old partner

Old partner, no surprises here it is a movie/ i shall say a docu drama. Most of you not have heard about it, coz it is a Korean movie and in Korean title it sound as “ the sound of my cow’s bell”.
Why I am writing about this movie coz it is one of the most amazing real life story ever captured on celluloid. It is a story of an old farmer and his old cow, in a distant land. The devotion of farmer is unparallel, who refuses to trade his cow for a tractor. Story has one more character the farmers nagging wife.
The director of old partner wanted to capture a real life story of friendship between man and beast. There are instances in the movie, where you end up felling sympathy and somewhere you get your eyes numb. A farmer and his 40 year old cow, as partners. The scene in the movie where he went to sold his cow is the most touchy one. The farmer quotes to high for beloved that no one end up buying her. It seems he never wanted to sell her.
There is one of the scene in the movie when the cow fails to pull the cart full of logs, farmer took a part of logs and load on his back and start moving slowly along with his cow.There is no script no imagination bit, all that is captured here is truth.
The farmer wife keep on nagging him for his love for the cow, but the farmer never budge, but even a small sound from his cow, he give her all attention.
The movie is a cult classic at least for me, for its reality stuff and an honest attempt to portray an amazing relation.
People you can try some torrent search, if that's too hard for you, sear ch for this amazing story on net.

Chak De India

Also available at: http://mohitontherocks.wordpress.com/

(After putting in this post, I realized that I was a little (too) late in publishing this but since I felt strongly and so good about this movie, I wanted to share it with movie enthusiasts like you, esp the links to the real life drama that inspired this movie at the end of this post)

A lot of political jingoism and patriotism marked this 15th August week, more so because it was our 60th anniversary of independence. Everyone and their daddy came out with some stuff which could be used to loosen the common man's pockets by pulling on his patriotic strings. I, for one, don't mind parting with a few green bills but at least give me some bang for my buck. My search for the bang took me to Chak De India last Friday which released in that happening week.



Now what can one expect from a movie which stars Shah Rukh Khan as the coach of the Indian Hockey team full of never-seen-before girls, and even has him rapping away in one of the songs. SRK being the coach, would call the shots obviously and lead the team single-handedly to victory because of his hard-hitting mmeh mmmeh dialogues of course. The girls would just happen to be there under the shadow of the mighty SRK. It would be SRK all the way leading the country of a billion people to their 60th year of mindless celebrations over an extremely important event in the history of India which is probably more fondly remembered by the common man as the day we got the freedom to urinate on the walls of any government building without being reprimanded by the British.

But boy, was I glad that I was wrong (about the movie, that is!)! This movie was not anything I mentioned above and turned out to be pretty much the bang I was looking for!

For starters, it's probably the first sports movie about India that takes up real issues and attempts to capture the struggle of sportsmen (actually sports-women) in a team sport. Jo Jeeta Wahi Sikander was another exciting movie of this genre that I can recall but even that was about cycling, an individual sport, and individual excellence is not really something to write about in this country with probably the largest number of individual superstars.

Chak de India strives to showcase the struggle of a man from the point he was disgraced by the people of his country to his well deserved moment of joy and pride when he helps bring the Women's World Cup home. And it's the journey between these two points in his life that is more exciting than the final result that makes the movie such a treat to watch. While the fact that a movie from the Yash Chopra bandwagon looked at real problems in hockey hit me as a pleasant surprise, what made the deal a whole lot sweeter was the little nuances that the film brings out about the typical Indian mindset not just towards the game but also towards each other and ofcourse towards public figures who are made demi-gods in moments, crushed to the ground equally sooner and then returned back to their seats among the stars of the celebrity sky with as much as just one flash of brilliance.

The plot is loosely based on the life of Mir Ranjan Negi, the Indian goalkeeper in the 1982 Asiad Games Final where India lost to arch rival Pakistan by a whopping 7-1. Negi was made the scapegoat for that defeat and the humiliation made him vanish from the hockey scene for years only to return as the coach of the Indian Women's Hockey team and lead them to victory in the Commonwealth games in 2002.

The movie does add some twists of its own for adding drama. Negi becomes Kabir Khan so that there can be that extra sting in the humiliation. 20 years is reduced to 7 so that Shah Rukh does not have to get the "Anupam Kher hair style" to match the real coach! But it is the girls that represent the teething issues facing Indian Hockey today and in doing that, carry the movie not only on their athletic shoulders but their hockey sticks, whims and fancies, bitching and most of all their enthsiasm for the sport. Representing different states and teams, the girls intuitively refuse to break away from their regional identities, causing rival groups to be formed - an issue that has always haunted the Indian teams. They have always been accused of not playing as a team. The film portrays the differences with a generous sprinkle of humour. The coach is aware of all that and works on the team building aspect. The girls learn the importance of team work painfully. But as they learn the all important art of team building, they also learn about their own weaknesses and strengths. It is the beauty of the girls' journey from them being the best player in their states to them being the best players for the Indian team. The other ills plaguing all sports in this country viz. politics in associations, sports bodies being lead by people with no interest in the betterment of facilities and the charm of the foreign trip is also subtly shown.

While sports movies are the best teachers for lessons in life, they don't help much if the sports is not good enough. Chak de India has elegantly and realistically portrayed hockey matches and players.



But the most surprising part of the movie was that SRK serves as the lowest common denominator and, for a change, doesn't mind lying low when the scene demands so. His greatest contribution to the movie has been his restraint in his acting which makes him affable yet again to a fan-following he lost somewhere in his quest to become bigger than Big B. Also, to be fair to Shah Rukh and his dream of doing something for the sport he wanted to play at the highest level, his presence itself means a lot in terms of the widespread media attention that the movie is getting. It would be difficult to get the audience to the theatres without the attraction of SRK!

If I see something missing from this movie, it would surely be the fact that it misses out on a major reason for the poor showing of the Indian Hockey team in tournaments around the globe - the Astro Turf. Players in India have always played on grass and most do so till they reach the national level. It is only beyond this phase that the players get to play on the surface which players around the world take all their life to get used to but the Indian players probably get only a fraction of that time to get their act together. Indian hockey was world champion in the days of yore because they played on the same surface all through but Astro Turf takes the game to a totally different level in terms of the stamina of players and the pace of the game.

Iqbaal and Lagaan were outstanding movies about sports too but this one is in a different league. This is a coming-of-age Bollywood movie which showcases recent history that most of us were not even aware of; and it does so in a pleasant yet realistic way coming as a breath of fresh air. The movie sure revived my interest in hockey. I am sure it would have done this for a lot of others as well.

Indian Hockey players of the past were so good that there is actually a skill named after them - the Indian Dribble. Let's hope this movie can inspire some young blood to bring some of that glory back to India.

Chak de India!
Here is the news item related to the actual Commonwealth Games that the Indian Hockey Women's team won under Mir Ranjan Negi. The actual win was a bit controversial. Read on!
India Deny England Gold

A few news articles highlighting the problems in the Indian Hockey camp:
1) Egos drag hockey team into sticky mess
2) Killer Instinct: Do we really lack it?
3) Dhanraj has attitude problem, says coach

Last, but not the least, the man himself, Mir Ranjan Negi
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20070814/cth3.htm#2

Chak De India

Previous Reviews [1][2][3].

A marathi playing the role of a Chandigarh'ite, a Garhwali that of a Haryanvi, a Kerlaite that of a Bengali; isn't that the best example of National Integration? But even more, it is testimony to the script and direction of the movie - Chak De India!.

Chak De India, indeed excels in both the screenplay and direction. The story of Mir Ranjan Negi, rehashed as Kabir Khan's tale is inspiring - but the way each character in the movie is etched, is what makes it even more interesting. Whether it is the brash Komal Chautala (played by Chitrashi Rawat), the bright striker Preeti Sabarwal (Sagarika Ghatge) or the no-nonsense Nethra Reddy (Sandia Furtado) - each character is believable yet far from being stereotypical.

The story is based on the life of Mir Ranjan Negi - but the writer (Jaideep Sahni) has also successfully integrated issues like regionalism, groupism, and arrogance of seniors into it.

Shilpa Shukla gets full points for her portrayal of the arrogant senior Bindiya Naik. Similarly, the silent rivalry between bright players (Komal and Preeti) is well presented. I am sure each one of us have been through situations in school, college or workplace in which we have faced or witnessed all the above issues.

The screenplay should get 200/100 - for adding enough wit, humour into the seeming serious storyline. Komal Chautala's dialogues are outright witty, so are sequences illustrating the ignorance of Indians about each other's regions. Balbir Kaur is another funny character, and the sequence where the attendant asks Netra Reddy's about the difference between Tamil and Telugu is so typical of Delhi that one cannot but smile.

Coming to Shahrukh, Chak De once again proves that Shahrukh is a great actor - and it is more because of certain directors which he gets stereotyped. This is undoubtedly one of his best and most natural performances after Swades!!

Miss Potter (2006)

I am not entirely sure how I ended up watching the movie Miss Potter. The DVD cover had a photo of Renee Zellweger’s and Ewan McGregor in a lip lock. Did Zellweger snag a typecast role of a Bridget Jones like character? The blurb about the movie on the back of the DVD case screamed sappy romantic comedy as well. So my expectation for this movie was set to the likes of “the holiday” and “the family stone”. I was pleasantly surprise to find that the movie was so much more than a silly romantic comedy. Even with the directorial attempts to mellow down Miss Potter’s story she comes across as the fierce firebrand feminist that she must’ve been. After I watched the movie I realized that categorizing this movie as a silly romantic comedy was an evil marketing ploy.

Miss Potter is a movie based on the true story of an extraordinary woman called Beatrix Potter who struggled against the societal constrains of being a woman in a time (early 1900s) when women were compelled to become housewives. In her quest to become a published writer and artist she fought tooth and nail to become a financially self-sufficient woman. She reminded me of J. K. Rowling, not merely for the common denominator of Potter but for their struggle (as women) to become published writers and their amazing success as writers of children’s books. Isn’t it disgraceful that after all the struggle women have gone through to be able to make it in a man’s world, even today, Joanne had to publish her books under the name J.K. Rowling to conceal her identity as a woman, in an effort to appeal to the male readers? Maybe a similar reasoning went into the marketing strategy of Miss Potter. Who would want to watch a movie about a woman protagonist who struggled to be accepted as a scientist, writer and artist? The audience would much rather prefer Miss Potter to be a love story. The movie makers took a lot of liberties in the storytelling and as a result compromised on Potter’s achievements. Potter had printed and sold some of her stories on her own but in the movie all the props for publishing are given to the male lead that Potter falls in love with. I guess they didn’t want the guy to look like the side-kick and wanted him to have a substantial role in Potter’s success as a writer.

The movie makers entirely ignored many of Potter’s accomplishments so that she does not overshadow the other (male) characters. There was not even a mention of her scientific achievements.I am a little miffed at all the historical inaccuracies of the movie but at the same time I was glad that this movie introduced me to this wonderful woman. I wish I had read all the stories about Peter rabbit and Jemima Puddle Duck when I was little. But like they say, ‘better late than never’. So I bought her entire published collection and although the stories are for little kids I must admit that I enjoyed reading some of those stories even now. You have to read the Jemima Puddle duck story if you haven’t already.

So here is remembering Miss Potter who was an extraordinary woman and still wins the hearts of people with her amusing stories. Happy Birthday to you Miss Potter ! I wish I could be half as accomplished as you were.

Provoked

This picture is by Jagmohan Mundra. A story based on Kiranjeet Ahluwalia. It happened long back 1989. An Inidan woman killed his husband by burning him. This was case unique. This film is a flashback of (Kiranjeet) Aishwarya Rai. The film starts with burning of the husband by wife leaving a question in the minds of the audience why??? The answers are given later. How Kiran and Deepak started their life as any other lovely pair. The start was very happy like any other couple. But things go worst as the days passed by. The abuse was sexual, verbal, physical and mental. The money was not spend on home for even food but was spent on girls. This picture clearly depicts the mental agony she was going through. She was an not so fluent in English and was not able to tell anything about her turmoil to the police officers who thought that she was the murderer and used every means to get her a sentence for life term. But things changed when the press and people started supporting her. This led the case to be considered for retrial which never happened and her term for 3 years was accepted as the full term. She was released in 1992 and is leading her life in London. This picture is not about just Kiranjeet Ahluwalia. Her release helped four other women later to be released who were facing the same charges. The domestic violence depression was finally accepted as a legally accepted depression. This was a huge victory for women, because before this it was a cold blooded murder. This is a landmark case in the history of UK totally redefining the rights and the position of women in such trials. The picture is a nice depiction of all the incidences. Performance by Aishwarya Rai is commendable. She brings out Kiranjeet very well. Performances by others are also good especially by Nandita Das. Film can be seen not for fun but for a reason, for a cause that is affecting 50% population of the world. Kudos to Kiranjeet...

Rating : 5.5/10