The music of Udaan

The soundtrack of Udaan should be properly introduced as being created by Amitabh Bhattacharya (lyrics) and Amit Trivedi (music). The duo, in their first full-length album since Dev.D, are clearly masters at exploring themes of angst. This collection of songs has a cohesion rare in most film soundtracks, with the tracks complementing each other in mood and thought. Restlessness and the optimistic desire to escape current orbits suffuse the songs.

Kahaani establishes the mood of Udaan with its whispered beginning slowly developing into a electric guitar-fuelled rock piece. The title song is more conventional, with a catchy riff and words of quiet rebellion. It is a little weak though, in comparison to the songs that follow. Geet... is wonderful - somehow the Amits manage to perfectly capture a sunbeam of naive optimism. The mood is upbeat and there's some very nice use of harmony and guitars. The two also have an interesting singing partnership - this is as far removed from Bandmasters Rangila and Rasila as you can get.

For me, Naav is the standout song from the album. I'm assuming Mohan (I don't know who he is!) is the lead singer. Though the diction is a little odd, the delivery is wonderful. The thought is age-old: a call to overcoming impediments, but the metaphor (of a boat struggling for breath) was new to me. You will scarcely find a more rousing song to listen to when you are sinking to the dumps. Compositions like these put the 'rock' in rock. (Here's a link to the lyrics for this song.)

Aazaadiyaan reminds me a lot of a previous Amit Trivedi song - "Ik Lau" (Aamir) - it has the same lingering start and perhaps the openings of are similar too, though the tempo is different. The sitar riff is very pleasing, and serves as a springboard for the rest of the song to take off (almost literally).

In contrast, Motumaster is quite out of place. To be fair, it has been designed as an 'arbit' ad-hoc kind of song (Anurag Kashyap's official debut as lyricist?) and is quite hilarious in parts ('kamar to naapte hai magar hum kamraa kaise naape?"). But it might have been better off being just in the film and not on the album. The concluding instrumental piece is reflective and appropriate.

One reason why Udaan's soundtrack works is because the story and treatment seem to be tailormade for the Amits. Amit Trivedi is very good at the rock-folk milieu and is able to bring his own bag of tricks to it. I wonder how he will deal with more commercial ventures. One of the pleasures of listening to his albums is to hear very new voices. Who are these Neuman Pinto/Joi Barua/Mohan/Nikhil D'Souza? Now we've heard them and of them. But if he goes more mainstream, how will this work out for them? But I do wish Amit Trivedi didn't feature on every other song s- he's got a raspy voice suited only for certain types, and he might be overdoing it a tad.

In short, listen to Udaan.

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Twilight झोन

It is after-afterhours, and the ever-deepening sponge of despair that is Dev.D is out looking for more spirit to swab his lesions. He runs into a Beelzebub-like Chunni, who beckons him into a limbo hidden to the world by steel shutters. While he sits at the table, lights go off except for a spotlight. Under which a man, dressed in a three-piece suit, stands in front of a wall with LOADING PLEASE WAIT splashed on it. He peels his coat off, then pauses, almost as if he was waiting for permission, but no, he's just waiting for the music to catch up.

When it does, this dancer begins to move, as if imbued with the ghosts of Marceau and Jackson. He is rooted, but his limbs move geometrically, tracing staccato phrases in the air. Inter-cut camera circling Dev and demon. Another man joins the spotlight, they cross, and like synchronised swimmers before the sync-point, take up their places. Then they go, cutting into each other's space with mesmerising finesse.

Danny Boyle's credit swirls and eddies round Dev at a lower frame rate, as the gravelly voice makes way for a sitar. Dev goes off to drown - literally - his blood and his tears, in a place no one would see. He re-surfaces. There are now three players, lithe and fluid.

As the beats turn urgent, Dev rises and has a Snorricam bursting out of his chest. As the world around him staggers to stay on its feet, he is the fulcrum of our vision. In two ticks, he has stumbled into yet another unfamiliar world. This one's pink.

Pardesi from Dev.D - a superbly psychedelic experience.

Dev.D and Rule

People who know me will tell you I have probably never used the phrase "kick-ass" to describe anything. But there's a first time for everything. The music of Dev.D deserves that appellation. It's as if some rugby fly-half drop-kicked you right into the yonder sky. It's an enjoyable ride, by the way.

Amit Trivedi (music), Amitabh Bhattacharya (lyrics, along with Shellee and others), and Anurag Kashyap (director) manage to do three things: they exhibit a superlative range of genres, provide a solid texture (a mix of urban melancholy, mofussil brass, and quiet yearning), and most importantly, they demonstrate great faith in their choices. There are 18 tracks, and while some of them do falter, just taking the effort to put in 18 more-than-decent tracks (haven't seen that kind of depth and scale since Rahman's Bose) gives them many brownie points.

The list of my personal picks begins with the dulcet banaarasii Dhol yaaraa Dhol sung with great desire by Shilpa Rao and backed by Kshitij. Some of the turns gave me the kind of goosepimples that I usually get with some Rahman interludes. Raa.NjhaNaa is a small downbeat version of this song.

The album has many such doppelgangers - pairs of tracks taking gloomy/bouyant U-turns, hard rock/street music incarnations, or turning from joy to lament. The two Dev-Chanda Themes are especially interesting - the first is a slow bluesy hum (and a fine one at that) while the second is a very moody whistle with a touch of menace.

The album continues its excursions off the rails. There are a couple of Punjabi songs and a Rajasthani song mixed to club arrangements. Then there are a couple of songs that just don't seem to belong here. They're from some Indi-rock-pop album. It gets very difficult to mentally put this lot together - your mind has to make several leaps to reconcile them. What's uncanny about the soundtrack is how it keeps riding the waves of romantic exhilaration and cavernous dejection. Shruti Pathak's paayaliyaa is a great example of this.

Then come the songs voiced by Amit Trivedi - these tend to be garrulous (the harmonium-guitar fuelled duniyaa), scruffy rock (nayan, aa.nkh micholii), or dripping with melancholia (saalii khushi). He's off the sur in places, but that seems very calculated - or is it?

And at last, for the dhokhaa-daayak "emo[tio|sa]nal atyaachaar" songs. That phrase is so cheesy and so appropriate that it will turn into a worn-out cliché. Especially for the brass band version (an immaculate concept, if any), which on repeated hearings could so easily turn into hilarity by the time the movie hits the screens. That might actually work against the intended mood. Don't hear it too often if the song needs to retain its novelty freakness! The rock version is safer, with a great opening guitar riff and sung with throat-shattering gusto by Bony Chakravarthy.

Phew. Undoubtedly, there are a hajaar music influences at play in Dev.D's soundscape. I found myself thinking of fragments from several songs. In several places, the lyrics are both wonderful and with an original flavour. A loser's tale has seldom been more plunge-worthy. Whatever happens to his movies, Anurag Kashyap's track record in getting music that you can also touch and feel remains intact. In many ways, the follow-up to the collaborations with Vishal Bhardwaj is appropriate. Amit Trivedi's music is intertwined with Amitabh Bhattacharya's words in a wholesome concoction. Where did all these people come from, you wonder - these Labh Jajuas, Shilpa Raos, Shellees, Toshis and Aditis and Shrutis, Manis and Kshitijs, and most of all, these Amits? The efforts in composition, writing, performances boggle the mind.

An album so trippy, you find yourself on your backside often, staring into that strange sky. You bitch. Indeed.

A more detailed and appropriately awe-struck review here.

Baba Bangaali Inc.

Baba Bangaali Inc.

Marginal Revolution had a post about a new firm called Stick where you can set a goal as well as the consequences for not achieving it. Since I had recently seen Anurag Kashyap's "No Smoking" (about a man who signs up with a mysterious agency designed to help smokers quit with bizarre penalties), it seemed very similar to the idea - only you voluntarily set the outcomes.

Thought it would make an interesting kernel for a story. I then read the comments on the above post, which mentions "Quitters Inc." (Stephen King) which has been cited as the basis for "No Smoking", and also another related book called "Kill Me" (Stephen White). I guess the David Fincher-Michael Douglas film "The Game" also visits similar territory.

As a (structured?) procrastinator, I find this whole concept very fascinating!

Shake like a Boom. Too.

As soon I heard the Patel from the Univ. of Pennysylvania say "I'm a star" like a Martian who learnt to speak English from Shoaib Akhtar via Teleshopping Network, I knew "Shakalaka Boom Boom" would be an instant classic in the bursting annals of Bollywood tripe. Reviewers around the country breathed in bucketfuls of O₂ and spewed out happy acid in the comfort that this one time, they couldn't be wrong.

Which is why it came as a surprise that Anurag Kashyap was credited with dialogues for the film (i.e. he wrote Cell-in-a-Jet-Lie's "He used me!"). Creditably, the man's come out with an apology on PFC. Didn't offer too many excuses. 'twas bad you did it AK, but thanks for the apology. We all have something in the cupboard to rue.

Just don't do it again, ok? You realise that Black Friday and this one are in the same list now. Thanks.

(Disclaimer: I haven't watched the film. I want to do so, but for free and with friends with whom to make sarcastic comments. I may have to board a private Volvo bus for this.)

And George weighs in with more links and shooting-foot quotes.

Watching 'Black Friday'

Anurag Kashyap must be a slightly happy man. One out (but not down) and some more to go. His little bright toddler, Black Friday, is out. Paanch, one fears, is growing up to become a bitter and angry adolescent. All these kids want to do first is to be able to come out. Then play with the other kids. Perhaps others will call them ugly and poor. But let them not become bitter without experiencing a moment of sunshine.

Like every self-respecting "good film" watcher, I had seen the bootleg version of the film and keenly anticipated the release. So went to make contribution to the Anurag Kashyap appreciation fund (as Samrat termed it). Hanging out at a local multiplex, waiting for Samrat and his wife, I saw a poster of "Black Friday" from a distance. Hanging upside down. A little burst of anger surged. Took it as a sign of callousness on part of the 'plex. Typical, one thought. Closer inspection. "This is not a mistake! We're crazy" said a sign on top. Smiles around.

The good news for those who've seen the circulated version on their PCs: there are several additional sequences in the film. The slightly bad news: the film seems a little long. Not unwieldy though, but just too long. The 2 hours print seen earlier seemed taut and precise. The Indian release, however, covers the entire book's scope (adding sequences about the landings, more on Dawood's - still a shadowy figure - involvement, and Tiger's immediate provocations in the pre-blast riots.)

What the film also does is further blast to smithereens the roof that conceals Hindi filmdom's underbelly, revealing a set of wonderful actors who have no place in sunny-side-up "Bollywood" (a term which I use pejoratively, of course). It's been a while since Satya that one saw a solid ensemble put together, whose business is not to strut about but merely to inhabit and exist in four dimensions.

Introspecting about the film, Kashyap wonders whether he's succeeded in his efforts at making a "necessary film" that will kindle self-debate in the minds of the watcher. Judging by reactions in the theatre, I'm pessimistic about this. For, like some of my experiences before, I heard people laugh at many of the wrong places. What excites laughter during a tense interrogation scene or when someone's being ripped apart or just merely hearing expletives? Does the director expect to hear laughter at these points? Does the audience let him down? Have they been weaned on a different cinematic diet? These questions always puzzle me.

In the end, the plug. Go watch "Black Friday". In a theatre. It's worth your time and money. God Promise. (And while you're at it, read S. Hussain Zaidi's book too.)

"Black Friday" soon?

As the verdict on the Bombay '93 blasts (sadly, these days we have to affix a year to the phrase "Bombay/Mumbai Blasts") comes to the end of its slow and painful unravelling, Hindi film fans could perhaps (selfishly) start to hope that Anurag Kashyap's Black Friday finally sees the dark of the theatre-halls (why the release was stalled).

Almost everyone who wanted to see the film has probably seen it, probably making it the unofficial winner of the "most widely watched unreleased film" tag (that is supposedly held by Kashyap's earlier, Paanch). But we will watch it in a movie-hall, Anurag.

Slow and Steady

Director Shivam Nair talks about life before and during his debut film Ahista Ahista. He has two very "likeable" leads in Soha Ali Khan and Abhay Deol (the music is not so likeable though and publicity seems to have been hijacked by the Ol'Factory - thankfully, the people involved are aware of it)). Nair's own story is one of many who had a confused dream surrounding the film industry, so it's good to see that life has turned out decently in the end.

In the interview, Nair talks about the story of the film being inspired by a real-life incident that happened to a friend of Imtiaz Ali (the writer, and maker of Socha Na Tha). The plot sees Deol playing a professional "witness" at a marriage bureau, while Soha Ali Khan has run away from home and is waiting outside the bureau for her beau to show up (he doesn't). Now, interestingly, I've seen an episode with a similar plot in the Star Plus series Star Bestsellers that aired a few years ago (the series still airs occasionally on weekends on one of the lesser Star channels these days). Imtiaz Ali must have had something to do with that, given the TV work these guys have done.

Star Bestsellers was quite a wonderful attempt at giving many new and lowkey directors and writers a chance to film an hour-long story. There were some excellent efforts such as: by Tigmanshu Dhulia; a typically morbid serial-killer story by Anurag Kashyap featuring Kay Kay; a cool women-oriented tragi-comedy directed by Rajit Kapur featuring Mita Vashist, Rajeshwari Sachdeva and Surekha Sikri; a meditative one with the real-life mother and daughter Seths (Sushma and Divya) playing mother-in-law and daughter-in-law!; a comic psycho-thriller with Irrfan and Deepak Quazir; another plot-with-a-twist with Irrfan, Raghuvir Yadav and Himani Shivpuri; Rajit Kapur and Rajeshwari Sachdeva in a tale about a talented actor laid waste by drink and loss of confidence; more Irrfan as a Bangla director who shatters some myths that a left-leaning art-film worshipping Vrajesh Hirjee lives his life with; and most brilliantly of all, an episode called "Dead End" with Mona Ambegaonkar, Raj Zutshi and many more that is one of the most atmospheric thrillers I have ever seen in my life, and one that would make Hitchcock or Shyamalan proud. I regret to say that I don't remember who made the last-mentioned one (it was some lady), and unfortunately, I haven't been able to see it recently. But for being a heady mix of entertainment and experiment, the series was a breath of scented air.