BOMBAY TALKIES

Extended holidays, Boring job, no girlfriend to chit chat with all through the night, busy friends had all given me enough reasons for me wanting to desperately go out, may be for a movie.

Why Bombay Talkies? ZOYA AKHTAR, the amalgamation of four film makers, interesting trailer with an awesome background score, and the fact that the movie seemed to be dealing with intense socio-personal issues.

Though I am not seated in any echelon to advertise my critique, these are just my views and a take on the movie as a whole and the four individual short stories.

KARAN JOHAR:  AJEEB DASTAN HAI YE.

The movie starts with Saqib Salem hitting his father onto the wall and screaming, “Mai chakka nahi hoon” which gives a kick start and raises your bar of expectations. The movie is about a gay man who enters the life of a married couple. The three protagonists of this movie played by Rani Mukherjee, Randeep Hooda and Saqib Salem are excellent and real. The movie is iced with sleazy yet funny dialogues like “gale me mangalsutra aur aakho me kamasutra” and a gay lip lock which seem required to catch up the pace of the storyline. To what I perceive, the movie was about how music affected our lives, our moods, and how it fills the voids of emptiness in many lives. Yet the story seemed unconvincing of how it affected their lives so broadly.

DIBAKAR BANERJEE:  STAR.

The movie was about a struggling actor who strives to prove himself to the world and most importantly to his daughter. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is as good as always. Although the usual dream sequence of people-coming-and-talking-to-you-when-nobody-notices kills all the effect and seemed confusing and not so required. It’s a page of the diary of a struggling actor’s life, a day when his perspective on the size and grandeur of opportunities change.

ZOYA AKHTAR:  SHEELA KI JAWAANI.

I had been the most excited for Zoya’s part of all the four stories. The movie starts after the interval, with children explaining what they want to be. It explains the story of a 12 year old boy whose only aim in life is to become Sheela from Sheela ki jawani. The story also extends to the cute relationship, the boy played by Naman Jain and his elder sister share. The boy is slapped tight when he dresses up like a girl and puts on lipstick and is pushed hard by his father to play football, which he is least interested in. I somehow couldn’t digest the end of the story. I believe if you dare to touch intense subjects like anyone’s childhood, you must be able to carry it to a fruitful conclusion. Zoya successfully transforms the story as it would be viewed and imagined by anyone at that age.

ANURAG KASHYAP: MURRABA.

The movie revolves around the journey of the protagonist from the glass jar in Allahabad to  Amitabh Bachchan’s mouth in Mumbai. Before you imagine too much, I was talking about the “Murrabba”. The movie’s only life exists in the special appearance of Amitabh Bachchan. The story sounds immature and lame in every sense, where a son played by Vineet Kumar Singh comes all the way to Mumbai to get Amitabh Bachchan eat a part of the Murrabba and take the other part of it back to his father which would save him dying. I found the movie very boring and senseless stuffed with 3 songs, though Vineet Kumar Singh has done a decent job on his part.

BOMBAY TALKIES

When I came out of the theatre, It felt like going to a posh restaurant and moving out just after the starters. Though the movie reflected how our lives were affected by the institution of cinema, I felt the stories were incomplete.