Dekho! For the exquisite settings, larger than life drama and perfect cinematography. Every rope in place, every cloud with perfect colouring and the period costume such a welcome change from the glam and glitter of YRF films.
Thugs and Baaghi
Amitabh Bachchan as Azad, not just a title but an inspiration of freedom and the rebel princess, Fatima Shaikh set up their hideout in North India by the ocean and no amount of artistic license allows you to digest this geographic impossibility. Ila Arun as the medicine woman who doesn’t always get her potions right is barely funny.
One fleeting scene with the good looking thugs of the 1700s barely shows the horrors they wrought.
Cross ya Double-cross
Aamir Khan can’t make up his mind and neither will you, whether he is a good guy or bad. The curly hair and nose pin adds the swag that he lights up the screen with.
Aamir and his friend, Zeeshan Ayub’s comic timing not being bang on is disappointing though. Katrina Kaif as Suraiya Jaan with the exotic looks is the ultimate letdown as she just does not fit in with her glitzy costumes and jhatak phatak dance moves as a 18th century nautch girl.
Lloyd Owen and Gavin Marshall have played the mean ruthless role of East India Company officers very well.
Remake or Not
Perhaps remix or mashup of multiple movies and themes would be better suited descriptions. You can play a guessing game of ‘which movie..which movie’ for every scene.
3 on 10, No more
Wonder what director, Vijay Krishna Acharya really had in mind. Epic or fantasy? It’s sad that the stars are bigger than the story which seems to sink steadily right from the start.
I was proud to stand up twice for our National Anthem while watching the story of India’s First Olympic Gold winin post Independence era! One before the movie began and again when India wins the much coveted Gold medal in the movie.
In my view, Gold is a well directed/written movie that didn’t lose focus throughout its 2 hours and 31 minutes of running. It was action-packed, motivating, inspiring two and a half hours of only hockey – Our National Game! Something we have forgotten with time resulting in the inexorable decline of the game in the country .
Though this is not a first hockey movie to be made in India. It was still refreshing and charming in ways. I especially loved the fact that it did not make fun of the British Empire or Pakistan, that is often seen almost in all of Bollywood’s patriotism-themed movies. It has an easy going story-line and an effective plot that leads to a grand finale like climax.
Akshay Kumar as Tapan Das is looking adorable as well as authoritative at the same time. His stature as a versatile actor has been further increased with the success of Gold movie. Amit Sadh and Kunal Kapoor are total hunks and have acted so well that it won’t be wrong to say that they acted as the sails of the ship that Akshay was steering brilliantly. I am happy and satisfied that Mouni Roy and Nikita Dutta didn’t have to shake a leg as item numbers to hold their own.
Enjoyed the music of Gold which has been made popular on the radio, also the short bits of dancing in the club, typical of pre-Independence era India. I must say in the end that it is a must watch movie for the patriotic goosebumps and pride that stays on even after leaving the theater!
Anything but Shy! After years of working, I eased into the more enjoyable but hectic role of being a full time wife, mother & personal assistant to the family very easily. Movies blend my passion for travel, food, reading & observing people perfectly.
This is a movie about the sexual enslavement of women in a feudal system in China. It is about four mistresses living together. Their master lives in the central house and each of the four mistresses has a house of her own opening onto a central courtyard. The family is guarded by strict family customs and rules laid by the ancestors. According to the customs, red lanterns are lit in the quarter of the mistress with whom the master decides to spend the night.
This huge house is made up of high stone and brick walls and covers a massive area. It is a movie speaking about the almost inhuman male dominance in the society and the defiant Songlian (Gong Li) who marries into this house as the 4th mistress. Once a woman is married into this rich family, she cannot escape- come what may. Three mistresses are already living, sharing a very uneasy relationship with each other. The entry of the 4th mistress Songlian fuels this heated atmosphere and adds to the rivalries. The house overflows with luxury which is available to the mistresses (concubines-a woman cohabits with a man to whom she is not legally married, especially one regarded as socially or sexually subservient; mistress) but none has true freedom. Well, whats the use of a bath tub with candles and perfumes in a prison?
It is story of complete enslavement of women by their master under the effect of which the mistresses change their behaviour. The first mistress is old and has an adult son. She is the more experienced. The 2nd mistress, Zhuoya (who first appears to be very friendly and helping nature) and has a son. The 3rd mistress, Meishan used to be a good opera singer. She is young, beautiful and filled with jealouy. The 4th mistress , Songlian, the lead actress in the movie drops out of college after her father’s death and marries this rich master, succumbing to the pressure from her stepmother. There is a teenage servant, Yaner, who is the master’s favourite and aspires to be a mistress herself…someday.
Watch “Raise The Red Lantern Full Movie Below
Everybody in the family along with the servants mindlessly adhere to the family customs. It is clear that they do so, not out of will but due to the force of tradition and culture. A very good depiction of millions around the world, who never question our value system and customs and verify their correctness. What stops us from evolving? We are almost blinded by them.
The mistresses are not really happy and their whole existence revolves around- whom will the master favour. That’s their sole sense of achievement. And exactly this competition is what changes them at times to show their worst face. (Competition brings out the best and sometimes the worst out of people.)
Songlian soon learns that she is trapped behind the closed doors of the palatial house and those who seemed friendly are in fact plotting against her. This frustration of not being able to experience freedom along with the fierce competition to be the master’s favourite alters her behaviour in such a way that their personal dynamics changes into war.
The cinematography of the movie is beautiful with the ‘reds’ of the lit lanterns forming a lovely contrast against the grays and the blues of the palatial house. But there is something sinister about this redness. The deep reds evoke a feeling of danger telling us that all is not well in the house and add a passion to the whole drama. The ‘reds’ also express the fiercely burning passion, ugliness and jealousy in the minds and hearts of the mistresses.
All the drama takes place within the closed spaces of the tall, strong walls (there are some scenes in the open on the terrace of the house and they are beautifully pictured) . As a viewer at times you feel claustrophobic, gasping for fresh air. This is exactly how the mistresses feel in their own house which seems more like a big prison which they can free themselves from. The instrumental background score played while the lanterns are carried from one place to other is particularly befitting a thriller. This whole effect beautifully adds to the phobia and restlessness. The choir singing in high pitch is interimly used as background music and is very melancholy and haunting. It is beautifully crafted film.
The mistresses have to please their masters in bed and have to produce babies, especially a son to be an heir to the family. As the concubines express their reality of they being just animals and not human in the patriarchal society makes us sad and we get totally absorbed in their pathetic sate of existence. (Songlian ends up insane as she is unable to fight the inhumanity and is haunted by the guilt of her actions.)
The movie is about anarchy in a male dominated society and the results of it. But much more than that the movie has successfully initiated an argument in the superbly made 2hrs drama – We humans are always looking for dominance over each other. This chase of wanting to be on the top at times makes us lose our sense of well being and fairness. The four women knew they cannot escape. They could have come together to help each other and then may be they would have experienced a slightly happier life. But they chose to fight with each other(wrong choice) to vent out their frustrations and for dominance and power. I completely understand the frustrations of a woman living in a male dominated society. I have been there. And some might feel that expecting the four women to co-operate is probably asking for something superhuman. But I still feel they could have handled it better. Its only in terms of crisis and severe pressure that we human are capable of coming out with our best and to rise above trivials. The mistresses could have empathized but they chose to criticize. The film awesomely expresses that the whole helplessness of the human race of not being able to overcome jealously for a common good leads to tragic consequences for all. And after all that plotting against each other, does anybody really win? No…the anarchy continues. The 5th mistress arrives in the palace and the vicious circle moves on.
When there is too much ‘ME’, we not only lose the ‘WE’ but also destroy the ‘ME’.
Well ‘The Reader’ is a movie about an affair between a woman in her mid-thirties, Hanna (played by Kate Winslet) and Michael who is 15 (played by David Kross and in the later part of the movie played by Ralph Fiennes in his 60s). A movie with Nazi Holocaust as the backdrop. I have seen so many movies on this topic-the list is endless. But that event in the history of mankind, still inspires people to make movies on it. As there are so many aspects to it which the world hasn’t stopped thinking about. But ‘The Reader’ is much more than an expression on the futility of human cruelty. It is about love, reconciliation, and a woman’s pursuit to find redemption. Hanna defends herself in the war-crime trial and like many of us, realizes the severity of her crime much later in life, when it’s too late.
The Reader is a good comment on classic human behavior of ‘doing without thinking’. Hanna in the movie, at least had the courage to admit that she was one of the guards in selecting the Jews every month (as to who will go to the gallows). But her other colleagues just follow the bandwagon of ‘fallacy,’ denying their involvement in the crime. A very typical of human behavior of not wanting to rise above mediocrity, as we don’t wish to lose our comfort zone.
Michael’s affair with Hanna was more based on sexual relationship. Michael as a teenager discovers his own sexuality with Hanna who also wisely guides him in the act of lovemaking. There are good number of scenes of nudity and the experience of orgasmic fulfillment. But the relation between the two runs much deeper….more so, for Michael. Hanna is illiterate and loves to be read to. And Michael a good, animated reader reads to her some of the best works of literature (Homer’s Odyssey, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, The lady with the little dog). This reading followed by sex forms a bond between them-an experience, a relation that will affect Michael for a lifetime.
Life often gives us a chance to look back at our behavior, analyse our past actions, and rise above our errors to become a more wholesome and a responsible human being. But very few can justify this chance-just a few like Hanna did in The Reader.
At the end of the movie Michael meets a Jewish woman (a survivor of the Holocaust) with an expectation of the Jewish victims to understand Hanna. The woman does not forgive Hanna’s crime but does make an effort to understand the culprit better, which for me is a step towards forgiveness. This effort of great character does somewhere make the Jewish woman a slightly more satisfied human being. And therein lies the power of forgiveness.
The Reader Performances:
The performances by Kate Winslet and David Kross as young Michael are commendable. Bob Marley once said, “Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for.” In this movie, Michael Berg finds that one worthy person.
