Talking Movies

Talking Movies
Talking movies

Friday 28 February 2014

SHAADI KE SIDE EFFECTS: Hubby-Daddy ke Side Effects

In a very small scene, Sid (Farhan Akhtar) rides up to his wife,Trisha (Vidya Balan) on his new, cool motorbike. You can see the nonchalance of a young, happy go lucky, tension free, ‘single’ man in Sid’s body language. Trisha gives him an incredulous look and asks, “Yeh kya hai?” Sid replies casually, “Bike hai”. Trisha now gives him ‘I am not blind’ look and says, “Woh dikh raha hai.” Then she shoots the typical wife’s question. Or rather accusation. “Bina pooche bike khareed li?”

The brief second that follows is both the finest in acting by Farhan Akhtar and a telling moment about the loss of freedom and the sense of responsibility that marriage entails. Sid looses his casual body language in a jiffy. He almost stands up at Trisha’s schoolteacher tone and quickly checks himself. He remains seated on the bike and listens to the wife’s righteous tirade on how their sturdy Volkswagen is more ‘practical’ since it accommodates him, his wife, their tiny tot, Mili and her pram.

The scene encapsulates how Shaadi Ke Side Effects is a decent but microscopic take of a husband’s point of view. Writer/director, Saket Chaudhary has made this sequel to Pyaar Ke Side Effects after eight long years. True to his style, the film is a light, funny insight into marriage dynamics. It tries to strike a balance between the comic and serious, with a great deal of support from its perfect casting.

Sid and Trisha, a happily married couple, work at keeping the passion alive by meeting periodically as strangers on a date. Sid is the kind of husband any woman would be happy to have. He believes in saying sorry when he is wrong and also when she is wrong. He is also the kind of man who hesitates to tell the truth to avoid upsetting his wife. Trisha is the loving, somewhat controlling wife who takes her responsibilities too seriously. Sid composes small jingles for commercials and has dreams of making his own music album. The dreams go for for a toss when Trisha announces, “We are pregnant” and quits her on job.

The film goes into an over extended sequence of what parenting a newborn, entails. Howling baby, sleepless nights and a couple’s changing roles provide some nice, laugh out loud moments. Particularly when Sid falls off the bed one night and Trisha scolds him for making noise while falling and waking up the baby. Or when he has to listen to parents discussing their children’s potty very seriously.

Thankfully, once Sid’s new situation as a father has been established, the story moves into the real issue of the big side effect of marriage, post interval. Brief appearances by a maid who prefers to be called aunty (Ila Arun), a helpful hero of a neighbour (Purab Kohli) and a young struggling model as a part time roomie (Vir Das), however, stretch the plotline and the humour. The story gets more and more husband centric and even gets amateurish at times.

Despite the story loopholes, the film entertains because of the comic lines and great timing by both Farhan and a hotter and fatter Vidya.

Shaadi Ke Side Effects belongs entirely to a fabulous Farhan Akhtar and should be called Hubby-Daddy ke Side Effects.

      

Friday 21 February 2014

HIGHWAY: DANGER AHEAD

What is safe? Your plush home, your cosy room, your warm bed, your family or the long dark highway to nowhere, ice-cold air, rushing streams, bus tops, strangers who can kidnap, rape or kill? The answers are not as simple as they would appear. Neither is the film, Highway. And therein lies the problem.

Writer/director, Imtiaz Ali showed a lot of promise with his first film, ‘Socha Na Tha’, a simple love story rooted in reality. He went on hit some right notes with ‘Jab We Met’ in modern romance and interesting characters. With ‘Love Aaj Kal’, he started experimenting with treatment, built up a crescendo in Rockstar over something non-existent and left the audience as confused as the characters.

Highway’s Veera (Alia Bhatt) is as bold and whimsical as Jab We Met’s Geet or every heroine from Ali’s previous films. She is also as confused. And it doesn’t help when she questions herself now and again,”Main aisa kyon kar rahin hoon… Main itna bol kyon rahi hoon….” Or when she laughs and cries at the same time.

The story opens beautifully with A.R.Rehman’s score playing to a brief, sweeping shot of Northern landscapes seen though a truck’s front-view. It moves quickly to the point where Veera, the daughter of a rich, influential Delhiite, Tripathi, gets kidnapped on the eve of her wedding. Initially, the story’s pace and the Veera’s ordeal at the hands of her kidnapper, Mahabir (Randeep Hooda) is tight, realistic and engrossing enough to help you ignore the fact that Mr. Tripathi and company are not seen or heard right till the end.

Just when the action slackens and the story starts losing its momentum, Veera starts talking. As if some sort of a deeper conviction is required to go any further in her journey.

A long and awkward monologue enacted brilliantly by Alia, marred by a badly timed cut, takes the story into a completely disconnected and wild alley. The scenes get more and more contrived; the dialogues more abrupt or too Haryanvi as the otherwise silent Hooda, opens up to the chatty and strangely cheerful Veera. Again, it is Hooda’s acting, particularly a breakdown moment, along with Alia’s; which come to the script’s rescue.

But the magic is lost again as the film stretches beyond the point, where it should end. Backstories end up becoming the main story and it doesn’t help at all when the characterization of the family, is as good as trees along the way.

At one point in the latter half, the film starts becoming a travelogue with nothing happening on the snow capped peaks of Shimla, stunningly captured by Anil Mehta. An earlier shot of Alia running in circles across an endless stretch of land in the thick of a dark night; is a wonderful, cinematic moment, evocative of her fear and confusion.

Moments like these, Alia’s sensitive performance, Imtiaz’s earnest though misdirected attempt at new territories are the brighter spots on this otherwise bumpy Highway. 

Tuesday 18 February 2014

FANDRY: “DON’T TOUCH ME, YOU PIG!”



There is a scene in Marathi film Fandry, where two young boys, stand against Dr. Ambedkar’s painting on a wall and watch some girls play, waiting to see if one pretty girl in particular, glances as much in their direction. One of the boys is dark skinned Jabya. More about this scene later.

Every night before Jabya sleeps, he writes this girl’s name on his slate: Shaalu. This is his sole, blissful secret moment after a day’s exhaustive labour of digging soil with his mother.

Jabya, besides religiously completing his school homework daily, has a love letter ready for Shaalu. The letter says he may not be handsome, he may be poor and he may belong to a caste lower than hers, but there is no one in the world who loves her as much as he does. Just to what length he goes to, in order to win Shaalu’s love, we see throughout the film.

Every day, Jabya and his friend walk and cycle across long miles of dry, arid land, in search of a rare mythical bird, a black sparrow with a long tail. A well-meaning older villager, Chankya, has told him that if he catches the bird, burns it and sprinkles the ashes on Shaalu, she will fall for Jabya. Chankya is the only adult in the village who understands Jabya’s feelings. For he himself was once in love with someone ‘unattainable’. Today he is an alcoholic. But Jabya has faith in black sparrow magic. His days are either spent in search of the elusive bird or in following the pretty girl in school.

So as he stands against the wall with Dr. Ambedkar’s painting on it, his friend, Pirya, tells him, Shaalu looked in his direction. To make sure, they change places. Just to see if she turns and looks. And she does. Jabya smiles happily to himself. Pirya is happy for him. Love is in the village air.

Suddenly a pig runs by. Shaalu screams out that the pig touched her friend and laughs. The girl rushes to the mother who instructs the girl to bathe instantly. Then she sprinkles cow urine on the girl to ‘purify’ her of the pig’s touch. Shaalu continues to laugh.

Sadly, this is no laughing matter for Jabya. His triumphant smile fades. Love is no longer in the pig stenched village air. After all, his father (Kishore Kadam) belongs to that Kaikadi tribe of Dalit or ‘untouchables’; who is called by the villagers to catch pigs and get rid of them. They are not even called by their names. The common name assigned to them is Fandry (a type of wild pig).

Much as Dr. Ambedkar may have fought for them, boys like Jabya are caught in this inherent caste war in rural India. Written and directed by Nagraj Popatrao Manjule, the film unfolds frame by frame, drawing you in completely. Vikram Amladi’s cinematography is as sharp and hard-hitting as the moments shown. Every single detail captured by the lenses, tells the story of abject poverty. Be it the free cow dung that Jabya’s father takes home to cover the cracks on the walls and colour it blue in preparation of Jabya’s sister’s wedding. Or in the ‘lota’ (jug) of hot water used to iron a shirt. Or in the desperation of livelihood, in the way the women steal some cane, weave baskets which Jabya sells for Rs. 100 each. Or the frenzy of total despair as Chankya dances away his woes at a procession and Jabya stands carrying a heavy light on his young shoulders.

The film comes together in the most powerful and deliberately long pre-climax pig chase. Again, both the director and the cinematographer deserve a huge applause for carrying off this feat. The gripping sequence brings together the entire village in its relentless reality: the father who ignores both the cruel villagers around and his tearing knee pain in order to earn his living; the women whose dignity hangs by a thread at every village loafer’s taunt; and most of all, the boy who tries his best to hide from jeering school mates, mainly Shaalu, as he is pushed into his family duties.

Watch out for the moment when Jabya does come within aiming distance of the black sparrow. This is peer pressure, agony of young love, classic use of the pig, the existing caste system and fantastic storytelling; at its heart wrenching best.

Every single actor right from the young Somnath Avghade (Jabya), Suraj Pawar (Pirya), Rajeshwari Kharat (Shaalu) to Kishore Kadam (Kachru), is so real in both looks and performance that you forget, this is acting. Nagraj himself plays Chankya with a casual style that reminds you of Nana Patekar.

If you fail to watch Fandry, you will be doing a disservice to yourself living in this caste based society, to the little boy who has desires like you have, to the Marathi film industry telling far richer stories than the Hindi cinema and to that next Pork Vindallo you dig into.

Not watching the film, will be a slap bigger than calling a boy ‘Fandry’. His name happens to be Jambuwant Kachru Mane.

     

Friday 14 February 2014

GUNDAY: ANGOOTHA CHAAP ENTERTAINMENT

I miss Jai and Veeru, the shameless thieves of Sholay. I miss the way they lip sync Kishore Kumar’s hearty “Yeh dosti… Meri jeet, teri jeet…”; with complete gusto while riding a scooter like there is no tomorrow.

I miss them more than ever because I just saw wannabe Jai and Veeru clones, Bikram (Ranveer Singh) and Bala (Arjun Kapoor), trying to be shameless goons in Gunday. Dressed in white shirt and pant with a huge, red heart printed on the chest and the bottom, they look sillier than clowns and not one tenth as rowdy as they are supposed to be. Their mark of friendship comes in the form ‘angootha chaap’ promises that Bikram keeps making to Bala.

I miss the childhood saga of Vijay (Amitabh) and Ravi (Shashi Kapoor) in Deewar. I miss the pain they carry through their adulthood. I miss the tattoo on Vijay’s arm that said “mera baap chor hai”. Most of all, I missed the scene where Vijay makes Iftekhaar pick up some cash and says with the raw mix of anger and pride that only Amitabh Bachchan can bring to Javed Akhtar’s words, “Main aaj bhi pheke hue paise nahin uthata”.

I miss that line the most because the scene is copied in the worst possible manner when Bikram and Bala, as children, refuse to take their money unless it is given in their hands. The anger displayed is as false as a fake coin. The two are Bangladeshi refugees who want to own Kolkata so that they can get back what was rightfully theirs before the India-Bangladesh partition in 1970. The 20 minute childhood justification sequence which includes an attempted child abuse, fails to match the unfairness doled out to Vijay’s family in Deewar and the resultant angst in his adult life.

I miss Kaala Patthar, the story of a coalmine worker who is unable to forget his troublesome past. The coalmine backdrop, symbolizing the darkest of worlds, both inner and outer; has remain etched forever as a powerful cinematic tool of storytelling.

I miss Kaala Patthar because Gunday shows Bikram and Bala starting their gunda life with illegal coal business and reminding the audience all the time how dark their lives are; with lame lines that keep harping ‘kaala’ and ‘safed’. No line matches the hardships contained in Kaala Paththar’s “Koyle ki khaan ek azgar hai seth sahab, jo roz, anginath logon ko nigalkar, use peeskar, jism se khoon ka ek-ek katra choos kar, ek laash ke roop mein ugal deta hai”.

I miss Parveen Babi. When she did a cabaret dance, neither you nor the hero or the villain could take his eyes off her.

When Priyanka Chopra makes her entry with the much publicized cabaret number “asalame ishqum”, it looks like any item number. Her instant transformation into a Durga devotee dressed in a cotton tangai saree, creates just one memorable moment when she grooves to Mr. India’s “I love you” in front of the big screen showing Sridevi in her blue sareed glory.

Irrfan Khan is probably the only reason to watch the movie. As the cop who plays ‘catch me if you can’ with the two baddies, he just glides in and out of screen smoothly, not even blinking an eyelid in the name of expression. A lesson here for both Arjun and Ranveer who bend backwards and every which way to appear intense and end up looking like brats or “bachche” as Priyanka’s character calls them once.

Written and directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, the film is too large in canvas and over-predictable in plot. As a tribute to the 70s and the 80s, Gunday only succeeds in making you miss the cabarets and the fights and the dramatic one-liners.

The only line that brought a smile was “Jis Bengali ko football pasand nahin hai, us par bharosa mat karna”. Perhaps, the only effort at maintaining the Kolkata backdrop besides the typical Durga statue.

When you watch amateurish actors with lopsided grins, wearing white shirts and pants with red hearts on the chest and bottom, jumping out of trains and coalmines think of what you miss the most. Like, I did. 

Saturday 1 February 2014

http://www.dailypioneer.com/sunday-edition/agenda/cover-story/dialogues-rip.html


(This artcile appeared in The Pioneer, sunday edition,2.2.2014.)

Udti hoon aake banke vimaan/ Ready rakhna love ka samaan/ Milke rahoongi/ Chahe Baa le le jaan,” says the feisty and defiant Leela to her lover Ram in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. “Jitni tu garam hai/ Utna tera bistar naram hai,” says the amorous lover, Ram. Ram-Leela went on to hit the box office collections of Rs 100 crore, signifying the audience’s acceptance of these lusty, crudely poetic lovers.
Contrast this with the timeless classic, Mughal-e- Azam in 1960: “Kaneez to kab ki mar chooki/ Ab janaaze ko rukhsat ki ijaazat dijiye.” A memorable, rebellious exchange between Anarkali and the lover’s father, Akbar, who allows Anarkali to spend one last night with Salim on the understanding that she will be led to her death at sunrise. Mughal-e-Azam went on to stay the highest grossing film for 15 years. The film’s screenplay by
K Asif and Aman (Zeenat Aman’s father) was further dramatised by a team of brilliant writers: Wajahat Mirza, Kamaal Amrohi and Ehsaan Rizvi. The writers’ mastery over Urdu’s poetic expression is present in every line.
Today, leave alone historic lore or poetic Urdu, romance and love are expressed over cheesy smses, as evident in Ram-Leela, and love borders on lust. The debut writer duo, Garima-Siddharth, attribute this kind of language to the small town setting of Gujarat and the kind of characters the film has. “The sms poetry sounds the way it does because Ram is Romeo, a poet at heart but he is also a tapori who runs a video parlour; from him you don’t expect great poetry. Dialogue comes from the set-up and the character, and these two lives in a rustic gun market place in Gujarat in the sms era.”
However, opinion on this kind of writing is divided among both older and contemporary writers. Javed Siddiqui, a renowned writer of over 90 films ranging from Satyajit Ray’s classic Shatranj Ke Khiladi to commercial hits like Baazigar and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge, has his own reservations. So does Juhi Chaturvedi, the award-winning writer of Vicky Donor. Commenting on Ram-Leela’s lines like “Angoor hai green, kele ka rang peela hai, keh do saari duniya se, Ram ki Leela hai”, she says, “I think this is lame writing. It evokes short-term reactions and quick bursts of laughter in two hours, but will it be remembered in the next five years? A director who has maturity will never go in for such short-term gratification.”
Siddiqui elaborates, “It reflects the director’s sensibilities. Any sensitive writer and director should know that romance is a sensitive genre and their work is changing the sanctity of love. We should keep in mind what today’s generation is learning from such cinema. In what we called classical romance, the focus was on respecting feelings. Today, a news report says that a girl rejected her boyfriend and so he raped her as well as got his friends to gang-rape her. Can that sort of scenario be justified as love? We have to be responsible about what we are leaving behind for the youngsters.”
Niranjan Iyengar, who has a more diverse style of writing as seen in films like Wake Up Sid, Kal Ho Na Ho, Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, D-Day and Fashion, believes that the success of Ram-Leela lies in its dialogues which worked with the young. He says, “It does connect with the audience. The idea of language has changed with the advent of cell phones, Internet and the multicultural pot that is India. Just like in music, earlier Dhrupad was considered the purest form, then Khayal became pure and today Thumri is considered semi-classical. Likewise language keeps evolving differently. Today, Hinglish is the accepted dialect. It may be blasphemy to you and me but it exists. To survive, one has to adapt. Technicians have to evolve or they fall by the wayside.”
It has become a matter of debate whether the audience dictates the language of cinema or vice versa. Garima-Siddharth strongly defend Ram-Leela’s treatment. “Today young lovers want to be with each other, and then take it forward. Like Bhansali once mentioned, young lovers today don’t look at the moon and the stars, they are randy people. And since we were adapting Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, the text itself is full of double meanings. It is as lusty and vulgar as it can get and that’s what is beautiful about it. The film’s success proves its acceptance from audiences,” they say.
While it is too early to decide if Ram-Leela stands the test of time, the biggest blockbuster on romance since the 1990s remains Aditya Chopra’s Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jaayenge. Chopra went on to win a Filmfare award for Best Dialogue, along with Javed Siddiqui, amongst numerous other awards. DDLJ was also the longest running film in Indian cinema after Sholay. The film’s success was attributed to its central theme of the purity of a woman being reflective of Indian values. In a scene when Simran (Kajol) wakes up in Raj’s (Shah Rukh Khan) bed and is concerned if anything happened between them the night before, he says: “Main ek Hindustani hoon, aur main jaanta hoon ki ek Hindustani ladki ki izzat kya hoti hai.”
Siddiqui, who wrote the dialogues for DDLJ along with Aditya Chopra, is one of the few writers from an Urdu literature background. As he himself says, “There are only three such writers in the industry today — Javed Akhtar, Gulzar and me. None of us is writing much nowadays. Once Gulzar told me that he doesn’t write anymore because today’s cinema does not interest him.”
Now that writers like Rahi Masoom Raza (Mahabharat), Rajinder Singh Bedi (Madhumati, Abhimaan), Abrar Alvi (Pyaasa, Sahib, Biwi aur Ghulam, Kaagaz ke Phool), Wajahat Mirza (Mughal-e-Azam) are no more, gone are the days of the ’60s when every line was poetry. Or the ’70s and ’80s when films were full of dramatic exchanges, thanks to the celebrated writer duo, Salim-Javed. Sample the legendary Gabbar Singh’s lines in Sholay — “Kitne aadmi the” — or even a heated exchange between brothers that culminated in the famous “Mere paas maa hai” line in Deewar. These are deeply etched in the Indian cinegoer’s mind even today. Seeing the popularity of Sholay’s dialogues, for the first time in the history of cinema, a separate record album with dialogues was released.
However over the years, after Salim-Javed’s last film together, Mr India, the era of dramatic dialogues suddenly came to a standstill. With Ram Gopal Varma’s underworld-based films like Satya and Company, writers like Anurag Kashyap and Jaideep Sahni came to the forefront. However, Kamlesh Pandey, who has written numerous hits including Laawaris, Dil, Tezaab, Khalnayak, Rang De Basanti, feels that Anurag’s work has been disappointing post-Satya. He is hopeful of Jaideep Sahni and Rajat Arora’s work.
Salman Khan’s Wanted and his popular line in it, “Ek baar maine commitment kar di...” brought back memories of a Mithun-starrer film. His “itne ched karenge...” in Dabangg was voted the best line by viewers in 2011. Pandey comes down heavily on films like Dabangg and remakes of the ’80s’ cinema and calls their one-liners “do kaudi ki line”. He says, “If people continue to work for money and fame, we will be subjected to the same story like Dabangg or Rowdy Rathore or the film like Dhoom. The day films stop being a dhanda, that day we will see better films. Today’s films use do kaudi ki line like ‘thappar se dar nahin lagta sahib’ or ‘entertainment, entertainment, entertainment’.”
Rajat Arora, who is known to have brought back the trend of “dialogue-baazi” with his work in Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai (OUATIM) and The Dirty Picture, believes that such lines are deliberately used to cater to the public as every action flick is the same and it is punch lines like these which set them apart. Talking about OUATIM, he says, “We wanted to make sure that the film is reflective of the 1970s and every line has a punch in it. In The Dirty Picture, we tried to be naughty, not vulgar.” It was probably the first time a female character was seen as well as accepted saying lines like “Mujhe jo chahiye, uska mazaa sirf raat ko aata hai”.
Siddiqui believes that films like Dabangg are a passing phase. “At one time Kader Khan would write double-meaning dialogues which were a huge success initially but got rejected later.” Talking about contemporary writing, he says: “I can only hope that the new writers will apply what renowned writer Waris Alvi once said, ‘Dus kilo padhiye aur dus gram likhiye’ (read 10 kilos and write 10 grams).”
Charudutt Acharya, who has written the dialogues of Dum Maro Dum, Taxi Nau Do Gyarah, Bluffmaster and debuts as a director this year with his film, Sonali Cable, says: “Many young writers and directors are folks whose primary lingo of speech and thought is English. Several dialogues have become clichéd, those thoughts have become clichéd too. So it’s considered almost comic to use them. Call it the metrosexual lingo or the urban Indian lingo.” Garima-Siddharth believe that one doesn’t have to have a great literary Hindi or Urdu background to write as the writing depends on the character and his world. “Even Gulzar has written lyrics like Bidi jalaile because it connects with the audience,” they say.
Delhi Belly, the adult comedy in 2011 brought in a hardcore usage of four letter words with its unapologetic style of humour and a smattering of English. “Shake that biscuit, baby, shake it for me” was the mildest line used. The infamous “Bhaag DK Bose” song, along with Akshat Verma’s writing, gave rise to a trend with more films aping the same. Comedies in the same genre came and went without too much success.
Movies which represented the rustic hinterland, like Ishqiya and Gangs of Wasseypur (GOW), Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster, brought in both shock value and realism.
“Us harami ko mitana hai hamein, goli nahin marenge, keh ke lenge uski” — this and far stronger use of expletives fetched GOW a Filmfare award for the best dialogues.
Jaideep Sahni, acclaimed writer of Chak De India, welcomes this change. “Some stories and environments may have characters who have a rough language, and spraying their dialogue with fake moral perfume may completely destroy both the character and the story. On the other hand, there will always be a few people who will interpret this as an opportunity to use abusive language as an attraction in their film. These are two completely different things, and it will be wrong to sacrifice the authencity of the first for the nuisance value of the second.”
However, Pandey disapproves and says that he has stopped watching films for this very reason. “If I have to hear gaalis, why should I not go to the streets instead? Why watch a film for that? Today a film’s achievement is that it has abusive language, not just in dialogues but also in lyrics,” says Pandey. Siddiqui cautions, “Films using abusive language are okay if the story is about a rowdy character but we must remember that a five-year-old child is watching.”
Arora has a practical approach. He thinks that such language may not draw more audiences and it is important that everyone should watch the film. “A certain kind of language may provide some shock value initially but after a point, what?” he asks.
What makes a dialogue memorable and why don’t we have that any more? “If a dialogue survives the test of time and not only applies to characters but also to larger universal truths, it is a great dialogue. Like Gulzar’s ‘zindagi badi honi chahiye, lambi nahin’,” says Iyengar.
The legacy of films like Mughal-e-Azam, Mother India, Anand, Aandhi, Guide, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Sholay, Deewar, etc, has left behind a huge vacuum for memorable lines or scenes. Can that ever be filled again? Arora laughs, “No one can be Salim-Javed. Don’t compare us mortals with the gods of writing.”
While Garima-Siddharth believe Ram-Leela may have brought back the good old times of powerful dialogues, Sahni looks at it in a balanced, hopeful manner. He says, “Only when there is a place for storytellers of all kinds, of different tastes and sensibilities in our industry and our audiences’ hearts, we will be the growing and vibrant film culture we deserve to be. This will reflect in a diversity of dialogue styles also — from loud to subtle.”
But Pandey is cynical. “Every year we make at least 800 films, so we have made roughly 8,000 films in the last 10 years. I asked the students at a FICCI masterclass to name one film they remember. None had an answer. Despite doing business worth crores, our films have actually become poor. They make big businesses because they release in 4,000 screens and tickets are priced at Rs 300. Jeete hue ghode se kaun behas kare? This is the biggest slap to our audience and film writers,” says he.
So what’s the future of dialogues? Is the immortality of the line over? Pandey isn’t all hopeful. “When I saw Dil Chahta Hai, I thought here was a new voice, ek naya sikka in Farhan (Akhtar). But after Don, I am still waiting to know what happened to that voice. The older lot like Gulzar, Kundan Shah, Salim-Javed should start writing again and show us what a good script is.”
The writer tries to make peace with her own filmmaking nightmares, of being an actor, scriptwriter and assisting film icons by moonlighting as a film journalist.