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The ever-tightening web of news-channel foul play forms the focus of an engrossing melodrama. Plus, a wickedly entertaining desi-Western that pulls its punches.
Rann: RAM GOPAL VARMA’S RANN OPENS with the sun glowering on a sweltering metropolis. Inside the homes, however, the heat emanates from television, from news channels aboil with sensation mongering (underscored by shivering strings and pounding percussion more suited to the climactic battle in Macbeth). Within a short span, we are thrown amidst a battalion on the rims of the TV-news business – the patriarchal anchor Vijay Malik (Amitabh Bachchan), his smarmy competitor Amrish (Mohnish Bahl), Vijay’s son Jai (Sudeep), Vijay’s son-in-law Naveen (Rajat Kapoor), callow reporter Purab (Riteish Deshmukh), the buffoonish journalist Anand (Rajpal Yadav), go-getting news executive Nalini (Suchitra Krishnamoorthy), and the barbarous politician Mohan Pandey (Paresh Rawal), the vermilion patch on whose forehead resembles a victorious smear of blood after vanquishing a series of opponents. And the first words out of these mouths are invariably overarching opinions on media – about its nature and function, about how news isn’t a communal service anymore but a cutthroat business predicated on TRPs.
Ishqiya: THERE’S NO IMAGE, ONLY SOUND, at the beginning of Abhishek Chaubey’s Ishqiya, as Rekha Bhardwaj, in her inimitably tossed-off style, hums Ab mujhe koi intezaar kahan. A few phrases later, the black screen begins to brighten, and our eyes descend on Krishna (Vidya Balan) – a Reclining Venus (even if fully clad), a vision that’s woman from top to toe, from the slightest curve of breast to the generous swell of hips to the endless taper of legs. Much later in the film, when Khalujaan (Naseeruddin Shah) exclaims that Krishna is a frustrating amalgam of pari and tawaif, it’s this Madonna-whore picture that pops into mind, at once chaste and carnal, and lit by the afterglow of lovemaking. It wouldn’t come as a revelation if Chaubey intended the mobile suspended from a car’s rear-view mirror – the figure is of Eve, the fig-leaf Temptress – as an homage to Krishna, hinting at the ways she will tempt both Khalujaan and Babban (Arshad Warsi).
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ăbzee 30 January 2010
10:10:59 pm
I personally did not like Rann. It is not a bad film, mind you. But it’s simply not a good film either. Rangan’s review here does add an interesting dimension, that perhaps Rann is not really a Bhandarkar-esque expose of The Media, but RGV’s reworking of the Godfather saga in a corporate setup instead. Even if one were to approach the film as this, which is a stretch to me quite frankly, it still doesn’t solve the core problems with the film.
Rann never really takes off…as a media expose or a Godfather re-imagining. Also, for Varma, this is a cinematic equivalent of a paint-by-numbers book for a Ramu film. The same expository scenes for its gallery of characters, the same Gordian editing pattern with one situation tumbling onto the next…and all of it captured in signature RGV camera-angles and shots. And while there is some joy in seeing Ramu constantly trying to rewrite and amend the visual language of the medium in his own brand, one of our only filmmakers to loyally do so, he does go overboard in the early portions of the film where the camera movements completely overwhelm you…but without any intended effect. He does come into his groove after the novelty wears off, and the camera becomes much more calmer. But in its place comes a booming background score that drowns out any whatsoever subtlety the filmmaker or his performers strive for.
Amitabh Bachchan has been saddled with a weak role, and his much touted monologue at the end has the bite of an ageing toothless lion. He still does a lot with his body language, especially in the scene where his world comes crashing down around him. Riteish Deshmukh is a decent actor, but he probably goes a bit too far with his underacting. Mohnish Bahl, given the role of a lifetime, makes his excitement get the better of him. He is way too loud, but I can accept a case that he might be deliberately so. Sudeep is the one who really shines. Given the meatiest role, Sudeep stands up admirably to Amitabh and crushes anybody else who shares the screen with him. Besides, he displays an acting style that reminds me of Raghuvaran, an actor whose style I immensely liked. The rest of the cast is full of decent players but with none-too-great roles. Rawal pitches in yet another blasé perf, while Rajpal Yadav is his usual irritating self. Neetu Chandra wear negligees and walks around showing her cleavage, navel or thighs! On the one occasion that she is required to act, she reduces a dramatic moment to unintended comedy! Gul Panag and Suchitra Krishnamurthy get a fairer deal amongst the women, the latter especially good.
The biggest disappointment of the film for me was that for a filmmaker who pioneered grey characters, Rann is all about black and white. Amitabh Bachchan is presented like a saint, worshipped like one by his equally naive protégé Riteish. Bachchan’s son-in-law, Rajat Kapoor playing an industrialist, expects that his company get favourable reportage in the news channel that his father-in-law owns. That doesn’t make him a negative character. But Varma goes so far as to make him a bad husband and also a bad person who has people killed just to underline that Bachchan is good and Rajat is bad. The lack of a grey character makes the film extremely simplistic.
With no conflict, no tension and no memorable characters…Rann is a forgettable film. Is it a bad film? No. It’s just not a good film, as a media expose or a Godfather reworking. In trying to make a film that criticizes the sensationalist pursuits of the media, RGV ends up making a film that would’ve benefitted with a little dash of his signature sensationalism.