Paiyaa

Paiyaa (N. Linguswamy, 2010)

It's actually taken me a long time to getting round to writing this one up because initially my love for the film was so intimidatingly strong I couldn't even form coherent sentences. When you look elsewhere on the internet and discover...shall we say...''lukewarm'' reviews of Paiyaa, you may wonder if I am on crack or just if my taste is incredibly questionable. I assure you: I am not on crack.

First a synopsis!

Paiyaa apparently loosely translates as “boy” - so the boy of the title is Shiva (Karthi), who at the start of the film is best described as a kind of a hipster slacker. He's too cool, for example, to hop on a bus that has stopped to let passengers board – he waits until it is moving (presumably because that makes him look more awesome). He's unemployed, but has a big group of friends that won't tolerate his slacking and who arrange a job interview for him.

Everything is looking good for Shiva thanks to his friends...until he falls in love with a girl (Tamannah) he sees at the bus-stop. He falls in love in an instant – a split second and he's smitten – and his love for the mystery girl puts his job interview in jeopardy. Fate is on Shiva's side when his path crosses with the mystery girl's sooner rather than later. Shiva goes to pick up a friend from the railway station but sees the mystery girl seemingly in distress, accompanied by her uncle. They mistake Shiva for a cab driver and enlist him to drive them from Bangalore to Chennai – a job Shiva eagerly accepts. En route to Chennai while filling the car with petrol, the mystery girl urges Shiva to drive off without her uncle, requesting, ultimately, that he take her to Mumbai.

And from here on in it's a ROAD TRIP MOVIE! Mystery girl is running from something – she won't tell Shiva just what it is. Shiva is increasingly secretly smitten with Mystery Girl, only he doesn't even know her NAME, and she thinks he's ACTUALLY a cab driver. And as the film and the road trip progress, it becomes apparent that there are people following Shiva and Mystery Girl, with motives of their own. Motives that basically involve Shiva having to do a LOT of kick-punching. WHICH IS AWESOME IF LIKE ME YOU LOVE A BIT OF VIOLENCE MIXED INTO YOUR ROMANCE (that sounds wrong, just imagine a less sick sounding sentence and you have the essence).

What I love the most about Paiyaa is that it's just...super romantic and filmi without erring too far into “Oh my god now I need to vomit” zone. Part of this is Karthi's performance – he's really good at the “dreamy in love” face and the “I'm so ecstatic I am with her” face. But it's the story too. For example: Shiva falls in love with his mystery girl (FINE, her name is Charu) in a split second when he sees her as he gets off the bus – but I totally buy it in filmi land – like cosmic fated love struck him like a lightning bolt.

And then Shiva gets totally believably annoying. He has a crush! and calls his friends at all hours to gush about her, and ask advice, and gush some more. 
 

I really really loved the way Shiva's relationship with his friends was portrayed throughout the film – how they help him get a job interview at the beginning, how Shiva is constantly calling various members of the group for advice during his road trip (or just to talk about Charu and how much he likes her), how they all complain about him but support him anyway. 

I also really liked how Priya (unless I totally missed something) is just a friend who happens to be a girl, rather than being someone's sister or girlfriend. I feel like it's weird I need to even notice that, but so often the token girl is “the sister” “the wife” or “the girlfriend”.

I also love the songs RIDICULOUSLY MUCH. Okay I admit. I am biased towards this film.

Here's the thing. I know I probably shouldn't love this film as much as I do. There is at least one glaringly obvious WTF moment of crackness (hint, if you've seen it: lipstick glitter car; umbrella), there are kind of gaping plot holes if you think about things too hard and OKAY YES I KNOW SOMEONE WILL POINT OUT TO ME THAT KARTHI IS NOT REALLY AS BLESSED IN THE DANCING DEPARTMENT AS MANY OF HIS SOUTHERN FILM INDUSTRY COLLEAGUES but

a) to address that last point first: I think his sometimes spazzy dancing is freaking adorable and also, shut up
b) EHHH SHUT UP! HATERS, I LOVE THIS FILM AND I AM THE FIRST TO ADMIT I TURN A BLIND EYE TO ITS FAULTS. See: full disclosure! Objectively, I know it's not a classic; subjectively, I DON'T CARE BECAUSE IT'S AWESOME AND LOVE FOR IT WILL LIVE IN MY HEART FOREVER.

(Further disclosure: Paiyaa was the first Karthi film I ever saw, and on the basis of this film I purchased every available film in his catalogue. When I say I love this film, I really mean it. It technically was my gateway drug – via my Karthi crush which I realise I haven't actually really documented in this blog, but rest assured, it flourishes in reality - into the mysterious alluring South, too, pre- the discovery of Bunny).

A new frequently asked question!

Hey blog, I haven't forgotten about you!

So here's the thing. From time to time, I do get recommendations from people who read the blog (even when I get sick or busy and neglect my little corner of the internet for unforgiveably long stretches...I promise I'll try and do better and next time I post it will even be a REAL POST!) who have suggestions for films they'd like to see me write about next. Often, it's phrased as a question: “Why haven't you written about X, Y or Z film yet?” And increasingly, I am asked why I don't write more about South Indian films, when it's obvious, I guess, that I do own some Southie films.

HERE'S YOUR ANSWER:

1. I have a backlog the size of...something really big. The number of films I own, and have watched and FAILED TO YET WRITE UP despite my best intentions is verging on epic. Just off the top off my head, here are some of the films I have watched RECENTLY with every intention of writing them up here:

• Paruthiveeran
• Bunny
• Happy
• Varudu
• Black Friday
• Khakee
• Red Rose
• Naan Mahaan Alla
• Challo Dilli
• Urumi
• Kuch Naa Kaho
• Tashan
• Mujhse Shaadi Karogi
• Dum Maaro Dum
• Raajneeti
• No One Killed Jessica
• Jaggu Bhai
• Paiyaa

That's a drop in the bucket, let me tell you. Please note how many of them are Southie films. EIGHT (admittedly, there's not much variety there, but I'm working on it, slowly!)

2. Sometimes, when I could be writing about movies, I am writing about music instead.
   
   
3. If it's specifically Southie film stuff you're after, there are a bunch of extremely, insanely awesome bloggers who know waaaaaaay more about the various Southern Film Industries than I do, like, WAY more, and if you are looking for actual knowledgeable recommendations, LOOK TO THEM. Look in my blogroll. Start with Cinema Chaat and My Year of Prakash Raj. Look in THEIR blogrolls. Seriously. I ASK THESE GUYS (and a bunch of others including Dolce & Namak, and Kay from Totally Filmi) FOR RECOMMENDATIONS all the time. ALL THE TIME (being on Twitter like, 24/7 helps). 

I promise next post will be a proper review, once I narrow down what that's actually going to be. I'm kind of obsessing over Allu Arjun 

 

and Jr NTR right now

but if I'm going south for a post, I wanna give some more love to my man Karthi. 

Votes? Suggestions?

Parwana

Parwana (Jyoti Swaroop, 1971)

Allegedly based on an actual incident that ACTUALLY DID force the Indian Railway to alter their schedule, Parwana is a stylish, entertaining, engrossing and clever crime thriller, with the added fascination of a youthful, pre-superstardom Amitabh Bachchan taking on a rare negative role (I think the gap between this and his next villain in Aankhen is something like 30 years).

The set-up is this: Kumar Sen (Amitabh Bachchan), an artist, is in love with Asha (Yogeeta Bali), and expects to marry her, believing that Asha's uncle Ashok Varma (Om Prakash) has guaranteed to arrange their match. So he is shocked to discover that Asha is in love with Rajesh (Navin Nischol), a man she met while on a dance trip, and that Ashok Varma has agreed to let Asha and Rajesh wed.

Kumar doesn't do unrequited love very well – he goes all broody possessive emo on it, and in fact Kumar refuses to accept that Asha will never be his. He visits Ashok, trying to get him to change his mind and get Rajesh out of the picture, but Ashok just wants Asha to be happy. Kumar and Ashok fight, and Kumar leaves on a train bound for Calcutta to be alone with his jealousy, leaving Ashok Varma ALIVE AND KICKING.

But the next day Ashok Varma is found murdered in his home, and Rajesh is arrested – he finds the body and claims he was alerted by a phonecall from the absent Kumar. But HOW COULD THAT BE? Kumar was on a train at the time of the murder, and couldn't have called Rajesh? That troubling inconsistency, and the discovery of an incriminating letter from Ashok Varma, stating that Rajesh isn't good enough to marry Asha, make Rajesh TOTALLY SUSPECT #1 in the police's eyes. He proclaims his innocence, but how can Rajesh prove it was Kumar, when Kumar was 4 hours away on a train to Calcutta at the time of the murder?

THEREIN LIES THE COMPELLING MYSTERY AT THE HEART OF PARWANA!

Parwana means ''moth''. The film gets its title from a line in which Kumar Sen (Amitabh Bachchan) likens his obsessive attraction for Asha (Yogeeta Bali) to a moth, drawn fatally towards a flame.

It's actually a shame that Big B didn't get the opportunity to do more meaty, negative roles like this one, because he is awesome at it (though I guess his Angry Young Man thing kind of employs some of the same schtick) – the brooding, inner turmoil, bubbling up and barely contained; he's on a slow burn for much of the film and then BOOM out it comes.

Also: look how handsome! Near the start of the film, especially in the 'funny disguise' song, he reminded me SO MUCH of Abhishek. The resemblance, down to mannerisms, is so strong sometimes.

Bonus post-interval awesomeness: the prosecutor is played by none other than 
 

SHATRUGHAN SINHA!

There's something weird going on with Shatru, in that he's not wearing pink, orange, pink AND orange, paisley, lurid multicolour patterns, a giant tie, enormous sunglasses or all of the above PLUS massive bellbottoms. Also he is not carrying a gun or a walking stick. Nor is he wearing any ridiculous jewels.

In fact, as a respectable man of justice, he's initially devoid of his usual swagger and peacocking. All he has are these:

GIANT GLASSES. Naturally, Shotgun can rock them. And it's not long before his natural swagger starts peeking through:

Check him OUT.

The whole reason I watched this film in the first place is because it partly inspired and is referenced throughout Johnny Gaddar, a film that I utterly LOVED (and one I will have to rewatch now I have seen the 'source' material). It's so obvious now just how much JG owes to this classic – in terms of plot but also in terms of sheer atmospheric style. 
 

This is definitely a classic, underappreciated gem that is worth a watch - not JUST for Big B, but because it's a well-crafted, ingenious mystery thriller.

Caravan

Caravan (Nasir Hussain, 1971)

I wasn't expecting much from Caravan. The dvd had been sitting, unwatched – and if I'm completely honest – totally forgotten about, on my shelf for something like two years. I had never really bothered to read the synopsis on the back. Like Filmi Geek before me, somewhere along the way I had picked up the impression, before watching, that Caravan was a kinda crappy, sub-par film, and so I always managed to find something else to watch when the time came to choose a DVD.

I don't know what it was that eventually pushed me to watch Caravan – but boy, am I EVER glad that I have finally seen this glorious film. Crappy? Sub-par? HARDLY! Caravan is, in my experience, VERY NEARLY PERFECT.

Let's start with the story.

The beautiful Asha Parekh plays Sunita, a rich girl who is heiress to her father's fortune. 

Sunita, we rapidly learn, has had a run of bad luck: after her father dies in a suspicious fall, Sunita marries his business partner, Rajan (Ravinder Kapoor)...only to discover that he and his mistress (Helen) are plotting to kill her for her riches. 

To escape from Rajan, Sunita fakes her own death and must try to get to Bangalore, where an old family friend who can help her resides. Lacking money, and in hiding from Rajan and his goons, Sunita joins a travelling caravan. The caravan – crewed by three young men: Johnny, Mohan (Jeetendra) and Monto – is en route to Bangalore when it joins up with a band of performing gypsies, one of whom – Nisha (Aruna Irani) loves Mohan with a jealous passion that borders on psychotic. 

When she sees Sunita and Mohan inevitably falling in love (come on, this is a Hindi film after all)...she will do anything to ensure Mohan remains hers and hers alone.

It may not sound especially revolutionary or mind-blowing, especially compared with some of the other cracktasmic cinema emerging out of India in the 1970s, but that is precisely what makes it so very wonderful – there is a measure of restraint, so that even with GYPSIES! And MURDER! And ROWDIES! It never feels like it's veered over the top into a caricature of itself. I guess I'm saying that its charm is winningly sincere, rather than kitschy camp – although as always, it's subjective. Caravan is, I think, EXACTLY what I imagined “Bollywood” to be before I had ever encountered an Indian film: it's giddily romantic without veering too far into gaudy, maudlin melodrama; it is cheerful and colourful and populated with genuinely likeable characters (Jeetendra hit a career high in Caravan as Mohan, the cocky mechanic who likes to think of himself as educated and speaks in mangled English to prove it to his lady love, Sunita, an educated girl impersonating an illiterate village belle), and most of all, it's super-duper entertaining, veering from edge-of-your-seat thriller to provoking prolonged belly laughs. 

Secondly: if you are not yet on the Jeetendra train, then I don't know if I can be your friend anymore. (Okay just kidding, but seriously, I LOVE JEETU AND I WANT YOU TO LOVE HIM TOO).  

 

He's SO funny in this film! I'm so used to seeing Jeetu get really melodramatic and get the super scary emo eyes of doom (and also, most of the movies I see Jeetu has a mustache), but happy dorky goofy cleanshaven Jeetu WINS!

Seriously: WHY DO PEOPLE NOT TALK ABOUT THIS FILM? Why has NOBODY EVER MENTIONED CARAVAN TO ME in terms like:

“You have to watch this film! If it is possible to fall in love with a movie, then Caravan will be the movie that's like a whirlwind summer romance – you'll fall suddenly, and hard, and get swept up in the heady colour and emotion; then find yourself thinking of it fondly at random moments long after its over!”

 ...until I saw Caravan

Okay if someone had said that to me I probably would have spewed up in my mouth a little bit and never watched the film, BUT SERIOUSLY I LOVED THIS MOVIE SO MUCH I DON'T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN THIS ANY BETTER. Do yourself a favour and just watch it. It is ACTUALLY GLORIOUS.

Love Story (Rajendra Kumar, 1981)

It's a pretty safe bet that any film titled Love Story is going to be a no-go for the hardened cynics in the audience; this particular Love Story makes its agenda pretty explicit from the get-go starting things off with 20 minutes of what has to be THE most deliciously melodramatic prologue ever.

We're rapidly introduced to three central characters: architect and engineer Vijay Mehra (Rajendra Kumar), an arrogant, jealous, argumentative jerk of a man;

his girlfriend Suman (Vidya Sinha) and Ram Dogra (Danny Denzongpa) – a cheerfully honest construction engineer Vijay unsuccessfully tries to bribe, who also turns out to be an old flame of Suman's.

Basically – Vijay comes off looking REALLY BAD in the prologue: he tries to bribe Ram when his building doesn't meet the basic codes;

then when he and Suman run into Ram later in an nightclub and Ram asks Suman to dance, Vijay issues an “it's him or me” ultimatum. OVER A DANCE. Before storming out of the club and leaving Suman stranded. Then when Suman gets upset, not understanding what on earth she has done to deserve such bad treatment (seriously, Vijay is a jerk) he admonishes her for crying before breaking up with her in the most awesomely horribly way possible: 

 

Yep. He arranges his own marriage in front of her.

So Suman leaves with Ram. Vijay gets married and his wife gets pregnant and dies, just like that, because mean people don't deserve any happiness in a prologue. But also because the point of the whole film is: THE TANGLED PAST BETWEEN SUMAN, RAM AND VIJAY WILL COME BACK TO HAUNT THEM IN THE FUTURE. Suman even predicts it:

And so it does. The bulk of Love Story is focussed on the next generation: Vijay's son, Bunty (Kumar Gaurav)

and Ram and Suman's daughter Pinky (Vijayta).

Bunty runs away from home because Vijay wants him to study engineering and Bunty wants to be a pilot; Pinky runs away from home because Ram is so overprotective of her his attention is stifling. The two kids meet while on the run, and though they initially can't stand each other, they eventually fall madly in love, which is a problem when their parents loathe each other. 

 

And that's basically the whole film.

Obviously the story is about love – but in true Hindi film fashion, it's multifaceted. There's young love, parental love, love turned poisonous, stifling love, love that spoils, unfulfilled love, platonic love, true love, lustful love...

Love Story did differ slightly to other “kids in love rebelling against their parents” films that I have seen in that the attitude of the kids was kind of...a let down, actually. In other films (and the one that always springs to mind is Love 86, though I KNOW there are a tonne of other good examples) the parents want one thing for the kids – e.g. arranged marriage, and the kids want another – e.g. love marriage. So they fight for it. THEY FIGHT FOR IT. They stand up for what they believe in, or they put all their faith in the strength and power of their love conquering all and they argue with their parents and fight for what they want. It might be cheesy but THAT'S WHAT I EXPECT OF A FILM CALLED LOVE STORY.

In this film, I was kind of disappointed that when Bunty and Pinky suddenly realise they are in love, and they realise that this love might be a problem for their parents, but especially for Pinky's overprotective father, who has already lined up a groom willing to live in the bridal home for his daughter, they just...opt out of returning to the real world and fighting for their relationship. Like, THEY DON'T EVEN TRY. Their solution is to LITERALLY play house, (and don't even get me started on this giant plot hole – like...where did the house come from? And everything in it?) and live a chaste and happy fantasy life free from the hassles of the real world. 

 

Maybe it was supposed to be a metaphor for something. But I didn't get it. 

I HATED that part of the film and thought it was beyond stupid.

Also hated: the fact that the “bonding” moment between Bunty and Pinky when they magically fall in love comes when Pinky accidentally hurts Bunty, he SLAPS HER IN THE FACE and SHE APOLOGISES. That bit made me really mad.

Also hated: that the film goes on to make Pinky look even more annoying when she makes Bunty angry by DOING SOMETHING HE EXPLICITLY ASKED HER NOT TO DO and then wondering why he got mad. 

 

What I LOVED (and the reason I was watching the film) was Amjad Khan's character, Sher Singh. Amaluu has been telling me to watch this film for AGES because of Amjad Khan (we have a kind of Amjad Khan fanclub) and now I know why. His character is so loveable and sweet, and if you have only ever seen him play villains, you need to see him in Love Story, just so you can see how funny and cute and poignant he can be. 

 

Plus, with the kids absolving themselves of all responsibility for fighting for their relationship, it was so interesting to see a character like Sher Singh fulfil that role in the narrative.

Amjad Khan WINS (but doesn't he always?!). The rest of the film...ehhh. Points for the extreme melodrama,

Gotta give points for writing on the wall in blood. 

but the mix of mindless fluff and misogyny kinda lost me this time round.