Bhaag Milkha Bhaag Review

Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's last two films (Delhi 6 and Rang De Basanti) dealt with similar subtext about collision of western and Indian cultures and their influences on each other. This time, he shifts away from fiction where he played with unrealistic possibilities that could take place in his realistically cultured setting of our country. He unravels history of our country, this time, along with its sports culture back then that brought one talented athlete to fame- Milkha Singh, a national icon.

Mehra discovers this as a canvas for biopic rather than for a sports film. (Shimit Amin did the other way by making an inspiring sports film, Chak De! India, from the biography of Mir Ranjan Negi.) But how much the makers have taken "cinematic liberties" in depicting it and how much is the film true to Milkha Singh's life, we can't be sure as the film ends saying "Inspired from a true life".

Mehra's style of filmmaking is very much inevitable here, especially in his treatment of liberating moments. And that's quite important as it helps audience to relate with the characters... if Rang De Basanti's Aslam and Laxman dies to meet Ashfaq and Bismil in them, then Milkha runs to visualise his childhood on the same race track. And it's not only Mehra's Milkha who is seeing his full arc of life at that moment. We realise it too. And it couldn't have been done better without making us invested in the life of central character for more than 3 hours. That's what Steven Spielberg did with the biopic Schindler's List. 

Given the similar cinematic scale and ambitions, this film would have faltered if it would have been of any length shorter than this. Though with lesser substance on paper, the film overpowers on the whole even if no particular scene has potential to leave a mark, thanks to the consistently thrown in wonderfully shot visuals. Sadly, those visuals are emotionally overcharged here accompanied with depressing background score, as if the director wants us to cry. That works for our home audience, but I'm not sure if it will move international viewers equally.

Not sure why, screenwriters take convenience in writing biopics in a narrative flashback (Paan Singh Tomar, The Legend Of Bhagat Singh). Prasoon Joshi takes the same path. Almost the entire film, before entering into its climax, is as narrated by Milkha's coach Gurudev Singh (outstanding Pawan Malhotra) to a govt. official as reason of why Milkha is reluctant to participate in  Indo-Pakistan Dual Meet, where later he wins the title of 'Flying Sikh'. And this part of the story comes in writer's favour to stage the climax with our beloved India v/s Pakistan tussle where Pakistani player has to be arrogant and demeaning, and that would please us Indians, right? This flashback narrative is interspersed with childhood memories of Milkha, shifting the timelines and adding layers to the character... his equation with his elder sister Isri (ever dependable Divya Dutta), his dark past led by gory partition of the border, his heart-crush with Biro (Sonam Kapoor).

 Joshi, also the lyricist for the very effective soundtrack by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy, makes each song relatable to the  narrative... like when Major Veerapan (Prakash Raj with his character namesake moustache) calls their camp a "havan kund", the boys break into "Havan kund, Maston ka jhund"; when Milkha dances with Indian swimmer Perizaad (beautiful Meesha Shafi) in an elaborately detailed song sequence, it goes like "Tu jo dariya me utare, saara paani gulabi"; and "Sudarshan chakr banake gol" for Milkha's self made 400 metre round track on the sands of Ladakh.

Paan Singh Tomar was also a famous Indian athelete during the same time when Milkha Singh was. And biopics on both these athletes have come up in these  2 years. Their on screen versions were done with enough justice. Irrfan articulated him theatrically; Akhtar delves into more physical labour going against an actor's convenience. Both the films generously show the rise and fall of these sportsmen, their sheer strength and most importantly the sporting scene of our country. Both were boys coming from rural who couldn't fit themselves comfortably into spiked sport shoes. One ran for ice-cream, other ran for milk.

Lootera Review

One character in the film puts up how even in an action sequence in Baazi no one can dare mess up with Dev Anand and his hairstyle. The lead in this film (Ranveer Singh) too, in most of his scenes in the first half, has his hair perfectly kempt, like those artistic detailing depicting zamindar's palace in old Calcutta. We are in the same era when Baazi released, in early '50s. We know we are watching an old world, presented to us with the help of new age technology, with characters as contemporary as those from our times, relating to us with their pop-culture. Within early minutes of this setup, you'll know this can come only from the brightest kid at "Anurag Kashyap School of Filmmaking" who scored an A+ in his last, Udaan (2010).

Pakhi (Sonakshi Sinha)- the female lead- is bound to fall in love with the lootera Varun (Singh) when he moves into her palace winning her zamindar father with his charm. Their togetherness is dealt delicately where spoken words aren't wasted and alone silence is allowed to fill up the intense air between them. In one such beautiful scene where they talk in hushed tone- one softer than the other- near the lake, you realise this is not a usual love affair we see on screen. The director wants us to indulge with them, feel them individually, and love them together. That's why, amidst the entire tensed and terrific backdrop, only their romance finds space in the second half of the film.

The second half- based on O Henry's short The Last Leaf- takes a shift from many things. From a warm Calcutta to snowy Dalhousie, from yellow palette to blue giving the sense of shift from an engaging thriller to an indulgent romance where the terrific and monotonous soundtrack by Amit Trivedi sets the pace of the narrative. We are informed of the time where this part of the film is set in as soon as it begins, unlike the first half where we were given references to assume the period- like a Dev Anand song, end of zamindari system post independence. It's 1954. But what follows is enough to make it timeless.

The writers had an option to take the plot to another level after the mid act. They chose to take their characters there. That's what the second half is about. It's about the struggle between love and life... while one has no love for life; other is all life for love. It's about the much needed closure of whatever happened between the lovers in the first half, or I must say it is the actual film while the first half was just an extended prologue to it. 

It's also about the inconsistent subtleties the director throws in...a dark past told in a single flash when Pakhi switches the bulb on and off just like she did when she was in love is a masterstroke, while the spoonfeeding flashback visuals to explain the well built metaphors could have been avoided. But it's the timelessness quality that makes it like one of those sadiyon purani kahaani (Yes, the lyrical Ankahee track closes the film) that Pakhi's father told her. It was about a king. This one's about a lootera.

Special 26

Neeraj Pandey measured the strength and angst of our fragile society in his terrific debut A Wednesday, where a man, any face from the crowd whose name and religion really didn't matter, mirrored the loopholes of our judiciary system and took the charge of demonstrating instant justice as a vigilante; the man who even hesitated and begged to pardon him for spewing out one expletive in frustration while in an engaging debate on phone with the Police Commissioner of Mumbai. That was an uncompromised, need-of-the-hour cinema by Pandey in 2008.

Stanley Ka Dabba

Here's your surprise!

Director: Amole Gupte

Cast: Partho, Amole Gupte, Divya Dutt

Amole Gupte's directorial debut Stanley Ka Dabba pictures a kid who never brings his dabba (tiffin box) to school, gets attracted to his classmates' tiffins, gets scolded by his "khadoos" Hindi teacher and sometimes just manage to satiate his hunger with tap water. The kid is Stanley. From bruises on face to his incapability of bringing tiffin, he finesses with false reasons for all, cutely wrapped in his juvenile voice. Dressed with unwashed clothes, torn pocket and bag, one really expect a dark story beyond it. No teacher seems bothered to know his social status. Though somewhere on a predictable note, the story telling promises it in a refreshing way.