kaminey, questions Options

[xena]

I am maha impressed with VB's ability to work with three very different ensemble casts in all his three films, but now I want to see a film of his that doesn't end in a bloodbath.

see "Blue Umbrella"then - no blood bath - lovely movie - fahid's father is fabulous in it - honestly, such an underused actor. i am most impressed at VB's talents - director, music director, writer, singer - and kids' movies too. haven't seen makdi yet, must get

[xena]

I just heard the title song in the other thread... very nice!

title song is really good. trust gulzar to twist around a word like kamini to be used with dreams and hopes. his imagery is so evocative - loved the laaltein line. and also the kabootar who becomes a mor. really, the song fits so well in that scene - i liked the twist in which kabootar guddu became more kamina than charlie.

so... PC says in one interview that there is only one non-kamina in the movie - who is it? even the cop in the end appears to be getting swayed by the bribes till the bong-cavalry came in guns ablazing. is it be bechara charlie - who in the end saved lives and gave up the drugs.

gulzar is busy defending the name, saying "kamina" is not a bad word unless "kutta" is tagged onto it - which made me wonder about all the subtextual kuttas VB fleetingly touches - the zindagi kutti cheez hai, paifa kutti cheez hai

quick quiz - what were the other kuttiley references? can think of 3 more, heh.

[Manish]

achcha, that line about sugar in the milk - it has been used before by whom? i remember it coming up in the raj thackeray anti-bihari time but forget who maroed it.

Originally it was maroed by Parsi immigrants to India.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=88505980

The Parsi Legend
There are many legends of how the Parsis were allowed to settle in India. The priestly leaders were brought before the local ruler, Jadi or Jadhav Rana, who presented them with a vessel "brimful" of milk to signify that the surrounding lands could not possibly accommodate any more people. The Parsi head priest responded by slipping some sugar into the milk to signify how the strangers would enrich the local community without displacing them. They would dissolve into life like sugar dissolves in the milk, sweetening the society but not unsettling it.

[xena]

achcha, that line about sugar in the milk - it has been used before by whom? i remember it coming up in the raj thackeray anti-bihari time but forget who maroed it.

Originally it was maroed by Parsi immigrants to India.

ah yes, thanks Manish, i wondered where i had read it - and fairly recently at that. the memory, it is going to the pot

[Vai]

You called me Obelix?? Obelix???

That dhan-ta-dan tune is playing over and over in my head, and I wish I had the letters to describe it in writing. Dhan-Ta-Dan n n n....Tyu.n!
Dhan-Ta-Dan n n n....Tyu.n!!
Tyun Tyun-Tyun-Tyun...... like a million violins playing furiously, and I see lots of cars chasing and Amitabh looking very hassled.

Sigh. Am convinced it's out there.

fran, i will call you and we can both go on dhan-ta-daan - tyun, tyun till we get it!

start few secs of this song of roti kapda aur makan -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FduavllyNcM

[hibiscus]

start few secs of this song of roti kapda aur makan -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FduavllyNcM

Genius!

[frangipani]

start few secs of this song of roti kapda aur makan -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FduavllyNcM

Yes!! Vai, that was indeed the Tyun in my head!! the notes are somewhat different from what I was humming in my head, but the Tyun is the same! Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

So Amitabh turning around feverishly as he raced away from some baddies following in various long foreign Dabbaa cars was all my imagination? Or is there another tune out there? Xena, is this the one you wanted?

[Dilliwala Dilwala]

I heard about it sometime back but somehow didn't mention it here:

http://www.filmyfriday.com/bollywood-news/...the-retro-songs

Both tracks have a ravishing retro feel to it. While Twist has borrowed its main riff from Hemans Mukherjee’s Nagin, the main hook line in Vishal’s Dhan Te Nan sounds suspiciously similar to the opening musical interlude of Laxmikant-Pyarelal’s Hai hai yeh majboori from Manoj Kumar’s Roti Kapda Aur Makaan.

While Pritam’s Twist openly acknowledges its debt to its source material, Vishal pooh poohs the suggestion, that his Dhan Te Nan bears any resemblance to the older song.

Had actually meant to check it out some more, because in all his interviews etc, VB talks of his TV serial...

[hibiscus]

Also a heavy bit of Dhanno ki aankhon in Dhan te nan - not surprising, with all the RD tribute business.

[xena]

That dhan-ta-dan tune is playing over and over in my head, and I wish I had the letters to describe it in writing. Dhan-Ta-Dan n n n....Tyu.n!
Dhan-Ta-Dan n n n....Tyu.n!!
Tyun Tyun-Tyun-Tyun...... like a million violins playing furiously, and I see lots of cars chasing and Amitabh looking very hassled.

fran, i will call you and we can both go on dhan-ta-daan - tyun, tyun till we get it!

start few secs of this song of roti kapda aur makan -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FduavllyNcM

oooh, perfect! that is exactly the tune that was going off in my head - such a relief, thank you vai - am so pleased that my memory of the tune was correct - even if i couldn't summon up the song (for some reason, i kept doing a segue into "o hansini")

<now i can sleep>

[sindhuja]

no, really frangi?? bhope was my favourite, i was really impressed by amol gupte.

did anyone else find charlie's strange dreams quite moving? i felt vaguely tearful when i saw those scenes.

Same to same- I actually was about to howl when he falls down while searching for his brother(making it look like he is gonna die)- and then his dreams re-occur. I have this thing for gangsters and drugsters and bookies dying deservedly you know- I am enormously thankful to VB for having him escape with just a broken arm and the 'twins'.
Best thing about bongo brothers was how studious they looked- aekdam 'noble prize winner types'
That Deb Mukherjee looked quite handsome back then-and now.

If VB can make Shahid do this so convincingly-im sure he will do something nice with SRK someday.
VB seems to get some obscure people out from somewhere and spin magic so often..
The african dealers were cool-not at all ur usual hindi flick black painted guys beating drums during a song sequence with a super fat Rekha or Sridevi (I like them both though)dancing to a catchy tune.

Actual one of the best things about the pikchure was usage of ethnics without using them like caricatures-
Not once do the bongos beat 'Cholbe Na' or 'Shotti' like in everyother movie.
There are no bhojpuri servants and marathi pandu havaldar..everybody has a clear role in the scheme of things and the North East seems to find a pivot role in Tashi.


'Raat ke dhaai baje' and 'pahli bar muhabbat ki hai' -my personal favorites- Suresh Wadkar was an excellent choice for latter!!

[Trips]

loved his maqbool and omkara, but very disappointed by bharadwaj's kaminey.
great film editing and scenes, really crappy plot, dialogues and music.
all in all, a complete waste of time for me.

[seeker]

has someone already posted this --an article on vb

[Dilliwala Dilwala]

...Where Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill deliberately disengage with social issues, Kaminey is culpable of treading a virtual minefield of them but using them only to further a fantasy, one about advancement in a milieu in which enterprise is completely unregulated... grotesque in the way it exaggerates the prevailing situation. But instead of disturbing the spectators or causing them distress, the film is actually being enjoyed; there is apparently some strange kind of satisfaction in the fantasy of a crumbling social structure in which a person has only two options – either eat or be eaten

fo fhocking we fhould be afhamed of ourfelvef

[hibiscus]

a person has only two options – either eat or be eaten

Doesn't EPW realise this is real life?

[Trips]

From Raghavendra's article:

All this suggests that Kaminey’s vision is a low life fantasy lived
out by the aspiring, upwardly mobile classes who have no idea of what
“low life” really means. Why the aspiring, upwardly mobile urban classes
need to live out a lowlife fantasy is difficult to explain but it might be the
best way to sustain their faith in “social-Darwinism”. “Clawing one’s way
to the top” is perhaps a self-justifying daydream enacted by those with
advantages.

Nicely put!

[armagod]

Doesn't EPW realise this is real life?

Don't cops have a long history of being depicted on film as having interests quite apart from serious law enforcement? Not just in Indian cinema. There have always been corrupt cops shown on screen... and even here, there's no suggestion that every single cop out there is corrupt or crooked, just the ones being shown.

I'm not at all sure what was meant by "Tarantino's world is make-believe and he identifies no recognisable social groups in his stories".. you just need to count the (then controversial) references to race and homosexuality in "Pulp Fiction".

[frangipani]

That's such a terrible review.

[xena]

That's such a terrible review.

yeah, quite sad. don't think he knows hindi movies that well - not to mention some facile assumptions - like the bits on the affordability of airfare - or the possibility of wellbuilt bodies at the local vyayam-mandir.

[Trips]

yeah, quite sad. don't think he knows hindi movies that well - not to mention some facile assumptions - like the bits on the affordability of airfare - or the possibility of wellbuilt bodies at the local vyayam-mandir.

going by the number of film reviews he has written (presumably having watched all of them), he
knows hindi cinema quite well.

re: his three page review of a do kauDi film, sure he touched upon some insignificant bits. but
i agree with both the statements below:

Guddu lives in a chawl but catching a flight somewhere
with Sweety seems an easy matter that does not need deliberation.
The muscular bodies exhibited by Charlie and Guddu are
not working class bodies built through physical labour, but bodies
acquired at great expense through fancy equipment
and gym instructors.

he is not disputing the possibility of "wellbuilt bodies at the local vyayam-mandir,"
he simply states they look different from that acquired through fancy gym equipment.

[xena]

yeah, quite sad. don't think he knows hindi movies that well - not to mention some facile assumptions - like the bits on the affordability of airfare - or the possibility of wellbuilt bodies at the local vyayam-mandir.

going by the number of film reviews he has written (presumably having watched all of them), he
knows hindi cinema quite well.

then maybe he shouldn't be so surprised at movies depicting corrupt cops - that's happened in umpteen movies. hindi movies are rife with the corruption at either the constable or topcop or the government level - khakee, company, ab tak chhappan, rang-de-basanti, damini, maqbool, and a zillion others have had venal cops/politicos. race was a more amoral story than kaminey, wonder if he saw that one

the father in Deewar was not "unjustly accused" - true, he gave in because he worried about his family's safety, but he did sell out his fellow union folk for personal gain, didn't he? to his comrades, he seemed to be a kamina

he is not disputing the possibility of "wellbuilt bodies at the local vyayam-mandir,"
he simply states they look different from that acquired through fancy gym equipment.

my point is that they don't necessarily look different - there used to be quite a few hunks in our area in bombay who worked out in a tiny vyayam mandir and could have given shahid a complex with their physique.

his other interpretations are also a tad simplistic - he evinces surprise that guddu-sweetoo could fly off somewhere when they live in a chawl without pondering over the cost - first, the film-maker doesn't have to show every ponderous thought in their minds to demonstrate their middle-classness. second, having a bunch of thugs behind them could have well made them prone to less pondering and more escaping, cost be damned. third, sweetoo, who urges that they fly, was not a chawl-resident, really, and could have well afforded them.

he says that the brothers are not "wounded souls" about their past - but, oh, they are - hence the art movie angst ridden flashbacks. he seems to see Guddu as being socially more ethical, which is also a bit dubious

he seems to be forcefitting some of his pet theories here - clearly he and i saw two different movies

This post has been edited by xena: Oct 1 2009, 04:13 PM

[sadanand]

Guddu lives in a chawl but catching a flight somewhere
with Sweety seems an easy matter that does not need deliberation.
The muscular bodies exhibited by Charlie and Guddu are
not working class bodies built through physical labour, but bodies
acquired at great expense through fancy equipment
and gym instructors.

he is not disputing the possibility of "wellbuilt bodies at the local vyayam-mandir,"
he simply states they look different from that acquired through fancy gym equipment.

Umm, I know about airline flight pursers who live in chawls simply because they choose to and b) the pay isn't all the great.

He must know a lot more about fancy gym equipment and bodies. I've not seen anything on Charlie and Guddu that couldn't have been acquired by a pair of 25 pound dumbbells and some judicious pushups and pullups and squats. All of which are available at the local Shivaji gyms.
You want ripped like body builders then you need more than a gym. You need steroids, protein shakes, the right amount of fasting for muscle definition....

[hibiscus]

Maybe he's just jealous that Shahid looks so good in this movie, despite having a general propensity for looking like a rat (as someone else referred to John <<sighing>> Abraham elsewhere...).

[behenji.turned.mod]

aah......finally........i see more ppl think the way i did @ kaminey


the over the top wah wah in the begining was quite depressing

[seeker]

that's just a plain bad review, no sense of the cinematic at all....

[shyama]

I don't feem to have any fenfe of the finematic either. Juft watched it. What a dark movie... crime is juft not my genre.

[hima]

FINALLY watched Kaminey - what fun! Those Bengali bhais were hilarious. Not having heard any of the songs except Dhan Te Nan before I really enjoyed Fatak, Raat ke Dhai Baje and Pehli Baar Mohabbat. Didn't realize Vishal Bharadwaj sings too (the title song).

[xena]

so, the song dhan te nan was playing on tv just now and i was a bit zapped to find bits of it censored by this beepitybeep sounds. i stopped to listen and found all the "teli ka tel" had been beeped. apparently another of those crazy "offence to community" situations - so now replaced with "dilli ka tel" - just as well i got my copy of the song before this. am puzzled though - how is it offensive? does a teli not sell tel?

eta : am thinking i shall make a complaint against RK Productions becauze "zeena yahan marna yahan" is very offensive to us warrior princesses

This post has been edited by xena: Nov 13 2009, 02:15 PM

[sadanand]

eta : am thinking i shall make a complaint against RK Productions becauze "zeena yahan marna yahan" is very offensive to us warrior princesses

Eh whats wrong wid dat? I am thinking of authoring a book "If you meet a warrior princess on the road she will kill you".
Very zen like.

[frangipani]

But for zat your title will have to be: "If you meet a warrior princess on the road zen she will kill you"