The Eleventh Hour

Salman Rushdie is perhaps most famous for having written "Satanic Verses" in 1988 that provoked a death threat.

Before that, after graduating with an English education (Cambridge) Salman was an advertising copy writer.  While doing that he was writing a science fiction book that failed to impress either potential readers or critics.  Still working in ad agency he wrote "Midnight's Children" that came out in 1981.  It won the Booker Prize that allowed him to become a full time writer.  Years later he was involved in writing the script for the film version co-operating with Deepa Mehta and one of the stars, Shriya Saran, a favourite..

"Satanic Verses" offended Muslim fundamentalist governments and was banned in 20 countries.  More critically it raised the ire of Ayatollah Khomeni who issued a fatwa demanding Salman's death in 1989.  He went into hiding, making a few high security public appearances and continued writing.

By 2022 it seemed safe, however there were still those who took the fatwa seriously and Salmon was attacked at a public author's event.  Before anyone could restrain the attacker, Salmon suffered being stabbed that ended up losing one eye and damage to his hands and liver.

Being an outspoken author was dangerous and he decided he had to deal with this violation of trust.  One of the results was the non fiction book "Knife." 

Now he was ready to get back to what he normally does.  Write fiction.  I have been stuck by a quote from Picasso who said "Art is the lie that shows us the truth."  To me it suggests that fiction can be a tool to give us greater human insight.  

The title, "The Eleventh Hour" is meant to convey the concern that we all face; death and how to deal with it in our quest to give meaning to our life.  Salman decided on 5 short stories to give different perspectives in an engaging manner.  

He draws on his background in India, England and United States.  Some of his references hit me as I didn't expect any to Indian films, but I should have known better.  Others will pick up on things he experienced in England where he went to school or America where he took up residence.

He is credited with using a magic realism style.  As a youngster, Salman was first impressed by "The Wizard of Oz" that sets a fantasy frame to tell us a little bit about three real men.  In his five stories he combines fantasy in a historical context.

We are grateful that Salman survived and if you get a chance to read "The Eleventh Hour" you will be grateful too.

Drishyam 2 signifies a new global movie franchise

One thing most movie watchers agree on is that popularity is one factor for deciding which ones to choose.  Most movie makers have found a formula that draws a crowd.  They work because they have been tested and appeal to motives that have been well identified.  But there is still an interest in something that is a little out of the formula.  "Drishyam" can now be considered a franchise.  You will love it.

 Panorama has bought world wide rights.  Already it has been filmed in Malayalam, Telegu, Hindi, Sinhalese, Kannada, Chinese with plans for Korean, Japanese and English.  There are plans for a Part 3 with the Malayalam and Hindi versions being released simultaneously.

Why so popular?  "Drishyam" is not a mystery the way we normally watch, in fact it is sort of the reverse.  It might seem strange that an idea first expressed in a language most westerners are not even aware of, Malayalam would attract universal attention.  The hero is an ordinary guy, an orphan and school drop out.  He owns a cable operation which helps feed his addiction to movies.  His daughter is caught innocently in a sexually compromising situation and the perpetrator approaches the mother and daughter and in a tense situation he is accidentally killed.  When the hero comes home he decides on a plan to protect his family from being caught and his daughter's reputation being besmirched in a conservative area.  The scummy character's mother is a very clever police chief bent on catching the guilty party which focuses on the right people because they were the last one connected to the missing man.  The plan is very clever.  The audience takes the side of the protective father.

Part two occurs 7 years later and we had all been impressed thinking the issue was over.  However  there are always a few loose ends and policewoman mother still is determined.  It is well handled, but with a lot of tension.  The different versions do have subtle differences in actions and moral differences.

A favorite quote of mine exemplifies some of the moral ambiguity comes from the hero seen in the Hindi version:   "Despite all the justifications, the hero can never look in the eyes of the boy's parents". 

My first look at the Bollywood version:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2015/11/driishyam-bollywood-remake-masterpiece.html

Years later I saw the original Malayalam version and sometime after the sequel.  Then I was I saw the second part in Telegu.  More recently I saw the Bollywood version of the sequel.

I recognize that I do not know all those who should take credit for the success, but below are some who deserve some recognition

Jeethu Joseph was the original "Drishyam" (2015) in Malayalam.  He got his start as an assistant director, but than ran into roadblocks.  He tried to interest producers with a one line plot, but failed.  His mother stepped and agreed to finance the film with him as director.   A producer did get interested and took over about a month into the project.  His career went forward, but really got a big break with "Drishyan" released in 2013.  He had no thoughts about a sequel, but others did and Antony Parambavour  (who financed bodth the original and sequel) persuaded him to try.  Jeethu has written and directed the two Malayalam versions and directed the Tamil.

Abhishek Pathak was the director, producer and adapted the script for Hindi version of "Drishyam 2".   He had attended the New York Film Academy and later learned much from Anurag Kashyap.   He has been primarily a producer, but also a writer and director.  He produced the first Bollywood version of "Drishyam" in 2015.  His other credits include "Omkara" (2006), "Aakrosh" (2010), "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge" and "Ujda Chaman" (2011).

Mohanlal played the Georgekutty character owner of cable operation in Malayalam versions..   Gave an ok for part 2 as sidelined by Covid lockdown.  He has 34 playback singing credits and 34 producer credit and over 260 acting credits that snagged numerous awards.   Some film credits include "Summer in Bethlehem" (1998), "Tezz" (2012), "Grandmaster" (2012) and "Pulimurugan" (2016),

Ajay Devgn played Vijay Salgaonkar, the cable tv. owner.  The reason Ajay agreed to do the original was because what he had planned got delayed and he had three months to spare which was enough for the shooting schedule.  His original family name was Devgan, but he was advised to change to Devgn.  He has been very busy as an actor, but also as a producer and director.  His film credits include "The Legend of Bhagat Singh "(2002), "Raincoat" (2004),  "Once Upon a Time in Mumbai" (2010), "Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge" (2010), "Shivaay" (2016) and "Gangubai Kathiawadi" (2022).

Meena played Rani George, wife to Georgekutty in the Malayalam versions and Jyothi wife to the cable operator in the Telegu versions.  She also has a singing career and is multi lingual.  Her over 150 film credits include "Friends" (1999) and "Karutha Pakshikal" (2008).

Shriya Saran plays Nandini Salgaonkar, wife to Vijay.  She has fascinated me when she played in English the love interest in "The Other End of the Line" (2008).  She speaks several languages with film credits including "The Blue Umbrella" (2005), "Kanthaswamy" (2009), "Midnight's Children" (2012) and "RRR" (2022).

Tabu is one of the highlights for me in the two Bollywood versions.   She plays  Police Chief Meera Deshmukh and you may not like her as she is ruthless in her pursuit of who she believes is her son's killer. Speaking four languages she appeared in one English movie, "The Namesake" (2008).  Her film credits include  "Chachi 420" (1997),  "Hera Pheri" (2000),  "Cheeni Kum" (2007), "Andhadhun" (2018), "Sanju" (2018) and  "Ala Vaikunthapurramuloo" (2020). http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2015/12/tabu.html  I would love to see her in the Part 3, both in Hindi and English. 

Akshaye Khanna played a police detective.  He has 43 acting credits including "Taal" (1999), "Dil Chahta Hai" (2001), "Gandhi, My Father" (2007), "Ittefaq" (2007), "Race" (2008), and "Mom" (2017).   See http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2011/07/dil-chatha-hai-bollywood-classic.html

I look forward to "Drishyam 3", mostly with the same casts and think it might be well worth checking out different versions to see which has the best twists or most subtle embellishments

Drishyam (Bollywood version) is available through Netflix while Drishyam 2 through Prime.

REGIONAL FILMS FROM INDIA WELL WORTH VIEWING

Over a decade ago I stumbled on Bollywood and it seemed like a good match.  Loved much of the music and found the stories and actors interesting.  It was my dependence on subtitles that fooled me into thinking many regional language films were Bollywood (which speaks Hindi), when they weren't, although there certainly were links.  India is the world's top producing film country, but the numbers are greatly boosted from a rich regional industry.

When I first was investigating Bollywood I watched a Tamil movie with the music from what I thought was a Bollywood composer, A R Rahman.  "A Peck on the Cheek" was involved in the civil war in Sri Lanka, but the main characters were from India.  This was my first acquaintance with Mani Ratnam, Madhavan and Nandita Das who were all also Bollywood standards.  An award winner which I enjoyed and perhaps it even perked my interest in Bollywood.  Because of the setting I did realize it wasn't the usual Bollywood.  The concept of suicide bomber originated amongst Tamils in Sri Lanka and one is depicted in this about a young girl with the help of her adoptive parents (from India) searching for her birth parents in Sri Lanka.

Over a few years I saw a string of Tamil movies that I didn't realize were not Bollywood.  The unifying elements were Mani Ratnam, A R Rahman and Arvind Swamy who was the leading man.  "Roja" (1992) was the first and involved the Kashmir conflict; then "Bombay" (1995), although ended in Bombay started in Tamil area, "Sapnay" (1997) that had Kajol as leading lady and finally" Kadal" (2013) where Arvind played a priest trying to save an adolescent against an ex priest.  This last one had my number one iTunes song, "Nenjukkule" as sung by Shakthisree Gopalan.  Kajol is making another Tamil movie this time with Dhanush.

I had always associated A R Rahman as a Bollywood artist, but he was known as "the Maestro of Madras" -the former name of Chennai in Tamil Nadu state. He started with Tamil movies, and moved to Bollywood with some of my favorites, but has expanded to the UK and USA while not giving up southern Indian dialects.  He not only writes very popular music, but also sings and produces for other composers.

Shriya Sarin is one of my favorites anywhere.  She has not only appeared in English speaking roles, but also Canadian directed films, "Cooking with Stella" (2009) and "Midnight's Children"(2012).  I first saw her in "At the Other End of The Line" (2008) where she played a girl next door type, except she flew from India to California to stalk (with no bad intentions) a phone voice.  Intrigued I searched and found her in a Tamil film, "Kanthaswamy" (2009) where her role was sexy, but also bitchy.  More recently she appeared in one of my favorites, "Drishyam" (2015) in a key supporting role (see http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2015/11/driishyam-bollywood-remake-masterpiece.html "Drishyam" was originally Malayalam.  Recently Shriya finished a Telegu film to good reviews (not seen).  She got her first break in Telegu and has also acted in English, Kannada, Malayalam and Hindi--an example of multi-lingual actor

Rajinikanth established his reputation over a 100 movie career.  One I saw was "Sivaji" (2007) with Shriya as leading lady.  He was asked to get involved in a major endeavour involving photo realistic motion capture film (like what was seen in "Avatar").  His daughter Soundarya, a director  was heavily involved as was A R Rahman who eventually wrote the music.  It ended up in 2014 as "Kochadailyaan" with a cast that included Rajinikanth, Deepika Padukone and Jackie Shroff.  Presented in 6 languages:  Tamil, Hindi, Telegu, Bengali, Marathi and Punjabi.  Criticized on technical grounds, but praised for everything else.  It was a big step forward for Indian cinema in its technological progress.  I saw a demonstration of some of the motion capture before and after the story with the special features.

A younger star in Tamil films is Dhanush.  First saw him in"Aadukalam" (2001) an award winner with an odd topic. The hero was heavily involved in cock fighting.  I saw a feature that demonstrated what looked like vicious cock fighting was really CGI.   Later saw Dhanush in his first Bollywood film, "Raanjhanaa" (2013) opposite Sonam Kapoor.

"Interrogation" (2015) was India's nomination for an Oscar. About immigrants from another region being rounded up to confess to a crime to satisfy a corrupt police force that needed a confession.  Very well done and believable movie.  Watched on Netflix after a tip from a website, Access Bollywood.  Noticed Dhanush listed as producer.

"Sairat" (2016) first brought to my attention by a comment from Aamir Khan who highly recommended it.  Another new language for me--Marathi.  The music both for the background and for song and dance was very pleasant, Excellent, sometimes stunning cinematography.  Mood changes in second half  to grimly realistic with the two main actors showing a wide range of emotions.  The high caste girl can't cook and is sensitive to smells which causes conflict.  If you do not understand the caste system the ending will be a shock, but not so much if you do understand it; it was a shock for me.  The writer and director, Nagraj Manjule is very realistic and took a bit part.  The best of all films I have seen so far in January 2017.

Priyanka Chopra, famous in Bollywood and with "Quantico" formed a production company with her mother Madhu and they came out with a Punjabi movie (not seen).   I didn't see their Marathi "Ventilator" (2016), but bought a song from it recorded by Priyanka called "Baba."

Disney ventured into India and helped produce a Telegu movie, "Once Upon a Warrior," (2011) starring Shruti Haasan and was about a blind swordsman helping to restore justice to an ancient kingdom.

"Baahubali:  The Beginning" (2015) was a big Telegu block buster that took almost four years to complete.  We in the west don't usually realize it was not only Europe that had ancient history and this epic demonstrates civilization started in different places.   Lush scenery and large scale battles.  I had to wait until it was dubbed in Hindi with English subtitles.

"Eeaga" (2012) has to be one of the strangest movies to describe.  Before you dismiss it consider that it has an IMDB rating of 7.9 after over 13,000 voters.  It starts off like many movies as a love triangle, but soon one male kills another.  The dead male, is reincarnated as a housefly.  Improbable as it sounds he establishes contact with his lady love and seeks revenge.  Special effects are noteworthy.  Music by M.M. Keeravani who wrote music for a lot of Telegu films, but also some Bollywood ones.

When discussing Bengali some of the early classics were done by Satyajit Ray who is definitely non Bollywood.  He is recognized as one of the most artful director/writers on the world scene.  No song and dance routines for him, but look for character development, dialogue and camera angles.  I have watched "Aparajito"(1956), Pather Panchalli (1955) and "Charuklata" (1964), all black and white masterpieces.

As a Canadian it is amazing to me that languages I had not heard of until recently have more speakers than our population.  Telegu has 74 million, Tamil 72 million, Marathi 68 million and Urdu over 70 million.  This diversity is not only reflected in India itself, but also in the diaspora that has spread all over the world.  The movies help connect them.

There is a great overlapping of ideas and personnel between the regions and Bollywood.  Just like food from different parts of India.

DRISHYAM BOLLYWOOD REMAKE MASTERPIECE OF MASTERPIECE

I first noticed "Drishyam" through IMDB ratings a few months ago starting at about 9.0, but not too many followers.  Then it dropped to 8.9 and it seemed would follow a pattern of when the masses see something it usually goes downhill.  Followed practically every day with raters going up a few hundred everyday, but the rate maintained.  Below I will confess the reason for my obsession.

I didn't see the original version in Malayalam but feel secure declaring it a masterpiece. The author, Jeethu Joseph also directed.  It is often the case in India that they can just dub the original, however when something is especially good, Bollywood likes to remake it in Hindi.  I don't recall ever seeing a Malalayam film, but have seen many other languages--Bengali, Punjabi, Tamil and Telegu.  There are over 38 million  Malayalam speakers mostly in India.

Ajay Devgn is the key cast member.  Although I have seen him in a number of movies that I liked he is known principally for action movies where someone is hit hard enough to do two flips and crash through a wall.  But "Raincoat," and  "Rajineeti" were both my preferred types.  He is married to Kajol, one half of my favouite jodi and they have two kids.  Ajay fitted this effort between two movies with his own production film delayed for three months.   He was assured this production could be filmed in less than 12 weeks.  There is no evidence of it being rushed, but instead with lots of subtleties.

Shriya Saran played his wife and she is the reason I followed this movie so closely.   Saw her in "At the Other End of the Line," an English speaking movie where she played a call centre worker, very much a girl next door type, except she decided on impulse to travel to America to sneak up on an American she had talked to on the phone.  Shortly after some effort saw her in her native Tamil, as a sexy double crossing bitch where she was impressive in a different way.  She has appeared in a Canadian movie,  "Cooking with Stella,"   More famously she was in "Midnight's Children" directed by Deepa Mehta.  Mostly she gets stuck with supporting roles and reviewers usually commenting on her looks.   I follow her on IMDB, but lately there hasn't been very much positive except for "Drishyam."

Rajat Kapoor is another familiar face  usually in small supporting roles, often as a sophisticated business man.  He played an important small role in  "Dil Chatha Hai," a movie partly set in Goa  as is "Drishyam."  He is also in comedies.  In "Drishyam" he again plays the sophisticated business man but is the one squeamish character which turns out to be an important factor in this movie.  He plays the husband to the real star, Tabu.

Tabu (birth name Tabassum Hashmi) has established a strong reputation.  She played a small role in "The Life of Pi"  (Pi's mother then dies off),  and "The Namesake"  She played a military leader in "Fanaa".  She  was in a romance comedy, "Cheeni Kum."  In "Astitva" " she plays the one time unfaithful wife of a hypocritical husband.  She won an award playing in "Haider " (as Hamlet's mother) and has won numerous awards in India.  She is award worthy in this film.  The trailer portrays her as a tough opponent, and in that regard she is more brutal than shown in the trailer, but also much more nuanced--particularly as a mother of a missing son.  More on her:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2015/12/tabu.html

Two young girls who you might think are just decorations, but both required for critical moments and perform very well.  Ishita Dutta played the elder daughter and Mruan Javhad the younger.

Supporting actors are better than average.  A rough and ready police officer is well done as you will come to despise him.  Friends and family roles done well.

The story is a little different in that we know who committed the "crime" and we know the efforts to   catch them, but this is focused on how to avoid detection. Psychology is very important and is so well done that you feel yourself tensing up numerous times.

The director Nishikant Kamat uses such subtleties that reminds one of Hitchcock.  Actors are required to display a wide range of emotions.  I can only vaguely recall one other of his movies, "Mumbai Meri Jann" about a terrorist attack done with suspense.

The movie is a clever cat and mouse game with Tabu and Ajay.  She is the only one to realize he has concocted a story and cleverly induced many others to back it up.  The ending is poetic, but some have described as a twist, but there are many twists before hand and the ending is really sublime.

Except for some violence (mostly beatings), the movie is suitable for family viewing.  Bollywood for the most part is not as sexually explicit as Europe, Asia or even Hollywood, but you realize Ajay has a healthy sex relation with his wife and that sex sensitivity in a more puritanical society like India plays a key role.

My wife and I are watching and enjoying  "How to Get Away with Murder" which in a way could have been the title of "Drishyam."  The Viola Davis drama is more sensational and less psychological and with a lot of gratuitous sex.  I like a balanced diet of entertainment.

I came across comments that the story came from "The Devotion of Suspect X," a book I think is one of the best crime psychology books ever written, but what they have in common is only the idea of dueling with a smart detective.  There is a Japanese movie of that book and I would love to see it.

Chances are good you will before too long have access through your local library or maybe Netflix.  Likely there will be another adaptation.  I am also looking forward to the next movie of Tabu, "Talvar" that is already doing well at the festivals (including TIFF) with Irrfan Khan.  Ajay is in "Dilwale" with his wife, Kajol and the other half of my favorite jodi, Shah Rukh Khan which should be an interesting grouping.

As I rarely do single movie reviews the following links are to other exceptions.  To view another posting about a Bollywood classic with one of the same participants check out:  http://www.therealjohndavidson.com/2011/07/dil-chatha-hai-bollywood-classic.html  Still another single movie review with a "Drishyam" participant is at:  http://www.johnfdavidson.com/2015/02/haider-bollywoods-version-of-shakespeare.html