That movie called... That Girl In Yellow Boots

That movie called... That Girl In Yellow Boots

Yes that is all we know about this girl... that she wears unusual yellow boots. How else would you differentiate her from the sea of people in Mumbai. That Girl in Yellow Boots is a journey of innocence in the dark alley of insanity. A world, where everything is right and yet everything is wrong. Or perhaps what we perceive right is only a mirage made up of a lot of false.

Kalki Koechlin as the expat, Ruth, from England gives a slice of life of the thousands of foreigners that settle here.  Beyond the brands, the money and seemingly casual attitude is a persona deeply in search of a simple life. Her character has its strength in its vulnerability.

Shot with mostly a ‘fly on the wall’ camera technique, the camera is as honest as the protagonist in her search to find out her long lost father.  An unapologetic account of life in the metro city, nowhere does the film intend it’s audience to feel sympathetic. The audience is but a mute spectator of Ruth’s (Kalki) patient journey in trying to locate her father.

Slow as the film is, it has some of the best encounters depicted in truest sense of realism. Specially the sequence where the local Don gatecrashes her house and robs her of her hard earned money. Most importantly, That Girl in Yellow Boots, bordering on existentialism draws questions between the acceptable and the unacceptable. It questions the sanity of human relationships with no concrete answers really.

Notably different style of story- telling, the direction, and imagery speaks volumes of an emerging fresh new wave in Indian cinema by Anurag Kashyap and his likes.  The climax is subtle and intriguing than dramatic. It urges us to find out more about what happens to Ruth, than what happens in the film. The end leaves the audience in the daze, wondering what to think. An emotionless, apt end to a film about abused relationships, the long tracking shot does remind of the classic end in Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups (400 Blows) leaving the audience sinking into the emotion as the protagonist leaves the screen.

-        By Prachi Mujumdar-Kurlekar

timepiece

how easy would it be to know the path

a day spent , a minute went but how do you let the seconds pass,

a new place a new life soaking in a beautiful aftermath

 how do you know what that crystal holds for you

 could it be for good, for bad or simply mediocre

 there is simply nobody to blame or sue

lifetimes have gone trying to surpass the past 

and some even desperate to build a future

little do the fools of fantasies realise... it's the present that holds their Mast!

- By Prachi Mujumdar-Kurlekar

The Dirty Woman

Every once a while comes a Dirty woman who makes the world cleaner. For every vulgarity that she exhibits, she brings the world inch by inch closer to its own dirty realities. Giving them seek fake voyeuristic pleasures in thinking about their world as an angelic place. Where this Dirty Woman faces the wrath of morals, judgments and allegations by the society. Every once a while comes along this Dirty Woman who brings about a change.

The latest one being Vidya Balan as ‘Silk’ who broke all records (and buttons) to show that it takes sheer guts to be the Dirty Woman. For she was judged, elated and then smashed to pieces by the very people who whistled for her. For someone who endured the pain of a hunter to give audience the forbidden pleasures, she was the one who dared. And there was nothing sympathetic about it. In fact this Dirty Woman was strong enough to endure without any inhibitions.

Time and again there have been many Dirty Women who have been excluded because they did not fit into the ‘good Indian woman’ mould. There was Kamala Das who shocked everyone with her version free writing. Then there was a Protima Bedi, who gave a run to others morality. Or better still, Zeenat Aman who introduced the hippie Indian woman to the mediocre saree-clad world. From a Shobha De who redefined the socio –cultural ethos to a Sushmita Sen who continues to live life on her own terms they have all been tried and tested by the society.

The examples are plenty and each one of them being slammed by critics and society alike. Only to be put on pedestal later for bringing about a change. Helping in the emergence of a modern society and changing its perception of women beyond mundane trophy wives, good girls and angelic deeds. Instead these women have shown their real selves making them catalysts of a truer, better society.

So ready for more Dirty women...are we?

- Prachi Mujumdar-Kurlekar

Relations

Relations

Relations are the core of every human today. Going back to the Stone Age era where man was an animal. His life revolved around searching for sufficient food. With the need for security, he started living in groups. These groups led to attachments and attractions, some physical and some emotional.

‘Relations’ were thus involved.

With frenzy for naming every relation, there came parents, siblings, friends, lovers, spouses, colleagues, acquaintances … everyone. Each came in with its own dynamics. And more so with their respective responsibilities. As we evolved from food hunting nomads to well settled corporate honchos, relations formed a social idea to a self imposed definitions of what we are or what we should be in our lives.

Are they good , are they bad? We can’t say! Ever imagined a world without any relations? Well, who knows, without definite relations we wouldn’t have restricted ourselves to being good, considerate and caring to certain people. Maybe we would have cared a bit more about the old granny who takes a walk on a particular road everyday. Maybe we really wouldn’t have been so selfish so as to think about My Family, My Relatives, My Cousins, My Neighbours or My Countrymen.

Maybe the care and consideration went beyond all these. That man wouldn’t commit crime to keep his kin rich & happy. Maybe it would have helped us evolve as a collective human race. That we didn’t restrict our feelings to a certain clan or country. We would all yet again be humans in the truest sense.

Blog....the four lettered word I swear by...

Blog….

Blog… a four letter word that has been on mind for a pretty long time. Yes its everywhere, the world is blogging from shiny hair to relationships you can get every information, imagination and persuasion through blogs .And yet I have shied away from it for a very long time.

Why? No answers really, mmm… maybe I have just been lazy to open my laptop and start writing ( yes now typing is the new writing). Ideas were many but they came and went, never really documented them. Some while ago I tried writing diary but gave that up when things started getting too personal and the idea, the thought, the inception was lost translation. During my post grad media course we were told to maintain a blog under any god damned circumstances but I didn’t pay any heed then, too easily thinking that writing is what I’ll be doing the rest of my life.

My romance with writing started when I was a school girl , I used to write random poems, stories and the oh-so-typical letters to the editor and mind you every one of them published. Interest turned to obsession when I started freelance writing for newspapers, I bunked my college lectures and attended press conferences, interviews covered launches, film screenings et al. So while classmates were in search of soulmates , I continued with my romance with writing. Then more of college in post graduation where I tried my hand at a couple of movie reviews. However, there came a twist in my love story. I got in to an advertising job…and got married. Settled with my husband in Pune and chose to start off my career in full swing.(people are still awed that at 22 I was already 3 years old in freelancing, had completed my post graduation was into a full time media job and was already married!) Back to obsession, after pretty much settling down in my first job and a year into my marriage, thoughts of the word affair started brewing up. I realized that my tryst with writing was not a fling it is one of those relationships that blossom, that connect on a very different level, more than friends, more than siblings something that can’t really be named.

And lo and behold! That’s when I decided that I have to let this happen, I have to get back to writing. It doesn’t really matter where you write, it matters how you write..right? and here I am, writing about everything that I feel I can better express through words.

Im ready for this…. Really!

Rita….. The movie.

Rita….. The movie.

(Language: Marathi)

That marathi cinema has come of age is by now an established fact. Rita, the movie is fresh evidence to the premise. The movie is based on a Marathi novel by Shanta Gokhale, Rita Welinkar. With the central character played by Pallavi Joshi the film is directed by Renuka Shahane. Renuka Shahane debuts as a director with this powerful movie. Jackie Shroff also plays a crucial role as Rita’s (Joshi) love interest.

The story of young Rita as she grows to become a supportive daughter to emotionless eccentric parents touches the heart. The movie traces the life of Rita from there to being the ‘other woman’ in Salvi’s (Jackie Shroff) life finally ending into a nervous breakdown. The movie explores her life through a letter to her best friend Saraswati Iyyer played by Renuka Shahne. Rita’s character unfolds as being a little girl running around on the beaches and babysitting her younger sister to being helpless in front of her family’s selfishness. Rita’s journey continues through her make believe love to a married man that makes her emotionally vulnerable and dependent stripped off her self-respect. It is the end that she discovers the latent self respect and speaks up for herself. The movie moves beyond feminism, rather it explores the aspect of individual identity.

The movie is a mostly dark with glimpses of light and liveliness in it. It starts with a gloomy feeling in a psychiatric ward of a hospital. The quick flashbacks are extremely powerful as they create a shock effect. The glimpses of her past thrown in between create more curiosity. The short dream sequence is heart wrenching. The sudden dissolve to a little Rita playing on the beach and a peek into her troubled childhood gives a strong base for the movie to make an impact on the audiences mind. From there on the constant juggling between the past and the present until a full flash back through the letter to Saraswati Iyyer opens up. The sound of the movie creates a lasting impression of the scences. In one particular example where Rita goes though a emotional turmoil the ‘ Mantra pushpanjali’ during Ganesh utsava which contradicts with Rita’s emotions make a strong impact. The immediate silence that follows this scene is completely jarring. The movie ends on a happier note with The three women Rita , her friend Saraswati and her sister Sangita walking by the beach melting into the sunset.th elast scene in a way indicates Rita’s life coming to a full circle.

The movie is clearly a performer’s movie and Pallavi Joshi as the protagonist is astounding. Jackies Shroff fits the bill as married man unable to decide between his family and the person he loves. Sai Tamhankar as the understanding sister proves her mettle. Renuka Shahane performs the dual role as a director and actor with much aplomb.

Rita… is truly a bench mark for more Marathi movies.

- Prachi Mujumdar.

(freelance journalist , Pune)

Slumdog Millionaire :its a question.

Slumdog Millionaire: It’s a question.
A movie that has been written about a million times in the papers. The movie made it to the prestigious Golden Globe awards and won it too. A movie that got the local political parties pondering over the term ‘Slumdog’. Indeed Slumdog millionaire is a history.
But the question is what kind of history is it that we want to etch.

It sure is a rag to riches story with the picture of ‘real Mumbai’. It is a story of a slum dweller turning into a millionaire with answering all the questions. What is interesting and different is the amalgamation f the past with the present, the personal experience as a representation of thousands of slum dwellers which reside in Mumbai.
So the story unfolds giving away the horrors that the city has been through with every experience in Jamal Malik’s life be the riots, the rag picking at dump yards or the fake orphanage.

In Slumdog every question that is asked to Jamal has a scarred history. It shows the different world of Jamal Malik and the host of the show. While they are just questions and steps towards the money for the host and the audience, for Jamal the questions are something that he would never forget. And of course the significance of those mundane questions is something that a non slum dweller would never understand. It is reality of life that has made Jamal stronger than anyone else at the show. His answers are from the tribulations that life posed before him. Unlike most who think that academics and extra bright shiny performances matter in life, Jamal proves they don’t. In fact the real lessons come from faltering, losing and being an underdog who rises up like a phoenix only to win money, fame and most importantly love.
Jamal won because he survived. More than anything in this world he learned surviving; at a very tender age. It was his fighting with hunger, the goons, his gangster brother, the system that made him survive.

So it’s the question again which history do we want to etch in our hearts,
A movie that made it to the awards or a lone man who won over all odds in life?
Prachi Mujumdar