Guzaarish (2010)

Guzaarish is an ambitious film, no less than we would expect from a director like Sanjay Leela Bhansali who treats cinema as art and whose passion for his art shines through every frame of his films. It deals with the controversial issue of euthanasia or mercy killing. Guzaarish chronicles the petition to be allowed to die by a man who has been paralysed from the neck down for 14 years. It is a somber topic but it has been treated with great panache and even beauty. The film is visually absolutely sumptuous, from the marvelous baroque interiors to the styling of the cast. Unfortunately the film suffers somewhat from a surfeit of style over substance, a flaw that is to some extent typical of Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

The film is set in Goa and tells the story of Ethan Macarenas, a fantastically gifted magician who is left paralysed by an accident during one of his acts. He responds by fighting his disability as well as he can, writing an inspirational book and hosting a radio show that exhorts people to make the most of life. At the time of the start of the film however, Ethan’s organs have started to fail and he wants to be allowed to die with dignity. Having endured 14 years of having even his most intimate bodily functions seen to by a nurse, he feels he cannot endure the protracted failure of what remains of his body. The film deals with the reactions of the public at large as well as those of the people closest to him; his nurse, his lawyer friend, his doctor and his mother. Comic relief is provided by a young magician who infiltrates Ethan’s household hoping to learn magic from him.

The film may not do wonderfully at the box office because it will not appeal to the lowest common denominator. Furthermore there is so much English dialogue in the film that mass audiences may be put off. However, come awards time, Guzaarish is bound to figure strongly is many categories.

Hrithik plays a difficult role extremely well. His portrayal of Macarenas’ despair, anger, bitterness and ironic joie de vivre is inspired, especially considering that he is restricted to using only his face to act with and the entire gamut of body language is denied to him. With a few facial muscles, he evinces subtle emotions as he is forced to lie helpless while his nurse Sofia cares for his lifeless body. His on-screen chemistry with Ashwariya, who plays his long-time nurse Sofia, is electric and their suppressed passion for each other shines from the screen. Hrithik’s sequences in his flashbacks to his magic acts are simply sublime, masterpieces of the film-makers art. That said, there are times where his delivery could have been better and moments where he is clearly let down by the dialogue.

Ashwariya herself has done well, with one of her best performances to date. Moreover, Sanjay Leela Bhansali is someone who really knows how to make Ashwariya’s beauty work well on the screen. She is a gorgeous woman who generally looks good on-screen but Bhansali is director to makes the camera love Ashwariya. She looks extraordinary and even her silent care of Ethan oozes both compassion and passion. Her styling is somewhat over-the-top for a nurse but Sanjay Leela Bhansali has never bowed to realism in his story telling. Ashwariya’s role and look reflect his vision of Sofia and Ethan’s story.

The supporting cast does well with the script and Nafisa Ali is extraordinary as Hrithik’s mother. Her speech about who has a right over Ethan’s life is one of the highlights of the film. The main problem with the film is a lack of cohesiveness. The film moves slowly but towards the end there are too many seemingly disparate threads showing the way fortune buffets Ethan. The courtroom scenes seem underwritten and lack the depth needed to tackle the topic at hand. Similarly the climax is bewildering. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has thrown lots of pathos into the story, to the point where some scenes fail to touch because they seem contrived, and yet he chooses an upbeat finale that is staggering in its artificiality. Thankfully he is not the type to bow to the cliché of a miraculous recovery. Nevertheless the ending seemed labored. The poignancy of the situation between Ethan and Sofia could have created a moment as powerful as the denouement of The English Patient. Instead the audience is left disappointed by the weak ending.

Despite these weaknesses, I would nevertheless recommend Guzaarish. It is one of Bhansali’s better films, unlike the debacle that was Sawaariya. Despite the ending, the story is well told, compelling and intriguing. The movie will appeal to audiences with sophisticated tastes. Moreover it is worth seeing simply to appreciate Sundeep K Chatterjee’s breathtaking cinematography. The film is visually appealing in ways that few films ever attain, even western ones. The accident scene alone is worth the price of admission, more so than many crowd-pulling item numbers. The acting is some of the best we have seen this year and some of the scenes from Guzaarish will undoubtedly rank among the highlights of the cinematic year. Definitely worth a view – Salima Feerasta

Rating – 3.5  out of 5

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama/Romance, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer –Ronnie Screwvala, Director –Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Music Director – Sanjay Leela Bhansali, Cast - Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Rajit Kapoor, Shernaz Patel, Nafisa Ali, Suhel Seth, Vijay Crishna, Monikangana Dutta, Ash Chandler, Makrand Deshpande, Sanjay Lafont, Jineet Rath

Little Zizou (2009)

Indian cinema has been making serious inroads and developments into unchartered territories without the stereotypical Bollywood masala in tow- so much so that now even the term ‘Bollywood’ has been swiftly erased and replaced with the more professional diction of ‘industry’. With offerings of films like Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, Chak De India, Life in a Metro amongst several others, the Indian film industry has been quite adventurous in recent times with opting for alternative menus from their regular dosages of song, dance, romance and have shown in full glory what their cinema is capable of. Their latest offering Little Zizou, a Mira Nair and Indian Films presentation and the directorial debt of the photographer and screenwriter, Sooni Taraporevala, is yet another delightful addition to the Indian screens.

Little Zizou is a sweet poignant film, peppered with Gujrati, that effectively and colourfully presents a slice of life of two warring Parsi families. Through these two families, the film presents a glimpse into the language, culture, religion and life of the Parsi community in India. With an impressive cast – all Parsis mind you – including the illustrious Boman Irani and the young Imaad Shah, son of the veteran theatre and film actor Naseeruddin Shah (who is a Muslim married to Ratna Pathak, a Parsi) the film takes you through life as a Parsi completely. While Boman Irani is already an established and much appreciated actor, the young Imaad makes quite an impression in this film as an actor with immense potential. John Abraham is around for some very welcome eye candy.

Indian cinema has increasingly begun to staunchly believe in the terribly trite-but in their case true-adage that good things come in small packages; the movie also introduces two incredibly talented younger artistes, Sonni’s children: Inayah and Jahan Bativala who play Boman’s spiteful yet charming little daughter and Xerxes, affectionately and self proclaimed ‘little Zizou’, respectively. These are not the only characters in the film though, the movie is inundated with fascinating little vignettes of people and locations. Yet despite this deluge of characters, the film never looses its focus but keeps on its track evolving through the comic strips, dreams of Russian invasions, temples and homes, meandering all over Mumbai to deliver a simple tale of faith, hope and love.

The dialogues are pithy, witty and meaningful, crafted and stylized like Bapsi Sidhwa’s The Crow Eaters, illuminating the complexities of people and human nature, never allowing audiences to dismiss any character or typecast anyone in one emotion or perspective. This is a capacity that only good writersare able to create for their characters-never allowing readers to excommunicate or relegate them, but always see them subjectively as a holistic whole.

From the title of the film one expects a frivolous, light hearted family comedy centering on football and its French star Zidane. Nothing could be farther from the reality of the film. Contrary to expectations, it is not a hilarious laugh out loud type of film but a quiet erudite comedy reflecting on the complexities of life, as Imaad Shah points out in the movie, “That’s life. One day you’re a cockpit, the other, scrap metal.”

Although the story revolves around little Zizou and his football craze-it centres more on his struggle for love, the pain of being a motherless child with an ambitious, religiously hypocritical father. In its most basic form, Little Zizou is an intimate story of a family and its relationships with its own members, and the members of the community it exists in. On a more deeper level, it is a critique on total social control that organized religions exercise. Through Little Zizou Sooni makes an important social commentary on the religious bigotry that is rampant around the world. In an interview she stated her outrage at what people are doing in the name of religion: “I’m a religious person but I don’t follow it blindly. The way I see it is that religious leaders do things for their own personal gains and in the process destroy the world and brainwash gullible people.” She made the film on what was closest to her own social reality, but terrifyingly for us all, this is not an isolated phenomenon and one that we experience everyday with our own beliefs. The film makes some very excellent observations on how to tackle the situations and suggests, amongst other things, to think, criticise and hope. It is very different from the way the Parsis were characterized in comic flicks from Bollywood like (the Amol Palekar and Tina Munim starrer) Baton Baton Mein and also quite different from Bollywood’s recent attempt to script a film on Parsis: Being Cyrus. Little Zizou is a very genuine straightforward film that presents a very nuanced understating of religion and life. A must watch to gain insight and hope for what we in Pakistan are suffering and how we may find solace and a panacea to our quandaries – Hani Taha Salim (Rating – 3 OUT OF 5)

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2009, Genre – Comedy, Country – India, Language – English, Producers – Dinaz Stafford, Studio 18, Sooni Taraporevala, Director – Sooni Taraporevala, Cast – Kurush Deboo, Boman Irani, Cyrus Broacha, Immaduddin Shah, Imaad Shah, Saurabh Ardeshir, Shernaz Patel, Zenobia Shroff, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwa, Kunal Vijaykar, Tknow Francorsi, Kamal Sidhu, Dilshad Patel, Iyanah Bativala, Special Appearance – John Abraham