Suzanna... Sultana....Sunaina

रोज उठते धुवें की कालक से उस तरफ आसमा का एक टुकड़ा सारा दिन सिया रहता हैं

उसके नीचे न कोई सजदा करे. सर झुका के जमी पे रखने से अब खुदा पाँव खीच लेता हैं

'7 Khoon Maaf' owes all its defining punches to Gulzar. So is becoming the case with VB.

May it be Baban's spontaneity in Ishquiya or Wasiullua khan aka Musafir's poetry. In a way, Gulzar and VB are complementary.. or else Chopras and Johars employ it for remoantics and tragedies of rich and sensitives. But somehow Vishal gives a outlet to Gulzar's genious is multitude of situations. No wonder Gulzar calls it the priceless association.

Gulzarsaab may not have the wherewital to make a movie but he is adapting his pennmanship to making some of the urdu words immortal and still relevant. Thanks to VB for making it happen.

I felt story is so representative of story of India. Hangover of Anglo Indian, hippie culture of 70s, then the burning paradise, affair with Russia. And Ruskin bond penned it down from a vantage point of detached outsider, somewhere from his cottage in the hills of kumau. Of Priyanka's, Suzanna ..sultana .. Sunaina, her last affair is very interesting.

What so subtle by rusty is actnetuated in the way VB weaves it. The lyrics and dialogs stand out and you notice how elegantly each scene is made natural and yet anything but pedestrian.

When sultana joins in with her couplet...

Irrfan exclaims, "mukarkar... mukarar..."

when sultana asks "वो कौन हैं?" who is this mukarar?

Hemiles and says, "हाहाहा.... आपके चचा ! " Your uncle.

that was fabulaous...

Vivaan as 'sugar' is okay in the narratior role and got a baritone that will narrate many tales to come. Yah its in genes. We are now getting a great team of like minded supremely talented people coming together... VB, Rekha bhardwaj, Gulzar saab, Naseer, vivaan, konkana.

Annu kapoor's first and second act steals the rare laughs of the movie. Movie is longer than the average pot boiler. Given the age we live with attention span of butterfly, most movies stick to sachet version of stories and game plan is to survive 2 weeks and break-even.

Here VB takes the artisitc freedom and deft editing to portray his gang of well sketched characters. One tend to see the scorsesee-like apetite to take time to carve out the characters, gives them enough flesh and blood, without worrying too much abnout the fearture length...

Good casting is job half done. Like Siddhu says, a good lather is half the shave! The forever nervous Neil Nitin Mukesh looks solid in his shoes for the first time. Irrfaan can now slip into any of VB's stories. Nobody would have recited the poetry and those lines the way Irrfan did. well of course except Gulzar.

कूडे करकट के ढेरियोंमें अभी ठंडी लाशों के सर सुलगते हैं

टांगो बाहों की हड्डियों के लिए लड़ते रहते हैं भूके चोपाय

जिसने भी पहले दात मारे हैं हड्डी बोटी का हक़ उसी का हैं

मजहबो वाले पूछते हैं अब किसने पहले कुदाल मारी थी

कोई कहता हैं एक मस्जिद थी कोई कहता हैं एक मंदर था

सर झुका के जमी पे रखने से अब खुदा पाँव खीच लेता हैं

उसको भी अब यकीन नहीं आता इस जमी पर उसी का एक घर था.

The Fighter: Head body head...

Oscars like boxing movies - Raging bull, Million dollar baby, Cinderella man. But this time it is slightly different. "The fighter' makes it for different reasons. It is more of family drama, a family sorting out their issues... kind of movies that are coming to fore - "kids are alright" or 'american beauty' for instance. For the love of the boxing, technicality is limited to "head-body-head". That somehow seems enough too.

The surprisingly best performance is by Christian Bale. In the first shot of the movie you see him in a completely differnt look, twiching on his feet all the time, an air of spinless mercurial unpredictability. The whole style of talking and body language of a dude on crack in his 40s but still living in his past moment of glory when he knocked down 'sugar ray'. He showed his metamorphosis in machinist earlier, this is even better. This is definitely a role with more shades and dimensions than his all previous. Scene around the 'oh, they gave you new teeth!' he nails it.

Mark Whalburg has arrived. Gives a solid performance too. But movie is not about him. amy adams and christian bale takes the honors.

Black Swan : Watch it for Natalie

Sometimes you leave the theatre with not fullest understanding of what the movie was about. Like for Inception. So is for Black Swan. You get enthralled nonetheless. It’s beautifully pictured and ensemble of a sincere cast. Darren Aronofsky was dead-on in executing his vision of this movie. I have seen his pi and requiem of dream before, and was expecting no less.

Black swan is a struggle of saint hearted white swan to get acquainted with but thereby acquiring the traits of black swan, the dark side.

It’s an allegory at some level. But what’s supreme about this movie is Natalie’s performance in different moods and state of minds. So wide is her palette that at times screenplay get vivid because of her rather than too stark or repetitive.

It keeps you guessing and you lose sights of reality at times as it uses impressionistic style of rendering her state of mind her hallucinations. Throughout camera point of view stuck her back and you become one with her. This style of moviemaking makes storytelling so engaging . The background score was actually the soundtrack of “swan lake” ballet so it is hard to distinguish where the theme of play ends or the life striving to achieve that perfection starts.

Natalie Portman had a good run but so far her roles were too restrictive or limited in terms of scope. This one blows your mind by what is capable of doing.

So subtly used were the special effects that they don’t overpower and fills in the imagination and fear just right. The peak of the story or the imagery of thorns and feathers from her skin so precariously overlaps at the moment it like reaching the crescendo.

This is in some way revives the ballet and the art and perfection around it through form of cinema.

A must watch.