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sitanshi talati-parikh

sitanshi talati-parikh

Tag Archives: movies

A Bad Boy Crumpet: Wentworth Miller

03 Monday Mar 2014

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Art, Literature & Culture, Publication: Verve Magazine

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comment, Hollywood, movies, Verve Magazine

Published: Verve Magazine, February 2014, Features, Romance Diaries
Illustration by Hemant Sapre

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Wentworth Earl Miller III best known as Michael Scofield in the hit American television drama, Prison Break, definitely is good-looking – he made it to People magazine’s 100 most beautiful people in the world. Impressive seeing how he spent much of his screen time bald. We know clean-shaven is sexy, but bald? It’s not that there aren’t sufficient handsome heroes that rock my boat – from Ryan Phillippe, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, Gabriel Macht, Zac Efron to our local boys, Imran Khan and Ayushmann Khurrana.

The thing about Miller is that he’s really unattainable. He sent estrogen on a downward spiral when he finally came out of the closet by declining to attend the St Petersburg Film Festival as he was ‘deeply troubled’ by the Russian government’s treatment of its gay citizens. 2013 saw him return to his writing roots and this private person isn’t afraid admitting to enjoying his time at The Art Institute of Chicago or staying at home playing Scrabble. He attempted suicide as a teenager, and has struggled with his roots coming from a bi-racial background –his parents have 11 ethnic origins between the two of them, including European and African-American.

And yet, his intensity as Michael Scofield, with the penetrating eyes, self-contained emotion and searing intellect all serve up a pretty hot mix. He’s a lean, mean, thinking machine. He’s a good guy trapped in a world that’s vicious; and he’s only trying to find his ‘safe’ place. Never thought I’d want a bald, multi-racial man who’s got major issues and is sure-fire gay…but then with women you just never know, do you? And he’s named after Captain Wentworth…from Jane Austen’s Persuasion.

Decaffienated Koffee With Karan

22 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Musings

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Bollywood, Karan Johar, kareenakapoor, Koffee With Karan, movies, priyankachopra, Ranbir Kapoor

After a long hiatus, Johar is back with season 3 of KWK, and despite being much awaited, it fails to satisfy. It is disappointing, just like his movies: dramatic without meat, one-sided and microcosmic. Where you look for incisive questions, probing analysis and incurable wit, you realize that the show now balances on Johar’s relationship with his guests – so he treads on eggshells, pleases them, praises them and it becomes a mutual back-scratching hour. The questions are boring, dull and jaded – do we really care how some actors rate other actors? Do we want to know about only 5 actors – the Khans and Akshay Kumar? With only the bitchiness or sharp wit, straight-faced untruths and simpering (respectively) of Kareena, Saif, Ranbir and Priyanka provide some entertainment or relief, the show falls completely flat for the same reasons his movies fail to excite: they remain relevant to an older time, they assume only 5 people of either sex exist in the industry or Karan’s world, the format hasn’t got updated with anything but blatant in-show marketing of advertisers and sponsors. Tsk, I’d rather watch KBC or Masterchef than my old favourite KWK. Koffee makes me yawn.

Mindless in the Desert: SATC-2 is actually just a spoof of itself!

15 Tuesday Jun 2010

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Musings

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Hollywood, movies, Reviews, Sex And The City, Thoughts

How is it possible that Hollywood cannot see how stupid it makes Americans look when it creates movies like Sex and the City-2? I mean you start out with four relatively intelligent, well-read and well-travelled (we hope) women: a writer, a lawyer, a PR person and an art curator. How can these women who’ve spent years in their respective professions behave like such complete imbeciles? Well actually, Miranda and Charlotte do behave themselves, but the queen bees of the foursome, Carrie and Samantha act like absolute idiots.

I get that Samantha is Samantha – deliciously irreverent when it comes to sex and society. But I also get that while she flirts outrageously, and takes home a lot of goody bags, she generally doesn’t act like a moron in her home city. It seems that lack of hormones and hot flashes makes her go a little insane. She flagrantly flaunts social codes (which are a religious and legal issue in the middle east), while being the business guest of the sheikh who has kindly flown her friends and her first class in complete luxury to his home country, so that she can think about representing him in a PR capacity. It appears that Samantha could do with some PR of her own – and some re-training in the way to behave in public; not like a hormonal teenager on heat. And you can argue that that’s just Samantha – but is it? Did she become a top PR executive by showing hordes of conservative men her middle finger, breasts and her latest lay’s boner? I’m not really sure. It just seems that she’s finally becoming senile. Where even her Samantha-ness is no longer acceptable.

Do Americans really know so little of other cultures and behave this silly when they travel? What they do in New York is not really acceptable in Abu Dhabi! And flaunting social norms is not funny, it’s just stupid. Why does Hollywood not understand that when they make movies like this, they are not ridiculing the closed cultures of the world while heralding the joys of the librated ones, they are only proving that Americans can be really socially inept, culturally dumb and truly lacking in common sense, basic decency and courtesy and in any amount of general knowledge? And Americans are not really like this – the ones I’ve met are genuinely interested in other cultures and politely respectful of them. So who are these Americans that Michael Patrick King is idolising on big screen? What happened to the girls who regaled us with their smart repartees, chic appearance and layered conversations? The girls who may have used the metaphor of sex, but were making important observations about society, life, men and people. These are not the women we see now – the women now are haggard, bitchy, unable to learn from their lives’ many lessons and choose to regularly regress to inept teenage-world.

Miranda and Charlotte’s troubles are actually real and funny – they deserved more room to mature and grow, but instead the story got sucked into the vortex of Carrie’s stupidity and Samantha’s ridiculous faux pas. Carrie is just being plain ridiculous – she is tired of the relationship in its current form, she takes time off from their house, but when Big tries to intervene and asks for some time off too, she freaks out and goes and makes out with an ex-boyfriend. I mean really? Do these girls never grow up? What Carrie did when she was 20 and 30 is not really still acceptable at 45+! Does she never learn from her mistakes? Or is the writer so unimaginative that he can’t move or think beyond the usual troubles of the 4 girls? Where is the Carrie who only believed in the love of her life, and went through men trying to find happiness but unable to do so, because she truly loved another? Her affair with Big (when she was dating Aidan) was allowed, because he was the man she loved. Why would she cheat on the man she loves with Aidan? Just because he was too tired to go out to party with her after a long day at work and bought her a plasma TV instead of jewellery? Is she really that shallow?

And the clothes! The styling! What an eyesore! What the show had been known for, renowned for, were the supremely stylish clothes and looks. What have they done here? They’ve taken the brightest, gaudiest fabrics possible, stuck on extremely shiny, often pointy things, added the most garish of accessories that made them look like Christmas trees at best, and called them clothes. I can possibly accept that 4 of the 750 clothes actually looked reasonable, and the only good thing to come out of this is that Miranda got a makeover. The plain Jane of the series and the tubby-mommy of the first movie looked the best of the lot here. Carrie should have thought about mummifying her look from the series and staying cryogenically frozen. She has not aged well, and well, botox doesn’t work for everyone.

The movie would have truly worked as a spoof of the show and the series – outlandish clothes, haggard-looking women, absolutely no story, weak dialogues, stupid characters, social faux pas galore, trivialisation of social rules and a caricature of American intelligence (or the lack of).

I thought the first movie did injustice to the supremely brilliant shows, but in retrospect that movie was Oscar-material compared to this hunk of junk that fans of the show were forced to sit through for 146 minutes! Maybe King needs to think about handing the writing over to Darren Star – who put together 94 episodes of the show that won 8 golden globes. This movie, I’d be happy if it won a Razzie. Two funny lines and four decent outfits do not a movie make. I may just have to burn the box set of the Sex and the City after the incredibly bad taste this movie left in my mind and soul, ruining the iconic characters forever. I hope King gets the message and lets everything and everybody rest in peace, without a third piece of torture barraging our mind and the cities.

Abhay Deol: An Uncommon Man

19 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Interviews (All), Interviews: Cinema, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Abhay Deol, Aisha, Bollywood, devd, indiancinema, Interview, movies, vervemagazine

Published: Verve Magazine, March 2010
Photographs: Harsh Man Rai and Tina Dehal

You may choose to like or dislike his choices, but you can’t ignore him. A string (think ten) of unusual movies later, Abhay Deol, who turns 34 this month, has found sure footing in Hindi cinema with unexpected acceptance from the audience and grudging respect from the industry. He inspires deeply opposing reactions, but that doesn’t bother him in the least. Sitanshi Talati-Parikh discovers the man behind the actor

Abhay02

I had a premonition about that Saturday, but I didn’t anticipate that meeting the hottest Deol in town would involve a star-crossed sequence of errors. Lost in Aram Nagar Colony, in the innards of distant Versova, trying to navigate around bungalows that had no order or system, unable to get the girl answering the phone to give me usable directions, I reached harried – unforgivably – three minutes late, only to find him busy in a conference with director Navdeep Singh for his first home production, Basra.

 

Apparently, while trying to get his own production house rolling, he’d forgotten about our interview. Looking rather bemused, he started talking rapidly…for nine minutes, and then requested a five-minute time-out while he finished some critical Basra-related work. Meanwhile, I tapped my nails on the wooden table, back firmly facing the curious eyes in the production house, checking out posters of Dharmendra’s films that populated the walls and watched the minutes become the better part of an hour confirming that I would miss my friend’s wedding in the bargain. After being at the receiving end of a couple of sardonic comments about time and responding with rather genuine profuse apologies (yes, I believe him), he emerged to give me a full, uninterrupted 40 minutes of quality time. Am I surprised that at the end of it all it was a great interview?

 

Of course, the dark clouds that loomed hadn’t begun to pour yet. I got back home only to discover to my intense horror that only the first nine minutes had saved on my voice recorder – all else had, by some inexplicable black magic, vanished. The curious dead cat had got my tongue and made me roast in hell. Munching vigorously on humble pie, I returned to the now-familiar Aram Nagar Colony a few tense days later on another professional rendezvous with the refreshingly easy-going actor-turned-producer. This time around, he didn’t keep me waiting and my recorder behaved itself. We ate some bitter chocolate to thaw the ice in the air.

 

Curiosity killed the proverbial cat and made Abhay Deol famous. It took a while, but now everyone wants a piece of this man who doesn’t fail to arouse interest. He’s not a misfit in the sense that he’s an abnormality; au contraire, when you meet him, he’s pleasantly normal. It’s his choices that have made for fevered coffee-table speculation, and the fact that you always wonder what new oddity this unconventional Deol will roll out. He’s been called that so many times, it’s almost a cliché. Maybe that’s why the lanky actor, who always prefers to keep a surprise up his rather hairy arm, has chosen to do a movie that seems so incredibly mainstream. The upcoming Aisha, loosely based on Jane Austen’s Emma, co-starring Sonam Kapoor and produced by Anil Kapoor, is worth watching, if only to understand why someone like Deol would star in it. A perfectly normal romance, there is no angst, no odd-ball character, no debauchery; nothing really that makes it something he would ideally gravitate towards.

 

It makes you suspicious, wondering if all along, these strange choices – a superhuman character in Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd (2007), a lovable thief in Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye (2008), a contemporary Devdas in Dev.D (2009), a failed writer and middle-class government engineer caught in a web of deceit in noir film Manorama Six Feet Under (2007) – were all an act, until he found a director and producer willing to cast him into the ‘safe’ and common mould. Deol looks unabashed, as if you would be ridiculous to question his choices, firmly crediting script over banner, any day. His other release this year, Dev Benegal’s Road, Movie (an Indo-American production which has already got rave reviews on the international circuit) about the experiences of a guy driving his truck through a desert, makes this statement a fact. Deol happens to be a part of Road, Movie merely because Benegal was willing to wait to accommodate the former’s busy schedule – it is a twist in the actor’s fateful tale. Now, where Deol goes, the banners and author-backed roles follow.

 

Dharmendra’s nephew has had to live with being told, rather matter-of-factly, that his movies don’t stand a chance. But patience, grim determination and a slow pace of success later, when people started to (albeit grudgingly) accept him as a bankable star and the industry began looking up to him as a leader in experimentation, you find that Deol can’t help but be a little smug. Success breeds confidence, and he admits that being on the other side of the bargaining table, seeing the way the chips have fallen has given him the right to be self-assured – to talk with the knowledge that people are itching to hear him (he was a speaker at the prestigious TEDIndia – Technology, Entertainment, Design – international conference last year); and to walk with a sense of renewed purpose. And a part of that purpose is being a catalyst for change. “You need to take the few early steps – paving the road for others to drive upon. And more importantly, I have to do things that appeal to me as an artiste/ actor, that’s where the honesty will come from. The audience will follow – after all, people always gravitate towards those who are sure of themselves, and those who do things with integrity.”

 

While he may claim an avid fan following, there are those who have not seen his films, and therefore have not really come to recognise him as an actor of repute. Road, Movie, for instance, is a film that he admits can go either way with the audience. “It is a step in an unexplored direction and I don’t know how people will react – the foreign audiences have really appreciated it, but will it be a film that appeals universally? I don’t know. With a good release, though, it stands a chance.” At the same time, he is not comfortable with the idea that his films – and therefore he – may appeal to a niche, intellectual audience. “I have never looked upon an audience – particularly the Indian audience – as being dumb or looking for escapism. I consider my audience to be smarter than I am. If I didn’t, I would be taking my audience for granted. Whether realistic or not, it keeps me on my toes, and raises the bar for me personally.”

 

Talking about being realistic, you can’t see this Deol raging on screen, warding off goons and doing a merry jig around trees (though Honeymoon… proved that the boy has magic in his tangoing feet). Subtlety, not melodrama is his artistic choice. Where at one time, cousin Sunny Deol’s angry histrionics may have held the day, today, the multiplex audience is more forgiving towards actors who believe in the power of nuanced performances. In real life Abhay Deol is a casual and prolific talker, but his on-screen characters tend to emote with expressions rather than voice: minor inflections are expressively reflected on camera. “I prefer to use facial expressions when I am acting. There are actors who will want more dialogues simply so that they can have longer screen time. I tend to cut my own dialogues – if something can be said in one line, why do you need five? Our face and expressions are magnified on the big screen, so less is always more.”

 

‘Beta engineer banega’ is what most Indian parents would think and that’s exactly what Deol’s parents hoped for. Growing up in the same house as legendary star Dharmendra and his sons Sunny and Bobby Deol, the younger Deol came into his own on stage in Jamnabai Narsee School, as early as age five, but remained ambivalent about his future as an actor. “My family wanted me to do whatever I wanted and give it my 100 per cent, though they would have liked it if I became a doctor or a scientist. Growing up in the ’80s, it was like that. The kids in school would make fun of me, because I came from a family of actors. When people around me proclaimed, ‘He’ll be a good actor,’ I would find it deeply offensive, thinking, ‘How do you know that; how do you know I may not have other interests?’ I hid the fact that I wanted to act. I used to be good at drawing…I thought I would take up graphic design.” It seems that for longer than should be necessary, Deol has been fighting being moulded according to people’s expectations, even if those expectations were a part of his own dream.

 

What the kid that refused to conform actually did was study theatre in Los Angeles, USA, and contrary to expectations, it wasn’t an easy road into movies. “Initially, I wanted to work with everybody, to do that commercial film so that I would get the money to do a non-commercial film. I hate those labels – ‘commercial’, ‘non-commercial’. But it conveys the message. Nobody wanted to take a chance on me because I was a flop actor. And, before Socha Na Tha (2005, Deol’s debut film directed by Imtiaz Ali), there was no interest in me either.” Despite dogged determination and a good show of bravado, Deol’s chosen path came with its own share of insecurities. “You want to navigate the system, you need support. You don’t want to end up as someone on the periphery. I decided then that whether hit or miss, I would let my work and its consistency speak for itself. You can only be insecure if you have something to hide or if you doubt yourself. I’m pretty truthful and honest, so my insecurities kept going out of the door. Those that remained were about my career as a whole, because it is a bigger entity.”

 

Forbidden Films (it’s hard to miss the defiant air in the choice of name) is a production house that he started after the painful realisation that many of his films failed because of bad marketing. “There has been a struggle working with first-time producers and smaller film-makers – it’s difficult because even while making the film, money runs out. And when it comes to releasing the film, there’s no money left for marketing. Then, the producer lacks the clout to distribute it well. That works against a good product and it kept happening to me. For instance, Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye and Dev.D, backed by UTV, fared better than Shemaroo which didn’t manage to successfully market Manorama Six Feet Under. These are lessons I have learnt.” He believes that none of the Indian film producers – whatever they may claim – really know how to market a film internationally. And therein lies a huge untapped audience. “Starting my own production house was merely to give films, directors and stories that I believe in a chance to survive. I don’t plan to star in all the films I produce – but I am acting in the first one, Basra. Production is a lot of work, and being new to it, it’s a learning process.” And this coming after shooting three films back-to-back (Oye Lucky…, Dev.D, Road, Movie), which got this avid traveller (who prefers luxurious European jaunts to backpacking trips) so burnt out that he had to take a few therapeutic months off to do a welding and metal-work course in New York.

 

He has chosen wisely to not be bothered by what others think or how they define him, particularly by the recent incident reported about him being at loggerheads with the Aisha producers on being dissatisfied with his role. “Almost everything that is reported is a?rumour or not true, though I’m not saying everything is false. I’m private about my life…and there are times when I say what comes to my mind, in a particularly casual fashion, which gives my words the leeway to be twisted.” With a sheepish grin he remarks, “And sarcasm doesn’t work really well with the media.” Like others before him, Deol has fallen prey to people’s opinions based on the quirky characters he has played, his oddball choices and industry buzz. “I do feel that I am misunderstood as a person. There are things I have heard about myself…it all comes back to you. People think that the stars don’t know, but they know about these rumours. You are in the public eye, working with different people, a lot of times you could be the one being difficult and it’s there for all to see, and other times you could be justified in what you say, but people will still feel that you are being difficult, because of all that’s perceived of you and because you are in such a position of power.”

 

Or the times when there are determined probes into this highly eligible bachelor’s love life. With no real face to attach to the girl(s) on his arm, Deol inconveniently finds himself linked up to anybody he works with or has been seen talking to. Professional hazard it may be, but he’s often in the incongruous state of being too honest and too private all at once. “Once while in New York, I made the mistake of saying, ‘I’m dating a few girls, it’s not like I don’t have a social life,’ and that got blown totally out of context! In New York it is natural to date casually; while in India I naturally tend to get more protective, I don’t want to have to answer to anybody…questions like: ‘How did you meet, how’s it going, are you serious, are you getting married?’ I mean, who are you to ask me that? Why should I answer? And tomorrow if the two of us are not together, they will write about what might have gone wrong. Sometimes your personal life takes a beating when your professional life starts to go down; then they judge you, and judge your partner for leaving you.”

 

And so the ‘ladies’ man’ tag has found itself surely attached to his broad shoulders. His voice escalates in volume just enough to suggest that this is a touchy topic (no pun intended). “If you call me a ladies’ man, then, on one level yes, there’s nothing wrong with flirting. I like the opposite sex, I always go out of my way to charm someone and talk to someone; but at the same time, I’m not one to sleep around! I’m not looking to settle down right now, but I’m also not someone who will sleep with anything in a skirt! For me, more than a relationship, companionship is very important. In our day and age, it is much harder to be in a committed relationship for very long.” Experience talks, having battled work pressures simultaneously with relationships, leading him to conclude that it’s one or the other at this stage in his life. “Right now, I’ve barely got my foot in the door – I’m not even settled in right now. So I’ve had two successes behind me, big deal! Two more flops and I will be in the same position I was in two years ago. It’s not like I have cemented myself in this industry – that won’t happen for a very long time – but at least for the next couple of years I need to put in the energy and get close to having, if not my toe, then perhaps, half my body in the door. Then I’ll be happy and take a break. I understand that it is important for me to have a life outside of work….”

 

He may be playing the field, but he isn’t riding the high horse of fame to charm a girl. Meeting him, you understand he doesn’t need to. He’s not anything like the dark heroes he plays; he’s not the Dev folly. “I am a positive person, happy in my personal life, and I’m not very competitive. I tend to gravitate towards those girls that don’t give me any extra attention just because I’m famous. For example, there was one who wasn’t very polite to me because she assumed that I would have star-like airs, but over the course of a few meetings, she opened up to me, when she realised that I’m just a normal guy. And immediately, I was attracted to her because she valued the right things. Of course, there is a lot of attention because you are famous….”

 

One would imagine that living with a handful of movie-star Deols would have got him used to fame. “It’s true, I’ve grown up with that and I’m wise to it. I think that’s why I did my own thing when I started out. The fame bit is important to me simply because it helps me get the money to make the movies I want to make. Beyond that, it doesn’t define who I am. And I won’t ever let that happen. It’s not about getting the launch or a platform or a silver spoon up your butt or whatever; it’s really not being taken in by fame and glamour, because once you get taken in, it comes and it goes, it is not permanent. The only thing permanent that you have is the work you have left behind.”

 

Maybe we are quick to judge people who are not of the common grain. Someone who has chosen – more accurately written – his own path, who one would imagine to be opinionated and as stubborn as a mule, is actually quite reasonable about his opinions. “One of my philosophies is that I know that I don’t know. I’m entitled to my opinions, but am not rigid about them to the extent that you can’t convince me otherwise. You have to accept that you can make mistakes; sometimes you can become so subjective that the objectivity is gone. I need someone to turn around and give me a slap across my face! I respect that, as long as it is justified.”

 

And being open to other people’s opinions is having respect for individuality. This gets him steaming. “We are constantly told, don’t do this, do that instead. It is crazy. I totally believe if you have faith in your artist, if he/she has already delivered, give them a chance. The one thing we lack in our industry is individuality. Which is why all the films, actors, actresses look the same! Because they are all aiming for the same thing – who can dance better, who can fight better. That is why we have more flops than hits. It still baffles me how people see formula and depend so much on it. There is a formula, for sure there is. But the ones who break tradition, get famous.”

 

He finally leans back – barely having paused for a breath – and you feel like you have travelled the long, rough road to the beginning of success with him. Only you haven’t. “I’m happy, but just because you are happy doesn’t mean you stop. You can be greedy and want more.” There is a deep throaty chuckle, Kevin Spacey-like dimples flashing, reminding you that despite having reason to, he doesn’t smile enough. “I want to go the distance in making a movie that has universal appeal. I want to communicate to the world, not just to India and Indians. It’s not just about boy meets girl, it’s not just about comedy; there’s also global warming, genocide, political assassinations, social workers, adoption….”

 

It’s also about microcosms that have macrocosmic appeal. “While I’m a Mumbai kid, I understand village mentality because my family is essentially from the Pind, in Punjab. I’ve been brought up with a certain set of traditional values and culture, and I want to have my own take on Indian culture. There’s a huge gap…and film is the medium you can bridge it with!” Lucky Singh (Oye Lucky…) and Dev (Dev.D) were two such curious characters rooted in North India, with a nation-wide appeal. “With Dev.D I knew I could take a classic novel, which even my grandfather knows, contemporise it, and have it appeal to a 16-year-old today. It’s the same thing that Sarat Chandra Chatterjee was trying to say in 1917, that kids today are trying to tell their parents. Why are they rebelling? Why are they obsessing? While Chatterjee didn’t like his own work, and I cannot identify with Devdas, it does have universal appeal.”

 

With the same angst of a person struggling to find his rightful place in the world and triumphing in the end, he is more like Satyaveer Randhawa in Manorama… than any of the characters he’s played. Yet, he gravitates towards all his roles, albeit unconsciously, because they share a common strain – a debauched spirit that masks a principled person. The principles can shift from determination to fixation with a thought, the debauchery can be rakishness or trivialisation of a socially accepted moral code – but they entwine into the personality of a person who simply goes with what he believes is right.

 

This is what makes his characters likeable despite their flaws, and this is what makes Deol interesting. Lucky Singh’s sincere eyes belie his actions, the deeply dimpled smile is innocently impish – and you feel that there is a possibility of redemption – in fact it should be no other way. Taller than you’d imagine at six-feet-and-one-inch, and skinnier than you’d expect, clad in pale blue denim and a casual tee, the Darcy-like personality leaves you with the same impression. “Is he as hot in real life?” asks a friend. He may not be your average candyfloss poster boy, but you would be foolish to ignore him. Self-assured, flippant and with an unintentional air of cavalier disarray, the actor is a ‘project’ – someone a girl would automatically get attracted towards, to ‘fix’. And that is just dangerous territory, because as defined by his sometimes wayward, often laid-back attitude, Deol is essentially a free spirit. Dressed (defiantly?) casual at a glittering fashion soirée, he is equally at ease being his own companion, as he is exchanging pleasantries with the best looking girl there. He can be perfectly charming, should he choose to do so and that would be within the constraints of what he defines to be a laid-back friendship or relationship. He would revolt against shackles of any kind, expectations, demands and a desire to be moulded into someone who conforms. And yet, he believes, “commitment-phobic” is not the appropriate term for him. “It’s just that I am not at that place right now,” he explains earnestly. This Deol isn’t misunderstood; he’s just waiting to be understood. At the right time and place in his life.

 

Baz Luhrmann: Amplifying Emotion

19 Friday Mar 2010

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Interviews (All), Interviews: Cinema, Publication: Verve Magazine

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Australia, Baz Luhrmann, Hollywood, India, Interview, movies, vervemagazine

Published: Verve Magazine, International Edge, March 2010
Photographs: Aparna Jayakumar

Award-winning Australian director of films Moulin Rouge!, Romeo + Juliet and Australia, Baz Luhrmann arrived in India expecting a “creative adventure”. In the midst of dipping his fingers into paint, warding off curious eyes, responding to over-enthusiastic banter and driving a bike through Rajasthan taking photos, Sitanshi Talati-Parikh gets an insight into his artistic mantra

 

Edge01

 

An elderly Indian gentleman (probably inebriated) asks Baz Luhrmann at a recent art soirée, about the size of his pants. Luhrmann replies politely and retreats to probably punch the wall or take a deep breath. He has, in the correct manner of famous people especially of international origin, been generously accosted. His voice is scratchy from replying to the same – or inane – questions, his face is showing more lines than it should from smiling politely to profusely talking strangers, and he is undeniably tired. It is not surprising then, that he chooses a late start, armed with coffee, the morning of our meeting. “Not all of it is joy,” the veteran director admits, “Some of it is overwhelming. But something keeps telling me to ‘surrender’ and be in the moment.” An agreeable disposition and genial self-deprecating humour on his surprisingly slight frame make him a very real person who likes making larger-than-life movies that tend to hit the spot.

It is a creative visionary’s brush that picks up on the nuances of life, emotions and true-to-life characters with a flourish to create the ‘big’ film – full of flavour, drama, vibrant colours and melody – whether it is the garish realism of Romeo + Juliet (1996), the Parisian kitsch of Moulin Rouge! (2001), or the ochre-hued drama of Australia (2008). “It is amplification. You take realistic human emotions, realities or problems but you use an expressionistic canvas.” And this is what led to what is popularly known as Luhrmann’s Red Curtain Trilogy (Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge!) – the concept of an “overtly theatrical musical work”.

 

Australia announced a departure from Sydney-born Luhrmann’s previous musical format and moved towards a more sweeping epic form. “There is no way that Australia is of the then-current naturalistic vernacular. It is heightened, much like Gone With The Wind is heightened. Instead of music, I tried using landscape to amplify emotion. It is operatic in that sense. Naturalism is like looking through a keyhole and you are apparently looking at reality; but this form is where words fail us – sometimes we just can’t express in words what it is like to truly be exalted or truly be in love or truly lose your child over a cliff.” Instantly, in the mind’s eye appears the stunning visual of the herd of cattle racing towards the brink of a cliff pounding a dust storm. “What may seem to us to be a small event, to a person in the village, it is operatic at that point of time. ‘You-can’t-marry-that-boy-moment’ internally feels like Tosca. As an artist you want to use devices to help the audience empathise. And that doesn’t mean just reproducing the way it apparently is. I try not to show the way things are, rather the way things would have felt for the character.”

 

The once-aspiring actor has often given credit to Hindi cinema for influencing his cinema. “India has always been an extraordinary serum for my soul. Fifteen years ago – it is quite serendipitous – I made a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1993) set in colonial India. I was really fascinated by the connection between the Elizabethan spiritual world and the Hindu spiritual world. The production is very distinctly making those visual translations in the time of the Raj – the lovers are all European Raj characters and the Hindu spiritual world plays with them.” It went on to be a hugely successful show, winning the Critic’s Prize at the Edinburgh Festival. He recalls the defining moment being his visit to India at the time, with his award-winning production-designer wife, Catherine Martin, where in Rajasthan, they saw their very first Bollywood movie. Unable to remember the title or the cast – except that it was about two brothers going to Oxford University, and fighting over the same girl – Luhrmann found it remarkable that there was, “intense tragedy, next to very broad comedy and then a burst of song. Two thousand people were spellbound, including us who couldn’t speak the language, for three hours. What we got out of that was the value of exaltation. In that sense Bollywood films are Shakespearean. Different people can have different experiences at different levels. That sensibility became the Red Curtain Trilogy and has stayed with me ever since.”

Edge02

Characters and sensitivity to their emotions is a trait that can be traced back to his youth working at a gas station observing people. At 47, he admits, “I’m addicted to people. And, it’s shocking, but I’m just getting started. I haven’t begun to meet all the people and haven’t begun to make all the movies. Maybe one day I’ll make a really good film, won’t that be good?!” There’s a light chuckle. “People are derided for it…being enthusiastic is uncool, so I would think, be as uncool as you possibly can. There is nothing sadder than getting to a certain age and sleepwalking through life, marking time until the curtain falls. I don’t want to surround myself with that energy.”

 

His own vigour (despite the weariness) is paramount, and you would expect him to have enthralled us with more work than he has. He has a bunch of projects lined up, including that of a cinematic production of The Great Gatsby. “There is no such thing for me as lying on a beach and saying, ‘The cocktail’s good!’ Creativity has always instinctively been for me the pursuit of a rich and extraordinary life, out of which creativity grows, as opposed to the pursuit of a successful career. I did that, and all of the Red Curtain came out of the instinctive urge. It has to be personal to begin with. For instance, I love Paris and Bohemia, hence Moulin Rouge!” The first Harry Potter film was offered to him: recalling that, he mutters, ‘Idiot!’ and smacks his forehead in mock disapproval at missing out. “That might have been a brilliant career choice once, but the work I do comes out of my life’s journey. Recently, I lost sight of that. So between films I’m doing things just like this.”

 

And this is exactly where we are. At the newly-opened Le Sutra art concept hotel, Bandra, Mumbai, that has a mural painted by Luhrmann and Australian artist Vincent Fantauzzo. Appalled by the recent negativity in Australia that he’s afraid will mar the formative years of Indian students, Luhrmann decided to partake of this “creative adventure” to use the artistic medium to speak out in a way that politicians cannot. “It is a genuine leading experiential artwork, what we used to call in the old days, ‘a happening’ and a platform to express the positivity to counter the negativity. As old as India is, it is young again. It is youthful, it’s finding new creativity – Australia connects with India on that level. Without getting too clever or complicated, it was adventurous for us, but also symbolically and creatively a positive gesture. So far it has been intense, and it hasn’t let us down.”

 

Whether it is playing himself on an American TV show, directing a ballet, painting a wall or making a film, Luhrmann has never been judgemental about ‘high’ and ‘low’ art. “It is just expression…the adventure in pursuing it and the personal gain in your internal journey. What does it do for you?” While painting the mural – quipping that he merely held the can of paint – he finds that he has, “received the invisible lesson – one that you don’t know where to look for.” Accustomed to a zillion people following his directives, he suddenly found himself floundering with the language barrier, helping young children paint the embroidery on the mural. “There aren’t 15 people here to say ‘Yes Boss!’ I was reminded what directing is – to know what you want and engage people and help them release their fear, be the very best they can be.”

 

Mark Anthony Luhrmann, “a tiny kid with an Afro”, was very young when he ran away from his father, whom he describes as a “loving disciplinarian”. The long, “crazy” hair, left Luhrmann with the derisive nickname ‘Baz’, which he decided to defiantly hold on to, particularly after it was used affectionately by his father, a little before he died. His brand, Bazmark, has a crest with a motto, ‘A life lived in fear is a life half lived’. It defines the way Luhrmann thinks – against a formula that’s any but his own and one that is constantly being redefined by life’s experiences. “As you become successful in any way, little switches have turned where you increasingly become disconnected with yourself and you think you’re doing stuff, but you are not. It’s harder to not be your brand. You get tired…of stepping outside your comfort zone. Being here is awesome, but it’s not like I’m 25 and haven’t gone to India before and it’s not like stuff isn’t thrown at us. But the effort, already, has given me hundred-fold back. I could leave today and know that I have been woken up in a way that I wouldn’t have had I not stepped outside my comfort zone. You tend to regret not finding out.”

nine hundred and ninety-nine: review of Nine

18 Thursday Mar 2010

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Musings

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Tags

Hollywood, movies, Nine, Reviews

Writer’s block. Oh my god, how many times does a creative person look for inspiration, and fail more often than he/she succeeds? But in Nine, Daniel Day-Lewis so beautifully portrays the lost child within, the-boy-that-yearns-to-be-a-child-that-yearns-to-be-a-man, the Freudian (maybe even Oedipal) angst, the emptiness when words fail him, the pain of a missing story, the desperate search for a muse and the haunting of a woman wronged. Well many women were wronged by him – and they loved him in the way women get attracted to a project and they wallow in the misery of being a part of that project. The man that has failed in many ways and looks for redemption – from the one woman who can give it to him.

The layers of the movie are as many as the title of this blog post, okay maybe I exaggerate, but trying to catch the many levels at which it works, the complex characterization of each person…all admirably portrayed through one-song-and-a-few-lines-scene each. Each character, each woman comes alive within that tight frame that she is allowed. And through each of them, Lewis’ failings are unearthed.

Possibly the weakest area of the movie also has some of its strengths – weak or bland dialogue intersperses with some very powerful lines, often spoken so simply that you want to reach and catch them before they float away. Judi Dench gets more than a handful of those and Marion Cotillard suffers from less than her share (which she makes up for with great expressions). Nicole Kidman gets a briefer scene than what one would expect but gets some great lines and moments. Oh and the songs – what should have been the strength of the musical nearly becomes its undoing – lacking rhythm and poise, the lyrics are more often than not uninspiring; but the score survives and the women make it watchable.

Great camera work and cinematographic vision, love the bleary red-darkness of the film and the meshing storylines between fantasy, past and present. The little boy crawling back into the man…surreal at times, existentialist in its soul, but the film redeems itself from its weaknesses, just like the protagonist.

can i watch arthouse in a multiplex?

08 Monday Mar 2010

Posted by sitanshi talati-parikh in Musings

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Tags

Bollywood, indiancinema, movies

first off, labelling a film sux – coz a film works on so many levels that it’s not easy to classify or pigeon hole a work of art. but do that we must (thank you Yoda for doing that to me time and again); simply to be realistic and to understand the finer sensibilities of cinema as a whole and as a marketable venture.

as our sensibilities begin to shift, we are more forgiving towards nuanced performances, simple stories and slice-of-life cinema. We basically stop demanding more for our buck, stop expecting the whole nine yards in the space of 2 hours. That should give directors and writers some breathing room, to create quirky films like Kaminey, Ishqiya and Karthik…. What it also gives people the chance to do is give space to a movie like Road, Movie – which appears to be a film that would not necessarily appeal to all. Now should this movie be forced to fight the BO with films like MNIK? (Thanks Manish A for the run on the idea.) Let’s watch and see what happens to Dibakar’s LSD. Should we put these films in a multiplex or move them to a smaller screen which specialises in arthouse, foreign films, documentaries etc?

Are we categorising these films as ‘not-mainstream’ (perhaps rightly) and would it be better to give them a chance to find space in a dedicated cinema hall, which would be frequented by movie-lovers, film students etc? Or will that not give the movie a chance to recover costs? I’m guessing we just don’t have enough movie afficionados to keep the coffers alive.

Or how about giving a movie like that a release on TV: on a special arthouse channel?

It is really not about a film per se; not about good and bad – it is about giving filmmakers a chance to go on with out-of-the-box cinema, to know that there is an audience out there, waiting. Like an NCPA experimental for cinema. I wonder if they will lose the desire to make off-beat films (just like it happened a few decades ago). I wonder if we are encouraging trashy maintstream and letting independent thought and new ideas die.

|  Filling the gaps between words.  |

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