Laaga Chunari Mein Daag

[Spoilers!]

Full disclosure: I watched Laaga Chunari Mein Daag for two reasons: the cast as a whole—full of people I love/like, and I didn't even remember Hema Malini actually dances in it!—and the specific romantic pairing of Rani Mukherji and Abhishek Bachchan, my favorite jodi ever.

Ever.

While the characterizations don't all live up to the potential of these actors, overall the film makes relatively pleasing use of its star talent. The two weak points for characters are the child-like younger siblings, Shubhavari (Konkona Sen Sharma), whose wild swings in persona don't really cohere given her age and education and whose job seems far too grown-up for her, and Vivaan (Kunal Kapoor), a narcissist to whom no one should pay particular attention. As for Rani and Abhishek together again...despite loving them together in every iteration I've seen, I can never put my finger on what it is about them that works so well for me. It's not that they're always lively and clever (Bunty aur Babli), complex (Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna), or intense (Yuva)*; they've done unhappy couples as often as happy; they're not a perfect or even particularly pleasing physical match, nor do they dance notably well together. But they always delight me. Always. So while LCMD uses them in just a tiny dose, with basically an extended cameo by Abhishek, it's well done and satisfying, and I'm as happy to see them as ever.


I was originally going to say that it seems unfair to give a film the appositional subtitle Journey of A Woman but then handle one of the components of said journey with merely an extended cameo, especially one that seems significant to the woman herself, but then I realized that de-emphasizing her romantic life frees up resources to tell other parts of her story and, Helen above, isn't it amazing to see a mainstream Bollywood film that doesn't focus on a romantic story despite having young and beautiful protagonists? Everything that Rohan's love offers Vaibhavari, with one notable exception I'll get to in just a second, is also extended many times over by her family, most importantly her sister, who doubles as a best friend complement.

What is beautifully, if mind-bogglingly, not discussed is what marrying Rohan implies about Vaibhavari's not-so-secret life as high-price escort Natasha. Presumably Rohan's presence eliminates the financial necessity from which Natasha sprang; however,  Rohan only expresses his hope to become a permanent part of her life, and she accepts him, when he is not needed. It amazes me that there is no sense of Rohan saving Vaihbhavari in any way: she has earned her own money, her family is back on its footing (thanks entirely to her), and she doesn't even seem to be the  stereotypical "cold and dead inside" given to pop culture sex workers.

I won't argue that Vaibhavari is thrilled with her life or that she does not desire acceptance by the people she loves, but she takes a lot of joy in the happiness of others and in her own success, particularly proving to her #@&$*! father (Anupam Kher) that she has succeeded in all the functions that he's convinced only sons could perform (various versions of protecting and providing for the family) (and that he himself has failed to do). (Of course, since we all know where Y chromosomes come from, we also know that the family's only-daughter-having situation—Nahiiiiiin!—are also due to him, but never mind.)

 It seems to me that Vaibhavari's most clearly expressed sadness comes from her mother (Jaya Bachchan)'s hypocrisy of depending on Natasha's hard-earned money yet simultaneously being unwilling to include her in the family. Vaibhavari doesn't need Rohan (nor does Natasha), but she likes him, wants him. It's so refreshing! His comfort with her whole self means that she has a new chance at a more conventional life, but it also acknowledges who she is and who she has been. After all, Rohan would never have met her if she hadn't been Natasha, and he even states how much he respects Vaibhavari for turning into Natasha when she had to—and he falls in love with her without knowing why she became Natasha or even that there is a previous Vaibhavari part of her, so it's not like he's getting off on her sacrifice**. Natasha is responsible for every single happy ending in this movie: the family's secured finances, their improved home, their success in a lawsuit, the (admittedly very perfunctory) defeat of the villains, the father's restored health, and Shubhavari's education (and thus job and fiancé she met at the job).

That said, and I know it was a lot, I'm not going to pretend this is a perfect movie. About halfway through, I realized that it was so overrun with WTFs that I should have been keeping track. But, at least for me, its list of positives is as significant as its list of negatives. For every idiotic aspect of this film, it does something well...beautifully, thoughtfully, interestingly.

Let's start with the most glaring problem.

Oh the irony.

In this fantasy world of gently glowing, folksy Banares and silky-smooth Mumbai, it's apparently a breeze to be come a high-price call girl who works the top hotels with no pimp and is never raped or beaten or forced into substance abuse and dependency. It's the most ridiculous portrayal of prostitution I've ever seen, down to the total lack of even a hint of sex after she turns pro. On the other hand, I think I only noticed two characters truly criticizing Natasha's work (her mother and the creepy cousin, who would be a creep about her no matter what she did). For a film about a prostitute, there's precious little moral outrage, and Natasha she seems to be as much a part of the fabric, economy, and society of the city as her advertiser sister. As far as I could tell, there is no condemnation of Vaibhavari (or anyone else, for that matter) having sex before marriage—the issues seems to be the money, though because those two things are immediately tied together, it's hard to tell the difference. Think about that: a young woman from a good family from India's holiest city has sex without being married...and nobody seems to mind. Wow.

The title and songs belabor the concept that by choosing (and we could have some interesting discussions about choice and free will in this film) to trade sex for opportunity (not at first a direct exchange for money, interestingly), Vaibhavari is permanently dirtied and lessened—stained. Fortunately, the film doesn't actually act that way outside of those specific texts. And isn't it interesting how there is so much imagery about water and fabric, as though cleaning and purifying and mending are constant hopes? Her mother sews non-stop, obsessively, and both sisters take solace along ghats. In the transformation from Vaibhavari to Natasha, water is also significant, almost as though it's washing way the former and "good" in order to take on the new and "stained."

Maybe the water is her spirit, something hard to restrain, something that contains both good and bad and just keeps moving.

Kunal Kapoor's character is very unappealing, certainly when we and Shubhavari first meet him. He is gross, self-centered, and rude. Kunal Kapoor, however, is dreeeeamy.

The sisters, these "modern Indian women" (and how much did that slide show of "candids" of Konkona make you want to puke?) are apparently only attractive to high-quality men when they are in Europe. Both sisters get their love on (one the meet-cute and get-to-know-you, the other the final stumble from flirt into luuuuurve) in western locations. I have no idea what to make of that, but it sticks in my craw. But these sisters also navigate the modern world, working its pragmatic concerns and finding success without tearing anyone else down or even having sibling rivalries or that tiresome "girls can't stand each other's triumphs so get mean and cruel" routine (which to be fair I feel I see faaaaar more often in US tv than I do in Indian films). Other "modern Indian women" include the aunties talking about how hot Hrithik Roshan is and flying planes, whom Vivaan is shocked to discover, which is eye-roll-y, but at least the film is stating clearly that it is awesome that women have something approaching sex drives and can fly planes.

Look. Maybe I'm just so biased because of the people in this movie or by its remarkable, non-judgmental stance, but a film that has a heroine, played by my favorite actor, who enters her new life under the protective eye of her favorite movie star just satisfies me at a basic, personal, trivial level.

It's dreamy and escapist and set in a magical la-la-land and full of unlikely beauty. It tries to do something a little different and while in progress makes a hopeful, lovely statement that less-than-ideal situations and decisions don't have to be forever and that there are some people out there who will love you for who you truly are. Isn't that nice?

* And no, I haven't seen Bas Itna Sa Khwaab Hai—have you?
** My friend Ellie and I like to talk about the "sacrifice porn" aspect of some Bollywood dramas. 

Darr

How did Yash Chopra manage to make Darr creepy from the very first scene

That's the hero talking to the heroine through the letter, though it doubles as exactly what the villain could be saying —and is probably thinking, since he, not the hero, is nearby.

but so brain-bashingly stupid? A story that uses fear to contrast definitions and depictions of love would be so much more effectively if the romantic pair (Sunil/Sunny Deol and Kiran/Juhi Chawla) did anything to protect themselves from it. They're too stupid to be as afraid as they should be (and therefore cannot act with intelligence), yet somehow they're also too stupid to do much about that fear once it begins to sink in.

For example, if you're being stalked, don't open packages that are left at your door anonymously.

They've got no street smarts, which I guess is to be expected of a girl who still wears a knee-length plaid skirt and white socks to school, but what's the naval officer's excuse? This is a guy who thinks it's funny to pretend to attack his girlfriend from the depths of a dark swimming pool, after the stalker (Rahul/Shahrukh Khan) has shown up at her home and called her, giving her a terrifying thirty seconds of panic as she thinks the stalker is trying to drown her. (And let's not get into the dangers of making someone thrash around unpredictably near wet metal and concrete!)

Inspired by Phoebe Cates?

That right there should get his ass dumped, and it gives unfortunate credence to Rahul's insistence that Sunil doesn't deserve Kiran. When even the comic relief is telling you to call the police to handle the stalker, it's time to m*therf*cking call the police. Because the cluelessness of the leads is no match for the psychopath's obsession, the tension over his next move is so much less than it could have been.

THAT SAID, Darr is otherwise quite enjoyable with flashes of very thoughtful filmmaking. No energy is wasted on showing the psychopath's slow descent into madness. Introduced as a peeping-Tom's-eye-view of the wet and vulnerable heroine, an uneven, distant percussive sound under a melody that will become his calling card, a rustle in the forest, we know he's a threat before we even see him. That is brilliant. (Note I won't argue it's unique; I don't watch enough scary movies to know.) The villain is far and away the most well-written character in the film. He's given more complexity and nuanced depictions. He's also the most consistent, which may be just the logical result of his obsession, but it's also a very welcome change from the vagaries of the child-like heroine and lackluster hero. 

All those stories of Sunny Deol being pissed off about Shahrukh stealing the show in Darr make total sense to me. The hero got shafted. Part of that is the writing—it'd be clear on paper what's going on here (which makes me think that there really must not have been a final-ish script available for him to read, or if there was he didn't read it)—but a very significant factor is Shahrukh's charisma, wildness, and hamminess. He may have great material to work with, but he brings so much to it. To be honest, I have a hard time separating the writing, directing, and performance. I can't tell where Rahul-as-conceived ends and Rahul-as-performed begins.

Not just the scenarios and dialogue but so much of his basic posture and blocking added to our sense of who Rahul is and what he's thinking. For example, the first time we really see him, he is quite literally already on the edge of death.

Or that scene in the elevator, when in the span of a few seconds he goes from sniffing an unwitting Juhi's dupatta and almost touching her to curling up in a little ball in another direction when his (also unaware) rival appears—perfect.

Expand, contract.

That is a person who is not yet confident (or maybe unhinged) enough to be seen. Later in the story, he crashes right past simply being visible to flaunting his presence, but not just yet. Rahul's mania takes many forms: he can realax and play with it, but he can also be wound up and pushed over the brink by it.

I love how the movie hints that the hero and villain can be different sides of the same coin. From the onset, they are compared and confused. Kiran thinks Rahul's song is Sunil's. She talks about how much Sunil loves harassing her (per the subtitles, anyway), like pretending to be a corpse and falling out of her closet when she opens its door, but of course at this point she has no idea what "harassment" is going to mean in her life.

She thinks hands covering her eyes during a black-out at her birthday dinner are her boyfriend's, but boy is she wrong. Later examples include the way each communicates with her using their own blood and the contrasts in her reactions when each of them marks her forehead in red. 

Early in the film, there's very telling narration as Kiran's train from school goes through a tunnel and the screen is dark.

What Rahul suffers is not utterly different or separate from love. It's an overreaching, a transgression, a mutation. 

Anyway, Rahul is an amazing character, and SRK nailed it. This is my favorite of his performances before Dil Se. Which probably isn't saying much, since I tend to avoid-yaar the early and mid-1990s, but still.

Darr sounds and looks really good. In an era—and, let's be honest, with an actor—I associate with crassness, tackiness, and just plain off-ness, I was surprised to find so much cleverness, especially when supporting a story that could have very easily dissolved into a slurry of leering, cheap scares, and pink blood. There are so many ironies that show how in conflict with the standard filmi order, how undesirable, Rahul is. 

The music is so effective at supporting and creating the film's moods. Whoever did the background score (was that also Shiv-Hari?) was completely engaged with what was going on in the film and made sure the music was integrated carefully. For example, listen for how Rahul's theme tune (the "tu hai meri, Kiran" snippet of "Jaadu Teri Nazar") is used throughout, repeated and refracted. I particularly like a militaristic version that plays with no instruments but drums that rattle, just as it surely sounds in Rhaul's head. Or the frantic strings as Kiran thinks she's drowning in the pool. Even those horrible phone rings are effective. Remember the scene when the different phone lines in the house ring a simultaneously but so discordantly? 

Visual motifs repeat too. Writing appears throughout, almost always as a sign of Rahul's insanity (the blood-soaked rag, the vandalized apartment, and oh yeah CARVING HER NAME INTO HIS CHEST WITH A KNIFE)... 

 

but Sunil's writing opens the film. What's the about? Another way of showing the importance of type of love as distinguishing between hero and villain? Water is everywhere, sometimes as a threat, sometimes as a force of isolation, sometimes as sexuality (Kiran getting caught in the rain and starting to take off her wet dress in the beginning, her drenched, sensual dancing in Rahul's imagination), always as unrest (the film loves the word "toofan"). There are parallel scenes of both hero and villain on balconies watching Kiran by a swimming pool in the proximity of the other. Likewise the two boat scenes, bookending the film with the hero making identical entrances into them. 

Glad he had time after recovering from the chest wounds but before rescuing his wife from a murderer to stop and find black cloth to tie around his head. 

It's worth asking how in the world this violent, blood-filled, psychopath-centered film won a silver lotus at the National Film Awards for "best popular film providing wholesome entertainment." The official site for the 1993 awards here says Darr was awarded "for its convincing presentation of the theme of love, which has been rendered complex by its relationship with past experiences of fear." I suppose it's possible to argue that the love/loves portrayed in Darr is/are complex, though I don't think so—Sunil and Kiran love each other in that typical film way that means they'll do stupid things in the name of protecting each other, and Rahul loves Kiran in that very special, completely ignorant, delusional, and solipsistic way that stalkers so often do—but how is the fear "past"? There is very palpable (and very strangely dubbed—in the big fight at the end, only SRK is making any noise) fear until the very last  tacked-on scene. Wholesome schmolesome. 

Just say yes! Charas

Reader beware: extremely picture-heavy post.

Also a note on the title, before we get started: the subtitles translate the word "charas" as opium; a friend in Delhi told me it means heroin; and the Oxford Hindi-English dictionary says it's a kind of resin-based preparation of cannabis. I'll just say "drugs" and be done with it.

Charas is fantastic. It's glorious, giddy, jam-packed but streamlined 70s masala. I am simultaneously incredibly grateful to have seen it and saddened by the knowledge that for each movie like this I see there is one fewer remaining to discover. Overall, Charas comes off as an action- and comedy-leaning masala with well-implemented touches of James Bond. Moralizing is all but absent; the movie is loosely about drugs, but here drugs are simply an illegal thing that smugglers export to Europe for cash rather than something evil masterminds are going to use to to enslave the innocent of India and bring the moral downfall of a culture. Drugs are a legal issue here, not an ethical one. Family drama, religion, and revenge are succinctly handled with some unusual spin and plenty of impact. There is no melodrama, but I didn't miss it one bit. All the usual masala ingredients are there, but they're in the service of...momentum, I guess I'd call it. It's like everyone involved—both the real people making the film and the characters in it—never forgot that they were trying to outwit each other before the clock ran out.

There is little about the plot that you couldn't guess—Ajit leads a group of smugglers in international drug-dealing and has blackmailed Hema Malini into helping him, and Dharmendra, the son of someone Ajit betrayed early in the film, becomes a police officer to stop him—and everyone involved in front of and behind the camera does their job expertly. It's the crew of of Charas who really deserve most of the praise that bubbled out of me while I watched the film. While the cast is very good (with Dharmendra adding that little something extra in some of his comedy and undercover bits), I think it's the crafting and assemblage of all the ingredients that make this film what it is. The other films written by writer/director Ramanand Sagar I've seen, Barsaat and Sangdil, do not at all indicate he'd be so good at creating something as fun as this. As much as I love the wackadoo and complications of Manmohan Desai, it's surprising to see something as full of goodies as Charas is that somehow remains lean. What follows is a list of what I think made the film so special.

This isn't relevant to anything, but I had to include a shot of the best stationery ever.

Despite what I just said about the acting being great but not perhaps the greatest thing about this film, it would be a horrible oversight—an act of fraternal treason, even—not to point out immediately that this is Tom Alter's first film. It's a perfectly competent turn in a standard side-good-guy role, but what is notable about it is that he plays an important and helpful character, in stark contrast to what he is now known for (bad guy sidekicks). As such, he spends a lot of time with the hero doing brave things: he questions bad guys, shares information, plans with Dharmendra, and leads the police in shootouts and raids.

He's the lone person in khaki on the ridge; all the other police are in blue. But mostly I just liked all the diagonals in this shot.

It's not the most demanding role imaginable, but it is by far the biggest and most significant one I've seen him in. I could probably even argue that he's a sort of stand-in for the hero's father, providing some emotional support and definitely acting as a protective comrade-in-arms. Nice wig, too. All hail the FTII-trained king of the gora bit players!

Charas hosts some pretty spectacular musical numbers. Hema's character is a dancer (the subtitles keep calling her an actress, but we don't see any acting) who tours internationally, and she enters the film from the head of a sphinx in the wonderful Egyptian-themed number "Mera Naam Ballerina."

The backing dancers play drums with their hair.

Hema's dance troupe is roped into helping smuggle the drugs out of India in their sets, and we get to see those ewers and some other large-scale constructions a few more times.

In one of the grand traditions of lavish stage numbers, the visual theme has nothing to do with anything in the rest of the film. And who cares! It's fabulous (and is near the top of my list of Egyptian-based or -themed film songs). As if in retort to the good girl's big song, the villains have a nightclub in their property in Malta  (where much of the action takes place), where we get two songs with Aruna Irani (playing Dharmendra's presumed-dead and kidnapped sister, who has been forced into the shameful life of a dancer [eyeroll]). This is one of the best nightclub sets ever, crammed to the gills (ha!) in all directions with sea creatures and fishing props.

And a giant eye that opens into a back room for spying. Of course. Run, don't walk, to those youtube links to see this thing for yourself. The blood-red entrance is a giant shark mouth, complete with two other little fish inside it. There are lava vents, giant anchors, and seahorses and frogs with light-bulb eyes. 

As is completely sensible, the smugglers and police, spread over two continents, need to keep in contact, and there is a vast array of communications equipment. Both sides have bleeping, blinking control rooms full of knobs and switches (note the Maltese cross in the police room). Dharmendra has the classic shoe phone and officers Asrani and Keshto Mukherjee have tracking devices hidden various places, including a watermelon.

I'm so pleased to say that this is not the only film I've seen that hides transmitters in melons (it also happens in Inkaar).

There's a smattering of religion in Charas, but it's Catholic. When Hema is distraught over a missing Dharmendra, she wanders through the streets and prays to a statue of Mary for his return. Elsewhere in town, Dharmendra sadly ponders a crucifix (see most of it here).

If the subtitles are accurate, this is the kind of exchange I can imagine happening with the more typical shrines and temples. I don't know if it's unique, but the direct address by both characters to Christian figures, when they have not been previously identified as Christian, was both interesting and site-appropriate. I like that the movie acknowledged that it was in a small corner of the central Mediterranean and did not pretend that there would be a Hindu temple conveniently around the corner. Sure, it probably pretended lots of other things that don't exist in Malta, but this one was a nice link between what film characters typically do and what would actually make sense for their setting. It also quietly suggested an attitude about the universality of the divine and the power of prayer that I wasn't expecting.

I still can't quite put my finger on what reminded me so much of James Bond in this film. No one is a spy, so I think it must have been the sunny European locales and the emphasis on the crime.

Certainly a motorcycle and car chase over winding hilly streets helped, as did the island depot/lair that the smugglers use as the final stop for their crates of drugs (seen in the bottom two images above). I would love to know where this was shot; if it's a set, it was very well done, full of stalactites, flooded floors, and machinery. I also really liked how some of these shots were set up: lots of diagonal lines and plenty of scope to see what's going on from interesting angles.

There is repeated (though brief) talk about female honor, and you know I always need to discuss that. Early in the film, Aruna is captured by Ajit's gang and forced to dance in their undersea nightclub; while there, she has discussions with the other principal dancer (Madhumati,who gets some awesome costumes) about the futility of worrying about honor once you've ended up in a place like this. Later Madhumati advises Aruna not to be ashamed of herself and to call her brother for help, not only for her own sake but for that of all the other girls who are forced into similar lives. Aruna falters, unable to admit what has become of her through absolutely no fault of her own, but Dharmendra is thrilled to see her and they have a wonderful bhai-bahin reunion. I must have seen other long-lost sister-brother pairs, but I can't remember any, and this was a nice change from brothers. (And now that I think about it, I'm realizing that the most important people to the hero are women. His work world is very male, but his emotional one consists only of women.) 

Hema too is forced into this life of crime by Ajit; he says he has evidence that can either convict or acquit her of a long-ago murder.

If she doesn't help him with his smuggling, he'll turn her in, and the loss of her income will force her crippled father onto the street to beg and her sister into a brothel. Those words echo through her head and she agrees to his terms. The hero too throws around questions of honor. Seeing all the white and, presumably, charas-addicted kids in a hotel, he asks whether she'll behave similarly. She gives him the "Indian girls don't do that" line, but he doesn't seem to mind and they head off to sing a love song in their hotel rooms.

Later, Ajit tries to sell her to one of his henchmen, and she puts up as many kinds of fights as she can, first with a simple statement of the facts of her situation

Bowls of fruit almost always lead to knife violence in masala films.

and then pleading that she loves another. Dharmendra witnesses this whole exchange and is initially furious that she would betray him but then realizes that she has been forced into the situation and is trying as hard as she can to fight off the sheikh.

The villain treats women as he does drugs: capital. He talks about photographing girls while his men "molest" them and selling the pictures to Europe, but he does not do the molesting himself or surround himself with dancing girls who feed him grapes. It's another example of a villain who has no interest in the sensual pleasures of the crime he commits—he just wants the money or whatever advancement of his plans they can offer. Even these women's "honor" is a means to an end rather than, to borrow language from other films, a juicy fruit that he wants to savor himself. This is in no way to say that he's not such a bad guy after all. He is, but he is more simply pragmatic and greedy than he is debauched or threatening to moral order or integrity.

To end, here are a few other masala delights. The wardrobe crew of Charas was relatively restrained, but that doesn't mean the clothes are boring. No no no. There is a ton of plaid in this movie, mostly on Ajit's jackets, but Dharmendra has some too, including a head-to-toe plaid suit paired with Pucci-esque tie. Amjad Khan (as one of Ajit's gang) always appears in a ruffled tuxedo shirt and a giant plastic-y scar on the right side of his face. Often he wears a black jacket and tie, but for picking up a supply of drugs at the airport he chooses to wear a white jacket, red tie, and brown fedora. You know, keeping things low-key and inconspicuous. Asrani goes undercover as a hippie with lots of patches on his jacket and jeans; my favorite says ALL INDIA DRINKING TEAM. And Madhumati and Aruna get some nice dancing girl outfits; nothing too crazy, but how about this gold spangle-fronted top? Classy!

Ajit just barely slips through Dharmendra's grasp in a car chase, relying on a helicopter for his escape. The car is full of loot, so he can't leave it behind and climb up to the helicopter on a rope; instead, the helicopter tosses down a net, he drives over it, and the car and driver are lifted into the sky.

Dharmendra is most seriously displeased.

There are a ton of "that guy"s rounding out the police force and smuggling crew. Does anyone know who this is?

And some villain lair staples like a map room, that taxidermied tiger that is in every movie between 1966 and 1984, and a henchman in a polka-dot hat.

Phew! There's so much more I could say about Charas—how it tidily opens and closes with destructive fires, how its action covers three continents, how nice it is to see Asrani with a role that is not simply comic or whiny—but your time is better spent just watching it for yourself. I love this movie in all its mid-70s streamlined masala glory!

in conversation with Minikhan: Mothra vs. Godzilla

When members of the Mysterious Order of the Skeleton Suit decided to play Secret Santas, I knew I would be in for a treat. Last week I opened my mysterious package to find Mothra vs. Godzilla (trailer here)—a film I knew only by reputation, and what a reputation!—courtesy of Monster Island Resort. A perfect emissary, I think, given that it features two monsters (or four, depending on if you count species or individuals), a very important island, and a sub-plot about a theme park.

Minikhan: People know that we know this isn't an Indian movie, right?
Beth: I hope so. I think they even know that we watch non-Indian things fairly often, though mostly of the tv variety, and we generally don't write about them here.
Minikhan: I haven't seen a lot of films from the non-subcontinent parts of Asia.
Beth: Nor have I. My dad may have taken me to re-runs of monster movies at Saturday matinees when I was young—this is the same man who took me to Monty Python and the Holy Grail when I was only eight—but I don't remember. The only Japanese movies I do remember with certainty are Funky Forest and Big Man Japan...which means that Mothra vs. Godzilla felt incredibly comprehensible. 
Minikhan: It's pretty linear, isn't it? An unusual but nature-based event occurs. Humans respond foolishly. Monsters representing nature's innate goodness and humankind's technological hubris show up and fight it out. Humans are saved by the nature/mother figure. The circle of life continues.

Beth: Not that I'm confident I thoroughly understood all of the film's messages, but my only lingering question is what to make of Godzilla himself. Bollywood-brain makes me think everyone is either heroic or evil. And I realized after reading about the film in WTF-Film [linked below], the story has at least one moment of showing a different interpretation of Godzilla's actions: on one of his rampages, he kills the most idiotic and amoral of the humans, making him a sort of judge figure
Minikhan: Should we assume Godzilla did that on purpose? He didn't seem to be seeking them out specifically.
Beth: I think for Godzilla it was a coincidence, but for the audience it's a nice bit of irony. It's fun to imagine Godzilla sighing "You morons. How many times am I going to have to reappear before you figure it out?"
Minikhan: Fellow MOSS agent The Horror said of Godzilla: "He suddenly appears, either awoken or created by an H-bomb. Tends to be rather grumpy in this part of his career." But that doesn't answer what his most fundamental nature is. Would he have been out to destroy human civilization if he hadn't been nuked?  
Beth: That's what I wonder. If he was just an innocent creature going about his business and we somehow turned him into a villain, I would feel really bad for him. 
Minikhan: But if his base instinct is to kill humans, it's okay to try to electrocute him in a giant net?
Beth: Well, no, but at least it makes some sort of pragmatic sense. A simple battle for survival is less ethically murky. Cruelly fighting something that we forced to be our enemy is more painful.
Minikhan: Godzilla has such a sad, desolate cry. It was hard not to feel for him. 
Beth! He does! Watching him try to free his tail from that giant metal tower was so heart-wrenching!
Minikhan: There was something dog-like in some of those movements. Dog slash dinosaur slash elephant slash AT-AT Walker. 

Beth: The contrast between the two creatures was so well done. Godzilla is dark, scaly, and heavy, while Mothra is fuzzy, colorful, and light; Godzilla just stomps around and roars, while Mothra actually thinks and has a sense of morals. But both are clearly so powerful. They make a great adversarial pair.
Minikhan: It's like Arjun Rampal and non-miniKhan all over again.
Beth: I assume Arjun is Godzilla in this scenario?
Minikhan: Mothra would make a good Bollywood mother: self-sacrificing for her children and the larger good.

Beth: What did you think of the musical numbers? I wasn't expecting those at all and was very pleasantly surprised by them.
Minikhan: The fairies from Mothra's island [Emi and Yumi Ito] have gorgeous voices! Clear and rich and the composer gave them some lush alto lines.
Beth: My only music-related complaint is that there should have been more time given to the islanders doing their big chant/prayer thing in their pseudo-Oceanic feathery outfits with the huge stone heads and colored lighting all around while Mothra's egg hatches and the grand, bombastic music plays.
Minikhan: That might be the Bollywood talking.
Beth: As is to be expected. But really, why hire and costume all those extras—and paint them orange!—if you're not going to use them?

Minikhan: It was all really fun.
Beth: And it had dil-squish too.
Minikhan: Do I sense many more hours of colorful puppets and people stomping around in rubber suits in our future?

Here's another review of Mothra vs. Godzilla by fellow MOSS agent WTF-Film. To read about my Secret Santa gift to the almighty Teleport City, the Hindi horror movie music compilation Bollywood Bloodbath, click here.

"unmitigated trash": an opinion piece on 1970s films from Filmfare September 1–15 1978

I can count on one hand the number of points that I agree with in this piece by Tony Mirchandani entitled "The 70s—Cheap Stunts, Loud Music, Stale Stars"—and one of those is that villains often wear "silver, blonde, or even purple wigs." Some of the observations just don't hold up under the privilege of hindsight; for example, we would probably all agree that Amitabh Bachchan has had plenty of staying power, even if we haven't always applauded his deployment of it. Mirchandani's claim that films and audiences are wildly unpredictable is an interesting contrast to what I feel I hear critics of Bollywood (by which I mean people who don't like it or dismiss it, not the film critics) say in despair of "mass entertainers" today.

This piece appeared in the same issue of Filmfare in which I found the article on Vinod Khanna quitting the industry and the kerfuffle over the casting of Kranti (see them here). I have to applaud Filmfare for running a piece with such a crabby humorless lacking in imagination and capacity for joy divergent attitude towards contemporary popular cinema.

The first image shows the whole page; click on the second two to get images big enough to read.

Haatim Tai (1990)

Haatim Tai, which begins with giant glittery letters forming the production house emblem, whooshing stormy winds, and a booming voiceover, hints at certain pleasures from the onset: flying giants,

underwater pastel palaces,

fire-breathing mouth-shaped lair portals, that kind of thing.

With the caveat in place that Temple and I watched this without subtitles, I think it's as likely as not that the plot was selected and developed just to support director Babubhai Mistry's taste for the fantastic and very special special effects as the other way around. 

The basic structure of the story is the attempt by the titular hero (Jeetendra) and his bumbling buddy (Satish Shah) to lift a curse by undertaking a series of seven quests. As far as Temple and I can tell, the curse is the result of an angel/fairy (Sangeeta Bijlani, I think; here she is floating to the right of the chandelier) 

punishing a king (?) (Raza Murad) who tried to rape her (?). Curiously, the angel also seems to have turned herself in in stone/cement/papier maché, and with each successful quest a little bit more of her is restored to normal angelicity [note from Editor Self: that's not a word]. A bit of research indicates this plot is based on a Persian story, which you can read here. 

Perhaps because this is a Babubhai Mistry film, the basic nature of the quests and the details of their description are faaaar more engaging than how they are met. For example, one of them includes a bunch of corpses busting out of their tombs in a cemetery. 

"FINALLY!", you may be thinking, as I was, "A BOLLYWOOD ZOMBIE!" Sadly, it is only in the most technical—and least fun—way. After the dead rise, they gather calmly, dressed in tidy white clothes, and conjure up a picnic. One of them receives only blood and rocks (or some other inedible thing, I couldn't quite see) in his dishes, and he laments his past sins that have led to this horrible afterlife. Haatim Tai, who seems to intuit Allah's direct personal phone number, closes his eyes, stretches out his hands, and prays a solution. This pattern is repeated several times, sometimes in droopy or plaintive song, and I think it's basically safe to say that except in the sequences with the river nymph (some former Miss India or other, possibly Sonu Walia) and super duper baddie (Amrish Puri), you would not miss anything if you decided to check your email or get up for a snack once the setting of the quest is established.

Another problem is the title character himself. Haatim Tai has a bit of half-hearted dishooming but more often dispatches the obstacles by praying or singing earnestly. So religious is he that there's a song featuring imagery from several different traditions, including Noah's ark, the parting of the Red Sea, and what I think must be some kind of Mesopotamian deity, before settling on a Mecca being swarmed by elephants.

(Side note: this song ends with a pair of eyeballs flying out of actual footage of Mecca and landing on a small child who has been accidentally blinded.

Whoever this kid is might take the cake for least convincing temporary blindness in Hindi film history, but I am never one to scoff at magical flying eyeballs. Manmohan Desai taught me well.)

I suppose Jeetendra, who was in his late 40s when this film released, is as good a casting choice as any, but as someone who really enjoys him the 1970s and early 1980s, I have to wonder why anyone would cast him but not let him prance around and be sparkly, especially after clothing him in shiny purple vests and puffy shirts. He comes across as a bit of a preachy wet blanket, so wholesome and noble that his goodness is fawned over by most of the characters he encounters on the quests. Despite his role in the defeat or reform of evil and in several romances (including his own), the emotional impact of this character is basically nil.

Actually, none of the characters in Haatim Tai matters much, but I do wish I were sharper on my late 1980s actors so I could place all the different people who pop up with each of the quests. Amrish Puri as an evil emperor in the final quest is the best of them,

but I also liked Dara Singh as the ruler of a village held in sway by a giant in yet another lair with a mouth for an entrance, which is probably the central motif of this whole movie, if you care to assign such a thing,

and someone who sounded a lot like Rajesh Vivek as another repenting evil-doer.

What Haatim Tai does deliver, however, is many servings of very silly, usually very fun sets, costumes, and effects. Such as a "disco boob tube" (Temple's phrase) and a magical pendant that repels skanks (seen flashing red as its victim blocks her face).

A golden beehive hat big enough to house your cobra.

A vain woman cursed with gorilla arms and jaw (and also a feather duster on her head).

Wiggery.

Dragon gargyles and stunts that re-earn Jeetendra his "jumping jack" nickname.

Lairs. SWEET LIME, THE LAIRS.

A battle between good and evil magicians whose accessories say more about their respective awesomeness than dialogue ever could.

Not one but two human-shaped furry things who walk without bending their knees. They teeter and toddle and sway back and forth, the Weebles of gorilla-suited henchmonsters.

Similarly choreographed evil trees!

Haatim Tai is simultaneously very good and really not good at all, creative yet lazy, generous yet cheap. For every moment that the evil emperor sets a fairy's wings on fire or people tumble down a giant tongue into another room of a lair, there's another that Satish Shah makes stupid jokes or Jeetendra wanders around the set looking sternly pious. For every amazingly glittery low-budget version of "Yamma Yamma" set in Amrish Puri's lair and sounding for all the world like he himself is talk-singing (I wish I could call it rapping),

there's an uninspired love song. It does not really gel, but that does not really matter. I'd love to know if any of the earlier Bollywood takes on the Haatim Tai story are stronger in overall acting and pacing (I've run across references to 1933, 1947, 1956, and 1971 Hindi film versions [the latter also by Babubhai Mistry], plus a 1929 Indian serial and a 1967 Pakistani film, though who knows if the sources are correct). For me, the problems and wonders of Haatim Tai were in fairly even balance overall—but I must also add that if I can have only one uneven but glorious early 1990s fantasy film set in a mysterious -Stan, I'm still taking Ajooba.