OTT: Vikram-Dhruv hi-octane action, relationship deep dive & films on love
Well-known Kollywood director Karthik Subbaraj has his heart in the right place. He wants to make a film with a message, and his love for the cinematic craft beams through in his films. They are full of style, he doesn’t pull his punches when it comes to the cinematography, his framing and lighting always enhance the moods he wants to convey and he seems passionate about the music segment as well. He pours all his energies into these areas that he quite forgets about the screenplay. At least, this is what we saw in Dhanush’s Jagame Thandiram and it is no different in his latest gangster film, Mahaan as well.
The story revolves around the son of a Gandhian, Gandhi Mahaan (Vikram), a school teacher, who is leading a staid, dull life in an even boring neighbourhood with his strict disciplinarian wife and young son Dada (named after Dadabhai Noaroji, who won’t even look at a film poster of Clint Eastwood’s A Fistful of Dollars. Subbaraj doffs his hat at his celluloid heroes in his trademark style). When he turns 40, the poor sod wants to live it up for just one night and visits a bar and gambles. His shocked wife learns about it and takes her son and leaves him for good.
Gandhi decides to become a baddie since he’s anyway cast out of his home for his one-night binge. He teams up with his childhood friend Sathyavan (Bobby Simha) in his liquor business and with his mathematical brain grows the business into an empire. Gandhi moves into a large house, brings a beggar who had opened his eyes about how life starts at 40 and installs him in his house. Along the way, Gandhi discovers he has plenty of brawn too and has the power to bash people to pulp with a nasty looking hammer. Sathyavan meanwhile becomes a Jesus devotee and prays fervently in churches. At this point, you want Vikram’s son Dhruv to walk in and liven up the scene.
Boy, when Dhruv arrives along with a rap number, Mahaan is supposed to get electrifying. No doubt the scenes between the two sparkle with chemistry but they are let down by lame dialogues. Besides begging his son, who is heading a crack police team, to let them go, Vikram’s character Gandhi mostly looks mystified by his son’s inner demons. (Also, how can Gandhi go around bumping off police officers without getting arrested?)
There are lot of symbolic references to a goddess with multiple hands who will probably cleanse the earth of liquor-bingeing husbands who go astray. Incidentally, Subbaraj is also trying to convey a message here about the futility of holding on to beliefs and ideals in a fanatic manner even if you are following clean Gandhian values. What is the point of fighting and killing people in the name of some belief? Considering the dark times we live in, Subbaraj has a good premise he is working on. If only, he had worked on his plot and got around to conveying this noble thought in a shorter time frame.
Though Vikram and Simha look tired in some scenes, they carry off their roles with ease, as do Sananth, Simha and Vetta Muthu Kumar as the sleazy politician. Dhruv comes across as a neat actor, who in time will probably be honed to become a good action hero. The film has been shot by Shreyaas Krishna, who was the cinematographer for Jagame Thandhiram as well, and the music is by Santhosh Narayanan. Mahaan is currently streaming on Amazon Prime Video and is called Maha Purusha in Kannada.
Also read: Padukone feels its “stupid” to get Ranveer’s consent for intimate scenes in Gehraiyaan
Relationships are complex, really?
Love is a complex emotion according to Shakun Batra, who had earlier made extremely entertaining films like Jaanu Tu Ya Jaane Na, Kapoor& Sons and the documentary, Searching for Sheela. And, this is what he is trying to explore in his latest offering, Gehraiyaan, streaming on Amazon Prime from February 11. This Bollywood film has already attracted a lot of attention because of the cozy sexy scenes between Deepika Padukone and her co-star Siddhant Chaturvedi. Padukone, who made her debut in Bollywood 15 years ago with a bubble-gum popping in her mouth in Shah Rukh Khan’s Om Shanti Om, seems to have come a long way. Besides doing commercial movies like Cocktail and Yeh Jawaani hai Deewani Padukone wanted to push the envelope and work for meaningful cinema.
Her 2004 Finding Fanny, directed by Homi Adjania, which was an offbeat film seemed to be an attempt in that direction. And, it paid off as Padukone came across as an actor who can do more than look good on screen. The film is about five Goans, who go on a road trip looking for the lost love of Ferdie (played to perfection by Naseeruddin Shah). Dimple Kapadia is the buxomy Rosy, while Padukone played the moody young widow Angie; Pankaj Kapoor was the romantic Don Pedro and Arjun Kapoor, the young Savio who is still carrying a torch for Angie. It was a funny, slice-of-life film with a quaint charm of its own. Do check it out on Disney+Hotstar.
Padukone was a natural in the film and later her realistic portrayal of a doting daughter to a cranky Amitabh Bachchan in Piku, opposite the late Irrfan Khan, established her as an actor.
Shakun Bhatra apparently is a Woody Allen fan, so we have to wait and see how clever and insightful he gets exploring a theme like infidelity. But a lot of curiosity has already been whipped up about the romantic scenes, which even required an ‘intimacy director’ (unknown in India) on the film sets. As an aside, the good news coming out of Kerala is that one film production house, which is producing Senna Hegde’s new film 1744 White Alto, has formed an Internal Committee (IC) to deal with complaints of sexual harassment at the workplace. Kudos to the Kerala film industry.
Jeo Baby, the Malayalam film director, who shone a light on patriarchy in The Great Indian Kitchen, has also come up with an anthology, Freedom Fight, streaming on SonyLiv. He has directed one short and is the presenter of the anthology, which also stars actors like Rohini, Rajisha Vijayan, Joju George Srinda, Kabini etc.
Each segment depicts a female protagonist dealing with distinctive problems of her own and trying to break free from the patriarchy ruling their lives. The five-part anthology is directed by Jeo Baby, Akhil Anilkumar, Kunjila Mascillamani, Jithin Issac Thomas, and Francies Louis.
All about love
On the eve of Valentine’s Day, OTT platforms have stepped up on their romantic fare. There are some feel-good, mushy romantic films that you may not have heard of like the Vicky Kaushal and Angira Dhar starrer- Love Per Square Foot. This is an urban love story of two people who buy a house together since they can’t individually afford it. Their friendship blossoms into love though they are romantically tied to other people. You can catch this film on Netflix.
There is also the 2019 UK film, Vita & Virginia, which is available on Netflix again.
This film is based on the real-life love affair between the famous English writer Virginia Woolf and a fellow author Vita Sackville-West in London in the 1920s. Despite both women being married, they embark on a love affair that later inspires one of Virginia’s most acclaimed work, Orlando. The film captures the period very well, and the two actress brilliantly portray the stirred up, disturbed writers living in a bohemian environment. This film will interest literary enthusiasts, as you watch Woolf tussling with her inner demons as she writes passionate, poetic letters to her lover. Films like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Silver Linings Playbook, Notebook, Pretty Woman, Casablanca, the Korean love dramas are all there on OTT for diehard lovers of romantic films.
But for cinephiles, there is a chance now to catch the classic of the Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski’s 1988 A Short Film About Love. Streaming on MUBI on February 14, this film is about a 19-year-old postal worker Tomek, who routinely spies on his older neighbor Magda, a sexually liberated artist who lives in the apartment across the courtyard from his. As their private worlds merge, fascination turns to obsession, and the line between love and curiosity becomes blurred.
