I need to watch Himmatwala again to cleanse my filmi palate

The Dirty Picture (Milan Luthria, 2011)

I'd been waiting so long to see The Dirty Picture, really excited by the promos, and the rave reviews it seemed to be getting from everybody, and the gloriousness of the setting in the Eighties film industry (my favourite filmi era). So my dvd finally arrived, and...I hated it.

Well, no. That's not entirely accurate. I sat through the whole film with growing disillusionment. Vidya Balan's performance, yes, as everyone reports, is excellent. But (and I am probably going to get lynched for this), I can't shake the nagging feeling that many of her rave reviews carry a little of the old “transform yourself bodily and win the Oscar” ring to them: isn't she BRAVE to show her flabby stomach on the screen like that? Look, by the end of the film she has cheek padding and no makeup!

Don't get me wrong, I think her performance was actually very good, it just irks me that I have read about her bravery in displaying her stomach so many times now, when I am pretty sure I never read the same thing when Abhishek gained weight for Guru (for example).

So anyway. The Dirty Picture is the tragic story of the rise and fall of a film heroine: Reshma, renamed “Silk” for the screen, and her relationships with the various men in her life. More than anything, it's about how she flagrantly uses her sexuality to get ahead in a time when women didn't openly flaunt themselves as sexual beings; how her confidence and success threaten those around her.

It's...interesting that one of the ideals The Dirty Picture champions is that movies ultimately need “only three things to succeed: entertainment, entertainment, entertainment”.

Vidya Balan's character, Silk (reputed to be based on South Indian makeup girl-turned-actress Silk Smitha, but really seeming more like a composite of 80s heroines) utters this line provocatively to her arch-nemesis, art-film director Abraham (Emraan Hashmi), who believes the opposite: films must have substance and intelligence to have any worth. Abraham openly hates Silk, for nearly the entire film – he hates her because her her unabashed sexuality sells movie tickets to pictures that have nothing else to redeem them, and that disgusts him, and we know this because he tells us, not once, but over and over again.

We get it, Abraham. You think Silk is disgusting. You think women who embrace their sexuality are disgusting. You think people who watch films just to be entertained are disgusting.

That's a good starting point for a heated discussion, or a filmi exploration of the whole art versus commerce dichotomy. Commercial acclaim and critical acclaim CAN coincide, but they rarely do, and what's wrong with giving the people what they want? What's wrong with being entertained? I say this because it's like The Dirty Picture tries to have it both ways, bringing “entertainment, entertainment, entertainment”, recreating the kitschy, lurid atmospherics of the colourful, tacky 80s melodramas (I mean that in a good way) but then pushing a didactic message every so often, and resorting to the “tell, don't show” path of filmmaking to get the points across.

It's like it wanted to be 2 completely incompatible films – an Om Shanti Om-ish in-jokey celebration of the film industry in the 1980s, and a substantial exploration of the hypocrisy surrounding attitudes to sexuality.

Silk, in The Dirty Picture, is positioned as a rebellious force going against the status quo and somehow, for a short time at least, succeeding. A woman, proud of and confident in her sexuality, using it to get what she wants? A woman, arguing that there's nothing wrong with commercialism and giving an audience what they want?

We all know that this film is a tragedy, right? So it would make sense to emotionally connect with this incredible character, this outstanding firecracker of a woman from the outset, to understand her mindset so her fall from grace is more affecting?

Here's my biggest problem with The Dirty Picture:

The entire story is told through Abraham's eyes. You know – Abraham, the guy who HATES Silk? The one who sees her as disgusting? How are we supposed to really connect with her, ever, if that filter is always there, buzzing in our ear about how lewd and disgusting she is, how much he hates her, how awful she is as a woman and an actress and a human being?

I watched the film last night. The only scenes that have stuck in my head, from less than 24 hours ago, are pretty telling: Silk's first scene in a film, dancing sensually with a whip:

Silk's “orgasm” scene:

and the scene where Abraham, apparently confused about his eternal hatred for Silk, goes over to her house to insult her some more. 

 

As good as Vidya Balan's performance was (and I really can't emphasise it enough – she owns the role, and nobody could have come CLOSE to breathing life into Silk like she did) I'm disappointed in myself that the scenes etched in my mind are Silk at her most sexual. But that's the thing: the film pays lip service to the idea of a woman owning her sexuality and using it as she wishes – nobody forces Silk to do anything she doesn't want to do, and nobody is forced to WATCH her – it feels...a little exploitative and vulgar, empty because of the lack of substance afforded to Silk's story. Ultimately, The Dirty Picture is exactly the kind of film it depicts Silk as being exploited in: an entertainer relying on the heroine's body as a draw; a film that, if I were to watch it again, I'd watch only for the songs.

Yes, Silk gets a speech about double standards and what not, but honestly? Watching this film the same weekend as Desi Boyz was quite a revelation. I CRIED at the end of Desi Boyz (which is by no means a great film) because I was emotionally invested in the characters, who had stories and goals and emotional truths. When Abraham goes and visits Silk and starts insulting her, I was just irritated that she would be stupid enough to let him in. There was no sympathy on my part for her, no empathy, no real feeling, because her story was REPORTED to me like a series of disconnected events “and then this happened” “and then this happened” with any incidental substance popped into dialogue as a speech or an irritating narration from Abraham.

It just left me wishing it had been better. Also: I never want to hear Ooh La La again.

Ain't nobody like my Desi Boyz

Desi Boyz (Rohit Dhawan, 2011)

As a film in terms of objective quality, there's no way I can get away with saying that Desi Boyz is by any means “good”. The whole thing has a kind of late '90s/early 2000s vibe (which I actually kind of loved, in a weird nostalgic way) - Akki's hair IN PARTICULAR is horrendously prone to continuity problems, locations such as Oxford, Brighton and London are regarded as interchangeable, and there's even a classic “you got mad at me so now I am trying to win you back” song (which I LOVED INSANELY MUCH, because who doesn't have a fondness for the classic “you got mad at me so now I am trying to win you back” song, ESPECIALLY when performed by John Abraham?). I'm pretty sure that two of my favourite scenes in the film are direct lifts from Hollywood films. The subtitles are TERRIBLE. 

 

Like here, Akki actually clearly says (in English) "Will you stop it, Tanya?" HAHAHA

BUT – and this is the mysterious alchemy with films – even given all of that, I enjoyed this film IMMENSELY. I laughed SO hard, and SO often watching Desi Boyz. Sometimes I was laughing at Desi Boyz for the right reasons: a good joke that hit exactly the right mark, a reference that resonated perfectly. Sometimes...quite a lot of the time...I was laughing at Desi Boyz for what I suspect are precisely the wrong reasons: primarily - the entire plot is insanely ludicrous and nothing that happens makes any sense in a logical film or indeed, reality. But then, at the end, I cried, because there was enough story going on that I actually did care about the characters. 

 

IT WAS THE FULL EMOTIONAL JOURNEY. With man candy. IF THAT IS NOT PAISA VASOOL, then WHAT IS?

The story is basically this: Nick (John Abraham) is an investment banker and Jerry (Akshay Kumar) takes odd jobs like work in fast food restaurants or as a taxi driver, but he's always getting fired because of his kind heart (if people can't afford to pay, he gives discounts). Nick and Jerry have been friends for years, and live together with Nick (as the richer one) paying most of the bills. What little spare money Jerry has goes towards paying for the schooling for his nephew, Veer, who he has legal guardianship over and regards as a son.

Until one day Nick gets laid off due to the recession and Jerry once again gets fired for being softhearted. Unable to pay the bills, Nick is unable to tell his fiancee Radhika (Deepika Padukone) that he can't afford the dream wedding or the dream life he had promised her, and Jerry loses guardianship of Veer until he can prove that he can support him. And as they are commiserating at a bar, wondering how to fix their lives, a solution comes to them in the form of a card slipped down the bar advertising “Desi Boyz”. They can become male escorts, poledancing their way into what Jerry describes as “the start-up fee” for a new life.

Naturally, it's a plan that's going to bite them in their incredibly firm, well formed asses.

Initially – based on the promos and the interweb chatter that Desi Boyz was to star John Abraham and Akshay Kumar as male strippers – I assumed that the film would be targeted at an audience who just couldn't get enough of the opening moments of Dostana:

and that basically MAN CANDY would be the name I would secretly know the film by in my head. There is definitely a little bit of man candy 

 (and no complaints here! Also, as an equal opportunities film, there's plenty of leerage afforded at lovely Deepika and Chitrangda) 

and there was definitely the perception out there that this was a Bollywood “male stripper” film – I've read a bunch of reviews that criticise the film's “laggy” second half (when the film takes a different focus – SPOILER ALERT: the boys are only “Desi Boyz” up until the critical point when the job is a catalyst for change in their lives).

It's not really a male stripper film at all.

It's a Bollywood romance that follows the format – guy has girl (and friend), guy loses girl (and friend), guy has to win back girl (and friend); along with the B story: guy has son, guy loses son, guy has to win back son (and honour).

What the male escort/stripper thing brings to the table is glimpses of what Desi Boyz could have been – or perhaps the type of film we can expect from someone else? not a Dhawan aiming to give us pure timepass entertainment – now that sex isn't SUCH a taboo topic in Indian cinema anymore. There are lots of interesting little observations about sexuality and relationships, I think,

 Can I also just say: <3 <3 <3 for Anupam Kher in this film

sometimes buried under some of the more obvious jokes – one of the clearest ideas to come through being that women can want and need sex for sex's sake just as much as men can – that women too can look at and use men as objects the way women in film have been subject to “the male gaze” for decades. I DO HATE CHITRANGDA'S CHARACTER THOUGH, because her “Hot Extremely Unprofessional Economics Teacher”

basically undoes my whole theory -  especially the scene where she strips an item of clothing for every correct quiz answer Akki gives – but imagine if Akki had to strip for every wrong answer he gave? Positioning the woman as the spectator instead of the man?

But that would never happen, because Desi Boyz isn't that kind of film – it doesn't dig deep. It's pure timepass hilarity, not a political statement or anything trying to shake up the world. If I had to sum it up in a sentence, it would be that Desi Boyz is goofy, sweet and studded with man candy, a more satisfying treat you could not wish for.