Anuranan

Rating : 7/10
Running Time : 113 Minutes
Release Date : NA
Director & Story : Aniruddha Roy Chowdhury ; Music : Tanmay Bose & Aashis Rego
Starring : Rahul Bose, Rituparna Sengupta, Raima Sen, Rajat Kapoor
I saw this little gem of a Bengali movie yesterday night. Hard to describe, since most of the beauty lies in the dialogue, the relationships and the breathtaking cinematography of the Kanchenjunga mountain range.

Rahul Bose is an architect / project head of a company that transfers him from London to Kolkatta, where he has to execute an eco-tourism project overlooking the Kanchenjunga for a company headed by Rajat Kapoor. Their wives are Rituparna Sengupta and Raima Sen respectively and most of the movie focuses on the inter-relationships between them – more specifically Rahul’s relationship with the two of them.


He is a mischevious, creative, artistic person, prone to making observations on life on his Dictaphone, uneasy at parties or on a dance floor but happy reading / conversing or just watching people / life go by. He makes friends easily and his friendship with Raima reminds her forcefully of what her life has become, stuck in a marriage with a dominating husband obsessed with making money, wishing she can be a bird in her next life. Rituparna is shown to be a sensual, loving, slightly temperamental wife who can’t get over the fact that she can’t have kids.

The ending is slightly jarring. Probably, like the relationship between Akshaye Khanna and Dimple in Dil Chahta Hai, it was the directors way of showing that some relationships are never meant to be understood. I also feel that some more time could’ve been spent on some of the relationships / conversations – which were easily the best part of the film.


The movie is a reminder of the beautiful, lyrical quality of the Bengali language – it was lovely hearing the words roll of the characters tongues. Rahul Bose was very good – I don’t know why but he seems much stiffer in Hindi films, while here he was relaxed, bringing life to most scenes featuring him. Rituparna looks and acts stunningly – very very sensuous and sultry, she is a treat to watch and I can't fathom why is she not appearing in Hindi movies ? Raima’s is very good as well, slightly restrained, as befitting her character but making her emotions come through nonetheless.

Anuranan means resonance and the movie is all about trying to find people with whom you resonate…what a beautiful thought to end the day with….

One Two Three

Rating : 3/10
Running Time : 137 Minutes
Release Date : 28th Mar ‘08
Director & Writer : Ashwini Dheer ; Music : Raghav Sachar
Starring : Suneil Shetty, Paresh Rawal, Tushar Kapoor, Isha Deol, Sameera Reddy

An interesting premise, unnecessarily dumbed down and converted into brainless slapstick in the vain hope of being a ‘mass comedy’.

Three people, all named Lakshmi Narayan, check into the same hotel and receive instructions on what they have to do next. Suneil Shetty, an employee of a car dealer, has to buy a car. Paresh Rawal, a retailer of ladies undergarments, has to see some new designs. And Tushar Kapoor has to kill someone. The three instructions get predictably mixed up and mayhem happens. The director / producer / writer could have now chosen 2 routes
• making a comedy (like Khosla ka Ghosla) which all could have enjoyed
• making a timepass movie by making everything slapstick (like Dhamaal), with generous dollops of crude, sexist humour and brainless fun.

To be fair to them, seeing the commercial success of Golmaal, Welcome and Dhamaal, you can’t argue with the financial part of their reasoning. Suneil, Paresh and Sameera were as good as they could be. The rest were one cacophonic blur…

My kids loved it, there were a lot of people laughing in the audience but I was only weeping at the loss of 1600 bucks and the wasted time…a lot of my family members also felt I was being over-generous with a 3 rating. Guess it takes all sorts to make a world.

Black & White

Rating : 4/10
Running Time : ~120 Minutes
Release Date : 7th Mar ‘08
Director & Writer : Subhash Ghai ; Music : Sukhwinder Singh
Starring : Anil Kapoor, Anurag Sinha, Shefali Shah, Habib Tanvir

There is something about religious fundamentalism which is so alien to my constitution that this movie made me uneasy – it wasn’t pleasant watching. It traces the story of Nuwair, a muslim fundamentalist, raised in Afghanistan, who has come to India to be a suicide bomber at the Independence Day celebrations at Red Fort on 15th August and stays with some sympathizers / ‘relatives’ in Chandini Chowk (area in Delhi, near Red Fort).

One day, in a chance encounter, he meets Professor Mathur, renowned professor of Urdu in a university and a well respected and well connected personality of the area. Due to various reasons, Numair realizes he has to make friends with the professor and needs his help to make his plan successful. What happens, how does his plan fructify and how does his relationship develop with the professor and his firebrand wife, is the focus of most of the movie.

One thing that comes through quite clearly is how lucky we are that most Muslims living in India are not fundamentalists. Numair, shown to be a quiet, intense and very narrow minded in his thinking is quite perturbed to find music, dancing, drinking and even mixing with Hindu’s, quite common amongst his support group. I was lucky to experience this close-hand in Bangladesh as well – to find most Muslims there very chilled out, relaxed unlike the rabid fundamentalists of the Gulf.

I think where the movie really lets itself down though is in its overall amateurnishness. There is a lack of slickness, its jerky, the acting of most of the people is either over the top or very B-grade. And the sets are almost laughable (especially the Afghanistan bits). The dialogue is quite ordinary, again doesn’t flow smoothly with very few exchanges sticking in your memory – there was a real opportunity missed here to have some philosophical exchanges between the professor / his wife and Numair. The songs are good, some quite hummable.

So, a movie which makes you squirm, made me uneasy for most parts. The ending is quite irrational, a bolt from the blue. Something interesting conceptually but it fails to fulfill its true potential. Noble intentions, but there was something amiss in the overall package…