Vidya Balan
Ranbir Kapoor and Imtiaz Ali
Karan Johar and Imtiaz Ali
Zoya Akhtar
Neetu Chandra
Ramesh Sippy
Parineeti Chopra
Mandira Bedi
A.R. Rehman
Usha Uthup
Karan Johar and Vidya balan
Sunday, 18 March 2012
Chaurahen Movie Review
Movie Review (2012)
Film: “Chaurahen”
Cast: Victor Banerjee, Roopa Ganguly, Ankur Khanna, Soha Ali Khan, Karthik Kumar, Shayan Munshi and Zeenat Aman
Director: Rajshree Ojha
Rating: ****
The four stories, originally written by Nirmal Varma, come together in a mysterious melange of pain, longing and tentative redemption in “Chaurahen”. In her other film “Aisha”, director Rajshree Ojha gave us no clue of her affinity to such an intimate contact with the deepest recesses of the human heart. “Aisha” ended up being as shallow as its Jane Austin-derived protagonist.
Dare we say the characters in “Chaurahen” are as thought-provoking as the writer-director’s vision of a life in the metros? Under the bustling soundtrack (from Rabindra Sangeet to Carnatic sangeet), there’s an all-pervasive stillness at the core of the stories that crisscross so effortlessly in “Chaurahen”. The characters are all living with ghosts, reluctant and afraid to let go of their past and live in the present.
Each of the four stories is steeped in nostalgia, pain and a final redemption (the airport finale feels fake).
With amazing clarity and an arresting economy of expression, Ojha brings forward these lives scattered across three cities trying to come to terms with their past and present, making an effort to focus on that beam of light which is visible only if the pain of existence is seen to be a variable circumstance in the wider scheme of the universe.
Ojha’s film concentrates on getting the characters to bare their soul without flashy acting or flamboyant moments of self-revelation. In my favourite segment, a young gay NRI (played evocatively by Tamil actor Karthik Kumar) visits his parents (Arundhati Nag and Nedumudi Venu) in Kerala after the death of the family’s elder son. The sequence where he confesses to his sister (Suchitra Pillai) that he has “someone” in Vienna and that someone is a he, could easily have become an occasion for high-pitched drama.
Throughout, Ojha deals with the heightened emotions at the lower octave, letting the characters assimilate their emotions in the sounds, flavours and sights of the cities that they so tellingly inhabit. In the dramatic moments Ojha’s narrative is stubbornly muted, at times audaciously playful, daring her characters to take life too seriously.
A rare and charming synthesis of drama and normality is achieved. There are no awkward moments even when the characters are caught at their most awkward times of self-revelation.
When the distinguished Mr. Bose (Victor Banerjee) flaps his fading libido in the company of a fey foreigner, played by Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter Keira – a complete non-actress – the narrative opts to zoom in on the dignity and grace that Mrs Bose brings to her pain rather than on the mess that the unlikely triangle creates.
Indeed, as a woman trapped in a sterile loveless marriage Roopa Ganguly emerges with the strongest performance of the film. The neglected wife is a favourite archetype of films set in Bengal. Roopa’s portrait of desolation reminds us of Madhabi Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray’s “Charulata”.
Victor too is flawless in depicting the rather-regrettable Lolita-fixation of a bhadralok.
The rest of the brilliant cast is also near-perfect in bringing their characters face-to-face with their conscience.
Soha Ali Khan and Ankur Khanna, playing a couple that must separate because he insists on living with his dead parents, Karthik Kumar as a closet gay being forced to live his parents’ dreams for his dead brother, and Zeenat Aman as a lonely single woman at a bar being courted by a soldier, seem to have been cast in roles that they were born to play.
“Chaurahen” is deep, layered, luminous literary yet light-hearted. The characters are burdened with the ghosts of their past, and yet they manage to search out a sense of desirability in their present.
The film is located in three cities, but is actually shot straight in the heart.
And if you are wondering how Tobias Datum’s cinematography shoots on location in the heart, then you only need to look at the characters in “Chaurahen” who are captured in postures that go way beyond the body language.
This is a film so rich in unstated relevances that you wonder why dialogues for cinema were ever invented. Or why cinema for that matter, was invented if not to take us into places of the heart that are barred in Bollywood. (Ians)
Chaurahen Movie Trailer (2012)
Chaurahen Trailer (2012)Cast: Victor Banerjee, Roopa Ganguly, Ankur Khanna, Soha Ali Khan, Karthik Kumar, Shayan Munshi and Zeenat Aman
Director: Rajshree Ojha
Director: Rajshree Ojha
Dhanush & Sonam Kapoor together in new film
Actress Sonam Kapoor has landed the role of a Varanasi girl, who studies in the capital’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), in “Raanjhanaa”. She is cast opposite southern star Dhanush.
The decision was taken after intense discussions between director Aanand L.Rai of “Tanu Weds Manu” and Sonam.
As per the script, Dhanush plays a local Varanasi boy, and Sonam essays a Varanasi girl educated in Delhi.
Sonam will now spend time on the JNU campus to grasp the conduct and ideology of students there.
“The culture of education at the JNU is radically different from other universities in Delhi and across the country. At JNU students, both male and female, are very politically aware,” said a source from team of “Raanjhanaa”.
“They talk intelligently on national issues. They dress sensibly, hang out at specific cafes in Delhi, attend seminars and protest actively on national issues. The director Aanand Kumar wanted Sonam to imbibe all of these traits. And they also speak fluent Hindi,” the source added.
When it comes to her spoken Hindi, Sonam, according to the source, needs to work as hard as Dhanush.
Dhanush is in Mumbai working on the dubbing of the Hindi version of his wife’s film “3″. He has been working with a Hindi coach, trying to get the language right.
For Sonam too, it’s been decided that her accented Hindi and the haute-couture look just won’t do for the film.
However, Sonam does not really play the quintessential Varanasi girl. Her character is that of a local girl who has been to college in Delhi for three years, and returned to her home town as quite the sophisticated small-towner with an acquired metropolitan air, says a source close to the project.
At first the director was not sure if Sonam could carry off the role. But after meeting her, he was convinced.
“I am bowled over by her commitment to get the nuances of the role right. I’ve found my lady,” said Rai. (Ians)
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