In the midst of all the chaos and upheavals of my life at the moment, managed to find the time to see a few newer Indian movies (OK, not quite Indian but Hindi movies). As could be expected, these are of the smaller, not so mainstream type: Delhi Belly, Jolly LLB & Mathru Ki Bijlee Ka Hindola, besides Kai Po Che. Let me go over them one by one.
Kai Po Che is obviously the 'star' movie of this group, based on a popular book, easy to follow coming-of-age kind of story. OK in India coming of age seems to be after studies taking up jobs/working. The movie seems poorly scripted, taking a long time to come to the point of any sequence and then launching into sequences that do not go anywhere. The point in a movie with a powerful subject like this one is to integrate the lyrical and the dramatic and the historical into one frame- that's where the script fails. Purely personally, I felt the movie was technically poor- bad camerawork and selection of camera angles led to poor editing decisions. Needed a better script and then better directing.
Delhi Belly is self consciously in the manner of Quentin Tarantino, and that is both its strength and weakness- to combine humour and crime and young people's lives is interesting but the manner of doing it leaves a lot to be desired. I thought the plot became better as the movie went along, but its setting was much too casually done to inspire confidence that all this could happen. The elements are there, but maybe the script was too long or the shot material wasn't powerful enough. Coming from an advertising person, the visuals were surprisingly poor quality. As was the sound, though the background music was good. Overall, a movie of promise rather than delivery. The actors and casting were excellent.
Mathru is Vishal Bharadwaj's movie, I saw it only for Pankaj Kapoor and he did not disappoint. Otherwise the script is very poor, the movie packed with good actors not knowing what to do. Technically gimmicky rather than having an aesthetic. So I finally gave up on watching it!
Jolly LLB is a crazy kind of movie- funny and dramatic, a wonderful hero's journey, excellent casting and acting. Maybe I would change this or that in the shot taking or locations, but otherwise a lovely movie to watch. OK I'm biased- its about my hometown, the lead character shares my family name.
Conclusions, generalisations- no I'll do that separately.
