Art films in SPAAAAACE!!!

Cargo (2019) is what they call blue collar science fiction: stories about guys in jumpsuits (and sometimes women in jumpsuits - Ellen Ripley is an exemplar of the type), in space, doing unglamorous work and dealing with isolation and the hostile nature of the void.  Sometimes blue collar science fiction heroes have to deal with killer aliens or talking bombs, sometimes they have to save the last forest in existence, and sometimes they are forced to watch cheesy movies and try to keep their sanity with the help of their robot friends.  And Cargo's jumpsuit clad working stiff is a rakshasa charged with managing the transition of human souls from one life to the next.

Prahastha (Vikrant Massey) has been alone on Pushpak 634A for a very long time, since shortly after the Human-Rakshasa peace treaty.  He leads a very structured and simple life; he greets the human souls (the "cargo") that appear on Pushpak 634A, heals them, erases their memories and sends them on to the next life, and he writes (and does not send) long letters to his lost love Mandakini (Konkona Sen Sharma.)  Life is simple.  And then supervisor Nitigya (Nandu Madhav) informs him that he's been assigned an assistant.

Yuvishka (Shweta Tripathi) doesn't make a great first impression; she's trained in the latest procedures, rather than Prahastha's practiced techniques, and worse, she's a fan.  But after a rocky start, the pair grow to respect and like one another, and start working together well.  And then a meteor storm hits and everything starts going wrong.

And that's basically the plot.  Which is okay; this movie is focused on character rather than action, and those characters mostly have long conversations.  It's slow and sweet and deeply strange, as our all too human rakshasa protagonists marvel at the range of humanity, from an overly focused businessman to Ranchandra Negi (Biswapati Sarkar), the International Loneliness Detective.  

While the International Loneliness Detective is only a very minor part of the plot, he does embody the movie's theme.  Everybody is looking for a connection to the people around them, and I appreciate the fact that the movie does not limit itself to romantic connections.  Yuvishka and Prahastha in particular have no romantic chemistry at all.  Instead, they're friends, and the movie treats that friendship as something that is important and worth fighting for.  In space, even a demon needs a friend sometimes.

A brief review of 'Bobby Jasoos'

 I'm a bit under the weather, but I had to say something about Bobby Jasoos, since it is quirky and delightful.  Expect a proper review next weekend.

It's no great secret that I love schmaltz, so it should come as no surprise that I loved Bobby Jasoos (2014), perhaps the cuddliest detective story I've ever encountered.  Vidya Balan is, as usual, effortlessly charming as Bobby, a middle-class spinster from Hyderabad who wants to become a private detective and pursues her dream through a combination of moxie, bloody-mindedness, and an unexpected knack for disguise.  Ali Farza plays Tasawur, her increasingly befuddled client and also possible love interest.  There is an actual mystery here, and it's handled well, but the real tension comes from Bobby's strained relationship with her father (Rajendra Gupta.)

This isn't a big, dramatic movie, it's small and intimate and character focused and a great deal of fun.

I hope the third movie has a Wolfman.

 Endhiran played a bit with superhero tropes, but at heart it was a movie about a scientist tampering in God's domain, a big budget Frankenstein for a new audience.  So it's no surprise that in the sequel, 2.0 (2018), our artificial man meets Dracula.  And by Dracula, I mean the vengeful ghost of a mild-mannered ornithologist, returned from beyond with the uncanny power to control cell phones.

 Doctor Vaseegaran (Rajnikanth) is still making robots, despite the disastrous robot rampage that ended the last movie, but this time he's being a bit more responsible; at the very least, Nila (Amy Jackson) is programmed with Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.  Nila is designed to be a "Nice, Intelligent Lovely Assistant," only mildly superhuman compared to her predecessor, Chitti (Rajnikanth), but much better at interacting with humans.  (Meanwhile, Vasee's long-suffering girlfriend Sana (Savitha Reddy) is miles away and only ever appears as a nagging voice on the phone, presumably so we don't notice that she isn't played by Aishwarya Rai anymore.)

And then every cell phone in Chennai suddenly activates and flies up into the sky, forming a huge flock of phones before vanishing into the upper atmosphere.  The government assembles a scientific council to try and figure out what is happening, and Vaseegaran immediately suggests reactivating Chitti, but other scientists disagree, especially Doctor Bohra (Sudhanshu Pandey), who happens to be the son of the bad guy from the last movie and is still a little mad about his father's grisly death.

And speaking of grisly deaths, the phone flock starts killing people.  Very specific people, all involved in the cell phone industry.  By the time the flock has reshaped itself into a kaiju-sized eagle and starts ripping up cell towers, the scientific council decides that maybe reactivating Chitti isn't such a bad idea after all.  Chitti saves most of the city, then Doctor Vaseegaran and his robnot pals track the phones down and discover that the swarm is powered by the spirit of ornithologist Pakshi Rajan (Akshay Kumar), who has vowed to punish humanity for the mass death of birds.

Using the power of positive ions (and Ghostbusters ripoffs) Pakshi's spirit is captured, and everything is great.  There's a ceremony!  Tearful speeches are given!  Everybody just decides to forget about all the people Chitti killed in the last movie!  But Doctor Bohra is not happy, and releases Pakshi.  The ghost possesses Vaseegan's body, using it to go on an anti-cell phone rampage in the heart of the city.  Chitti charges to the rescue, but because he can not bring himself to harm his creator, he is quickly dismantled.  Then Pakshi turns into a weird human-bird-cell phone hybrid and flies off.  As one does.

Two of the three protagonists have been taken out, but Nila is still on the job.  She repairs Chitti, then inserts the red chip from the last movie that activates his evil "2.0" persona; after all, while Chitti can't bring himself to harm his creator, 2.0 is delighted to do so.  And, as in the previous movie, 2.0 creates an army of duplicates to help him, meaning a return of the Giant Hamster Ball of Doom, though sadly no giant snake.  The movie itself frames this as a clash between Good and Evil, but it's really a battle between "Amoral Jerk With a Relaxed Attitude Toward Collateral Damage" and "Well-Meaning But Genocidal Zealot Who Has Things to Say About Ecological Balance."  

Let me get the bad stuff out of the way first.  Sana wasn't exactly a deep and well-rounded character, but here she's reduced to an offscreen caricature of a jealous, nagging girlfriend.  It would have been better to leave her out of the movie entirely.  And then there is the science, which is bad for a movie about a robot fighting a ghost.  The movie has a valid point to make about the delicate balance of life and how much we depend upon the creatures that share our world with us, but then it tries to make that point with a load of pseudoscientific gibberish that even the evil cell phone executives can't help but point out is not scientifically proven.  And of course negative ions are not evil, they just have extra electrons and want to share.

However, nuanced characterization and scientific accuracy are not the main draw here.  This is a movie built to deliver spectacle, and it does exactly that.  The early scenes of cell phone murder are effectively creepy, making light seem more sinister than darkness.  And yes, there are robots.  And the robots fight things, in a variety of spectacular ways.  It is a movie that knows exactly what it wants to be.

Vintage cheese.

 Half Ticket (1962) is a bit older than the Bollywood movies I'm familiar with, but it does have an absurd premise and a cast which includes some of my favorite supporting actors.  How could I resist?

Vijay (Kishore Kumar) is the youngest son of industrialist Lalchand (Moni Chaterjee) and he's clearly supposed to be a charming free spirit, but most of the time he's an annoying twit.  After a series of Vijay's wacky and allegedly hilarious pranks, Lalchand has had enough, and decides to marry off his wayward son.  A match is quickly arranged, and then Lalchand agrees to allow his son, the notorious prankster who does not want to get married, to meet with his potential father-in-law alone.   This turns out to be a bad idea, as Vijay promptly torpedoes the match. Furious, Lalcjhand tosses him out of the house.

Vijay wants to travel to Bombay, but he can't afford a full price train ticket, so instead he disguises himself as a child, a process which involves plying an actual child with candy and ice cream and then stealing his clothes.  (There are elements of this movie which . . . have not aged well.  At all.)  It's an absurd plan, and it starts to fail almost immediately, since the man at the ticket desk is not willing to sell a ticket to an unaccompanied child, even an unconvincing one.  Luckily for Vijay, passing stranger Rajubaba (Pran) intervenes, claiming to be "Munna's" uncle, and Vijay gets his half ticket.  Unfortunately, Rajubaba is secretly a diamond smuggler, and has planted a large gem in Vijay's pocket in order to get it past the station police.  

Vijay spends his time on the train acting like an exaggerated caricature of an obnoxious child, while trying to avoid the creepy older guy who is posing as his uncle and showing a strange fascination with his pockets.  (As I said, certain elements have not aged well.)  After giving Rajubabu the slip, Vijay sneaks into the private room of Rajnidevi (Madhubala), who is happy to shelter the weird kid for the night.

Once in Bombay, Vijay stops acting like a child (hooray!) and instead starts looking for a job.  Of course, it's a big city, times are hard, and he's still an annoying twit, so it takes a few tries.  Meanwhile Rajubabu and his girlfriend Lily (Shammi) are combing the city, looking for Vijay and the diamond that he does not know he has.  There are disguises and counter-disguises (at one point Pran puts on a grey fake beard and wig, and winds up looking uncannily like his future self; I've never seen old age makeup get that close to the way the actor will eventually age) and chase scenes and Vijay keeps bumping into Rajnidevi without either of them realizing that she is the potential bride he ran away from.

I am happy to suspend my disbelief and pretend that there are people who are fooled by Kishore Kumar pretending to be a child, but even if you are willing to accept the ridiculous premise, the plot doesn't really hang together.  But that's okay, because this is a farce; the plot is only there as a vehicle to get the characters into absurd situations.

Half Ticket was a big hit when it came out, but that was nearly sixty years ago, and the movie is definitely a product of its time.  Still, I can see traces of how Sixties Bollywood evolved into the Bollywood I know; while Vijay was completely over the top, he's clearly an ancestor of Shah Rukh Khan's carefully polished comic persona.  And there were some familiar faces.  I'm actually a big fan of Pran (a Pranatic, if you will) so it was a delight to see him being young and suave, along with a ridiculously young Helen in a surprisingly wholesome item number. 

The answer is forty two. Correct?

Shakuntala Devi (2020) is loosely (if the disclaimer at the beginning of the movie is to be trusted, very loosely) based on the life of author, astrologer and mental calculator Shakuntala Devi, popularly known as the Human Computer.  It is the story of a fierce and fearless free spirit living life on her own terms, which can honestly be kind of terrifying.

Shakuntala is born into a poor Brahmin family in Bangalore, and from a very young age she demonstrates an amazing proficiency with mental mathematics.  Her father (Prakash Belawadi) sees an opportunity, and soon Shakuntala is supporting the family by touring local schools and demonstrating her skills.  Young Shakuntala (Spandan Chaturdevi) is particularly attached to her sister Sharada (Jiya Shah) and is devastated when Sharada suddenly dies.  Shakuntala blames her parents for not taking her sister to the hospital, and grows up angry.

After a few misadventures (including shooting a guy), adult Shakuntala (Vidya Balan) moves to London, where she meets Spanish mathematician Javier (Luca Calvani), who helps transform spunky village belle Shakuntala into the confident and sophisticated Shakuntala Devi, mathematical superstar.  And while the relationship with Javier fizzles out eventually, her career takes off; Shakuntala is wealthy and successful, touring the world to show people that she is good at math.

At a party, Shakuntala meets Paritosh Banerji (Jishu Sengupta.)  They fall in love, get married, have a daughter, and settle down in Calcutta.  Everything is wonderful . .  for a while.  Shakuntala decides that she misses performing, and heads back on the road, at first leaving baby Anu with Paritosh.  She finds that she misses her daughter, and so decides to take her on tour, which leads to the marriage collapsing.

So Shakuntala and Anu travel the world together.  But the trouble with free spirits who live life on theoir own terms is that sometimes they expect everyone else to live life on their terms as well.  As she grows up, Anu craves a sense of stability; she wants to lead a normal life, but normal is not something that Shakuntala Devi, the Human Computer, is willing to consider.  As an adult, a frustrated Anu (Sanya Malhotra) leaves to build her own life, but Shakuntala is willing to do anything to bring her back, even if that means they both end up in court.

As a performer, Vidya Balan has a light, effortless charm; I've seen her in a number of movies, and she is consistently delightful.  That's a useful talent to have when you're playing a woman who is so often smug and selfish.  Shakuntala is not always likable, but it's very hard to look away.

I'm not going to speculate about the actual Shakuntala Devi, who by all accounts built quite a life for herself, but movie Shakuntala reminds me of Shakespeare's sister.  Not the pop group, and not William Shakespeare's actual sister Joan, but Judith Shakespeare, the hypothetical equally talented sibling from Virginia Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own."  Like Judith, Shakuntala is tremendously talented, but because of who she is, she's cut off from the traditional channels for that talent; she can perform at a school, but not attend one, appear before university maths departments and scholarly societies, but not join them.  Shakuntala gets a much happier ending than Judith does, but I can't help but wonder if the life of Shakun Dev would have been less complicated.

A boy's best friend is his mem.

English Babu Desi Mem (1996) is not a romance.  Yes, it was promoted as a romance.  Yes, it was made in the Nineties, when romance reigned supreme in Bollywood, and yes, it stars Shah Rukh Khan, the undisputed King of Romace, and yes, the movie begins and ends with a wedding, but it is not a romance.  It is a love story, however.

The Mayur family have been settled in England for generations, and they have made a lot of money.  But while family patriarch Gopal (Shah Rukh Khan with grey hair and a silly fake mustache) is happy to be rich and English, oldest son Hari (Shah Rukh Khan with long hair and a different silly fake mustache) . . . well, his heart is Hindustani.  He wants to embrace his cultural traditions and give money to charity, and the family has plenty of money to give to charity.

Gopal decides to deal with his wayward son by getting him married, but Hari flees to India . . . in a single engine prop plane, a plane which explodes in a burst of stock footage before reaching land.  Hari survives and is nursed back to health by Katariya (Rajeshwari Sachdev).  Since his family already thinks he's dead, Hari decides to stay and marries Katariya.  They are blissfully happy for a couple of years, and then they are caught in a terrible fire and both die, leaving their newborn son to be raised by Katariya's much younger sister Bijuriya, who is only a child herself.  (I think the young Bijuriya is played by Baba Brahmbhatt, but it's hard to tell.)

Kindly lawyer Madugar (Saeed Jaffrey) and many of the other residents of the colony promise to provide support, but Bijuriya basically supports herself and her nephew, first by performing odd jobs and selling balloons, and later, after she's grown up enough to be played by Sonali Bendre, by dancing at Banjo's Beer bar.  She and her beloved nephew Nandu (Sunny Singh) are poor, but utterly devoted to one another.

Then Madugar sees a TV interview with wealthy but snobbish British industrialist Vikram Mayur (Shah Rukh Khan with a terrible English accent but no silly mustache) and realizes that Nandu is actually heir to a tremendous fortune.  He tricks Vikram into coming to India and reveals the truth about Hari's fate and Nandu's existence.  Vikram is delighted to learn he has a nephew, and is charmed by Nandu when he accidentally meets the kid.  Bijuriya, meanwhile, is terrified that this English jerk is going to take her son away; Vikram is rich and respectable while she is poor and a bar dancer.  There's no question that she would lose a custody case.

Vikram tries to impress Nandu with his wealth and privilege, along the way genuinely bonding with the kid, but he can't really compete with the only mother Nandu has ever known.  But Madugar has clearly seen too many movies, and takes each of the feuding pair aside to suggest that they try being charming instead.  It kind of works, and Vikram and Bijuriya start to enjoy one another's company.  Unfortunately, Nandu assumes that that means they're in love, and makes arrangements for the wedding.  When he tells Vikram it . . . doesn't go well.

Now, this is a movie.  Of course Nandu gets what he wants in the end.  But while Vikram and Bijuriya are clearly attracted to one another, there's never any point at which they seem to be in love.  Instead, it's all about the kid.  They both adore Nandu, and they're willing to do whatever it takes to make him happy, even if that means ending up together.  Love, as they say, can come later.

Hong Kong Family Theater

Like a lot of seventies Bollywood action movies,  Lahu Ki Do Rang (1979) has a really complicated backstory to get through before the action starts in earnest; it's also a complicated family drama about a very complicated family.  Here's the short version: In 1943 Hong Kong, Shamsher Singh (Vinod Khanna) has deserted from the British Army, instead joining Subhas Chandra Bose's revolutionaries in order to throw the British out of India by force.   While fleeing from the dastardly Brits, he barges into the house of Suzy (Helen), and she shelters him for the night.  And then another night, and so on.  Six months later, it's time for Shamsher to return to India.  Suzy is pregnant, but will not stand in his way, and he promises to bring her and their child to India once his work is finished.

Back in India, Shamsher explains things to his wife Ladjo (Indrani Mukkherji), then gets to work.  In short order, he's betrayed and murdered by Shankar (Rajneet), who uses the opportunity to rob the bank and steal enough gold to fill the trunk of a car.  Then Shankar is betrayed by his sidekick Mac (Mac Mohan, by far my favorite Bollywood henchman), who sinks the car in a lake before shooting himself in the knee and surrendering to the police.

Years pass.  Mac is released from prison.  Shekhar, now going by the name Devi Dayal, sends his stepdaughter/reluctant henchwoman Roma (Shabana Azmi) to collect him, and find out where the gold is.  meanwhile, Shamsher and Ladjo's son Raj (also Vinod Khanna) has become a policeman, dedicated to finding his father's killer.  And Shamsher and Suzy's son Suraj (Danny Denzongpa) has grown up to be a cynical street-smart martial artist and professional diver who will do anything to provide for his mother, even if it means going to work for some rich Indian jerk who needs him to a sunken car filled with gold.

And then things start to happen.  Suraj is hired by some rich Indian jerk to locate a sunken car filled with gold.  He does, but Shekhar/Dayal needs capital for the next stage of the plan, so Suraj is left to hang out in India for a while; he befriends Shabbo (Baby Shalu), an orphan, pickpocket, and easily the most competent character in the film.  He also has time to fall in love with Roma, but can't work up the courage to say anything to her, despite Shabbo's coaching.

Meanwhile, Mac is murdered, surprising no one.  But the killer leaves his wallet at the crime scene, which eventually leads Raj to Roma.  He disguises himself as a photographer and basically stalks her until she falls in love with him.  But while Raj gets the girl and valuable information, a heartbroken Suraj throws himself wholeheartedly into his henchmaning, believing that if he can't have love, he can at least provide for his mother in style.

"Long lost brothers, but one is a cop and the other one is a criminal" is a very common plotline in Bollywood, and there are no real surprises here.  But while the plot is a bit predictable, it's executed well; the leads are charming, and while the story is complicated, nearly everything makes sense in the end.  The Hong Kong setting is unusual, but I suspect it's mostly an excuse for Danny Denzongpa to do his best Bruce Lee impression.  He's got the look, he's got the style, he's got the attitude, but it's mostly a visual homage.  The movie throws in a tournament near the beginning to establish that Suraj has martial arts skills, and then he spends the rest of the movie not using them.  The rest of the film  is pure funky seventies Bollywood cop movie.