22 giugno 2012

Meenal Baghel: Death in Mumbai

Vi segnalo la recensione del saggio Death in Mumbai di Meenal Baghel, firmata da Gautaman Bhaskaran e pubblicata oggi da Hindustan Times. Il volume analizza un famigerato fatto di cronaca: l'omicidio di Neeraj Grover. Neeraj era un dirigente della casa di produzione televisiva di Ekta Kapoor. Aveva intrecciato una relazione con l'aspirante attrice Maria Susairaj. Il fidanzato di Maria, Emile Jerome Mathew, uccise per gelosia Grover, ed è tuttora in carcere. Ram Gopal Varma ha tratto dalla vicenda il film Not a love story.

'It is never easy to write about an actual murder, a brutal one at that, and Mumbai Mirror’s Editor Meenal Baghel has penned a gripping account of the 2008 Neeraj Grover killing. A young television company executive, Grover may well have been as ruthlessly debonair, callously arrogant and dashingly playboyish as Prem Ahuja was in 1959. When the highly decorated Naval Commander, Kawas Manekshaw Nanavati, found his beautiful wife, British-born Sylvia, having an affair with Ahuja, the enraged husband shot the lover dead. [Aggiornamento del 16 maggio 2022: anche da quel fatto di cronaca è stato tratto un film, Rustom, diretto da Tinu Suresh Desai e interpretato da Akshay Kumar]. Grover’s case appeared to run parallel to the Nanavati story. But unlike the naval officer’s life, Grover’s was one of glamour, part of the celebrity circle that he was. When he met Maria Susairaj, a small-time television actress aspiring to make it big in Bollywood, Grover probably saw several opportunities here. He could have made her a star, and, well, had a passionate sexual affair. Susairaj wanted to fly, but she really did not have the great good looks to hit stardom. Maybe, she saw in Grover, a hope, however faint, to fulfil her dream. But Susairaj was engaged to Emile Jerome Mathew, a dashing naval officer, and this man was jealous, and so horrendously that his fiancée could not even fathom.

Baghel pieces together the events leading up to what can be called a Shakespearean tragedy, and whose dramatis personae were three young people who could not care how they lived their lives or how bloody the road they chose to travel. Here was a woman who played around with the emotions of two men - with one ultimately butchering the other. Here was one man, who threw morals to the winds and slept with one whom he knew was engaged to be married. Here was another man so consumed with jealousy and distrust that he could not hold himself back. Baghel of course had a classic plot to fall back upon that ran like a pulse-pounding thriller, but she goes beyond mere retelling of the murder, mere reportage. And herein lays the book’s value. (...) Baghel bases her work on extensive interviews with the families and friends of Grover, Mathew and Susairaj to take us deep into the psyche of all three. Neeraj was a flirt, a small-town boy with the drive of a big town dreamer. Maria was certainly manipulative, a no-holds-barred climber, while Emile was an upright guy who fell for the wrong woman. (...) 

Baghel also tries to tell us about the pressures of the entertainment industry and how they drive men and women to the precipice. Her chats with Ram Gopal Varma, who made a film on the Grover murder, Not A Love Story, Moon Das, who was offered a role to play Maria’s character in a movie, and Ekta Kapoor, Neeraj’s boss in Balaji telefilms, are insightful. Although Baghel attempts to stop herself from sympathising with any of her characters, it is apparent that she has a soft corner for Mathew. He really was no murderer as Susairaj was a seducer and Grover a womaniser. Yet, Mathew remains in jail, while Susairaj has walked out after serving a three-year sentence. As much as killing can never be condoned, the one who provokes a murder, the one who manipulates emotions must, in the final analysis, bear the cross of guilt'.

Abhay Deol: It's unfair to compare me to my family

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Abhay Deol a Suruchi Sharma, pubblicata oggi da The Times of India. It's unfair to compare me to my family:

'Industry insiders and critics hail you as the pioneer in new-age cinema. How do you react to that? 
Its humbling, it’s exciting, it’s a huge compliment and it can be a little intimidating. But it makes me feel it was all worth it - all the struggle, all the fighting and cynicism or the bitterness that I went through. Not that the struggle is over, but when you hear things like you’re the ‘pioneer for change’ - that’s when you think that maybe I’m not making the amount of money that most actors do, maybe my films don’t get the budget that other films get and my films don’t get much better marketing and publicity - but despite all that, there is recognition, so I must be doing something right. (...) I like characters that I can relate to, characters that are close to people that I have seen in real life. I like scripts that marry entertainment with realism. For me, larger-than-life is boring. Neither can I do something that’s too real because then it becomes over intellectual. So I automatically gravitated towards scripts which were real and entertaining. The only thing that I can say at the risk of sounding egotistical, or arrogant is that I know my scripts - everything else is up in the air - but I depend on my own feelings and instincts when it comes to saying yes to a script. (...)

Even after so many years in B-wood, people ask you the ‘Deol’ question. Isn’t it annoying?
In the beginning it was expected. I mean I was debuting in Bollywood, I hadn’t done many movies, so I was ready for those questions, but when I did my 4th film, 5th, 6th film, and the questions didn’t end, then I started to feel it was very unfair to constantly compare me to my family or say that I don’t do typical Deol kind of roles. I think my family does exactly what everyone else in the industry does. They get an image, they conform to it and then cash in on it, that’s how the business works here - all stars confirm to an image. So let us not just single out my family. There are other actors too who come from film families but they are not constantly compared to their family, they are compared to the reigning stars. I want to be compared to the entire industry.

Are you bitter about this comparison? Or is there something else about this industry that makes you angry?
I was bitter in the beginning, as I felt people were being biased. There wasn’t much coming my way, and whatever work I got was mostly for playing the third guy who’s either a comic or an idiot. I turned down those movies. So, people thought, ‘his debut movie was a flop, he hasn’t worked in the industry that much, why is he turning me down?’ What people didn’t understand was that I was choosy from the very start. I was vocal about formula and non-formula and how we need to make a change. But 7-8 years back people didn’t understand all this. So I had a lot of angst in me because people would just not let me grow.

But you are growing now, with people like Dibakar Banerjee and Anurag Kashyap?
To tell you the truth, Dibakar is an alien in a human body, he is not of this world and that’s why he is such a brilliant filmmaker. It was Dibakar who convinced me to do Shanghai. I wouldn’t have done something so alien to me if I wasn’t sure of the director. Though I was dying to work with him'.

Hand-painted posters make a comeback in Bollywood

Vi segnalo l'articolo Hand-painted posters make a comeback in Bollywood, di Divya Arya, pubblicato da Hindustan Times il 17 giugno 2012:
'Indian posters were known for larger-than-life, pertinent, bold portrayals of actors. With a boldly lined cleavage of the heroine to the bulging biceps of the hero - our posters used vibrant colours, heavy strokes, highlights and flashy expressions. (...) Posters have today become a thing of art and are recommended by art curators as vintage and collectibles. Posters have provided the platform for artists like M.F. Hussain  to rise to eminence. The art of posters, as art curators interpret it, is lost to the photographic, HD digital quality stills, which are  easy to design and distribute, but seem lackluster. Creating posters to publicise modern entertainment is a lucrative way to conserve the long lost art. Posters have been the art of the common man. Posters have been the most appropriate style to depict the exaggeration and extravaganza that Indian films are. Posters have had a journey of their own in the Indian cinema with a history sprawled over 80 years. Posters strive to be immortal. Good posters achieve immortality. (...) Movies fill in where life disappoints. Everything related to a movie, be it the actors, the songs, the dancing, the destinations - it all has elements of dream and delirium. It is the bridge between our lives as they exist and lives that might be. A poster, is the best blueprint of what cinema stands for - exaggeration, melodrama and fantasy'.

An insider's view of the Film Censor Board

Vi segnalo l'articolo An insider's view of the Film Censor Board, di Mayank Shekhar, pubblicato il 19 giugno 2012 da The New York Times. Il noto critico cinematografico racconta la sua esperienza in qualità di consulente del famigerato Central Board of Film Certification dal 2007 al 2009. L'ente preposto alla censura vaglia ogni anno 13.500 (!) pellicole, compresi trailer, corti, documentari e spot pubblicitari per il circuito cinematografico. Circa 1.200-1.300 sono lungometraggi. L'ente ha sede a Mumbai, ma opera anche in altri otto centri distaccati: New Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Guwahati and Cuttack.
'The chairperson, appointed by the government, is usually a known figure from arts and entertainment. (...) About 500 citizens, 150 of them in Mumbai, are entrusted with the task of certifying films during their terms, the lengths of which can vary. (...) An identity card given by the Censor Board allowed them free access into any cinema in India, so they could check and report to the police if films were being played without the suggested cuts. Some of the members claimed that they had even got theaters shut down. Many spoke at length on the declining morality of Indian films. Going through the attendance roster of those members now, I realized that a majority of them had listed “social service” as their profession. Board officials told me that it’s a euphemism for political activist. They are mostly appointed on recommendation of their local legislators or politicians. (...) Arguably the Censor Board film classifications have been more lenient toward violence than toward sexual content. (...) Over the years, the focus of the Censor Board appears to have shifted from sex and violence to people’s “hurt sentiments” - some of it possibly real, but much of it imagined. (...) I sat through another B-grade film for the Censor Board. This time it was an excessively violent flick. (...) Yawning panelists at the preview granted it an “A” [solo per adulti] certificate, without any cuts. The film’s producer walked into the screening room. “No cuts at all?” he asked. “It’s so violent, you must give cuts. (...) Come on, how will people know this film exists? I’ve made a very violent film. How will I publicize it?”.'

Amitabha Bagchi: The householder

Vi segnalo la recensione del romanzo The householder di Amitabha Bagchi, firmata da Arshia Sattar, pubblicata da Open il 17 giugno 2012:
'A corrupt underling is as crooked as the system he works in, but Bagchi’s quiet, masterly prose leaves you with sympathy for his morally bankrupt protagonist. Amitabha Bagchi’s second novel, The Householder, is a delight. And a welcome breath of fresh air in a literary atmosphere clouded with stylish feints and clogged with pretentious storytelling. This appears to be a simple story told in simple, elegant prose that rarely draws attention to itself. Until you finish the book, that is. And realise that neither was the story simple nor the prose unremarkable. (...) Bagchi’s novel is set in the corridors of Delhi’s bureaucratic and political universe, a netherworld where anything can be fixed and unfixed, provided the price is right. (...) The Householder also turns its sights onto the degraded space inside India Shining, where the complete absence of personal ethics goes hand in hand with rampant corruption. Actually, the image that comes more strongly to mind is that of a serpent consuming its own tail - a seamless continuum between the private and public spheres where the decay of one implies the corrosion of the other and vice versa. (...) Bagchi writes with a studied neutrality. (...) It is Bagchi’s control over the authorial voice that makes The Householder deceptive in its apparent simplicity. (...) The power of this book lies in showing us how unremarkable corruption and the corrupt have become in India. Bagchi paints this picture without resorting to satire or patronising mockery or through lurid descriptions of sordid crimes and garden-variety misdemeanours. There is no other world but this. (...) The Householder is a masterful piece of writing because it manages to hold cynicism and righteous anger at bay. By doing so, it reveals the truly tragic proportions of contemporary India'.

Kangna Ranaut: I struggled for roles like crazy

Vi segnalo l'intervista concessa da Kangana Ranaut a Kersi Khambatta, pubblicata oggi da iDiva. I struggled for roles like crazy:

'“There is an almost non-existent cultural element to life in Himachal. There is no art, no theatre or music, not even a traditional dance that we can call our own. This hit me the first time I went to Chandigarh, just out of school; all of a sudden, from growing up among trades-people and agriculturists, I was surrounded by people who were studying art, music, theatre, stuff we had never heard about back home. Suddenly, my future options were no longer limited to science fields, law or accounting. I realised that there are a whole bunch of other things I can be, and all of those were way more attractive. I chose to act.”
But the parental reaction to that must have been formidable. “Of course it was. There were shouting matches. My father was rendered speechless. My mother thought I was possessed. Even my elder sister thought I was mad. That was the worst, most stressful period of my life. Today, I don’t know how I went through it all.”
You reckon you can see a little of the steel it must have taken a 17-year-old to stand her ground and take off to New Delhi against everyone’s wishes, to enroll in the Asmita Theatre Group run by veteran theatre director Arvind Gaur. “Theatre was my stepping stone to film.” (...)
According to Wikipedia, she was ‘spotted by Anurag Basu in a cafe and he offered her the lead role in Gangster (2006).’ Does this kind of stuff really happen?
“It’s rubbish. They cooked up this story because it sounds dreamy and filmi in itself. I struggled for roles like crazy. Agents would call us; there were all these same aspirants going around everywhere, to all the same auditions. I sat in queues, read lines like everyone else. And I got picked for Gangster.”
Was theatre not satisfying enough to continue? “My mentor, Arvind Gaur, told me that theatre in this country is only done to fulfill a passion; there is no money in it. If you want to be successful and make money, then films are the only way. I loved my time in [New] Delhi, although it was tough. I lived in a hostel, did a little modelling to support myself, although I was not very successful at it. The most favourable response I received was for my acting. Bombay just seemed the obvious choice after that.” (...)
Ask her about what these seven years in Bollywood have taught her, and she thinks. “More decisiveness about where I am going. More clarity where there once was only total confusion. My brain is less scattered. I would still love to do many things, paint, sing, but I think I’ll focus on acting for now.”
After playing trouble-ridden characters, (...) there was some serious need for comic relief. “Tanu Weds Manu was a treat to do. I still don’t know what I do best, but I’d had enough of the psycho-bitch roles. Comedy gave me a chance to learn new expressions”.'