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Reviews
Little Zizou (2008)
Utterly charming
A gem of a film, funny and complicated and moving. The actors are so much at ease with their roles that they seem not to be performing at all, resulting in one of the most endearing depictions of family I've ever seen. The relationships are all carefully and lovingly etched - between Boman Presswala (Boman Irani, enjoying himself to the hilt as always - watch him when he's practicing dance steps) and his wife Mahabanu (the pitch-perfect Zenobia Shroff - where has she been hiding all this while?); between Zizou (Jahan Battiwala, who does a great job of being believably vulnerable without being a goody-goody kid) and his elder brother Art (Imaad Shah's finally found a role that he seems to fit right into, after the travails of Yun Hota To Kya Hota and Dil, Dosti, etc); between Mahabanu and her mother (Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal, who turns in an absolutely brilliant performance as the slightly batty, but still full of joie de vivre mother). Not to be missed.
Kamla Ki Maut (1989)
Great concept, unevenly executed.
Kamla - a young woman in a chawl in Bombay - commits suicide. Turns out she was pregnant, and had problems with a boyfriend who was reluctant to marry her. The event throws everyone around into turmoil. The film focuses on the thoughts and memories of four members of one family in the chawl - Pankaj Kapur, his wife, and his two daughters (one slightly older and one a bit younger than the dead Kamla).
Promising plot and cast, but an uneven script and often ham-handed direction make this a disappointment. It's somewhat redeemed by Pankaj Kapur and Supriya Pathak's superb performances in the final flashback sequence, when Kapur remembers his mis-spent youth. Kapur is brilliantly subtle, as always. But the film is worth a watch just for the effortless fluidity of Supriya Pathak's portrayal. (I so wish someone would write roles for actresses like her which give them something to DO - Ram Gopal Varma cast her perfectly as Amitabh's wife in Sarkar, but she had to make do with some ten minutes of screen time. What a waste of talent.)
Also look out for Irfan Khan (of Maqbool fame) - who appears as elder daughter Roopa Ganguly's convincingly 'out-for-what-he-can-get' boyfriend - and Ashutosh Gowariker (dir. Lagaan, Swades) , who is the potential love interest for the younger daughter... fun to get a glimpse of the 'past lives' of two people who are now important figures in the Hindi film world.
Mere Apne (1971)
Even for those who don't like Meena Kumari
I'm not usually a Meena Kumari fan, but she's fantastic in this unusual role as a widowed old woman. Brought from the village to the city by a couple claiming to be her long-lost nephew and his wife, Buaji (as they refer to her) soon finds that things are not all as they seem. Both husband and wife go out to work - and need someone to stay home and look after their young child. And Buaji, unlike a hired maid, comes for free. Not the most subtle critique of modern urban life: young women want to compete with men, don't want to stay home and look after the family, the young have no respect for elders, all relationships are measured in terms of profit and loss, etc etc. But the story gets better from here on. Warned of the couple's reality by a cynical old maid servant (played by Leela Mishra), Buaji deals matter-of-factly with another long-lost nephew who comes to meet her, ostensibly to rescue her. What will the salary be, she asks. In the meanwhile, in her walks around the neighbourhood with the little baby, she comes across a small boy begging for money for food, and a group of unemployed idle young men who hang out at the local tea shop and get into fights with a rival gang at the drop of a hat. The film is the story of the relationship that develops between the gang of neighbourhood goondas and the old woman. Unusual and moving story, played with a great deal of sensitivity by all the primary characters. The film is fun to watch for various reasons, not least the presence a cast that includes a youthful Vinod Khanna, a suitably loutish Shatrughan Sinha, Paintal and Asrani, also very young - and an almost unrecognizable Danny. Meena Kumari has the voice and UP accent just right, and the flashbacks to her early life with her nautanki-running husband Deven Varma, really do transport you there. Also, a couple of great songs sung by Kishora Kumar - Haal Chaal Theek Thaak Hai, and Koi Hota Jisko Apna. Recommended.