million and DVD already at $30 million in the US.

Boyle is said to be keen to link up with Indian filmmakers Shekhar Kapur and Anurag Kashyap and has acquired the rights to the book, Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found by Suketu Mehta, a collection of essays about the city by a returning former resident. Shekhar Kapur is best known for Elizabeth in the UK, but more importantly he made Bandit Queen (India/UK 1994) with part-funding by Channel 4. This was one of the first films to attempt to marry aspects of British and Indian popular cinema. Anurag Kashyap is a younger (37) filmmaker with wide experience as an actor, writer and director. He has worked with Mani Ratnam and with Deepa Mehta, but it was his own film, Black Friday (India 2004), about the 1993 Mumbai bombings, that Boyle watched in his preparation for Slumdog.

The success of Slumdog means that Danny Boyle will have great freedom to choose his next projects. But it doesn’t mean that he has become a critical success. Anyone who wants to gauge the challenge that Slumdog’s success has presented to the critical community should look at the last two issues of Cineaste magazine. Robert Koehler wrote one of the silliest reviews of Slumdog I have seen and what was worse he wrote about the film claiming deep knowledge of India and Indian Cinema. Taken to task in the latest issue by Rahul Hamid, Koehler then compounds his folly. I don’t want to rehash all the debates again, but Koehler seems unable to accept that Slumdog is an Indian story about aspects of contemporary globalised Indian life adapted and mounted by Brits and Indians working together and drawing on recent Indian film styles.