Court (Multi-lingual Film 2014)

    How do you differentiate a good and a bad judgment? Me watching a film called KILLA - the fort, at 16th Mumbai Film Festival-14 and was in Love with that film, a good judgment? And somehow me feeling like skipping Court and watching Yves Saint Laurent instead, a bad judgment.

    After watching Court in the theaters now, I feel that I made a wrong decision back then. Reading the synopsis, I was not much attracted to the film.

My verdict today is - 9.4/10.

    Yes. the film is as overwhelming as that.

    Let me tell you, those who are looking for something like 'Suits' or 'Erin Brockowich', then this is not the film for you. This film is above many standards and not for the people who consider 'Duniyadari and Timepass' (and similar kind of films) as a Super-HIT films.

    This film is very close to realism. This film doesn't boast hyper-colour-corrections, a billion dollars VFX, or actors who charge the makers 3 billions rupees as their fees for the Shit performance they manage to deliver.

    This film is true and genuine. This film is highly generous in making the young film makers learn and remember that a great film has only one Hero - It's Script.

If your script is perfect, you need nothing more to make a very nice film (considering that a maker has a good sense and knowledge basic film making and language of cinema).

    Court (film) is a simple court drama about a single case of an artist, a folk musician-lyricist and singer, who is accused of making a sewage worker commit suicide, because the lyrics of the folk song he performed in a locality said so.

    With a topic that seems so worthless, shallow and futile, this film progresses making the case look impossible, giving it many dimension, depth and unintentional natural drama.  The film takes place in the lower courts in India and the functioning of the court, the offices, the laws and orders that are bent according to the convenience of oneself, taking out an entirely unimaginable meaning out of a silliest thing, perceiving things in a manner that no one would ever want to or ought to... all these traits expressed in this film in a very convincing and satirical way.

    Satire is the crown of this script. Simplicity is the throne, actors - by actors I mean the people who did not ACT the character out but who had BEEN that character to make the film very authentic and the 'incidences next door' type - Actors are the sword, Depth of research by the writer is the shield and the whole film and the way it is made, the treatment, the flow and the direction is what makes COURT the King of all the films made in last two years. (Yes...we do have the QUEEN in our kingdom).

    Chaitanya Tamhane - The pal who started writing the script when he was 23, completed it when he was 26 and was holding the Best Film award at Venice Int. Film Festival at probably 27 and at 28 he is the proud director of BEST FEATURE FILM in whole India, with Golden Leaf at National Award Function.

    Every scene has something awesome in it. Every shot has a reason. There is nothing in this film that is done just like that. Every frame has something to offer you. 'Something' and many things that you can take in, understand and grasp as a viewer. Satire is what made this film a little humourous. But with every laugh you deep down know that your heart did skip a beat with the unfortunate and deliberate immaturity of our society and human nature. Chaitanya shows-off his observations and maturity- making this film easily go, hypothetically, under the name of any veteran and greatest film makers.

    Chaitanya has perfectly chose what to show and what not to show in his film, what to keep and what to edit, how much to keep and how much cut it out. The clarity of his vision is commendable (though I do not know him, I could say it by watching the film).
The shot when the Vora family is coming out of a restaurant and Vinay is attacked is very well and smartly handled.
The cross questioning of the victim's wife in the court - the camera lingering on one person while the questions are asked, no 'unnecessary cut-away's is what I loved.
A very carefully researched and developed, the personal lives of the Advocate, the public prosecutor and the session court judge, is highly impressive giving us the full insight of the characters and their depths.

Things that happen in the film are exactly what take place in the world we live in.

    Drama-Drama is nothing but the smallest of the moments in each and everyone's life that make your minds numb for a moment, it is anything that makes you take a couple of minutes to bring yourself back together. If the situation is truly dramatic you never need high technology and bulk of money to make the audience FEEL the emotion of it. But This film maker is skilled in keeping things simple. It is one toughest thing to do.

    As I say - The most difficult thing is to stay simple.

    Chaitanya Tamhane - I couldn't stop myself and I tried to explore your personality while watching your film. I was trying to read you, peep into your mind and hear your thoughts that you had with you while making it, tried to know the instincts you got in the process. You are one interesting person and You have proved it very efficiently.

-The first and last Shahir's performance (songs) both of which are Bang on, and the girl singing the Portuguese song in the restaurant (slightly trippy and extraordinarily cool)... which one is You?
-The public prosecutor or the Vinay Vora... Which one is you?
-The Judge that slaps a small boy or the boy that cries after the slap... which one is  you?
-The boy who made the film or the guy who wrote it... which one is you?

Chaitanya Tamhane is everything that I am.........! (and of-course... much much more than that).

Kudos to the Team of this Film.

Detective Byomkesh Bakshy

            It would need me more than a few months to know and understand The Byomkesh Bakshi created by Sharadindu Bandoppadhyay in the decade of 1930s and 42 stories written for the character. 

            It would take another month to watch and understand the films and series made on this fictional character by various film makers. It started with the great Satyajit Ray in 1967 by a film called 'Chiriyakhana' (adaptation of one of the stories in 1956). The films made on Bakshi also includes a trilogy by Anjan Dutt and a film directed by the national award winning Director Rituporno Ghosh, a few recent examples.

            And now as if it is the duty of every Bengali film-maker to give a little something from his/hers own side to the Character of Bengali blood Byomkesh, Dibakar Grabbed his chance this time.

            It is a thriller and thus I am not going to reveal any part of the story except that it starts with Ajit Banerjee (Inspired by Sir Author Cannon  Doyal's, Dr. Watson's character of Sherlock Holmes, as a narrator in the stories) comes to Sherlock...sorry Byomkesh with a case of his missing father. What happens after this is gripping and thrilling.

            It was Dibakar Banjerjee's (the Director and Producer of this film) decision to keep the direction of this film particularly NOT like anything done before. In an interview I read that he showed Sushant Singh Rajput, the young chap who played Byomkesh Bakshi, 'Chiriyakhana' and other adaptations and said - This is what I don't want to do.
And likewise, Dibakar has done what he said.

            The film looks amazingly well made. It is set before 1950s and the feel is kept just right for us to make it believe. Sushant has done a very good work as Byomkesh. Not being a Bengali there are a few character sketching limitations in his acting which is natural. However, he has pulled it off pretty well. Anand Tiwari as Ajit has done a nicer job. Though there is a character fault in the unfolding and emoting to certain events, Anand is still the one that puts some impression on us, with his straight face confused look humour. Rest all are also satisfactory for their part of work. Swastika Mukherjee seemed little out of the role. Divya Menon who played Satyawati (Byomkesh's wife in the stories) was good on the other hand; only she would have been better if her character had a gradual flow. It is too abrupt in changing its decisions.

            Nevertheless, The story grips you so well that you hardly start thinking if they should have casted someone Bengali for Byomkesh. Honey Trehan, the casting and associate director for Vishal Bharadwaj has done a convincing casting.

            Screenplay is just superb. Otherwise this film would have been a mess. As it is the film goes too fast and grasping it might become a problem to the spoiled viewers who had been made a habit of being spoon-feed. Plus to add it up, volume level of dialogue is kept low to give a touch of real place conversations. Sushant Singh, with the husk in his voice makes it tougher for us to grasp each line of his dialogue. Sound Designing is very skillfully done and the film does sound authentic.

            Vandana Kataria's Production Design is the film's one of the best input. The Huge set of 1940's Bengal is marvelously designed & built. It is very well utilised during the opening titles.

            Cinematography is the key element of the film. The very talented Nikos (Nikolaos) Andritsakis showed his out of the box skills with Love, Sex aur Dhoka, Ugly and Shanghai. He gives the film more than real look. This one especially is credible and to be praised a lot. The film looks amazing with the lighting he has designed.

            Editing had some flaws. Atleast I felt so. Maybe to match the production flaws of continuity or numerous things, quite a few cuts had to be ignorant and ruthless.

            Direction in this one lies in the detailed way of expressing the story. Being a Detective Thriller, Dibakar had to show and had to hide a few things in a single frame many a times. The story demands some particulars to be hidden but the screenplay needs to mention it to fit itself in the correct language of cinema. All this, is backed by the - over the top & out of the class - Music, by Sneha Khanwalkar and Imaad Shah's band and other Indie-music bands. The choice of music is horribly different and it suits just right, maybe more than right, in the film. Though no song is used in the film and only music is played back, it does its job to throw us in the feel which Dibakar wants us to get into.

            The places where movie fails to convince us thoroughly, they have played it clever to keep our mind engrossed in something else. Most of the times you have to let a few references go, so that you do not miss the ones that are happening now.

            Overall, 'Byomkesh Bakshy' is definitely different from the 'Byomkesh Bakshi' ever made. Right from the fact that Sharadindu's Byomkesh never used to like himself to be called as Detective; Dibakar started changing this with naming the film as Detective Byomkesh Bakshy - adding the same prefix before Byomkesh and changing the last letter in the spelling of character's Surname. This film is a small time revolution breeze, a start of the coming storm to make better looking cinemas, visualising the films differently and executing them the way maker wants.

            I am sure Dibakar wanted the film to look even different in his head, but then I am also sure that he must be happy with what he has got.

            I rate this film 8/10. 

1/2 mark cut for editing, 1 mark cut for character flaws and 1/2 mark reduced as my heart doesn't want to rate it as nice as '8.5' for some reason unknown to me.

Furious 7

            Someone like Herodotus or some pretty ancient Indian Sage might have said that someday in the distant future the dead will be made alive again, they will walk, they will talk, they will jump off the cliffs by running over the bus slipping down the valley and save their own lives by holding the spoiler of the car drifting at the edge of the same cliff.

            With Some parts of the film shot by the Paul Walker and with his brothers acting as body doubles and with the up top cutting edge technology in VFX they have brought in Paul Walker digitally throughout the 7th installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise.

            This Film was the most awaited among its fans from the moment a short clip from Tokyo Drift (3rd Installment of the franchise) was shown as the hint of the coming Furious 7. And the film had its biggest emotional sympathy with the terribly sad news of, One of the leading men of the Film, Paul Walker, who played Brain O'Conner since the first part, leaving this world in a single-car accident.

            Continuing from the event of Han's (played by Sung Kan- a member of Dominic's gang) death in Tokyo Drift, the Furious 7 resumes itself, bringing in Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham) as the revengeful villain, the brother of Owen Shaw (Fast-6's Villain). Shaw and Dominic come face to face after the Hans's funeral where the fight is interrupted by Covert OPS team led by Frank Petty (Kurt Russell). Dominic is offered help by Petty to track Shaw down if Dom's crew bring back a computer tracking software called God's Eye, created by a hacker, Ramsey, from Jakande's men. After almost 20-30 car jumps, too much of stunts and thousands of rounds fired, Ramsey is captured back by Dom's crew. The crew flies to Abu Dhabi where Ramsey has given the Flash Drive to a friend there. Crew recovers the Falsh Drive by Jumping over the Three Tallest buildings in Abu Dhabi, driving a fastest car parked in a pent house. (Somehow, the company of that car forget to add 'Breaks' in that vehicle and that's why Dom gets to do some stunts.) Finally Jakande, by teaming up with Shaw steals back the God's Eye to track Ramsey, who is saved by the crew in a speed vehicles combat in LA (the streets that they know best). Shaw and Dom again fight face-to-face which is intervened by Jakande in a helicopter, which is blown by Dom by throwing in Shaw's bag of grenades.

            The Dom's crew includes everyone except Gisele and Han. The Actions sequences were pretty interestingly shot by Marc Spicer and Stephen F. Windon, the Cinematographers. The four editors and the long listed VFX crew have made the film look pretty real. Not very real but, quite close to real. Music and background score do a good job keeping you glued. Production Design is one of the nicest jobs here, and it had to be with $250 million and more being spent to make this film- the costliest of the franchise.

            Dwayane Johnson is their Sunny Deol. Vin Diesel is the Sanjay Dutt. Tyrese Gibson is the one who makes us laugh with his genuine humour, like Jonny Lever and Paul Walker has the sympathy like that of Heath Ledger's while watching, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus.

            The screenplay is just OKAY, dialogues are too clichéd, characterisation is shallow, Valleys of mountains, cliffs and the tall buildings' heights are the only things giving depth to the film. The only dialogue I liked in the film is - This time it is not just about being too fast. However, The Fast and Furious in never about the good things of film-making anyways.

            With the whole film plot completed and still keeping the space for next part, a sequence full of Paul Walker all this while with the franchise is edited with Diesel's narration that - You will always be my brother. Diesel and Walker driving like before part their ways where Walker drives down the road that leads to the Paradise, is where the film ends.

            The film is dedicated to Paul Walker.

          

  I rate the film 6/10 for the technicians and crew, for delighting us by keeping Paul Walker throughout the film and for a nice touch of Ali Fazal seen sharing screen with the Dom's crew and Kurt Russell.