Monday 22 August 2011

Of movies and music..

Everyone who has ever watched a movie with me will tell you that I am a very harsh critic, that I find faults with most movies, especially Hindi ones - which seem to be remarkably short on logic, reason, plot, screenplay, acting - pretty much everything..

So I recently saw a few Hindi movies (some new, some old) that I really liked (like a lot of people out there) and I thought I should write about them, well just to prove that I actually do appreciate a well made movie!



Dev D - Relatively old movie, I know! But I only recently saw it. I think what makes this movie great, is how Anurag Kashyap has taken elements / stories that have happened in the recent past and weaved them into an age old story that we all know and have seen many times over. The narrative is crisp, to-the-point and extremely contemporary. The characters are bold and un-apologetic. The performances are brilliant, especially Abhay Deol, who goes on a very convincing path of 21st century style self destruction.

Not to be forgotten, is the music. Amit Trivedi and Co, have put together a soundtrack that not only gels with the movie, but is extra-ordinary as a stand alone album. Most tracks are experimental and Amit Trivedi has been fearless and mixed rock, Indian classical, Jazz, Folk, Electronica, Western Pop / Soul and of course Bhangra. My favorite tracks are (not surprisingly) "Nayan Tarse", "Payaliya" and "Emotional Attyachar (rock version)".



ZNMD - I was very apprehensive about this one. Does this have a "Dil Chahta Hai" hangover? Does it over-promise and under-deliver? Maybe this is like Rock-On - another saga on friendship... Even after reading the good reviews, I still wasn't sure if I will like it. But when I saw it, boy, was I happy? I loved it! I wanted to see it all over again, I felt like making a movie myself!
For those of you who haven't seen it, its about three thirty something men who go on a "bachelor" road trip. Its a feel good movie where the three friends embark on an almost life altering trip where they all fight their own demons. I, of course, identified the most with the character played by Hrithik Roshan, as I have too worked many long hours, scheduled my plans while on holiday around work calls, reviewed documents in a cave hotel and would have completely lost it someone threw my blackberry out of the window! The movie works because the lead actors gel together. Farhan Akhtar is at times too goofy, but excels in his moment of truth. And aah yes, Abhay Deol...he makes his role look so easy, and almost plays third-fiddle to other two. But watch out for the expression on his face in the last adventure, and you know that this has been a class act once again. However, the real star is Zoya Akhtar, although I still think "Luck By Chance" might be better in terms of screen play and story telling.

The music is superb - Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy definitely don't disappoint. Its easy to see why "Senorita" is so popular, its melodious and the mix of Spanish and Hindi as well as the interplay of the "lead" singers is quite good. I can't decide between "Der Lagee Lekin" and "Sooraj ki Baahon Mein", but hey, both are good!

So here I am raving about movies I saw recently. I do hope you see these movies (if you haven't!), but definitely listen to the soundtracks, as while one is more "mainstream", they both provide a complete contrast to each other that always is a good thing..


Thursday 11 August 2011

Wall Street meets Main Street

The past few days have been very unsettling. The financial markets the world over have taken a nosedive. Fears of a double dip recession have returned and looks like investors and those of us in the financial sector have no where to hide. Of course, the markets are usually a leading indicator and things may turn out to become worse for the "main street" as well.

What is more unsettling however, is the sudden and inexplicable violence in London. I woke up on Sunday to see images of burning buildings and people trashing stores. At first, I thought this was a one-off thing, although pretty scary and not something that you would expect to see in a city like London. When people started calling me, and had sent emails overnight to check I was ok on Tuesday morning, things really hit home. I quickly turned on my computer to see what was going on. Some of the images were horrific to say the least. The sounds of sirens, ambulances and helicopters have continued over the last few days and parts of England do look like war zones.

What struck me the most is that people are not really protesting about anything at all! They are just taking advantage of the situation in a very organised way and looting items like plasma TVs, iPads, shoes, clothes..How were they so organised, they used blackberry messenger, of course! Only in the UK will you find people in £100 trainers robbing shops because they feel that they have been wronged by society..

Who are these people? What do they want? They say they are angry, but what for? For having council housing? for having the chance to get an education? to get unemployment benefits? How about they tried to go to a real poor country and saw what poverty is all about. What it means to have no food, no home and no education. What it means to be living off the streets and have no real prospects.

These riots also brought home the fact that the UK authorities are unable to deal with widespread disturbances like these. They are still debating whether it is actually "legal" to use batons and wondering if the use of water cannons is "appropriate". In fact, on the very first day of rioting, the police simply watched as rioting went on, much preferring to look at CCTV rather than actually trying to stop the events as they unfolded.

Reminds me of the free market regulatory policy that most of the western world has followed. The theory that markets are always right and that the market will correct itself and weed out the outliers is completely wrong and has been proven wrong many times in the past. As for the current sell-off, seems to have been triggered by the US govt downgrade by S&P, but no-one has a put a finger on the real issue - over leveraged consumers and governments. The response of the western world to shore up the economy for the last few years has been to print, print and print more money ergo leading to further increase in government debts! Very few have pointed out that credit fueled culture will need to be reversed and it will be painful.

On the social side, there has been talk about "bad parenting" here and how parents need to keep a tab on their out-of-hand kids. Is that the real issue here? Why did these kids or certain sections of society get out of hand in the first place?

Maybe all this is because the rich and the poor both felt entitled to have things that they could not afford in the first place. The educated used their credit cards, while the un-educated used their knives and the power of the mob.

I almost feel that police and regulators have been too soft here. Increasingly in the west, you get the feeling that Big Brother is watching. Phones are being tapped, emails are monitored, there is CCTV everywhere you go. But where is the Big Brother when you actually need him?

I hope that the fires are put out quickly and the sirens go quiet again. I hope the rampant sell-off in the markets stops and firms start generating business and start hiring again. But the reality is that all measures are stop-gap and temporary and no one has a real long-term solution yet. And so we will go along our business, till we get shocked to the core again..