Did you ever demand for freedom saying ‘I Want To Break Free’? Ever feared that you will give up on your dreams and all they will say about you is ‘Another One Bites The Dust’? Were you the rebel in school that found yourself thumping to ‘We Will Rock you’? Or screamed ‘We Are The Champions’ from the rooftop? Nobody listens to the radio anymore, and yet everyone is ‘Radio Gaga’.

Whether you do or do not understand the lyrics of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ is irrelevant because it remains the song of the century. Experience the genius of Freddie Mercury and the songs of Queen in a first-of-its-kind live performance hosted by Danesh Irani and Danesh Khambata, with music assembled by composer Merlyn D’Souza; popularly known as the Female Rahman. With Headliners like Shazneen Arethna, Vivienne Pocha,Yatharth Ratnum, and Ronit Chaterji the evening cannot get better.

Danesh Irani, partner, Silly Point Productions, says, “What better way to celebrate 10 years of Silly Point Productions than to pay tribute to one of the greatest legends of all time – Freddy Mercury! Merlin D’Souza. It is going to be a night to remember so better bring your dancing shoes folks.”

@bhawanasomaaya

Film festival co-coordinator and international films casting director Uma Da Cunha has been part of India’s independent cinema movement over the last 50 years through its innumerable highs and lows. The year 2018 marks two decades since she launched her debut magazine appropriately called Film India Worldwide. Then, as now, the aim has been to champion Indian independent films on the global stage. Moving with changing times Uma re-brands the title of her magazine to a more hip title On Global Screens, which will launch to  coincide with the opening of the 20th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival with Star between October 25 – November 1 2018.

The OGS magazine will continue the legacy of Film India Worldwide, as a news journal, arguably India’s only publication focused on its independent and regional cinema movement. It will cover India’s vibrant filmmaking spectrum: art house, independent, debut and regional language work, short films and documentaries, books on cinema, views, and reviews. It will feature regularly, in advance, upcoming work from both debut and master filmmakers, just as it celebrates India’s cinematic achievements the world over. It is designed to be of special interest to film professionals, festival organizers and programmers, as well as to academics, journalists, researchers, and libraries, nationally and internationally.

The On Global Screens banner endeavors to occupy an exclusive space, spotlighting the lost and often forgotten independent film and filmmaker. It is an embodiment of our longstanding efforts to link India’s many cinemas to international opportunities, sparking dialogue, business, and recognition. OGS will support quality cinema and provide services including subtitling in English, casting, and film festival programming and consultancy.

@bhawanasomaya

Film: Badhai Ho

Date: 18.10.2018

Director: Amit Ravindernath Sharm

Writers: Akshat- Jyoti- Shanatanu/ Story, Akshat Ghildial/ Screenplay, dialogues

Cast: Neena Gupta, Gajraj Rao, Ayushman Khurana, Sanya Malhotra, Surekha Sikri

There are types and types of films, some films make you laugh, some make you cry, some entertain, some elevate and enrich you and some make you feel good but once in a while comes a film that makes you smile, choke and go back home singing.

Badhai Ho falls in that category and there are 5 reasons for watching this film:

Reason 1: The Subject: In so many decades of my writing on cinema I have never encountered a story as delicious. The idea is terrific and completely original and I will not be surprised if it is from a personal experience of the writer. A lot of filmmakers often come up with very exciting ideas but not all of them are able to translate that on screen, Badhai Ho is an exception because it connects to your soul.

Reason 2: The Treatment: The posters reveal it is a family story but this is clearly not the regular family drama or a mainstream masala and what makes it unique is the treatment.  It by-passes all the predictable lanes of genres, shot taking or story-telling as the camera has you hooked to an amazing narrative assuring that there is not a dull moment.

Reason 3: The Writing: A novel subject penned by three writers – Akshat, Shantanu and Jyoti and polished to perfection with the minutest detail and insightful dialogues by Akshat Ghildial. The film unravels two romances, introduces to two families, engages two cultures and travels two cities/ Delhi, Meerut and does not let you down in a single scene/ moment.

Reason 4: Performances:  Each and every actor is perfectly cast and this includes all the friends and all the neighbors. Sheeba Chadha has two scenes but is as effective in her silence as with her words. Sanya Malhotra as Rene is confident and sparkling, Sureskha Sikri as the grandmother is a riot. Gajraj Rao with his variety of expressions is an actor to watch out for and Ayushman Khurana once again steals your heart, he is particularly special when he is awkward!

As the pregnant mother who is also a wife/ daughter-in-law, mother of grown-up boys, Neena Gupta exceptional and as convincing whether she is happy/ sad/ angry/ seductive. The truth is you cannot look at anything else when Neena is on screen!!

Reason 5: The Director: Amit Sharma takes you through school fights, office culture, middle-class homes, and stylish parties. He treats you to cafes, street food,  makes you stop by the cozy kitchen, breathes beneath a starlit sky on a terrace never forgetting to include nature – lush trees, meadows or a flight of a pigeon.

Here is a director who can make you laugh without being comic and cry without a tragedy.  Badhai Ho is about relationships, about sensitivity, about humanity. Where were you Amit Sharma all these years??

I rate Badhai Ho with 5 stars.

Bhawana Somaaaya

The year 2018-19 was a milestone in the history of our Congregation of the Religious of Jesus and Mary and marked its bicentenary year.

As a tribute to our Mother Foundress, St. Claudine Thevenet, St. Agnes’ High School, ventured into uncharted territory and produced a full-length feature film — The Little Violet Blossoms in association with Small Box Films.

Priyanka Tanwar, the director of the movie is an ex- Agnesian and has to her credit short films like Little Big George, My Pot of Gold and While it Lasts. The Little Violet Blossoms as she puts it is her pay off to her Alma Mater.

What makes the movie special is the fact that it’s the first time ever that a school has independently produced a full-length feature film. Most of the on-screen and off-screen crew members are students, teachers, parents, and ex-students of the school and shot school premises in just 28 days and premiers today.

@bhawanasomaayaa

Twenty years ago when Aditya Chopra’s assistant and Yash Johar’s son Karan Johar announced that he was making a film everybody assumed that he was overconfident. Even his mother Hiroo Johar while doing his aarti before sending him off on his first day at work lowered her voice to gently whisper “I hope you know where to place the camera beta”.

Johar did not mind her caution and arrived on the sets fully prepared all the shots. He was privileged to have lead stars Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan pair in his film and he had signed Kajol’s cousin Rani Mukherji to play an important role.

He was confident of the music he had recorded and convinced about the story based on his personal experience at school. Now it was up to the actors to live up to his story and they did. It was a Diwali release I remember and everywhere Karan Johar went in those days, he was told how the film fraternity was banking on his film to revive the fortunes.

Come Friday and Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998  revived the fortunes of not just film business but also his father’s banner Dharma Productions and in these 20 years Karan Johar has never looked back.

@bhawanasomaaya

The Walt Disney Company believes in filling kids’ lives with hope and imagination through the magic of storytelling. As a part of their on-going healthy living initiative, Disney India has identified fitness as one of the key themes and propagating their new mantra ‘Staying Fit can be fun’.

As part of Mickey’s 90th Birthday celebrations for one of the most beloved animated characters in the world, Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse are leading the ‘Stay Fit’ activity by tutoring kids into easy-to-follow dance steps.

Disney India has screened a ‘dance along’ Mickey and Minnie video, demonstrating the specially choreographed dance routine and what’s more, this challenge has been taken up by many actors.

The initiative has been pitched to more than 3000+ schools; reaching out to 1.2+ million kids across the cities of Mumbai, Delhi, and Bangalore

@bhawanasomaaya

 Helicopter does not fly

 Film: Eela Helicopter

Director: Pradeep Sarkar

Writer: Mitesh Shah, Anand Gandhi

Cast: Kajol, Riddhi Sen, Neha Dhupia

Pradip Sarkar directed Eela Helicopter tells the story of a single mother/ Kajol whose life revolves around her son Vivan/ Ridhi Sen.

She is obsessive to an extent that she senses him and always opens the house door before he can ring the doorbell.

Vivan loves his mother but feels stifled in her over concern and wants to run away only so that she can think of a life for herself.

The first half of the film elaborates and underlines a bit unconvincingly Eela’s over bearing invasion in her son’s life where she sniffs around in his bedroom, checks his phone messages and even eve drops on his conversations with friends.

The second half, where Eela decides to join her son’s college in order to complete her education, is further disappointing because it is irritatingly frivolous without any insights into the characters or their situations.

Director Ashwini Iyer had addressed the same subject with alarming sensitivity in Neil Battey Sannata a few years ago.

Unfortunately, nothing is right about Eela Helicopter – not the content, pace or the performances and the biggest defaulter is the careless screenplay devoid of any detailing, emotion or magical moment.

The title of the film is Eela Helicopter but there is no reference to a helicopter anywhere in the film. Also, it is a bit confusing whether this is a story about marriage or about motherhood because both are inadequately projected without complexities, layers or conviction.

The dramatic surprise post interval which should have been the turning point of the film is a disaster conveniently missed out by the watchman, the neighbor and the mother-in-law.

As audience, we wait for something to unfold via the father’s diary to his son but the son never reads the diary or probably the writer just forgot about it.

Eela lives in an apartment for over a decade but the set never resembles a home. She is into tiffin service but her kitchen never reflects her work.  There is a complete lack of effort and attention to define a graph in terms of costume/ hair and body language from the flashback to the present. There’s more, Eela pursues a career in singing but we never see her doing riaaz or practicing at home alone or under the supervision of a teacher.

The climax is so illogical that it is hilarious. The principal of the college protests when the organizers of the show change rule overnight. In the following scene, his student/ Vivan breaks protocol and hops on to the stage unscheduled to complete a family drama.

That’s not all, Eela who is backstage joins him from the audience singing loud and clear without a microphone and after her performance becomes a singing star!

Eela Helicopter is devoid of logic, emotion, and entertainment.

It is sad that the director who gave us Parineeta is either overconfident or underprepared.  Sad that Kajol is not in sync with the character and does not make a place in our heart.

I rate Eeela Helicopter with 2 stars.

Bhawana Somaaya

Film: Tumbbad

Date: 12.10.2018

Director: Rahi Anil Barve, Anand Gandhi

Writers: Mitesh – Adesh – Rahi – Anand

Cast: Sohum Shah

Once Upon a time long, long ago, a remote village in Maharashtra is cursed by the wrath of the Gods that it will forever drench in torrential rains.

The village has a king addressed as Sarkar who lives in a sprawling mansion called Wada.

He has a caretaker, a young widow and mother of two who arrives every morning to attend to Sarkar and leaves before dusk.

The widow lives in a small Wada and attends to a mysterious captive in the house who the children have never seen but address as the grandmother.

On a stormy night after a tragedy befalls on the family, the widow flees to Pune determined to never return to the cursed land.

Not her son Vinayak though who is lured by the hidden treasures in the decaying estate and as his greed increases so do the miseries of the family.

The film journeys from 1933 to 1947 diligently captured by an extraordinary production design that recreate streets, vehicles, homes, costumes, even conversations from that era.

The narrative gets into the mindset and the lifestyle of both, the underprivileged and the affluent as the narrative travels you through crumbling mansions, cozy mezzanine floors and luxurious brothels.

There are robust love scenes, ugly fights and cruel decisions; here is a story of deception, greed and intrigue you can never imagine.

Splendidly written, artistically shot, tautly edited and devotionally composed Tumbbad keeps you perplexed till the end credits.

Supported by an ensemble cast, Sohum Shah as Vinayak delivers a pitch-perfect performance.

It does not matter how you classify this film – you can call it horror, you can call it folklore, a combination of both or none of it.

It does not matter that a lot of it is illogical, incomprehensible even inaudible. Perhaps the makers wanted it that way- to leave it unexplained.

What matters is that it is engrossing, at times terrifying and visually seductive!

If Hollywood presented a film penned by four, composed by three and directed by two we would be instantly curious.

Here is filmmaker Anand Rai offering support to an out of the box, non-starrer and producer/ actor Sohum Shah hanging on to his dream forever.

If Shah can dedicate seven years of his life to Tumbbad, we can certainly spare 1 hour 44 minutes to watch his labour of desire.

I rate Tumbbad with 4 stars.

(Watch out this space for the video link of my review on @TheMovieMotha/Youtube on Friday)

Bhawana Somaaya