{"id":128997,"date":"2013-05-03T22:25:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-03T16:55:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=128997"},"modified":"2013-05-03T22:25:01","modified_gmt":"2013-05-03T16:55:01","slug":"film-review-bombay-talkies-is-an-endearing-ode-to-cinema","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/film-review-bombay-talkies-is-an-endearing-ode-to-cinema\/","title":{"rendered":"[Film Review] \u2018Bombay Talkies is an endearing ode to cinema\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Bombay<\/a>
Bombay Talkies<\/strong><\/span>
Directors:<\/strong> Anurag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar, Karan Johar
Starring:<\/strong> Saqib Saleem, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Rani Mukerji & Others<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nFOR A<\/strong> film named after a studio that launched the careers of some of Indian cinema\u2019s finest actors, it is a little strange to see Bombay Talkies<\/em> be marketed with its four directors front and centre. In an industry where the term \u2018auteur\u2019 hasn\u2019t been bandied about sin ce the days of Ray and Ghatak, an anthology of four shorts celebr at ing a century of celluloid is a great platform for the storytelling skills of some of our best directors today.
\nA 30-minute film is a unique challenge, as it forces you to strike a balance between condensing your story significantly and sustaining the audience\u2019s atten – tion for a duration that is longer than what most people think. It is a challenge that should bring out the best in a storyteller, a challenge that the four directors \u2014 Karan Johar, Dibakar Banerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap \u2014 approach in their unique ways.
\nJohar\u2019s film has received the greatest plaudits from critics, likely because he was the one least expected to present a coherent film within the constraints of the format. With his tale of a married man being forced to wrestle with his sexuality, he does exceed expectations, but too often resorts to the obvious, or to overt hints. \u201cYou want to come out?\u201d Saqib Saleem\u2019s openly gay character actually asks Randeep Hooda at one point. Not out of the closet, but to go listen to a beggar girl who performs extraordinary renditions of classic Bollywood songs, a mutual passion of the two. Unfortunately, while Johar\u2019s portrayal of the passion between them is sensitive, the ending feels abrupt. Perhaps the subject could\u2019ve been much better handled as a feature film.
\nBanerjee\u2019s adaptation of Satyajit Ray\u2019s short story Patol Babu Film Star, on the other hand, is a triumph in short filmmaking. Even though this film relies more than the others on exposition, by setting it on an empty set, with a dialogue between Nawazuddin Siddiqui and his father\u2019s ghost (Sadashiv Amrapurkar), who appears from a dustbin, Banerjee deftly allows the surreality of the scene to make up for it. The climactic scene, where Siddiqui comes home to tell his ailing daughter the story of his fleeting moment of fame, is wonderfully captured by drowning out the dialogue with flute music and allowing Siddiqui to use his phenomenal talent to mime his tale. That one scene, with the delighted expression on wife and daughter\u2019s face, perfectly sums up the magic of cinema that all four shorts set out to capture.
\nAfter the interval comes the inevitable decline. Sheila Ki Jawani<\/em>, Akhtar\u2019s contribution, is the weakest of the four films, never really building on Naman Jain\u2019s extraordinary performance as the child who wants to chase his dream of being a dancer, rather than the dreams his father forces on him. Katr ina Kaif as a variation of the Blue Fairy in Pinocchio<\/em> is never convincing, and combined with Ranvir Shorey\u2019s hammy performance as the father, reduces the film to a simplistic climb-ev\u2019ry-mountain message.
\nKashyap\u2019s Murabba<\/em>, meanwhile, is an indulgent exe rcise in heartland-chic of the sort that polarised opinions on Gangs of Wasseypur (GoW)<\/em>. The premise \u2014 an Allahabad boy\u2019s attempts at getting Amitabh Bach chan to eat half a murabba<\/em> to honour the wishes of his dying father \u2014 is the kind of pitch that brings a smile to your face when you first hear it, but the execution evokes the same questions and frustrations that mar red the latter stages of GoW.
\nMembers of the film industry will gladly tell you that it isn\u2019t perfect. Bombay Talkies<\/em>, similarly, is awash in imperfections, but is a loving tribute to the world its makers inhabit.
\najachi@tehelka.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Truth: Tehelka Correspondent Ajachi Chakrabarti reviews the movie to watch this weekend — Bombay Talkies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":75,"featured_media":128998,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21],"tags":[8040,412,8326,7275,8051,8162,7610],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/75"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}