Theeb

The director Naji Abu Nowar's debut feature Theeb is a gust of fresh air: in terms of the beautiful performances it offers. No method acting, no same old faces, no getting into the skin of characters. For it is not just non-professional actors here: rather, it is those who don't even have an idea of what cinema is, who have never gone to a movie theatre. And boy, does it work! Jacir as the title character Theeb is astonishing in his skill, charm and magnetism: that much, that he overshadows everything else in the film, even the fine supporting performances, most notably that of Hussein. (It must be said here that the Englishman could have been performed much better, but that is a minor discordant note, which can well be ignored.)

As a story, the film is a simple story: which is good. It is not some boy's coming-of-age story; it is simply a story of a curious boy and the desert. In equal measures, though that judgement probably would vary a lot depending on who watches it. The film opens with beautiful music (and hence, don't miss the opening): I personally would have liked it somewhere else, too, to be used again in the film. As a film, Abu Nowar sells well the idea of a Bedouin Western, and of course reminds one also of a non-Western, David Lean's masterpiece Lawrence of Arabia, being set during the same period and in the same locales.

The inevitable comparison would be quite unfair, though, if pursued: for one, Lean was an experienced master, who could demand a lot from his crew plus work on a lavish scale of funds. This is not something I presume Abu Nowar has or at least had the luxury of. As a first film, the film is a nugget, especially so because of Jacir's performance, but the film could have been much better, could even have been a classic: maybe the debutant director would now learn what he could have done differently and go on to give us even better films. The film's main flaw lies in its pace, in its short running time: it is too fast for a desert Western, for the boy's emotions to sink in, for the desert to immerse each one of us into it. It is too fast for a Lean or for a Sergio Leone Western. It is too fast for the Bedouins of Arabia. The film does not wait for the sands to blow over, for the blood to trickle down and clot, for resentment to crystallize and erupt one unknown day. Given such wonderful actors gifted with patience in themselves as Jacir, the film has left unused some of its treasure. The film also commits the tempting crime of showing the rugged beauty of the wadi as the context in which the action is happening: however, that distracts from the immediacy of emotions, of action, of tension. Because otherwise Abu Nowar has brought out the tension well: however, for this lack of slow distillation, the tension is palpable, and yet not enough wrought to a climax; hovering around, yet not haunting. I hope that this is something that the director will work on, for the knack of getting the right people onto a project and the ability to shoot in places where resistance and/or ignorance might be met are in themselves mighty fine attributes to have: which Abu Nowar has in ample, admirable proportions.

Ishqiya

A firebomb of a film, Ishqiya dares to take the viewers through one of the most dangerous places on this earth: the Hindi heartland of eastern Uttar Pradesh, where prospective goons are nurtured, the international arms trade occurs with as much no fuss as onions in other parts, caste wars rage and every single child knows the A to Z of a gun and dreams of an automatic, and where even the passion of love is consumed with the desire of power, to play a game with lives. Till love revenges itself.

What can you say about a film whose only most glaring fault is the distinct dichotomy in pace pre- and post-interval; the languid harpy atmosphere interspersed with two robbers falling in lust and love for a woman who doesn't care for them and the antics of their survival, sharp snapped against the sudden pick-up of tempo as a story hidden resurfaces in all its horror, and the India-Nepal border doesn't simply remain a safe haven to cross for the two on the run, but also a bristling source of the Maoist terrorism existing across a vast swathe of India, sourced through Nepal, funded by ? no the film does not go so far, as first and foremost this is a Vidya Balan film.

The brilliant actress she showed herself to be in her very debut (Parineeta), she has hardly managed to find more such roles; in years and years of film-watching from the world over, I don't think I have ever met such a whole-heartedly strong woman character, as constructed by debutant director Abhishek Chaubey with Vishal Bhardwaj here. It is curious that apart from the swear words, her language is the civilized Hindi; and yet it only adds another twinge of curiosity about her past, her likely upbringing, as does everything else about her. On apparent looking, a beautiful widow; the complex layers emerge and fascinate soon; on retrospect, a beautiful woman with a will to live, with the joy to be able to love and live. It is a fortune to find that the rest of the cast is as creamed into their niches as if they were taken deliberately out from them and placed here: Arshad Warsi, with his open-mouthed stupid seeming looks and murderous darting eyes at any girl and a ready wit when occasion needs, gives in an unexpected good acting performance; Naseeruddin Shah is the run-down elegance personified, a man who has still hankerings left after what he thinks as his alter ego; Alok Kumar the unwitting boy to set the climax on fire; and Adil Hussain the power-hungry man obsessed with his ideals and bloodlust. The selection of previous Hindi film songs played at various times in the movie is a pointer to the excellence of the film: their relation or unrelation in the right degree to the scene unfolding, the characters unfolding, and the complexion of the Hindi heartland unfolding; for where can you move in Uttar Pradesh without hearing songs playing from radios and tape recorders and CD players and MP3 players and iPods?

Ishqiya also catapults the vibrancy of Indian cinema to the very fore: while Hollywood clutters itself with fake characters and parodies of world-saving farces, with mindless comedies and mind-numbing action films, while Europe sticks to the fare of depressing, dysfunctional tales or low-key warm tales of 'ordinary' lives, which maybe it tries to project as more ordinary than they are, the Hindi cinema does not remain to any one stand. It tells stories: not formulas. It mixes ordinary people with extraordinary events, it believes in people with a frenzied warmth and in the potential to discover dramas in lives; it's not a coincidence that on the same day as Ishqiya releases, another film diametrically opposite, Rann, based on the ugly sides of the media industry, also releases, and makes another impression of the breadth of the Hindi filmscape.

Ishqiya, another Vishal Bhardwaj film, another explosive and beautiful combination. Vishal's screenplay, music, and dialogues, and Gulzar's lyrics - who can better the combination? Maybe Chaubey's, and not Vishal's, direction: it infuses a yelp of young energy throughout the film even though none of the characters, even those on the sidelines, in the film is in any way young.

Once Upon a Time in the West

If Sergio Leone hadn't already achieved greatness with the Dollars trilogy, then he does that with the grittiest Western I've ever seen: Once Upon a Time in the West (Italian: C'era una volta il West) . A film that refuses to balance its characters in only the color of blood with no taints no sainthoods, as the Dollars trilogy does, each man and woman is living a pulsing life and struggling in the days of the birth of a great, industrious nation; those days when America was yet discovering its potential, the railroad was slowly bringing civilization to the last fighters against it, and instead of kings and business magnates the world order would soon have the voice for every man. Ennio Morricone once again gives the life its breath: his music defies definition; probably the only thing that can be said it suits the film and its epic story to the hilt, and sweeps up every emotion in human breast in its wake. Constructed from several references to Westerns already made, the film turns out to be a greater whole than the sum of its parts: not least because of a stunning casting coup.

Henry Fonda, who you could never dream of with any kind of negative shade, plays the villain of the film with nothing in the name of a white shade attached to him. He looks ruthless, and not a step ahead of the game. He simply fits the murderer with icy blue eyes, who loves to kill, to maim, to rape, to finish spirits. The nemesis is Charles Bronson, the icy character who refuses to even once take advantage of the woman he protects during the course of his revenge, even if the woman herself so desires. He is also the nemesis of the Man with No Name of the Dollars trilogy, a man who has again no name except that given by the bandit Cheyenne, "Harmonica," but who does not indulge in bloody meaningless duels all over the desert to vanish into dust, but is only after one man, and whatever else it entails. An important difference with Lee Van Cleef's character in For a Few Dollars More is that Bronson, caring only for revenge, remains a good man, helping anyone else he can and remaining grateful to people who help him; while Cleef, again after only revenge, has become ruthless to the whole world after his personal experience. This is the same reason that while For a Few Dollars More relies primarily on the strength of its climax besides the focus on desolate American landscapes, Once Upon a Time in the West achieves greater heights through its redemptive theme, and faith in human goodness. Faith that lasts in spite of a land and times where blood was much more easier to get than water.

A masterpiece from Leone, it was not much surprising that the film was a flop in the United States: it's one long reality, with a music to elevate and almost a documented bit of history to make the things hard to understand for teenyboppers.