Postulates of the Perpendicular

Going Spanish

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 08:21:00 +0000

Alejandro González Iñárritu directed films like Babel, Amores Perros and Biutiful in the west. He saw Pokkiri and was converted. Having now seen most of Telugu-superstar Balakrishna's ventures he is delighted to have signed him up for ¿Por que?, the Spanish remake of the inter-state hit.

He's in conversation with us:

Perpi: Alejandro González Iñárritu, welcome.

Alejandro González Iñárritu: Muchas gracias por llamarme aquí. I will speak the rest in English. jajajaja.

P: We hear you are remaking Pokkiri. Why?

AGI: That is precisely what I asked myself when I saw the Telugu film. It had already been remade into many Indian languages, and into Xsosa, Occitan and even the Braille. It affected me internally so much that I had to make it in Spanish, but wasn't still sure why. Which might explain the title of the film, you see.

P: You have worked with Javier Bardem and Gael Garcia Bernal prior to this. What made you opt for Balayya in this movie?

AGI: I haven't seen a multi-dimensional actor like him anywhere between Guadalajara and the Indus valley. He is the first actor ever to have mastered the CEFISO Method of acting.

P: ... and what is this CEFISO Method?

AGI: It's the Compartmentalising Emotions For Individual Sensory Organs Method. It basically outlines a rather complex method of acting where your various sensory organs suggest different emotions. Take for instance this dialogue:

Nenu matladetappudu nee chevulu matrame pani cheyyali.. Avi thappa vera emayyina pani chesayo neeku next birthday vundadhu..

You see he is showing anger with the dialogue. But he himself can hear it is comical. However, his eyes, like always, show that he is scared of the camera, even when it is he who has the punch dialogue.

P:.. and Javi Bardem has like, what, one expression per second?

AGI: Exactamente. I can only assume his skin acts out a film noir sequence given how diverse all these emotions are to each of his senses.

P: Thank heavens there is a name for it. Otherwise it is difficult to tell people to learn something when you aren't sure of what you want them to learn.

AGI: Don't kid yourself, not many can learn it... or dance like he does... or wear trousers up to his stomach...

P: ... and still get all the hot chicks...

AGI: ... and still get all the chicks, yeah.

P: So who will you pair with him now, Barbara Mori, we presume?

AGI: Not sure yet. As I have not yet sifted through all the texts I have got from actresses in Spain and Latin America so far.

(Alejandro shows us the texts. Some of the sms-es had the same message: ¿Por que? Others had more elaborate requests.

Karen Dejo had replied: Puedo estar desnuda en esta pelicula. Da me este trabajo, por favor. Da me, da me, da me.

Leonor Watling said: Le quiero mucho. AYyyyyy (-_-;)

Paz Vega had sent an MMS of her doing aerobics set to the tune of Jadathoti Kodithe.

Natalia Verbeke had written a poem for Balayya which was simply titled, My Navel for Thee.)

I do not know what to do, maybe I will get all of them in the film. Each of them for the same part maybe. Nobody will notice in the incandescence of Balayya's movements and actions and gestures and gyrations.

As we are about to wind up the interview wishing Alejandro good luck, he seems forlorn and lost. We begin to ask him:

P: Why are you...

AGI (agitatedly): I still can't see how he was able to wear his pants up till his stomach and still get the chicks.

On that melancholic thought, we bid adieu, leaving Iñárritu with a whirlpool in his head. Later in the day, we sent him a forwarded joke:

Balayya is remaking Titanic as "Samudram lo Sanyasi". In the end he doesn't die but swims across the ocean with the heroine in one hand and the Titanic in the other.

He has thus far not replied back.

Nirahua vs Godzilla - A working title

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 16 May 2010 14:04:00 +0000

[This is one of the new bhojpuri films that could be produced as a collaboration between the Home of Japan - What the Cultural Council Wants (commonly known as Ho-jawakukowa) and Shilpkaar, Bhutpoorv Gaayak, evam Aam aadmi Sena (commonly known as Shi-bugayakaamse).
They have roped in some old pictures of Godzilla and some new ones of Nirahua, the Bhojpuri super star, and have released a working still and a brief synopsis of the plot. The small photograph of Nagma however has been taken without her permission, a source tells us.

PS: The 3D, we are told, refers to the three Ds of Bhojpuri cinema, Dakait, Daayan and Devarji.]

का फायदा सायंस के खुसी मनावल से| का फायदा एटम बम के आ का फायदा टेक्नोलोजी के जब एगो कल्मूही गोडजिल्ला एहिजा तबाही मचावल बाड़ी| भारत के आइल बाद खूनी गोडजिल्ला एहिजा के पेड़ पौधा क नाश कैलस| एहिसे पहिले ऊ बांग्लादेश गइल| ऊहा के डीवीडी चुराइल के बाद एहिजा बेचल खातिर आइल बाडी|
गोडजिल्ला पूरा भारत का डरावल बाद आइल तैंतारिया गाँव| एहिजा ताड़ के पत्ता से बनल छत्री का नीचे बिछल चटाई पर बइठल रहा हमार निरहुअ| जब ऊ अपना जेठानी के इंग्लिश सिखाई रहे तब गाँव क दो मुष्टंडे भागन आइल| "निरहुआ, निरहुआ, हमका बचाई ल| गोडजिल्ला एहिजा तबाही मचाई क आवल ब"| निरहुआ शांत रहील, अपना जेठानी से कह, "जेठानी, गोडजिल्ला का स्पेल्लिंग ह, जी ओ डी जेड आई एल एल इ"|
एहिजा ई बतावल जरूरी बा कि पिच्चर तो अभी सुरु हुई ह| अरे देखल तो आवा ह|

Sanitising Police

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 11 May 2010 14:41:00 +0000

In the 90s, the Perpendicular movement had received a major boost with the release of Gunda, and generally with much of what Mithun Chakraborthy was attempting post, and including, Dalaal. However, the true signs of this becoming a widespread revolt against popular and avant garde culture could only be noticed when Police Story became one of the few Kannada films to be ever dubbed into Hindi. It was called Agni IPS in Hindi. Strangely, Agni IPS was to be the name of SaiK's next film in Kannada. Come to think of it, there has been none before or after these films that deserved the said respect and the Perpi movement kind of carried on from there never to look back.

Agni IPS (Kannada) is to the arrogant, non-Perpi cinema establishment what Dilip Kumar gave to Dr. Dang in Karma. This thappad's goonj could be heard across seven seas and cod liver oils. Sai Kumar is a Telugu actor who had been dubbing for people whose voice might not have been manly enough. You know, what the Telugu film industry achieves with decibels, pelvic thrusts and talcum powder is amazing. But that is for another post. So SaiK assimilated into the Kannada film industry just with the sheer ferocity of his voice. He was the first sound-to-box-office-success transducer ever seen this side of the mined hills.

The story begins with Rockline Venkatesh playing Basha Khan and getting walloped in public by, among others, an old man appearing to sell plastic toys. It doesn't take long to realise that had he not wanted to be another Dilip Kumar and slapped the menacing Kotwal, Basha Khan might have lived longer than the first 20 mins of the movie. He pays for this act of TK and gets stabbed all over the place. Kotwal and his men, for their part, display utter lack of professionalism and leave him with enough energy to make an SOS for Agni, his fellow policeman. Unfortunately, he is in the middle of a song called, well... "Polees". Before he reaches the hospital, Basha Khan has subjected the other policemen and his mother (played by Umashree) to his insufferable verbal spamming.

The film actually begins here, first as a practical act of community cleansing and then as a audio dictionary of the happening Kannada cuss words. Because of one of these factors, this film comes with a U certificate. Agni is rather cheesed off when he goes to his new police station and finds the cupboard with a simple placard which says: "you fool, no file". The brevity of the message is lost on him as also is his cool lost on the sub-ordinates.

"P for Punctual, O for Obedient, L for Loyalty, I for Integrity, C for Courage, E for Efficiency has now become P for Politics, O for Offence, L for Loafers, I for Inefficiency, C for Criminals and E for Enemies." The state of our State is not in good hands, he knows. As he says, to our relief however, "ee agni onti aadru, lion-hearted, lion-hearted, lion-hearted". Meaning: "even if he is alone, he is lion-hearted". Just to prove his point, he kills four rowdies.

To me, the best moment of the film is when he visits Kotwal, a tour de force from either actor, in this piece de resistance of a moment. This happens so early in the film that it resembles Gunda where the hero and the villain meet very early on and play a mental chess game. You do realise that one of them could easily be killed by the other, but that's cover, beside the point. Anyway, as Kotwal puts forward his proposals in an effort to symbolically disrobe the police of it's khaki, SaiK just tells him: "Ye Kotwal, Love day ke ball" (Hey Kotwal! You spherical bouncing object from Valentine's Day), I'll bring you to your downfall in 3 months.

3 months is just enough time for him to romance a shutter-happy Ranjitha, who as if foreshadowing few events that might happen a decade and more later, takes clandestine pictures of Agni bashing up rowdies. At this point, there is a song, which starts rather abruptly, as if foreshadowing how this article is going to end.

P to the U to the N to the C to the H

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 17:12:00 +0000

Lot of times, when I am depressed by the amount of times the MRF Blimp comes on air and commentators go: "that's the MRF Blimp", I wonder at things that have no connection to it. One such unconnected thing is the "punch" phenomena in Tamil cinema.

If you know that part of the world, they take their movies seriously. Very, actually. It is mandatory to have been associated with cinema to be able to become chief minister of the state. Even for mere mortals your status is defined by how many times you have been on Visu's Arrattai Arangam (a show where you have to speak loudly and end every sentence with a "saaaaaaar"), whether you can chronologically list Radhika's various TV serials or you have at least subscribed to #TR.

Now you know. Anyway, the "punch" is a strange art which is believed to have influenced even the Holy One: Gunda. It happened more with Rajnikanth movies where he rendered a couplet or a quadruplet every few minutes so as to invoke the global callback function called PaisaVasool(). I am not aware of when it all started, but I remember this from Arunachalam (which, you'd be surprised, has nothing to do with the north-east of India).

Aandavan Solraan

Arunachalon Mudikkaran

Arthaath, God proposes, man disposes... in fact, in this case, Man disposes.

A couple of years later, in Padaiyappa, he went blazing with his punch.

Yen vazhi, thaniiiiiiiiiiiiii vazhi.

My route, differennnnnnnnnnnnt route.

Adhigama aasepadra aambleyun,

adhigama kovapadra pombleyun,

nalla vazhndada saritrame kadayaadu.

Meaning, there has never been a history of someone like Lalit Modi and Lalit Modi (if he was a woman) living happily.

Hey, how could I forget Basha, which started it all I guess.

Naa orudarave sonna,

nooru darave sonna maadri.

Meaning, my one Tweet can go up to 14000 characters.

This Punch thingy reached magical heights in his big film, Baba. As if forecasting its box-office life he says:

Gatham, gatham!

What's gone, is gone.

Anyway, the basic idea of this post was to supply free Punches for him. But there is only one Superstar. So maybe the wannabes can use it if they want. Here goes:

1. Naa tightukku loosu,

Paambukku mongoosu.

Do you really want a translation, 60% of the words are in English.

2. Vaayile pallu

Nenjile kallu

Udambellan dillu

Yemperenna sollu?

In mouth, teeth. In heart, stone. In body, guts ya. Tell what my name is.

3. Ramya Krishnan kudukkaradu thangon

Africale irukku Congo,

Golu vetchirukkon vaango,

Naa adichcha unakku veeeeeeeengon.

This actually doesn't make much sense and it's also heavily-laden with local references, but you do remember Ramya Krishnan from Parampara, no?

I will stop here as I need to conjure more Blimp jokes in the meantime. Till next time:

Shoe-vukku Bata,

Blimpukku tata,

for the time being, vatthhaaa!

I spit on your appetite

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 17:22:00 +0000

Just like our education system, Bollywood or Hollywood does not prepare you to survive the outside world. For that, one has to move out from the mainstream and go slightly below the ground, into the dark, where, as your teachers would have you believe, lies the forbidden land. Here are a few gems made in this genre, which can make any kind of meal want to come out of the stomach, into the open.
I Spit on your grave:
Don't see this movie. Please! As much as it prepares you for the bad world outside, please don't see this. Certainly not at dinner time. This was made in the 70s when film-makers began to confuse shit for freedom of expression. This is shit. Excreta. Scum. Yuck. Gross. Cinematic faeces.
Like Britney Spears singing a song over and over again for a whole day. Corporation garbage lorries letting out smelly juices on potholed roads is like gajar halwa over vanilla ice-cream in marriages, when compared to ISOYG.
Make Them Die Slowly:
Its divided into two halves like a football match. There ends the pleasantness. First half goes to the urban visitors to the amazon jugle who play around with the local tribals, like, they make multi-speared swings and pierce it straight into these illiterate jungle fellows. The jungle elders do not know if these are just part of the city-dwellers' sense of fun; but when they discover that one-by-one their younger relatives are dying, they take law and the second half into their own hands. Carnage follows, jungle ishtyle. No waiting for Maoists. You pierced our stomachs, we disembowel you and play with your oesophagus, intestines, pancreas and liver. One tribo puts a big spear into a whitey's heart area.
[This is where a cover photograph should have come. But where am I to find an uncensor-worthy one for a film which was "banned in 31 countries". To put this into perspective, it was made when USSR, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia still existed.]
He drags the spear even as it is embedded somewhere close to the lungs till about his stomach. Now that he has created an opening, his fellow freshers in cannibalism feed sumptously on this lovely meal. Some get oesophagus, some get intestines. This seems to be the new-age mantra in amazon as various ways of devouring human flesh is devised. One guy's top quarter of the head is cut (must admit, quite intricately), and the brain is eaten with great pleasure. Actually, if Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and its ilk are feel-good films, this is a feel-goo film. Go for it if it interests you, but do get an appointment with your local rehabilitation center.

Blessed is he, who watcheth...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:53:00 +0000

Sometimes, a strong reverberation of the falsetto becomes a fulcrum to lift you out of your arrested development. In other words, the eclectic and the banal are so sure of their own identities that they do not remind themselves of the other's presence.

You might have noticed that the two sentences are completely unrelated to each other. In fact, these sentences might not even be related to themselves, but for the good of this article which has broken the perpi's hibernation, sab theek hai, everything's ok.

I watched no good films to add to this blog. I however saw what the Blessed One can do when requested to mix with the common man. I was chilling out in an airport boarding gate when a friend asked if I had any movies in my laptop to kill time. Anyone who knows my laptop well knows there is but one film in it worth watching here. So I showed him that, warning him of the after effects, "It will change your life."

Gunda ran for 5 minutes on my laptop before the flight call arrived and my friend just did one thing. He called his wife and asked her to scour the land for Gunda and Loha.

The future is bright, it is sailing in a balloon

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 10:56:00 +0000

These are tough times at Perpendicular High. Just the flood of wannabes posing as the real deal. Hah! Sorry, if you make a bad movie because you didn't know how to make a good one, you can't apply. RGV has recently done a lot of work towards gaining his entry to this exalted space, but he needs a little more time to find his own here.
I am told by a lot of Chennaivasis that Kandasamy is right up there. At those many crores, it is a colossus of bad cinema, they say. I have to repeat to all my friends who frequent Parry's, PERPENDICULAR FILMS AND BAD FILMS ARE TWO DIFFERENT ENTITIES. And I hate capital letters so don't make me say it again.
Still, I will give Kandasamy a go. Who knows what gems lie where.
There have been widespread rumours (which I somehow stopped from going to the press) that people are disappointed at the lack of regular updates. Well, for the last time using all-caps, WAIT! It is worth it.
In order to appease the dissent though, I have introduced a Twitter function to the right of this text. That can be updated with mini-gems now and then.

Anyway, to shoot up the Happiness-Index of our country, here are some of the upcoming posts on the beloved Perpi:

1. Some new movie posters which haven't been made but which I think should be made.
2. Movie reviews of Police Story or Agni IPS or both.
3. A critical analysis of Plan 9 from Outer Space.
4. A telepathic interview with... surprise!
5. A video of the child taking off in a balloon.
6. 5th point just kidding.

Glen or Glenda - Genda' Benda'

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 15:27:00 +0000

After seeing this film, I thought of how much fun it would be to take two words, and from the second word form another duo of words, and so on. Eg. Life time machine gun slinger malinga bandara tilake... etc. After that I thought, what a film, senor!
The relationship between a man and a woman is what keeps the world running. It is purest in nature and has the ability to charm hearts and please souls. For every problem the world encounters, it is balanced by a union of hearts between a man and a woman. Somewhere far off maybe, but it helps. This relationship is the elixir of life itself. This is how life grows. Thanks to the man and the woman.
Somewhere around the 1950s, Ed Wood was thinking about making a film. He got Bela Lugosi's help and began writing a script. He might even have written the above paragraph before I did. Then he thought about his budget and decided there was no place for a man and a woman. There was only place for him alone as a lead actor and so he pushed the limits of the human condition to, and beyond, its limits. He thought, what if a man is also a woman. And he made Glen or Glenda.
Bela Lugosi plays the part of everyone's grandfather. Maybe he doesn't but he'd do worse than that. He looks over some street in the US and says lines like "Pull the strings, pull the strings". After a while, Glen, who thinks he is Glenda, who does look like a woman, goes window-shopping, and after I use one more comma, I'll end this sentence here.
Basically, the film is so convoluted that you are forced to think, "it's so much like life." More than a review of this film, I have to say how much it has affected me. I now know what lay deep inside my human mind. This movie drilled a hole into that deepest part and went deeper. I found depth. I also saw there is no such thing as infinity. It is just the place where that stuff lives, "in finity". That thing is in fact called... LOVE.
Here are some of the enlightening quotes from the film which have affected my depth of thinking brain wave form ula lala la loo la loo.

"No one can really tell the story. Mistakes are made. But there is no mistaking the thoughts in a man's mind. The story is begun. "

Is the last sentence a correct use of a subjunctive by any chance?

"Beware! Beware of the big green dragon that sits on your doorstep. He eats little boys... Puppy dog tails, and BIG FAT SNAILS... Beware... Take care... Beware!"

"The world is a strange place to live in. All those cars. All going someplace. All carrying humans, which are carrying out their lives."

तू त्रिमूर्ति

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:14:00 +0000

याद आती है,
तेरी याद आती है,
अंधेरे की पहली ज्योति,
दुनिया को समेटी गठरी,
तू त्रिमूर्ति,
तेरी याद आती है।

पगडण्डी से हटके,
आंखों से छुपके,
उस दूधवाले के सामने,
नाई के पीछे,
तू त्रिमूर्ति,
तेरी याद आती है।

तू ही तो था,
महानता का स्तंभ,
ग्यान का देवता,
अभियांत्रिकी का आरम्भ।
तू त्रिमूर्ति,
तेरी याद आती है।

तू जब न था
दो साल का अवकाश लिए,
किस्मत भी गया तेरे संग,
टाटा और गुड बाय किए।
तू त्रिमूर्ति,
तेरी याद आती है।

बड़ी मन्नतों के बाद,
तू लौटा एक सर्दी की रात में,
हम सब मिलने आए तुझे,
अपने पप्पाओं की कमाई लिए साथ में।

ज़माना बदला था,
मौसम ख़राब था,
फिल्में तो बकवास ही बकवास,
तूने क्या दारु पिया था?

कहाँ गया वो तेरा टॉप १०,
फेस ऑफ़ की गोली, देस्पेरादो का गन,
अब दिखाई तुने सिर्फ़ कूल सर्फेस,
मदमस्त टेरी दिखाती बेशरम तन।

लेकिन तुझमे जान बाकी था
उस पूनम की रात में,
विदाई की सौगात लिए,
तूने जुगाडा आइस वाइड शट था।

अब साल गए, महीने खोये,
फिल्में आए, फिल्में गए,
मल्टीप्लेक्स में गिरे, पोपकोर्न पे रोये,
तेरी बात अलग थी, तू महान था।
तू त्रिमूर्ति।
तेरी याद आती है।
तेरे बाद भी आती है।

Of Thought Streams

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:07:00 +0000

It is said that our earth is full of invisible, intangible packets of deep currents of thought, that vary in shape, size and distance they reach. Some of these thoughts are so strong that they can change the course of visible elements, by transcending the world and re-routing logic.
Don't bother scouring the internet for a corroboration of this theory. There might not be any. Theories are not for Mithun-da. He chews on them daily thrice. We are ordinary men and women, slaves of gravity. Our thought streams are small, affecting hardly anyone. Our thought streams are strands of hair, blowing aimlessly, forgotten even by their creators. Mithun-da is not one of us. He has divine strength, he has a tantrik metabolism about him, the power of One, the power of Him.
In Military Raaj, all this is so visible. He plays, remarkable as it might seem, a military man. He safeguards honesty, duty and has his plans to defeat diabolical catabolism. Aditya Pancholi also plays a part here. He of course was seen as heir apparent (when he had a lot more hair) to Mithun-da. How promising he was while playing a warrior husband to Madhuri in Sailaab. He had almost made it in Awwal Number when the bomb just wouldn't blow the cricket pitch away. Alas!
Talking of pitches, there is a lot of bounce in the thought stream around Pratibha Sinha. As if on anabolic steroids, her books of other bards act mentally insane. It is this blatantly oppressive outward bound show that draws men into B centers in droves. Then the da takes over.
Akin to the old maharajas who surveyed their lands at night to target nefarious activities, Military Mithun-da goes looking for trouble. He finds a guy asking for "paisha, paisha and more paisha" in a gambling den. Da rounds him up and takes him to a cell.
What follows is the magic of the most fertile thought stream. The goons act like they were direct descendants of Hitler's driver and insult da. Patience is a virtue in da, yes, but impatience is his strength. He decides that it is time for some good ol' ultraviolence and disrobes the military cap off his cabeza (head, in Spanish). But mademoiselle, where does he hang it? Cells don't come with nails to hang your van Gogh and Picasso, do they? Not in these times, no.
So da sends one of his thought streams to find Fleming's right-hand rule. It comes back and this conversation follows:
Thought Stream: Da, Fleming's right-hand rule says that as long as your middle finger faces the camera, and you rotate your index finger clockwise, an electromagnetic flux drives it straight through barriers .
Da: You sure that wasn't the left-hand rule.
TS: Dunno, da. I couldn't confirm it as no one was there.
Da: You should have asked Flemmo himself.
TS: He's retired. Danny is in his place.
Da: Tuck if.

And da nonchalantly applies the right-hand rule. He bores a hole into the wall. Plugs his Reynolds into the hole. Hangs his cap onto it. Hammers the villain. Bravo.

Ordrizpaasd

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:14:00 +0000

Warning: A significant part of this article contains direct translation from kannada.
Thats actually not a warning. The fact that the translation is of kannada movies, is.
Since the Dravidian languages generally have more than one meaning to them, accuracy might have been sacrificed.

Salutations to the Indian lord with a snake around his neck.

Thus goes the title of this brilliant movie. Die unmarried kid (DUK from here on for convenience) stars as an upright police officer, just he has done in most of his ventures. I think there must have been a double role in the film for him. I saw only a small part of it and that, by itself, left such a profound mark on me that Surf Excel is unable to remove it. I can atleast distribute it, so here I write.
The scene that I saw which stole my mindspace was when DUK, as the chief minister of the state of Do Plays, goes on an errand to inspect his people's woes, first-hand. He goes along with his coterie of ministers who have corruption written all over them, sadly, not literally though. The location of the shoot is the capital city of Do Plays (I restrain myself from naming the city, for my faculties do not allow its translation).
DUK is in a military uniform, presumably not stitched specifically for the occasion; but we aren't too much into imitation clothes of sporting celebrities as we are of ordinary professionals. So, irrespective of the bad dressing, DUK goes on a combing spree. He finds 5-6 young men playing Boundary Twelve under a tree. He goes towards them in customary zeal and asks as to what the young men were up to. This is actually a master-stroke by the director (because, if DUK had pulled the guys up for playing Boundary Twelve, it would imply that DUK had infact played or seen it being played at some point in his life; which effectively corrupts his morality). The HRD minister with him says that it is Boundary Twelve, a game played all over Do Plays by all kinds of people, young and old, women and men, eunuchs and transvestites, naked people and people in military uniform borrowed from imitation shops. DUK is flabbergasted. What the F....allacy man... he thinks. He instructs his HRD minister to enrol these guys into the military, gives the guys a sound lecture and more importantly, faces the camera and redeems a part of the movie-goer's money by letting out a screaming, grunting, speech, which I try to translate for you here.
"From now on, there would be no waste bodies in this place sitting around loitering, ogling at young women, old uncles and trendy sixers. All such miscreants would be placed in the military as that sacred place needs them now. Ordrizpaasd"
The next stop is at a ration shop. This is a place where people are supposed to get staple food items at subsidised rates after the government and the middlemen have had their share of ordinary. At a ration shop, one old women, seemingly having eaten Obelix's wild boar a moment back, complains to DUK that the ration guy refuses to give her rice, as she and her family is dying of hunger. DUK goes to the guy and the following conversation follows, follow me.
"Hey guy, why don't you give her food"
"There is no food"(In Tamil, a language that people in Do Plays love to hate, and apparently DUK has a passing understanding of it, which is not exactly accurate)
"Whyeeeeee not I say?"
"There is no food"
"Hey guy, how many years have you been in Do Plays?"
"14 years"
"Even after 17 years you haven't learnt the local tongue, I will cut your tongue, bullshit fellow."
"Sorry sir, please leave me"
Now DUK faces the camera in the next stunt for money redemption for the movie-goer.
"From now on, everybody will learn the local language if he wants to live in Do Plays. Ordrizpaased." He fires the food minister as an after-thought.
Last stop, a wedding ceremony.
Scene is that the boy's father is raising a stink at the fact that girl's daddy is short changing him in paying dowry. Of course, he doesn't believe in giving subsidies.
Enter DUK, scene changes, figuratively that is.
"What's happening boy's father?"
"Sir, this girl's father promised to give me a 6000 cc car, he just gave me 3000cc one. He said he will give 60x40 house, he gave me 30x40 one. He promised 4 lacs, he gave 2 lacs. Please give me justice."
"Moral science is dead. Revive it, education minister. From now on, nobody will ask for dowry. Ordrizpaased." He orders the boy's dad and his son to prison. As a novelty, he also sends the girl's dad to prison."
The girl is a peculiar human being. She doesnt bother to appeal to DUk to pardon her father. Her immediate concern is her marriage, which according to unsaid folk mythology, once the engagement is done and the marriage doesn't materialize, the girl is ignored by other suitors. Perhaps a hangover of the scooter culture, everyone wants a test ride before buying a product and simply reject models that have been test driven by an eventually dissatisfied customer.
DUK understands her problem and says, look younger sis, you will get married and that too to my PA. The PA is as fat as Paris Hilton isn't and is as good-looking as she is a virgin. But it doesnt matter as DUK gets PA married and I switched that idiotic TV channel went into a break.
If I were a chief minister, I would ban all breaks between movies, Ordrizpaased.

The beginning of the Perpendicular

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 07:33:00 +0000

Not very often in these times does one get a chance to be part of history of any kind, let alone the most outrageous one. I am proud to have been there, just about a decade back. The Perpendicular was a term coined to honour films that dared to avoid both the commercial bandwagon and the pretensions of art. It is a seriously difficult line to tread, for as the name suggests it is movement along a different plane altogether, maybe the z-axis. Right through the history of cinema, there have been concerted efforts to make films which not so concertedly want to fall in this bracket. Perhaps the earliest example could be those of Ed Wood in th US and Joginder in India. It is difficult to class Glen or Glenda, just as it is impossible to straight-jacket Rangakhush. I am not even qualified to comment on these gems of the bygone era. As the master of madness, Klaus Kinski once bludgeoned, “They were not just very good or excellent, they were magnificent, epochal.”

Time doesn’t stop for anyone. But it is advisable for Time that it stop for a moment, at least at certain times, and savour the greatness of the Perpendicular. I think this happened only once in the 90s, when Time stood still, outside the Nataraj theater in a nondescript corner of the Mumbai-Agra highway town, Dhule. Dhule or Dhulia is a buzzing place because of the many colleges there and also because it housed, at least till 2000, 7 cinema theaters inside a very small radius.

On that blessed day in 1998, Nataraj was not lit by serial lights, there weren’t long queues for tickets, certainly no black-marketeers and I don’t remember seeing more than 20 people in the hall. Just the kind of lull before the Perpendicular storm. If movie posters say all about a film, this one was holding on to a great secret. There were three of us in our row of seats, me, Ali and Kamal. Or, in the spirit of this great film, I should call them Ali Albela and Kamal Commando.

Till the movie began, people were smoking, joking, drinking, chewing, blowing their nose, doing push-ups, reciting politically-charged non-rhyming poetry or like us, were catching up on some pre-movie sleep. However, a strange sensation affected us suddenly. There were no curtains in the movie theater (not that I can remember at least), but we were woken up by a tingling feeling as if a joyous spirit had escaped captivity and was calling us to a fairy land. The screen lit up with a magnificently dull font which modestly informed us that we were to watch, “Kanti Shah’s Gunda”. Thanks to Albela, I had been a follower of Mithun-da after watching Military Raaj. I thought that was epochal. I had also seen Dus Numbri in a packed theater and thought it magnificent. But this was something else. It is cinematic bliss, if you may call it so, but its too cheap a phrase these days. Review stars cannot tell you the magic of this film. It has to be associated with a deeper, maybe banal, yet a lot more metaphysical meaning. Have you felt the joy on a giant-wheel when it circles down from a great high? Have you run into a mango grove in your summer holidays and stolen ripe mangoes? Have you smelt the fresh smell of the mud on the first rainy day of the season? Have you held your bladder fast for the entire day and let go triumphantly on your neighbour’s compund wall? Then, dear reader, only then can you understand this bliss.
There is so much to write about this experience, yet you feel as if you are exploiting a native secret. I will desist from this as much as I can, but there is something called duty. Gunda is not just about good versus evil. It isn’t just about retribution. I agree there is an existential angst in Shankar, the protagonist, played with unbelievable restraint by Mithun-da. But that isn’t the point. The symbolism is but a fact of the film, not its truth, as Herzog would tell you. Some art-house fans want to own Gunda as theirs by pointing to the “swinging cots in the kotha” with Razak Khan and his apprentices as being a categorical revolt against the social mores and rigidity in this subtly repressive time. My contention to this is, dear friends, Kanti Shah wouldn’t even think about it. For him, Razak Khan is running a group of hustlers and their “office”, instead of being a dingy room with low candela lights, is a huge hall with swinging cots. If anything, he debunks that theory of restrictive freedom by depicting an atheist communion-like idea inside a very Brechtian setting. Lars von Trier made Dogville with similar imagery, but Gunda was made first.

The other aspect I am always at loggerheads with with my Parallel and Mainstream friends is with the poetic aspect of the dialogues. I can understand why the Mainstream needs Gunda so much. This film has enough poetry for Bollywood to survive for at least three years. It is a simple capitalistic desire of the Mainstream to make business from this masterpiece.

In a film with many characters, it often becomes impossible to sketch each one with conviction. The length of the film is of course important. In Gunda, the problem is handled by an effective use of post-modernist poetry. The Pote character is between a evil boss and a henchman. How do you sketch this character? He isn’t the most important villain, but nor is he a two-cent conman. This dilemma has to be resolved only by deliberating on the character for too long OR like Kanti Shah does here, sort it out with a single line of genius. “Naam hai mera Pote, jo kisi ke baap ke bhi nahi hote.” It is a seminal line in cinema history. At once, the peripheral Pote reveals how independent he is of the sickening hierarchy of rowdy-ism in Indian cinema. At once the character has depth and reason to share space with the monumental Mukesh Rishi’s Bulla.

Take also for instance Harish Patel’s Ibu Hatela. He is but a minor cog in the wheel of Bulla’s regime, but Kanti Shah etches a multi-dimensional character by giving him this eponymous limerick: “Ibu Hatela hai naam mera, maa meri chudail ki beti, baap mera shaitan ka chela. Khayega kela?” Note the various layers here to this character. Again, like Pote, he is a peripheral evil, but he reveals a satanic lineage thus justifying the inherent cruelty of the man. The final line of the rhyme might be a hint at Ibu’s disturbed childhood or perhaps his carnal orientation.

Imagination is a key in Kanti Shah films. It is especially true of Gunda. The audience is transported to a different world. For the money you pay to these films, it must be the cheapest space travel currently available. Violence is a dormant urge in all polite people and second nature in the impolite ones. It is an obvious urge, like death and destruction are obvious possibilities. That is what Kanti Shah’s Gunda says even without wanting to sound preachy. Chutiya (Shakti Kapoor with a ponytail) is a personification of the existential dichotomy of the human being. He has decided though that he wants to be a man, but it is a decision taken from observation, more than intelligence. Maybe, he is “almost” a metaphor for Perpendicular cinema. But unlike him who has decided he wants to choose one rather than swim away from two ideologies, the Perpendicular is happily in uninhibited land. That Gunda has been a significant milestone in ushering this new phenomenon is a true evidence of the film’s longevity and vitality.

(Article lifted with permission from here)