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Reviews
Moksha: Salvation (2001)
Very Different for Bollywood ***Major Spoilers*
Director: Ashok Mehta Starring: Arjun Rampal, Manisha Koirala
Rating: 7 out of 10
The film is definitely very different and thought provoking. But my love affair with this movie wasn't a very smooth one. I actually was bored out of my mind during the first forty minutes. It's only after that, that I became engrossed in the storyline and I began to understand why certain portions of the film was in black and white and why some previously hard-to-understand scenes occurred. After the initial hesitation at the beginning, I must say I really enjoyed this flick. The story is about how a disillusioned lawyer Vikram Sehgal (Arjun Rampal) decides that he must stop being selfish and be more concerned about the poor man. So he tries to set up a new court where poor men can have their cases looked at in a fair manner. But it becomes so hard to set up and Arjun becomes so obsessed about trying to make a success of it. But little does he realise, that by trying to make a go of this scheme, he becomes an even more selfish and hypocritical human being...
This is a very symbolic movie full of metaphors and symbols. But I enjoyed figuring out the symbols a lot! :) This is a very thought-provoking film, which refreshingly has a hero with real gray shades. He reminded me of Christian Bale's character in American Psycho (though Bale had to portray a much nastier anti-hero). What I found interesting was the way Vikram is cold towards his girlfriend Ritika Sanyal (Manisha Koirala). He loves her with passion but at the same time he is also cruelly aloof. In one scene, the lead characters go climbing to get to the top of a cliff. When Vikram gets to the top, he decides to let out his frustrations and kicks a rock off the cliff and just let it fall to the bottom. But Ritika is still climbing up the hill and as the rock tumbles downhill, it nearly hits her (but it doesn't). It suddenly strikes us that he does not care about his girlfriend much, he is too self-involved in his own frustrations that he doesn't care whether Ritika gets hurt or not.
Performances are hit and miss. Manisha is terrible in the beginning but she improves when the plot gets going. It's as if she suddenly realised that the movie is a decent one and started to put effort into her acting. Manisha is very good in one scene where she confronts her Arjun after he calls her khudgarz. She cries because she has done so much for him and she still is called khudgarz. I found that scene moving. Arjun is OK, he is good when he is angry and when he has to project the cold element of his character. In other scenes, he is simply expressionless. But I still wouldn't trade him for a different actor, if I were to reshoot the film, I would just make him work harder on his acting. His character is very psychological. He is likeable but at the same time he is also very sadistic to the people he loves in the film and some viewers may hate him for that. Naseeruddin Shah's cameo as the increasingly confused journalist was good.
The direction is excellent, Ashok Mehta does have potential. He excels with the black and white scenes. Rampal's character does literally nothing except just let water splash over him but even in these scenes, Mehta has the knack of making them compelling. The way he films the scene where Vikram drops Ritika into the sea is just mindblowing!! It is so unexpected, you think that he will accidentally drop her into the water and try to save her. But no, he just lets her slide out of her arms and as the poor girl falls into the water, we get a close up of Vikram's face, which looks away. He looks so cold there and his eyes have that suitably icy expression. The final scene where the bank robbery occurs, it is marvellously directed because Mehta just shows the feet of the people in the bank and as they walk about quickly or run, you know that there is panic and chaos in the bank. And I liked the imagery that Mehta constantly uses with water and money. I don't quite know what the significance of water was meant to be. But I think it was supposed to represent humanity. The water can be clean but just like Arjun Rampal's character, it can also become dirty when mixed with other elements like sand or mud. It can also become cold and turn into ice (the imagery of ice is also used in this movie) signifying the cold feelings of the hero.
But the movie is not without its flaws. I found the dream sequence of Manisha's character very laughable. What on earth was she wearing?! She wears something very weird, which unfortunately turns her into a laughing stock. In this scene, the movie began to get a little too pretentious and too arty. So many things were happening and you have to admit that the sets were a bit dodgy. And the music, though sweet (like "Nanimaa") is almost forgettable. I like two songs Seep Main Moti and Humko Pyaar Hai and they have very good picturisations. I liked Jaan Leva a lot too but my craze for that song has worn off.
Caravan (1971)
A formulaic yarn
Caravan is one of Nasir Hussain's biggest and better known box office hits that boosted the careers of Asha Parekh and Jeetendra. It is also regarded as a mini-classic by certain critics.
Asha plays a rich girl who goes mad after her father kills himself by jumping from a window. A greedy baddie exploits her vulnerability by forcing her to marry him so he can get all her riches. Once it dawns on Asha what has happened, she escapes into a forest and hides from her evil husband. She encounters Jeetendra and his sidekick who both live in a caravan. And from there on follows a contrived adventure.
Asha gives a good performance as the confused girl. Jeetendra is..., well, his usual annoying self. The songs are the best particularly 'Ab Jo Mile Hain' and 'Kitna Pyara Wadha...'.
Caravan is an entertaining yarn but it's not a full classic. The story often seems contrived and the script is occasionally amateurish. But it is much better than Nasir Hussain's other movies such as Yaadon Ki Baaraat and Hum Kisise Kum Nahin. And in comparison to its remake in 2000, "Mela", Caravan is streets ahead.
The Net (1995)
A superb thriller
Sandra Bullock who plays Angela Bennett lives and breathes computers. She does everything by the net- order pizza, book airline tickets or reveal personal details to someone who lives all the way in India. Even her neighbours have not seen her and her mother has a memory problem and does not recognise her daughter. She also works as a computer programmer for a computer company and gets rid of viruses attached to disks.
One day a very valuable disk is sent to her with all the programming details and baddies decide that they want it. Angela Bennett is an appropriate person to snatch it from because nobody knows her and if she ends up dead nobody will miss her. Therefore her life is completely changed and turned around before you can even say "watch out, you daft woman!".
Watching how Angela Bennett gets herself out of the mess is very thrilling. It is superbly directed and Sandra is believable. You find yourself rooting for her until the very end. It is her show all the way as there is no hero opposite her though Jeremy Northam is very effective as the baddie.
Rating: 8 out of 10.
Pyaar Koi Khel Nahin (1999)
Bad hair day
A totally unoriginal debut by fed-up editor Subhash Sehgal. Sunny Deol and Apoorva Agnihotri play two brothers who are orphans (a cliche in the melodramatic world of Bollywood!). Sunny Deol has never looked at another girl before (strange, as he is in his thirties!) and has always been working very hard to bring up his younger brother. Apoorva is a college boy who meets college girl Mahima Choudhry. They both fall in love in one day! Predictably, Sunny Deol also falls in love with Mahima. Cue heartbreak, overdramatic declarations of love and choppy editing. Mahima marries Apoorva and they sing some songs. In a strange twist, Mahima ends up married to both men!
Direction is poor. The music is above average. The best song is 'Yaad Piya Ki Aane Lagi', which is ruined by a rubbish dance sequence. Sunny Deol seems embarrassed to play a romantic elder brother. Apoorva cannot act at all and fails at his attempts to do comedy. Mahima is a good actress but she has a bad hair day here. Her costumes are cheap and awful and her make-up is overloaded. Definitely not one of Mahima's best films (go and see Daag and Dil Kya Kare instead).
Film rating: 4.5 out of 10