We need to talk about: Kabir Singh

I have a confession to make. When I first saw the trailer for Kabir Singh a couple of months ago, a part of me was looking forward to watching it. It looked gritty; had a tortured, self-obsessed character as the main protagonist, and it was being played by Shahid Kapoor- an actor whose body of work has not been as lame as that of your average Bollywood star. 

And then I watched it. 

I was first horrified by it, and then nauseated by the actor and director's attempts to justify it. Nothing they say in its defense can take away from the fact that to my mind this film is (spoiler alert!) unmitigated trash. 

Never mind the fact that it is entirely superfluous (it's common knowledge by now that the film is a frame by frame replica of the original Telugu version); what's truly devastating about it is that if someone were to hypothetically set out to intentionally make the worst possible film for women in our country at this point in our history- Kabir Singh might be it. 

That might sound needlessly hyperbolic, but let's be clear: India in 2019 is not exactly one of the best places for a woman to be. We seemingly reached a nadir in 2012 with Nirbhaya, and last year we topped a global ranking of most dangerous countries for women. Just this month, the Supreme Court of India refused to entertain a plea to make marital rape grounds for divorce. 

On the other hand, in 2018 the #MeToo movement arrived in India and took some powerful men at least a few notches down if not all the way; in Kerala, millions of women stood in solidarity for gender equality forming a “women’s wall” in the wake of the controversy at Sabirimala. There was/is still a long, long way to go, but things appeared to be slowly inching in the right direction. 

And then came Kabir Singh. 

In Indian cinema in general the hero / villain is very much a binary without much room for nuance. Given this, and the fact that the lines between reel and real are notoriously blurry, and the fact that we have a dearth of male role models, and the fact that Shahid is a popular and relatable star, was this film really necessary? 

The answer from those responsible for this monstrosity will be a resounding yes; the film after all has made 300 crores and counting. What may be less easy to count, however, is the number of times the misogyny, delinquency and toxic masculinity being normalised in this film will play a part in everyday acts of violence against women. 

And then there's Shahid Kapoor himself. I always thought that as most artists got older, they made artistic choices that reflected their own growth as individuals. I also, perhaps naively, thought the better ones among them would make art that was a response of some kind to the state of the world around them. 

If Kabir Singh is such a response, it is entirely the wrong one. As a young father to a little girl, would Kapoor be happy for her to be wooed in a few years' time by the kind of man he's immortalized with such panache? I dare say he's significantly increased the odds. 

Bollywood is - and always will be - a source of magic and comfort, and even this year there are plenty of other movies which tell the stories of ordinary men and women- stories that will fill your heart with pride and hope and optimism. India is full of everyday heroes, and Anand Kumar in Super 30 is just one of them.  
But Kabir Singh is one hero India didn't ask for and shouldn't have got.

The late Malayalam film actor, Thilakan, has been on my mind lately. Further proof of this arrived in the form of a slideshow of notable deaths in the past year. The list included Chinua Achebe, the great Nigerian writer (above, left), and the first thing I noticed was how similar he and Thilakan looked. 

I'm not entirely sure why Thilakan was occupying my thoughts; perhaps watching a couple of his films over the holidays had something to do with it. One of them in particular, Manjadikuru, (2008) is a little gem. It is an enchanting child’s-eye view of Kerala in the late 1970s, seemingly a world away from the modern-day, marketing executives' dream it has now become. It is a beautifully crafted piece of cinema, and captures a child's sense of wonder and innocence better than almost any other film I have seen. The fact that it is set in the version of Kerala not far removed from my own childhood memories, only made it all the more beautiful. 

Films like Manjadikuru affect you on many different levels. To watch it is to feel like you are being seized by the hand and dragged willingly back into the part of yourself that you thought had died long ago, only to find that it is in fact alive and well. 

In the film, Thilakan's character is dead from pretty much the first scene (no spoiler alert required- the film revolves around the events following his death) but is always lurking in the background, occasionally making ghost-like appearances at unexpected moments. Every time he does, his expressive face fills the scene and is a reminder of what an amazing actor he was, right up until his death in 2012. 

He may not be around any longer, but as someone who has starred in most of my favourite films (admittedly, most of them featured Mohanlal as well), he will always be lurking somewhere in the shadows of my memory as well.

Life's this game of inches...

Scores highly on the cheese factor but this clip from Any Given Sunday is one of my favourite Al Pacino scenes. He's definitely cornered the market on the whole conflicted, battle-weary, cynical-and-still-so-cool thing. Oh, and the shouting. Does anyone else make shouting loudly look so good? Enjoy.

Taare Zameen Par

I have always been somewhat suspicious of Aamir Khan; he's struck me as being too suave and media-savvy, and somehow obssessed with his image as a 'serious' artist. There's no doubt that he is both intelligent and articulate, a rare combination in Bollywood. But the way he's put those to use as a public figure has often been perplexing. While shunning the Indian Filmfare awards (because he believed they didn't operate on merit) he openly courted the Oscar for Lagaan, spending considerable time and money on the publicity campaign. In 2006 he was all over the news for sympathising with the Narmada Bachao Andolan; his involvement in the politically-sensitive protest movement eventually turned his god-awful Fanaa into a hit. More recently, he is alleged to have turned down an offer from Madame Tussauds to have him immortalised in wax, saying "it's not important to me, so i'm not interested"- or something to that effect.

If there's one thing I admire him for, however, it is for his ability to take on serious issues and package it to a mainstream Indian audience. Films with a social message are all well and good, but any kind of difference can only be made by altering public opinion, and filling up the cinema hall is not a bad way to start. He did it with Rang De Basanti, a film in which he was not the lone 'hero', but which nevertheless revolved around him and rode on his 'star with a conscience' status. And now, with his first film as director, he's done it again with Taare Zameen Par. The performance of the child actor is nothing short of brilliant, but a film on a topic such as this would normally be doomed to a few special screenings on the NGO circuit and a condescending 'special' award or two. Instead, it's one of the biggest hits of the year.

And he's clearly passionate. Although part of an ensemble cast in Rang De, Aamir was its most visible spokesperson; he toured extensively with the film across college campuses even as students, at the height of the frenzy, were tearing up American visas and pledging new-found allegiance to a suddenly-cool India. Now with Taare, Aamir has been busy organising screenings for high-profile ministers and such-like, propelling him to near-saint status. Sure, the cynics will say it's all a gimmick and every once in a while we will have to listen to some self-righteous spiel about his own sense of importance, but if the film ends up creating even a miniscule amount of awareness of -and difference to- our treatment of children and the abysmal state of our educational system, it would be a small price to pay.