Two Thieves and a Killer

At some point since the last time I tried to find one, a decent copy of 1975's Sholay was finally released. It's considered one of the greatest Bollywood movies of all time but for years I was only able to find pan-and-scan or only partially subtitled, low quality widescreen copies of the film. But now there's a big special edition, apparently based on a 3D release. It has new foley and a few cgi objects that fly at the screen but these things are relatively minimal and what we have is the purest copy of the film available for home viewing in decades. Possibly the first since the film was originally released. And it's a gas.

Two happy-go-lucky thieves, Veeru and Jai (Dharmendra and Amitabh Bachchan) are enlisted by a former police officer (Sanjeev Kumar) to wage war against a group of bandits led by the vile Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan). With the promise of decent pay, Veeru and Jai head off to the little town living in fear of Singh's gang.

They both get love interests in town. Jai is the serious one, so he catches the eye of a melancholy widow (Jaya Bhaduri) while Veeru, the funny one, is ensnared by the lively Basanti (Hema Malini), who is not a chatterbox at all.

All of the stars are perfectly cast and everyone has a lot of charisma.

Things become steadily more violent and the story takes some surprisingly grim turns. Basanti remains the standout character throughout, if you ask me, but Veeru and Jai are pretty good in the action sequences.

There are several nice songs but I think my favourite is this one in the bandit camp:

Research is for Landlubbers

16th century naval warfare was hard enough. Imagine if 18th century Portuguese infantry were thrown in! Well, you don't have to because 2021's Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea (മരക്കാർ അറബിക്കടലിന്റെ സിംഹം) presents just such a scenario. It's not a sci-fi film, it seems just to be very poorly researched, despite being the most expensive Malayalam movie ever made. The plot is ridiculous melodrama and the lead has no business weakly swinging a sword through an action sequence. But it's kind of a delight.

Reportedly based very loosely on the story of bandit-turned-admiral-turned-bandit-again, Kunjali Marakkar IV, it shows the man's hopeful youth, where he's played by Pranav Mohanlal, and the tragic events that forever embitter him to the Portuguese. When his country allies with Portugal, he becomes a Robin Hood figure, a folk hero who robs from the the empowered and somehow stands up for the little guy.

Now played by Mohanlal, who leisurely ambles through through the role henceforth, he's made an admiral when Portugal becomes the country's enemy. The ensuing naval battle has cgi on the level of a video game in which Portuguese ships vaguely resembling late 16th century galleons are manned by Napoleonic soldiers, most of whom are played by Indian actors speaking English.

It's still not as bad as later in the film when Kunjali is beset by Portuguese peasants wearing crisp white shirts and 20th century clip-on suspenders.

The best part of the film is a rather brief episode presenting the doomed romance between Kunjali's Chinese subordinate, Chinnali (Jay J. Jakkrit), and the daughter of a noble family, Aarcha (Keerthy Suresh). One of the better musical numbers is her duet with Chinnali with different string instruments.

The Indian characters have slightly more historically accurate costumes and, in any case, they're stunningly opulent as always for Bollywood.

Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea is available on Amazon Prime.

The Digital Birds of Song and Controversy

A psychopath walks into a palace with a cgi ostrich, demanding a wife in return. So begins 2018's Padmaavat, the year's second highest grossing Bollywood film despite being banned in many parts of India and Malaysia. Some considered it anti-Muslim for its depiction of a sadistic, ambitious Muslim ruler; on the other hand, sets were vandalised and crewmembers assaulted before the film was completed because it was believed the Hindu ruler and title character, Padmaavat, was shown in a negative light. Maybe it's for these reasons that the film has such broad, simplistic characters, reducing the story of the 16th century source poem to a low brow tale of good versus evil. But the sets and costumes are absolutely gorgeous, demonstrating once again how Bollywood benefits from HD showing off intricate beads, jewels, and arabesques.

Set in the 13th century, the film tells the story of a beautiful woman named Padmavati (Deepika Padukone) from Sinhala (modern day Sri Lanka) who marries the Rajput king, Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor), after accidentally shooting him with an arrow during a hunt for a cgi deer. All of the animals in this movie are very, very obviously cgi, and not just because there's a disclaimer at the beginning that says so.

This is the third of three disclaimers, the first being the longest;

The needless inclusion of plural forms in parentheses seems a bit passive aggressive, as though the writer is emphasising the purely obligatory nature of the disclaimer. The feeling that the film is anti-Muslim is largely due to the portrayal of Alauddin Khalji, the aforementioned psychopath, played ridiculously by Ranveer Singh.

He's so over the top he makes Jim Carrey in Batman Forever seem like Laurence Olivier in Marathon Man. There's a scene where the camera just pans around him while he gnashes his teeth. Scene after scene portrays him revelling in his pure evilness when he's not insulting or murdering people. Apparently the real Alauddin was nothing like this but no leader ever was. Even the cruellest tyrants had to have some charisma, some ability to imply to people around him that there'd be something good or useful about him being in power. As far as I can tell, the only person who really likes this Alauddin is his fellow psychopath, a eunuch named Malik Kafur (Jim Sarbh), Alauddin's assassin slave who bears a distracting resemblance to Sacha Baron Cohen.

There's a kind of fascinating scene where there's some very, very indirect implication that Alauddin and Malik may like to sleep together. The scene begins with Malik washing Alauddin's feet and then singing a song about legendary beauty . . . then Alauddin goes to bed with a woman who abruptly turns up. I guess it's a half buried homophobic message though I don't know why they'd give Malik such a sweet song if that's the case.

Supervillain Alauddin is the real focus of the film. He lays siege to Chittor, Ratan Singh's fortress city home, with the aim of stealing Padmavati. Ratan's a pretty dull, straightforward, honourable hero type while Padmavati displays some prowess in diplomacy and war tactics beyond her husband--though it doesn't amount to much more than advising Ratan to kill Alauddin at the first opportunity. She can't dissuade Ratan from meeting the evil ruler unarmed and, of course, Ratan's captured and Padmavati has to use her wits to rescue him--but she ends up requiring the help of a Muslim character (Aditi Rao Hydari) who I must say is portrayed in a very positive light.

The action sequences are really sub-par; the sword fight in the climax looks like it was the result of about a day of choreography. The dance choreography, on the other hand, is pretty good and the songs aren't bad. Still, you'd be a lot better off watching Jodhaa Akbar.

Padmaavat is available on Amazon Prime.

Twitter Sonnet #1186

A different coat contained the same device.
Remembered years are soon forgot in time.
But shades remain to turn and fix a price.
In weightless space it's difficult to climb.
Some firewood was scattered round the hall.
Some hollow sticks were rapid beats of noise.
The empty air conducts a dreaming call.
Expectant thoughts have weird and shivered poise.
Along horizon lanes were pretty shades.
Another sun appeared at dawn to-day.
Another shell was swapped for sudden raids.
A score of stars requested *no* delay.
A thousand pearls obliterate the pool.
The diamonds watched as flesh began to cool.