There is one thing that a growing number of people that I speak to seem to have a problem with at this yearâs Mumbai Film Festival. It wouldâve been fine to see it a couple of times, maybe, and I think everyone appreciates the sentiment behind it. But every time it comes on, before every single screening, I hear a chorus of âtchsâ and âpfftsâ around me.
Iâm referring, of course, to the version of the national anthem that has been preceding every screening at the PVR multiplexes during this festival. A tribute to the heroes of the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, it begins with a voice-over by Farhan Akhtar that explains how this version is a tribute to the heroes of 26/11, before showing us sombre drone shots of the police officers, fire officials, hotel staff and others who displayed exceptional courage during that horrific tragedy.
Itâs a great sentiment, sure, but there are two problems with it. The first: I donât know if thereâs any larger advantage to having nationalism forced down our throats at a film festival and forcing some people, perhaps, to relive what might be traumatic memories. Itâs bad enough that Maharashtra is one of the few states that enforces this rule for regular public screenings anyway.
Secondly, this may sound puerile, but the film that accompanies the anthem is such a tacky effort that were I a chest-thumping nationalist, Iâd waste no time in calling it an anti-national, foreign-funded conspiracy to malign Hinduism and, therefore, India.
The montage â scored by Salim-Sulaiman and featuring the voices of renowned singers such as Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal, and Kailash Kher â begins with a typo-filled slate (it pays tribute to âmartysâ, for example). Akhtarâs uninspiring voice-over asks us to stand up for the ârashtra geetâ (which actually refers to the national song i.e. âVande Mataramâ; âJana Gana Manaâ is the ârashtra gaanâ). It ends with another that informs us that this is the work of a company called âFadoo Mediaâ (âfadooâ is slang for âawesomeâ), which makes me wonder how the Mumbai Police ever took them seriously.
Irritated festival-goers have already come up with unique ways to amuse themselves during this mandatory experience. A friend, for instance, always gets a chuckle out of the presence of an awkward extra lurking next to a fire-truck in one of the shots. Another gets a kick out of how several shots go out of focus. Hey, itâs a film festival â how else did they think people would react?
Moving on from this, Tuesday was another interesting day at the movies that began for me with Alexander Sokurovâs Francofonia. A docu-fiction mood piece that moves with surprising playfulness through decades of French history, it struck me as a compelling and worthy companion piece to his 2002 masterpiece Russian Ark (a seamless-looking, one-take film that came out more than a decade before Birdman).
French director Philippe Garrelâs In The Shadow Of Women was next. Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) is an inexpressive documentary filmmaker who works closely with his wife Manon (a wonderful Clotilde Courau, who looks like an older Anushka Sharma). From the outside, they seem to have a wonderful marriage (in one scene, a friend asks if they ever fight, to which Manon responds by taking responsibility for all quarrels); however, it soon transpires that both Pierre and Manon are being unfaithful to each other.
This is familiar territory and there is nothing surprising about this film at all, but the filmâs nimbleness as well as its performances come together to make this a minor-but-satisfying study of the male ego.
I wonât write much about Michel Gondryâs Microbe And Gasoline, which is a fun, easy watch that doesnât tax your brain much â think of it as a more accessible version of Wes Andersonâs Moonrise Kingdom minus the breathtaking directorial flourishes. Instead, here are my thoughts on Jacques Audiardâs Golden Palm winner Dheepan, which is the film I ended my day with.
I had my reservations about Dheepan despite the accolades and great reviews, especially after it wasnât chosen as Franceâs entry to the Oscars this year despite being a French production (even though much of it is in Tamil). I walked, therefore, into the theatre with far more realistic expectations.
This immigrant drama tells the story of Sri Lankan refugee and LTTE fighter Dheepan Natarajan (Antonythasan Jesuthasan, a real-life LTTE member making his acting debut here) and the life he begins in Paris with his âwifeâ Yalini (Kalieswari Srinivasan, a theatre actress from Chennai) and âdaughterâ Illaayal (Claudine Vinasithamby).
With âfamilyâ in tow, Dheepan becomes a caretaker in a rough Parisian neighbourhood, while Yalini finds work as a maid. The first two-thirds of the film depict how they adjust to a hard life in a new land, punctuated by some heavy-handed visual imagery. Despite its loose structure and a few unanswered questions, this portion of the film worked quite well for me as it satisfyingly played with themes of displacement and acceptance. It also helps that the actors are uniformly stellar, with standout work from Jesuthasan and Srinivasan.
The larger problem with Dheepan, however, is its refusal to fully develop any one thread of the story, cramming in as much as it can while conveniently forgetting others (Illaayal, sent to a French school where she finds it difficult to make friends, disappears for a good portion of the movie). The final portion, culminating in a Taxi Driver-like act of righteous bloodshed, is flat-out ridiculous. The epilogue, even more unbelievable, is a complete cop-out.
Moral of the story: donât always go by the accolades.
This is an ongoing festival diary covering the 17th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival. Here are round-ups of day 1, day 2, day 3, and day 4.
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