Tag: Rajkummar Rao

‘Guns & Gulaabs’ Review: Raj & DK’s Gangster Comedy Is Delightfully Whimsical

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Even some of the best shows with multiple narratives manage to get too convoluted in their own vision but Raj and DK’s latest Guns & Gulaabs’ strength is its sure-footedness. The show opens by introducing all of its parallel plots. Swimming through an opium field, the audience is taken to a group of schoolboys arguing about whose love is more saccha (true). 

Moments later, a man is seen running across the screen with others in hot pursuit. This is the world of Guns & Gulaabs. 

Rajkummar Rao in a still from Guns & Gulaabs.

Set in the fictional town of Gulaabgunj with the neighbouring, rival town of Sherpur mentioned frequently, the show primarily features two gangs battling over an illegal opium business. One is led by Ganchi Sr. played with ease by the late Satish Kaushik and the other is run by Nabeed (Nilesh Divekar). The Ganchi family’s scion Ganchi Jr aka Jugnu (Adarsh Gourav) struggles to make his own mark in his father’s business.  

There are other players in the game. There’s the soft-spoken mechanic Tipu (Rajkummar Rao) who wants to take a path in life that is as far from his father’s as possible. He spends most of the first few episodes trying to express his feelings for the local school’s English teacher Chandralekha (TJ Bhanu). A new Narcotics agent Arjun (Dulquer Salmaan) also enters this little world with his seemingly picture perfect family.

In this world rife with violence, the most intriguing character (even for those within the story) is that of ‘Chaar Cut’ Aatmaram (Gulshan Devaiah) who kills his victims with four strategically placed slashes of his knife. 

Gulshan Devaiah in a still from Guns & Gulaabs.

Raj & DK take these delightfully asymmetrical characters and place them in different points of this ecosystem with each character’s motivations glaringly obvious from the very beginning. And so begins a game of cat-and-mouse and secrets and jealousy and changing plans that keeps you on your toes, constantly guessing.

The retro Bollywood nostalgia seeps through the screen because of writers Raj & DK and Suman Kumar, DOP Pankaj Kumar, and Creative Consultant Shhyamali De. This setting also allows for the writers to take liberty with their storytelling.

The visuals of cars screeching to a halt and gangsters pouring out or characters catching others in secluded sites doesn’t feel out of place in this world that’s set in the past. 

A radio croons a love song and Aatmaram takes the 60 second count of a PCO seriously (in a particularly enjoyable ‘bit’). It’s in these little details that the clever Raj & DK touch is evident. 

A still from Guns & Gulaabs.

Running parallel to this story is that of the aforementioned school students. Through the lives of a couple of kids, Raj & DK explore the ways in which kids’ school lives are affected by their family and vice versa. We get an insight into how male and female students are expected to behave and how failure to conform to these expectations can often result in damaging consequences. 

Tanishq Chaudhary as a teenager Gangaram aka Gangu, the class troublemaker, proves he’s an actor to watch out for. Amongst the kids, he gets the most nuanced backstory and he carries that weight with aplomb.

Gangu’s character is used by the makers to delve into the way educational institutions paint students under archetypes and rarely attempt to address issues surrounding support and mental health. 

While gang violence and an opium trade runs rampant in the towns, these coming-of-age scenes add a charm to the show.

When it comes to the cast, Rajkummar Rao as Tipu uses his brilliant comedic timing to add a spark to his character. He comes off as a man who is confident in his abilities but still questions his successes.

When he bursts into tears after convincing everyone he doesn’t care about something, it’s funny. His obsession with avenging his friend by conveniently forgetting that he must also avenge his father becomes an interesting running gag. 

Rajkummar Rao in a still from Guns & Gulaabs.

It helps that his frequent scene partner TJ Bhanu plays her character with restraint and powerful intent, making Lekha and Tipu a fascinating pair to watch. 

Every character, even the ones on the sides, have something to do. If there is a person on screen, there’s a good chance they’ll become, albeit minor, parts of the scene; this adds an authenticity to the show. Another plus point is that there is no actual protagonist. There is no character plot that gets sacrificed for the service of another. The moral ambiguity of the characters almost feels like it’s part of the setting.

The show does however suffer from a danger of fatigue and pacing. The pacing of the first few episodes is inconsistent (though I would recommend staying with the show) and that affects the viewing experience. These pacing issues occur later in the screenplay as well.

TJ Bhanu in a still from Guns & Gulaabs.

The last episode (or the last two chapters) feel slightly convoluted because of the number of narrative threads that need to be resolved. The shifting timelines is a smart cinematic move but eventually gets a little tiresome. Some narrative arcs also seem too convenient, perhaps because they don’t serve any major role in the final climax. 

Guns & Gulaabs is powered by an excellent cast, each person matching steps with the other. This skill sucks the audience into their world. The best performance comes from Adarsh Gourav, who adds subtleties to his character that later become obvious, but striking, discoveries. He steals every scene he is in; his idiosyncrasies become almost endearing.

Adarsh Gourav in a still from Guns & Gulaabs.

Arguably, the way his character is written lacks nuance that is difficult to discuss without a spoiler. All I will say is that there are certain scenes that would’ve benefited from a deeper understanding of the material and a kinder touch. 

Guns & Gulaabs is streaming on Netflix.

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#Guns #Gulaabs #Review #Raj #DKs #Gangster #Comedy #Delightfully #Whimsical

Guns & Gulaabs Review: Marvellously Whacky Crime Drama Is Watchable All The Way

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Rajkumar Rao in a scene from the trailer. (Courtesy: Netflix)

Smartly written, slickly crafted and wonderfully acted, Guns & Gulaabs, created by Raj and DK, is a marvellously wacky crime drama that harks back to the 1990s and sees the darkly piquant side of men (and a couple of women) who derive perverse pleasure from murder, mayhem and meanness.

The deliriously spry Netflix series pans out in a twisted and toxic universe peopled by opium dealers, gun-toting gangsters, a vicious knife-wielding assassin with seven lives, an anti-narcotics officer with a troubling past that catches up with him and two diffident men with debilitating daddy issues.

The gulaabs referred to in the title and in the name of the small town in which the story is set are outnumbered in this amoral world where adults and schoolboys alike thrive on crossing the line. A ‘line of control’, however, runs through a local dhaba and separates it into demarcated and inviolable spaces for two warring gangs.      

The handful of innocents who reside in Gulaabgunj, nestled in the hills and dotted with opium fields, are at the mercy of the two criminal cliques, one of which operates out of a place called Sherpur, 30 km away. They battle for control over the spoils of an illegal opium business that functions outside the purview of the cultivation of poppy under government licence.

Guns & Gulaabs starts off with shots of a poppy farm, a sequence of two schoolboys discussing the girls they are in love with, and a chase scene that ends with a killing in broad daylight. So, all three key components of the plot – opium, love and violence – are packed into the opening moments of the series.

Other secondary elements, including a rivalry between two school students for the class topper’s badge, emerge as the plot thickens and culminates in a dizzyingly rollicking, action-packed finale – an episode that is numbered 7 and 8, runs nearly an hour and a half and has an intermission.

Everybody in Gulaabgunj and Sherpur has an ulterior motive and a self-serving plan. These nefarious plans change frequently as the crooked men chase or flee from others of their kind. As small-town noir meets 90s nostalgia in a landscape where the air is thick with intrigue, the soundtrack is laced with snatches Hindi film songs from three decades ago.      

The man murdered at the beginning of Chapter 1 is Babu Tiger, trusted aide of Gulaabgunj crime lord Ganchi (Satish Kaushik) and estranged father of motorcycle mechanic Tipu (Rajkummar Rao). Ganchi is furious at losing a key gang member and plots a reprisal. Tipu, in contrast, is almost relieved that his father is dead.

Tipu is rid of his father. Jugnu (Adarsh Gourav) isn’t. The latter is Ganchi’s only son and reluctant successor to his father’s empire. Narcotics bureau officer Arjun Varma (Dulquer Salmaan), who was a deputy commissioner of police in Delhi when a 60-crore scam (Bofors?) rocked the nation, is transferred to Gulaabgunj with a brief to clean up the place.

A hired killer, Atmaram (Gulshan Devaiah), working for the Sherpur gang led by Nabeed (Nilesh Divekar), Ganchi’s former protégé, is on the prowl armed with a slasher. Nobody in Ganchi’s gang is safe as long as Atmaram – his name has Chaar Cut prefixed to it because of the manner in which he kills – is out and about.  

Arjun Verma does not arrive in this crime hotspot a day too soon. Ganchi has just swung a deal with Sukanto (Rajatava Dutta), representing a Calcutta drug cartel. He has a month to acquire seven times the amount of opium that he usually produces.

It is this deal and its shifting dynamics that are at the centre of Guns & Gulaabs. The farmers, the gangsters and the buyers go into overdrive to make sure that Gulaabgunj produces the requisite amount of refined opium for the Calcutta drug mafia. Arjun and his department swing into action to prevent the supply.

Alliances are forged, the police officer’s relationship with his wife Madhu (Pooja A. Gor) drifts to the brink when a past liaison Yamini (Shreya Dhanwanthary) returns to haunt him, and matters of the heart come to the fore in uneasy circumstances. Tipu writes a love letter to school teacher Lekha (TJ Bhanu ‘Parvati Murty’) and it boomerangs on him.

Nobody in Gulaabgunj appears to be high on opium, but whisky, which flows free in Ganchi’s den, turns risky at one point, triggers a crisis and pulls a reluctant Jugnu, Chhota Ganchi, into the thick of the action. Talking of reluctance, Tipu, too, is an unwilling inheritor of his father’s dodgy legacy although he has two unintended kills to his credit and with his spanner at that. The deed earns him the sobriquet of Paana Tipu.

If Tipu does not remember his father fondly, it is not only because the dreaded gangster left his mother for another woman. Baap ajeeb qism ka jantu hota hai (Fathers are strange creatures), he says in one scene. For Jugnu, the struggle with his inheritance is not so much about hating his father and growing out of his shadow as about earning his old man’s validation. I want to make dad proud, he says.

Woven into the narrative and visual design of Guns & Gulaabs is a sustained tribute to the early 1990s, and the Hindi cinema and music of the decade in particular. The plot and the soundtrack are littered with sounds, songs and references of the era. The series is a popular culture geek’s delight.

The names of the characters reflect an period that predates the birth of Rahul and Raj on the big screen – Gangaram, Lalkishan, Chandralekha, Mahendra, Atmaram… The titles of several of the chapters are drawn from songs/films of the 1980s and 1990s – Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki,Do Dil Mil Rahe Hain and Raat Baaki…. One chapter title takes off from a Bryan Adams number.

Not just that, the series has a love ditty (composed by Aman Pant, who produces a delightfully retro background score) in the voice of Kumar Sanu. Among other things, the series designs the Satish Kaushik credit on a calendar.

And, not to forget, there’s a mention of the cult kung-fu film, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which Tipu watches with his best friend Suneel (Goutam Sharma, who also plays one of Suneel’s two twins, with his real-life twin Gourav Sharma portraying the other).

Guns & Gulaabs is studded with a quartet of wonderful performances from Rajkummar Rao, Dulquer Salmaan, Gulshan Devaiah and Adarsh Gourav. The larger cast of actors is no less impactful, with TJ Bhanu shining the brightest in a male-dominated series that touches upon the theme of gender and notions of masculinity in surprising ways. Pooja A. Gor and Shreya Dhanwanthary have much less to do, but they, too, make their presence felt. Vipin Sharma as Ganchi’s righthand man Mahendra is solid.

Guns & Gulaabs watchable all the way, is a magnificent combination of stylistic elan and storytelling chutzpah.  

Cast:

Rajkumar Rao, Dulquer Salmaan, Adarsh Gourav, Gulshan Devaiah

Director:

Raj and DK

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#Guns #Gulaabs #Review #Marvellously #Whacky #Crime #Drama #Watchable

Guns & Gulaabs Review: Marvellously Whacky Crime Drama Is Watchable All The Way

Post By Entertainment ,

Rajkumar Rao in a scene from the trailer. (Courtesy: Netflix)

Smartly written, slickly crafted and wonderfully acted, Guns & Gulaabs, created by Raj and DK, is a marvellously wacky crime drama that harks back to the 1990s and sees the darkly piquant side of men (and a couple of women) who derive perverse pleasure from murder, mayhem and meanness.

The deliriously spry Netflix series pans out in a twisted and toxic universe peopled by opium dealers, gun-toting gangsters, a vicious knife-wielding assassin with seven lives, an anti-narcotics officer with a troubling past that catches up with him and two diffident men with debilitating daddy issues.

The gulaabs referred to in the title and in the name of the small town in which the story is set are outnumbered in this amoral world where adults and schoolboys alike thrive on crossing the line. A ‘line of control’, however, runs through a local dhaba and separates it into demarcated and inviolable spaces for two warring gangs.      

The handful of innocents who reside in Gulaabgunj, nestled in the hills and dotted with opium fields, are at the mercy of the two criminal cliques, one of which operates out of a place called Sherpur, 30 km away. They battle for control over the spoils of an illegal opium business that functions outside the purview of the cultivation of poppy under government licence.

Guns & Gulaabs starts off with shots of a poppy farm, a sequence of two schoolboys discussing the girls they are in love with, and a chase scene that ends with a killing in broad daylight. So, all three key components of the plot – opium, love and violence – are packed into the opening moments of the series.

Other secondary elements, including a rivalry between two school students for the class topper’s badge, emerge as the plot thickens and culminates in a dizzyingly rollicking, action-packed finale – an episode that is numbered 7 and 8, runs nearly an hour and a half and has an intermission.

Everybody in Gulaabgunj and Sherpur has an ulterior motive and a self-serving plan. These nefarious plans change frequently as the crooked men chase or flee from others of their kind. As small-town noir meets 90s nostalgia in a landscape where the air is thick with intrigue, the soundtrack is laced with snatches Hindi film songs from three decades ago.      

The man murdered at the beginning of Chapter 1 is Babu Tiger, trusted aide of Gulaabgunj crime lord Ganchi (Satish Kaushik) and estranged father of motorcycle mechanic Tipu (Rajkummar Rao). Ganchi is furious at losing a key gang member and plots a reprisal. Tipu, in contrast, is almost relieved that his father is dead.

Tipu is rid of his father. Jugnu (Adarsh Gourav) isn’t. The latter is Ganchi’s only son and reluctant successor to his father’s empire. Narcotics bureau officer Arjun Varma (Dulquer Salmaan), who was a deputy commissioner of police in Delhi when a 60-crore scam (Bofors?) rocked the nation, is transferred to Gulaabgunj with a brief to clean up the place.

A hired killer, Atmaram (Gulshan Devaiah), working for the Sherpur gang led by Nabeed (Nilesh Divekar), Ganchi’s former protégé, is on the prowl armed with a slasher. Nobody in Ganchi’s gang is safe as long as Atmaram – his name has Chaar Cut prefixed to it because of the manner in which he kills – is out and about.  

Arjun Verma does not arrive in this crime hotspot a day too soon. Ganchi has just swung a deal with Sukanto (Rajatava Dutta), representing a Calcutta drug cartel. He has a month to acquire seven times the amount of opium that he usually produces.

It is this deal and its shifting dynamics that are at the centre of Guns & Gulaabs. The farmers, the gangsters and the buyers go into overdrive to make sure that Gulaabgunj produces the requisite amount of refined opium for the Calcutta drug mafia. Arjun and his department swing into action to prevent the supply.

Alliances are forged, the police officer’s relationship with his wife Madhu (Pooja A. Gor) drifts to the brink when a past liaison Yamini (Shreya Dhanwanthary) returns to haunt him, and matters of the heart come to the fore in uneasy circumstances. Tipu writes a love letter to school teacher Lekha (TJ Bhanu ‘Parvati Murty’) and it boomerangs on him.

Nobody in Gulaabgunj appears to be high on opium, but whisky, which flows free in Ganchi’s den, turns risky at one point, triggers a crisis and pulls a reluctant Jugnu, Chhota Ganchi, into the thick of the action. Talking of reluctance, Tipu, too, is an unwilling inheritor of his father’s dodgy legacy although he has two unintended kills to his credit and with his spanner at that. The deed earns him the sobriquet of Paana Tipu.

If Tipu does not remember his father fondly, it is not only because the dreaded gangster left his mother for another woman. Baap ajeeb qism ka jantu hota hai (Fathers are strange creatures), he says in one scene. For Jugnu, the struggle with his inheritance is not so much about hating his father and growing out of his shadow as about earning his old man’s validation. I want to make dad proud, he says.

Woven into the narrative and visual design of Guns & Gulaabs is a sustained tribute to the early 1990s, and the Hindi cinema and music of the decade in particular. The plot and the soundtrack are littered with sounds, songs and references of the era. The series is a popular culture geek’s delight.

The names of the characters reflect an period that predates the birth of Rahul and Raj on the big screen – Gangaram, Lalkishan, Chandralekha, Mahendra, Atmaram… The titles of several of the chapters are drawn from songs/films of the 1980s and 1990s – Kasam Paida Karne Wale Ki,Do Dil Mil Rahe Hain and Raat Baaki…. One chapter title takes off from a Bryan Adams number.

Not just that, the series has a love ditty (composed by Aman Pant, who produces a delightfully retro background score) in the voice of Kumar Sanu. Among other things, the series designs the Satish Kaushik credit on a calendar.

And, not to forget, there’s a mention of the cult kung-fu film, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, which Tipu watches with his best friend Suneel (Goutam Sharma, who also plays one of Suneel’s two twins, with his real-life twin Gourav Sharma portraying the other).

Guns & Gulaabs is studded with a quartet of wonderful performances from Rajkummar Rao, Dulquer Salmaan, Gulshan Devaiah and Adarsh Gourav. The larger cast of actors is no less impactful, with TJ Bhanu shining the brightest in a male-dominated series that touches upon the theme of gender and notions of masculinity in surprising ways. Pooja A. Gor and Shreya Dhanwanthary have much less to do, but they, too, make their presence felt. Vipin Sharma as Ganchi’s righthand man Mahendra is solid.

Guns & Gulaabs watchable all the way, is a magnificent combination of stylistic elan and storytelling chutzpah.  

Cast:

Rajkumar Rao, Dulquer Salmaan, Adarsh Gourav, Gulshan Devaiah

Director:

Raj and DK

Source link

#Guns #Gulaabs #Review #Marvellously #Whacky #Crime #Drama #Watchable

Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2023 nominations revealed: Darlings, Kantara, Agra, and more take the lead; check the list here : Bollywood News – Bollywood Hungama

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The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) has announced the nominations for its highly anticipated 14th edition. As the largest Indian film festival outside of Indian soil, IFFM continues to captivate audiences worldwide. This year, the festival proudly welcomes a new addition to its esteemed jury panel, the Oscar-winning Australian filmmaker Bruce Beresford, renowned for directing acclaimed films such as Driving Miss Daisy and The Contract. 

Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2023 nominations revealed: Darlings, Kantara, Agra, and more take the lead; check the list here

IFFM is the only Indian film festival outside of the Indian soil that is backed by the government of another country and with that IFFM stands as a remarkable celebration of Indian cinema and cultural exchange. With its finger on the pulse of the industry, the festival has embraced the changing landscape of film consumption by introducing the OTT Awards in 2021. Now in its third year, the OTT Awards will honor outstanding achievements in three categories.

The IFFM advisory committee after meticulous consideration of hundreds of films and series from across Indian cinema, have finalized the nominations of films and series which have released between 1st June 20222 to 31st May 2023. Leading the pack in the film categories, including Best Film, Best Actor, and Best Actress, are notable productions such as Darlings, Monica O My Darling, Ponniyin Selvan, and Kantara. These films have captivated audiences with their stellar performances, engaging storytelling, and artistic excellence. The nominations reflect the diversity and richness of Indian cinema, acknowledging the blockbusters and the indie gems on the same platform.

In the OTT category, series such as Trial By Fire, Jubilee, and Delhi Crime Season 2 have garnered the highest number of nominations. These exceptional series have made a significant impact with their compelling narratives, outstanding performances, and remarkable production values. For OTT nominations, only series on platforms which are available to be streamed in the Australian market have been considered.

The Indian Film Festival of Melbourne has consistently pushed boundaries and showcased the best of Indian cinema to a global audience. With the support of its dedicated jury and industry professionals, the festival continues to champion innovation, creativity, cultural diversity and inclusivity.

Here is the complete list of nominees:

Best Film

Bhediya – Hindi

Brahmastra – Hindi

Darlings – Hindi

Jogi – Punjabi

Kantara – Kannada

Monica, O My Darling – Hindi

Pathaan – Hindi

Ponniyin Selvan 1 and 2 – Tamil

Sita Ramam – Telugu

Best Indie Film

Aatma Pamphlet – Marathi

Agra – Hindi

All India Rank – Hindi

Family – Malayalam

Gulmohar – Hindi

Hadinelentu (Seventeeners) – Kannada

Joram – Hindi

Pine Cone – Hindi

The Storyteller – Hindi

Tora’s Husband – Assamese

Zwigato – Hindi

Best Director

Anant Mahadevan – The Storyteller

Anurag Kashyap – Kennedy

Ashish Avinash Bende – Aatma-Pamphlet (Autobio-Pamphlet)

Devashish Makhija – Joram

Don Palathara – Family

Kanu Behl – Agra

Mani Ratnam – Ponniyin Selvan 1 and 2

Nandita Das – Zwigato

Prthivi Konanur – Hadinelentu (Seventeeners)

Rima Das – Tora’s Husband

Siddharth Anand – Pathaan

Vasan Bala – Monica, O My Darling

Best Actor (Male)

Dulquer Salmaan – Sita Ramam

Kapil Sharma – Zwigato

Manoj Bajpayee – Joram

Manoj Bajpayee – Gulmohar

Mohit Agarwal – Agra

Paresh Rawal – The Storyteller

Rajkummar Rao – Monica, O My Darling

Rishab Shetty – Kantara

Shah Rukh Khan – Pathaan

Vijay Varma – Darlings

Vikram – Ponnyin Selvan 1 and 2

Best Actor (Female)

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan – Ponniyin Selvan 1 and 2

Akshatha Pandavapura – Koli Esru

Alia Bhatt – Darlings

Bhumi Pednekar – Bheed

Kajol – Salaam Venky 

Mrunal Thakur – Sita Ramam

Neena Gupta – Vadh 

Rani Mukherjee – Mrs Chatterjee Vs Norway

Sai Pallavi – Gargi

Sanya Malhotra – Kathal 

Best Series

Dahaad

Delhi Crime Season 2

Farzi

Jubilee

SHE Season 2

Suzhal: The Vortex

The Broken News

Trial By Fire

Best Actor (Male) –  Series

Abhay Deol – Trial By Fire

Abhishek Bachchan – Breathe – Into The  Shadows Season 2 

Aparshakti Khurana – Jubilee

Prosenjit Chatterjee – Jubilee

Shahid Kapoor – Farzi

Sidhant Gupta – Jubilee

Vijay Sethupathi – Farzi

Vijay Varma – Dahaad

Best Actor (Female) – Series

Rajshri Deshpande – Trial By Fire

Rasika Dugal – Delhi Crime Season 2

Shefali Shah – Delhi Crime Season 2

Shriya Pilgaonkar – The Broken News

Sriya Reddy – Suzhal: The Vortex

Tillotama Shome – Delhi Crime Season 2

Wamiqa Gabbi – Jubilee

Best Documentary

Against The Tide

Dharti Latar Re Horo – (Tortoise Under The Earth)

Fatima

Kucheye Khoshbakht (And, Towards Happy Alleys)

To Kill A Tiger

While We Watched

The winners of the prestigious IFFM 2023 Awards will be announced during the festival, at their annual gala night on 11th August 2023 which is set to be hosted at the iconic Hamer Hall in Melbourne, one of the world’s most sophisticated concert halls.

Also Read: R Balki directorial Ghoomer starring Abhishek Bachchan and Saiyami Kher set for world premiere at Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2023

More Pages: Kantara Box Office Collection , Kantara Movie Review

Tags : Aatma-Pamphlet (Autobio-Pamphlet), Abhay Deol, Abhishek Bachchan, Agra, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Akshatha Pandavapura, Alia Bhatt, Anant Mahadevan, Anurag Kashyap, Aparshakti Khurana, Ashish Avinash Bende, Bheed, Bhumi Pednekar, Breathe: Into The Shadows Season 2, Dahaad, Darlings, Delhi Crime Season 2, Devashish Makhija, Don Palathara, Dulquer Salmaan, Farzi, Gargi, Gulmohar, IFFM, IFFM 2023, Indian Film Festival of Melbourne, Indian Film Festival Of Melbourne (IFFM), Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM) 2023, Indian Film Festival of Melbourne 2023, Joram, Jubilee, Kajol, Kantara, Kanu Behl, Kapil Sharma, Kathal, Koli Esru, Mani Ratnam, Manoj Bajpayee, Mohit Agarwal, Monica, Mrs. Chatterjee Vs Norway, Mrunal Thakur, Nandita Das, Neena Gupta, News, O My Darling, OTT, OTT Platform, Paresh Rawal, Pathaan, Ponniyin Selvan 1, Ponnyin Selvan 2, Prosenjit Chatterjee, Prthivi Konanur, Rajkummar Rao, Rajshri Deshpande, Rani Mukherjee, Rasika Dugal, Rima Das, Rishab Shetty, Sai Pallavi, Salaam Venky, Sanya Malhotra, Shah Rukh Khan, Shahid Kapoor, She Season 2, Shefali Shah, Shriya Pilgaonkar, Siddharth Anand, Sidhant Gupta, Sita Ramam, Sriya Reddy, Suzhal – The Vortex, The Broken News, The Storyteller, Tillotama Shome, Tora’s Husband, Trial By Fire, Vadh, Vasan Bala, Vijay Sethupathi, Vijay Varma, Vikram, Wamiqa Gabbi, Zwigato

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EXPLOSIVE: Anubhav Sinha THUNDERS: “The censor experience of Bheed and Afwaah hasn’t been great. It was almost UNFAIR. The only option to seek justice is to go to the courts. But that is an expensive and time-consuming process” : Bollywood News – Bollywood Hungama

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In the first five months of 2023, Anubhav Sinha managed to release as many as three films in cinemas. Faraaz, directed by Hansal Mehta, was the first release. This was followed by his directorial venture, Bheed, based on the sufferings of the migrants in the lockdown. Afwaah, directed by Sudhir Mishra, was recently released. These films didn’t click at the box office but got massive acclaim from most moviegoers and critics. Anubhav Sinha was in a relaxed mood as he spoke exclusively with Bollywood Hungama about these films, being one of the few brave voices in the industry and a lot more.

EXPLOSIVE: Anubhav Sinha THUNDERS: “The censor experience of Bheed and Afwaah hasn’t been great. It was almost UNFAIR. The only option to seek justice is to go to the courts. But that is an expensive and time-consuming process”

Your film, Afwaah, directed by Sudhir Mishra, was released on May 5. Interestingly, I have not come across a single person who has not liked the film. It got a unanimous positive response…
It’s beautiful to know. I wish more people had gone to the theatres to see it. But people are not going to the cinemas. What to do?

Do you feel Afwaah’s release in cinemas was too limited?
Yes, it was less than what should have ideally been. But then releasing a film has become so expensive, which is a discussion for another day. So yes, it wasn’t as many shows and as many screens as I would have liked. I guess, every film has its economics.

Also, it’s not like the shows were running packed on the first day of release. If there was an encouraging response from people on the release day, then increasing the number of shows would have been a phone call away. Unlike the good old days when we had to send physical prints, now it’s easier. Sadly, the theatrical response, whether it is for Afwaah or Bheed, wasn’t as encouraging that shows could be increased from Saturday onwards.

I guess it takes time for word to spread…
That’s not practical. If a film is running with three shows on a Friday and if those films are not doing well, the exhibitor doesn’t even ask you. He’ll simply reduce the show count. It’s beyond my control.

Faraaz also didn’t do well in cinemas but got a new lease of life on Netflix. Do you think that the same would happen with Bheed and Afwaah?
I hope so, with my fingers crossed. There was so much conversation around Bheed. It received fantastic reviews and response from those who saw it. So, I am hoping it gets viewership (on OTT).

EXPLOSIVE Anubhav Sinha THUNDERS “The censor experience of Bheed and Afwaah

Post-pandemic, do you feel the box-office scenario has changed? Thappad (2020) was released just before the lockdown and it collected Rs. 30 crores, despite the conventional subject. Do you feel Bheed and Afwaah would have fared better at the box office before 2020?
I don’t know. I keep asking other people these days, ‘If we release Article 15 (2019) now, will it work the way it did in 2019?’ Nobody has the answer. No one knows what’s going on!

2 years ago, you said in an interview that the Censor Board has been kind to you…
Not lately though!

I went through the cut list of both Afwaah and Bheed. Afwaah suffered innumerable cuts. As for Bheed, its list of cuts was shocking. Words like ‘Tablighi Jamaat’, ‘Corona Jihad’ etc. were deleted though they were important to the film’s narrative. Your thoughts? 
The censor experience of Bheed and Afwaah hasn’t been great. It was almost unfair.

And now you cannot even go to the FCAT (Film Certification Appellate Tribunal) aka the tribunal…
…Because there’s no tribunal. The biggest tragedy behind removing the tribunal is that now the only option to seek justice is to go to the courts. But going to court is so expensive and time-consuming. You have no control over when the hearing will be done or when the decision will be given. Even Faraaz went through its own journey of court cases. We never used it to publicize our film. And it was awfully expensive.

Was Afwaah delayed because of the Censor process? It was supposed to be released in March…
Yes. Afwaah and Bheed were almost together at the CBFC. We had to finish one battle first and then proceed to the other.

Do these experiences stress you out? Going forward, will you still make the film you want to make?
Oh yes. I’ve been like this for 9 years!

It is said that there’s a lot of emphasis on the box office. If a film doesn’t work, it doesn’t get the respect…
I don’t agree. On the contrary, a little later in time, it absolutely ceases to matter ki film ne box office pe kitna kiya tha. Uske baad film ki izzat zinda rehti hai. Do you know how much my first film Tum Bin (2001) collected? It ran in cinemas only for a week.

EXPLOSIVE: Anubhav Sinha THUNDERS: “The censor experience of Bheed and Afwaah hasn’t been great. It was almost UNFAIR. The only option to seek justice is to go to the courts. But that is an expensive and time-consuming process”

Maybe that was a different time. I am talking about the present-day scenario…
No. During those days, films would run for 15-20 weeks. There were no theatres for us. Also, Sholay (1975) did not do well in the first week. But those were the days when the exhibitors would hold on to the film. They would wait for the audience to get a whiff of what the film is. Nowadays, it’s very instant. If the 6 o’clock show doesn’t work, the theatre might cancel the 9 o’clock show. So, the exhibition sector has to reinvent itself. We have said enough about the kinds of films being made. But we haven’t talked about the exhibition, the cost of releasing a film, the method of the exhibition and some sort of monopoly in the exhibition sector.

Recently, there were reports of challenges in the exhibition sector and PVR and Inox shutting down around 50 cinemas…
Yes. The exhibition sector will have to work with the production sector. We cannot not hold hands. We will have to hold hands.

Do you know Mulk (2018) didn’t go great at the box office? It did just about fine. But in the life of a film, the box office is the most minuscule factor that people remember. People would remember a film for its dialogue more than the box office. I have seen people say, ‘Yaar, who film mein kya dialogue tha’ or ‘Woh film mein kya gaana tha’ and not ‘Woh film ka kya box office tha’! So a little later in the life of a film, the weekend is immaterial. What’s important is how long the people will continue to relate to that film. That timelessness of an art is what matters.

What next?
I don’t know. I am working on some stories. I have been so busy. I just released Afwaah and now I will sit out and figure out

You have an anthology coming up. Will it be out in cinemas or on OTT?
Yes. It’s called Be Positive. It’ll be out on digital. It was never meant to be a theatrical release.

When will it be released?
We are figuring it out.

Do you think that in the days to come, it’ll be more difficult for filmmakers like you to have your own voice?
We’ll see. We’ll take it as it comes. Every time we move from one film to another, these talks come up. But then you can’t pre-empt a tragedy. You can only keep guessing and cross the bridge when we get there. Will I change my route to avoid the bridge? No. I would cross that bridge and then we’ll see.

Also Read: Anubhav Sinha weighs in on Theatre vs OTT debate; says audience “need to explore newer kinds of films”

More Pages: Bheed Box Office Collection

Tags : Afwaah, Anubhav Sinha, Article 15, Bheed, EXPLOSIVE, Hansal Mehta, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, News, Rajkummar Rao, Sudhir Mishra, Thappad

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Rajkummar Rao and Rakul Preet Singh join IIFA’s Be Water+ve campaign for water conservation : Bollywood News – Bollywood Hungama

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In response to the Hon’ble Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for participation from civil society, IIFA has launched the Be Water+ve initiative in partnership with AquaKraft Foundation. IIFA will initiate an aggressive advocacy campaign to educate civil society about water conservation and at the same time work towards on-ground interventions across the most-disadvantaged villages to make them Water+ve. Supporting the Be Water+ve initiative, were actors Rajkummar Rao and Rakul Preet Singh who signed the Be Water +ve pledge. 

Rajkummar Rao and Rakul Preet Singh join IIFA’s Be Water+ve campaign for water conservation

Launching Be Water+ve, the press conference was addressed by the Hon’ble Union Minister of Jal Shakti – Shri Gajendra Singh Shekhawat via a live conference link. The Minister said, “Looking ahead the need for water is increasing manifold. While the Jal Shakti Ministry has been doing extensive work that is being recognized as an inspiring effort across the world, it can only succeed when people join hands with government efforts. As our Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji has said, Jal Jan Abhiyaan and Jan Bhagidaari are needed simultaneously to achieve India’s Water Vision 2047 thereby ensuring longevity and permanent solutions.”

Rajkummar Rao shared his happiness about his debut on the IIFA stage, wherein for the first time he would be hosting the IIFA Rocks in the company of Farah Khan. Rajkummar Rao said, “The UN Sustainable Development Goals are the subject of a fantastic initiative to raise awareness and spur action. Being the international festival of Indian cinema, IIFA has always been sensitive to such delicate issues looking towards the primary objectives of ecology, sustainability, and water conservation. I’m happy to be a part of such a huge initiative along with this I’m very excited to be making my debut at the IIFA Rocks and IIFA Awards in Yas Island Abu Dhabi.”.

Rakulpreet Singh would be performing for the first time at the IIFA Awards and spoke about her performance and shared her dance moves at the press conference. Rakul Preet Singh said, “Transforming our relationship with nature is the key to reversing the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, and pollution and waste and I’m glad to give my small contribution towards it. I’m very excited to be performing for the first time at the IIFA Awards.”

“Working together, IIFA and AquaKraft will create an informative and exciting campaign that would enlist support from civil society, corporate India and global corporates, while at the same time ensuring that the technologies deployed are world-class, sustainable and easy to implement over long periods accommodating climatic changes in line with the vision of Water SECURITY 2047”, said Dr Subramanya Kusnur speaking on behalf of the Be Water +ve initiative.

“NEXA and IIFA have been partners for 7 continuous years and through this partnership, we have always strived to create impeccable experiences that not only impress but inspire. Both organizations have been taking conscious efforts for environmental and community well-being at large. Sustainability is a strong pivot for premium customers today and NEXA is committed to introducing innovative technologies like hybrid, CNG, and electric vehicles which reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We at Maruti Suzuki have also taken up sustainable solutions across our value chain from the product design stage to our processes ensuring zero use of groundwater, and water conservation in plant operations and service workshops, in addition to benefitting 25 villages in our endeavour to provide safe and hygienic drinking water through our Water ATMs”, asserted Shashank Srivastava, Senior Executive Officer, Marketing and Sales, Maruti Suzuki India Limited

Ravi Menon, Co-chairman of Sobha Realty, said, “We are delighted to be the title sponsors of the 23rd edition of IIFA Weekend. The event will witness the presence of the who’s who of the Indian film industry with the glitz and glamour that makes Indian cinema widely popular. With a rich culture of performing arts in our nation itself, we are honoured to recognize and celebrate the long-standing allure of Indian cinema and its outstanding contributors. Indian films are watched across the world, and we are pleased to welcome the numerous actors, artists, and talents of our nation, further bringing Indian cinema to a global audience. IIFA Awards recognizes the highest quality and artistic expressions in the Indian film sector, just like we at Sobha Realty recognize the value of quality, art, and design in our work.”

The Nexa IIFA awards and Sobha IIFA weekend will be returning to Yas Island in Abu Dhabi on May 26th and 27th, 2023 for its 23rd edition. IIFA is the world’s biggest celebration of Indian cinema and media event that is all set to bring together the very best in music and entertainment under one roof.

Joining hands with the United Nations in India on Sustainability Marking the beginning of another chapter in the IIFA journey, the United Nations in India joined hands with the International Indian Film Academy to create the first-of-its-kind initiative comprising advocacy, education and on-ground action on the Sustainable Development Goals, with a focus on sustainability. Through this engagement, IIFA proposes to use its platforms and the voices of celebrities and actors to raise awareness about issues of sustainability and climate action in our daily lives. With the knowledge and support of the United Nations in India, IIFA aims to encourage sustainable living, environment and water positivity in India and key regions across the world.

Addressing the media, Shombi Sharp, United Nations Resident Coordinator in India said, “The UN in India and IIFA are united in the urgent need to harness the tremendous power of culture and creativity for climate action. The triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss is already having a devastating impact on the most vulnerable, especially women and children. But there are simple actions we can all take in our daily lives right now to start building a better future. With its unparalleled reach, India’s film industry and IIFA can help amplify the call for sustainable living. The UN in India joins hands with IIFA this year to broadcast this message and to mobilize audiences across the world to save our only home, together for people and planet.”

The initiative draws from Prime Minister Modi’s LiFE (Lifestyle for Environment) campaign and will advocate for citizens to take action for conserving the earth’s resources and fighting climate change. Several well-known members of the film and music communities, many of whom serve as UN Ambassadors, Champions, and Advocates, will highlight the challenges and the collective and individual action to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

IIFA has in the past championed advocacy and action for environment and sustainability, women empowerment, and girls’ education, with celebrities and actors advocating for these causes. 

In 2007, IIFA replaced its traditional star-studded red carpet, with an earth-friendly green carpet to turn the spotlight on Planet Earth and environmental degradation. In 2008, renowned actor Amitabh Bachchan and the late Dr RK Pachauri, then chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, planted a tree at the United Nations regional office in Bangkok to symbolize the coming together of IIFA and the UN Environment Programme. 

Dia Mirza, Goodwill Ambassador, United Nations Environment Programme and United Nations Secretary-General’s SDG Advocate said, “It is important to remind ourselves that concepts of refuse and reduce precede reuse, recycle and repair. Every year, the world produces more than 400 million tonnes of plastics, causing untold damage to the environment and societies. India’s response is proactive and multipronged. But all of these measures would be incomplete if ‘we’ – the citizens, don’t adopt a more environmentally conscious lifestyle.” 

Also Read: IIFA and AquaKraft announce Be Water+ve program for Earth Day for water security in India’s villages

Tags : 23nd IIFA Awards, 23nd International Indian Film Academy Awards, AquaKraft, Dia Mirza, IIFA, IIFA 2023, IIFA Awards, IIFA Awards 2023, Initiative, International Indian Film Academy, International Indian Film Academy Awards 2023, News, Rajkummar Rao, Rakul Preet Singh

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Bheed Review: Rajkummar Rao And Pankaj Kapur Deliver Outstanding Performances

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Rajkummar Rao in a still from Bheed. (courtesy: YouTube)

Cast: Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza, Ashutosh Rana, Pankaj Kapur and Kritika Kamra

Director: Anubhav Sinha

Rating: Four stars (out of 5)

In Bheed, out in the theatres three years to the day after the first nationwide Covid-19 lockdown was announced, writer-director-producer Anubhav Sinha quotes Bob Marley and the Wailers’ Buffalo Soldier to stress the importance of knowing “your history” and being conscious of “where you coming from”.

In presenting a fictional account of the impact of the pandemic – and (especially) of the total nationwide lockdown – on migrant workers and daily wage earners left to fend for themselves, Bheed, filmed entirely in black and white, does indeed point to where we have come from and where we are headed as a nation riven by disparities.

The film expresses the agony of the voiceless and exudes compassion and empathy for people condemned to languish on the margins of a society that does not care enough. It uses the fallout of a sudden lockdown to ruminate on the privileges we take for granted and the inequities we choose to ignore.

The gutsy, multi-pronged narrative, peppered with allusions to the idea of India, with its strengths and failings, lays bare the fractures and fissures that undermine the essence of a diverse and complex nation enervated by deep schisms.

Bheed opens with a harrowing sequence of exhausted, faceless people – it isn’t a crowd, only a small group – walking along a rail track. As they lie down to rest, the shrill wail of a train whistle pierces the silence of the night. The sound soon merges with the wails of humans, a disquieting pointer to what is to come.

Anurag Saikia’s music score, which later uses the high-pitched sound of a shehnai – it resembles an unsettling howl – that turns a lovemaking scene involving an unmarried inter-case couple into an evocation of the unease of nervous defiance rather than into an avowal of all-conquering passion.

Bheed is a testament to a time when the nation’s underclass was thrown into the deep end without so much as a bare-minimum contingency plan. The sorry spectacle that played out in our cities and on our highways exposed our collective indifference to people exploited, marginalised and conditioned to accept their precarious plight.

The film is a vivid chronicle of many divides – between the government and the governed, the law and the common man, the rich and the poor, the privileged and the downtrodden, the sensitive and the callous – that are aggravated no end when the nation is hit by a crisis of the magnitude of a pandemic.

Bheed is a hard-hitting film that, in addition to being an act of courage, is an urgent plea to the privileged to shed their habitual complacency. It shows how a calamity can batter a society where marginalisation of the weak and othering of minorities are the norm.

The screenplay, written by Anubhav Sinha, Saumya Tiwari and Sonali Jain, lays bare the fault lines in a stark, austere manner. The acuity of the visuals is accentuated by Soumik Mukherjee’s restive but unobtrusive camerawork and Atanu Mukherjee’s editing rhythms, diluted somewhat by censor board-imposed excisions.

Notwithstanding the deletions, Bheed makes its point forcefully enough. Not that a film can change the way a nation thinks, but Bheed does a commendable job of telling a story – in fact, a bunch of stories – that simply needed to be told.

Parts of Bheed may feel a touch simplistic because it inevitably has to interpret complex issues in basic and instantly tangible terms, but not for a moment does the film about desperate people scrambling to return to their villages as state borders are sealed and the police are ordered to stop them appear anything less than pertinent.

With the aid of a terrific ensemble cast that is in perfect sync with the purpose of the film, Sinha crafts a portrait of a world where the poor and the powerless, irrespective of their caste identities, are left to fend for themselves.

Caste and power structures are jumbled up with intent to pit a Brahmin watchman against a Dalit policeman. The former, a village priest’s son, is watchman Balram Trivedi (Pankaj Kapur). He is divested of his social capital.

The cop, a low-caste cop with an altered family name that conceals his identity, is Surya Kumar Singh. He is charged with imposing the will of the state on the men (and their families) who have hit the road without a clue about where it might lead.

Bheed is a follow-up to Sinha’s Mulk and Article 15 in both thematic and creative terms. Like Mulk, it touches upon the subject of Islamophobia via a reference to the calumny heaped upon the Tablighi Jamaat during the pandemic. A group of Muslim men led by a bearded old man faces humiliation when he distributes food packets among stranded and starving migrants.

In the manner of Article 15, it captures the repercussions of caste violence on the defenceless through the back story of the male lead, who has personally suffered atrocities. And like both the films, Bheed falls back on multiple stories drawn from news reportage to weave its narrative.

A deserted shopping mall, fittingly named Lotus Oasis, serves as a metaphor for a bubble that becomes the site of a final impasse between the police and a man who decides to take the law into his hands in his fight to ward off hunger.

It is around this mall that almost the entire film plays out. The police hurriedly place barricades on the road outside the edifice – it is totally out of sync with the environs – and buses and other vehicles are stopped in their tracks. Tensions mount, tempers rise and the animated negotiations that ensue go nowhere.

Circle Officer Subhash Yadav (Ashutosh Rana) makes Surya the in-charge of the police post bypassing a Thakur, Ram Singh (Aditya Shrivastava) – a move whose effects manifest themselves in varied ways. That isn’t the only caste fissure that Surya has to negotiate – the girl he loves is Renu Sharma (Bhumi Pednekar), a medical intern sent to the spot with test kits and medicines.

A small-time politician’s relative believes that he and his men are above the law and that the barricades are for the less privileged. A lady (Dia Mirza) is desperate to reach her daughter’s hostel before her estranged husband can get there.

A young girl (Aditi Subedi), saddled with an alcoholic father (Omkar Das Manikpuri), struggles to find a way out. Amid the pandemonium, a television reporter Vidhi Prabhakar (Kritika Kamra) is hard-pressed to do her job flummoxed as she is at how things are panning out.

The actors merge with the film’s physical space to absolute perfection and achieve phenomenal emotional depth. Rajkummar Rao and Pankaj Kapur deliver outstanding performances that enhance the impact of the film. The other cast members – notably Ashutosh Rana, Bhumi Pednekar, Dia Mirza and Aditya Srivastava – are no less effective.

One character, a cynical photojournalist, says: ‘We are a sick society’. Bheed emphasises how that fear may not be baseless. It asserts that it isn’t a virus alone that is to blame for what ails us. The malaise runs much deeper. Anubhav Sinha does not shy away from staring the rot in the face. Is there anything more exciting than a filmmaker who stands up to be counted?

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Monica, O My Darling: The Film’s Soundtrack Hilariously Drives The Plot Forward

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So as the story progresses, it’s glaringly obvious the real star of the film is the seemingly retro soundtrack that reveals more about the plot than the plot itself – as if teasing us with the clues of who the culprit might be. The film opens with the song ‘Ye Ek Zindagi’ already reeling the audience in with the neo-noir element which is the overarching tonality of the film. 

But with the progress of the film, it is Piya Tu Abb to Aaja that reverberates as the titular character attempts to dupe men of their money, and she self admittedly has no remorse for it. The ethics of it are beside the point, it’s the grace with which she carries herself, as ‘Monica Abb Toh Aaja’ plays in the background, that stays with us. The song is driving the fact home that she is in a dicey position but she will still enjoy the ride. 

Another song that stands out is in the scene of Nishikant’s funeral. ‘Bye Bye Adios’ plays immediately after Vijayashanti Naidu (Radhika Apte) threatens Jayant and leaves. There are multiple layers to this sequence, one is the looming threat of being behind bars, and the other is the knowledge that a killer is on the loose. But, it’s the comic relief the song provides, with a frazzled Jayant that makes the scene entertaining. 

Although it’s the scene in which ‘Farsh Pe Khade’ plays that takes the cake. The scene is exceptionally well shot – with every beat drop, you see the camera shift its gaze. The scene creates a conflation of humour and suspense. You don’t want Jayant to be caught, yet it’s difficult to not laugh at his predicament. Especially when you know the first two lines of the song, ‘Dil hai chota sa magar, kwaab hai bade’ (Your heart is very small, but your dreams are big), hold very true for him. 

Dark comedies are a hot favourite for Bollywood these days. But none of those films, Darlings nor Good Luck Jerry, managed to use the background score quite so efficiently. And perhaps with good reason, considering the subject matter was vastly different, a tad bit more serious.

Yet, it should be noted, that in Monica O My Darling we relish in the dark aspects of the film, the hero is for the most part selfish, the other characters are also agenda driven. So we don’t squirm when they are faced with a predicament we rejoice, simultaneously wanting them to overcome it, but doing so in-between giggles. Which says more about the director Vasan Bala’s vision, than anything else.



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