White noise
Director: Vinta Nanda
Cast: Rahul Bose, Koel Purie, Aryan Vaid, Mona Ambegaonkar, Jatin Siyal
4.5/10
Physics can explain what White Noise means. But to that explanation, most of you will say, cut that crap, exactly the way Koel?s boss tells her the morning after she refuses to sleep with him. So one could try poetry, instead. Like Rahul tries on Koel. Asks her to close her eyes and hear the sound of silence and all that stuff and, like her, you may well roll up your eyes and say, impressive. How much of it how many will actually understand is, however, best not got into.
Simple fact behind this fiction, the two things Rahul tells Koel she should never mix up, and which is precisely what Vinta Nanda has done in this autobiographical debut film, is that it?s a story of an intelligent but self-destructive and lonely TV scriptwriter. Koel?s broken affair with a married man, Aryan Vaid, leaves behind so many demons that she is unable to battle them out. She sleeps in the car, rather than in her room, with all their haunting memories.
Till Rahul bumps into her one rainy night. He, after a night of editing Saas-bahu episodes, she, after a night of drinking hard. He, silent and restrained, his usual self as in every film of his. She, a little over the top, lisping something from Jim Morrison, which Rahul fails to grasp. But grasps quickly enough that somebody?s definitely not fine here.
Not all?s fine with Koel?s dialogue delivery, either. Her pain, however, does manage to come through as real. As the girl who wanted to be independent, single and free. Not realising, till too late, the price of it all. Rahul, fortunately for him, has less emotions to show, or dialogues to deliver, or Jim Morrison to lisp.
White hum is what it?s more likely to create. That, too, only at the multiplexes. There, too, only with the very urbane crowd.
Deepali Singh
laila
Director: Vicky G
Cast: Payal Rohatgi, Nirmal Pandey, Dayashankar Pandey, Farid Amiri, Chesz Shetty, Doniv
1.5/10
The All Fool?s Day release of Bollywood Sleaze Express is on a roll! Whistling off from station Balderdash and hustling towards station Flapdoodle, it cruises through psychedelic curves and cleavages and touches all crucial smut points along the way. Surfeit of voyeuristic sex, body-massaging sex, drenched-costume sex and a good many other varieties. Relish, if you like, an odd, greasy gag out of a ear-throbbing rookie. Payal Rohatgi and Chesz Shetty the con-women will cater their oomph piping hot while their tossing--tumbling partners, Farid and Doniv, in all respects, will be like cool beverage without the fizz.
The story part ? murder plot and all ? is like an emptied paper plate fit to be chucked out of the window. Laila be ?a mystery? or not, the censors green-signalling this Vicky G. rubbish cart certainly is.
Arnab Bhattacharya
C u at 9
Director: Marlon Rodrigues
Cast: Isaiah, Shweta
?/10
C U? Nvr! Not see, but sue ? both director Marlon Rodrigues, for writing and directing this piece of Z-grade sleaze in a fit of insanity, but also the hall for screening it. Multiplexes now even screen ?films? like these which halls like Regal and Khanna would and that, too, for the same price as a Veer-Zaara or Black. Little wonder then that despite the tag of respectability a multiplex lends to a film, cinegoers were wiser ? they stayed away. Rodrigues? masterpiece had an audience of six, including yours truly ? in it in the name of duty ? and an unsuspecting soul dragged along.
The film? Some chunky junkie called Isaiah and a dumb dame called Shweta teaming up for a two-hour torture trip.
Sonali Chakraborty
Baji: the challenge
Director: Shyamaprasad Misra
Cast: Prosenjit, Rachana Banerjee, Saheb Chatterjee, Sudip Mukherjee
4/10
The real challenge that Baji offers is to the intellect. And the whole decibel count of the movie could definitely attract the attention of the police station next to Bijoli cinema. Added to the tincan-beating sound system is the screechy sound recording and the screamy histrionics of all the artistes, especially in the first 40 minutes or so. Seems they were making Baji for an auditorially challenged audience.
But once you cut through the first 40 minutes? challenge (or that challenge cuts through you), the film settles down from two bawling (actually, just talking) kids ? one rich master and the other poor servant ? singing tearful songs with one?s hand on the other?s shoulder, and the other?s hand wiping this one?s dripping eye. It remains rich ?? poor, rich vs poor, seemingly jealous good intentions, apparently well-intentioned evil designs, betrayal, high drama, good old-fashioned swadeshi, taali-bajao dialogues, like against the baring of the bellybutton (which nourishes the baby for nine months but which is being blatantly exposed to the world; it seems; come on guys, spare a thought for the shopping plazas), the main artistes challenging one another about something or the other...
Shyamaprasad Misra, assistant of Haranath Chakraborty, has typically made an ?assistant Haranath? film, with one lovely song. The performances by Prosenjit and Rachana are uniformly competent, with Saheb and Sudip making for a refreshing change on the big screen.
Anil Grover
