Of Kareena Kapoor Khan’s Charm and Female Friendships in Hindi Cinema
Dear Reader,
Since Kareena Kapoor Khan made her debut in J.P. Dutta’s Refugee in 2000 alongside Abhishek Bachchan, flops pimpled her filmography, initially. She was following the strategy of Sridevi, Madhuri Dixit, and her sister, Karisma Kapoor. They signed several films and believed that the beam of the hits would obscure the shadow of the ones that failed and crashed. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001, K3G), a year into Kapoor’s debut, catapulted her into quick superstardom, the status of which, under the weight of several flops that followed after, floated, even as the substance slowly withered till the next hit. In 2004, during the first season of Koffee with Karan, she told Johar about the regret of not having the gall to make a phone call and admitting she wanted to the role in Kal Ho Naa Ho, one of the biggest successes of Bollywood in that decade, and couched this within the confession that the most enduring hit of her career, K3G, and her most iconic character in it, Poo (short for Pooja), came from him. The frankness of the lingering hurt, the regret over missing a brighter dot amongst a series of less memorable projects, barring braver swoops like Chameli (2003), was worn easily. Kapoor has since progressed in the industry, shifting to a contemporary strategy of making choiceful, safer roles, rather than grabbing onto many scripts.
When you parse through this 24-year-long filmography, and pluck out her most iconic appearances (including her interviews), it becomes clear that in our filmic landscape that is gratuitously riddled with self-serious storytelling, Kapoor has always had the gall to be unapologetically camp, and fun. Her cheeky divulgings in Koffee with Karan (digs at John Abraham and Priyanka Chopra) scandalised audiences but carried a playful undercurrent that deliciously poked fun for the sake of playing along with a show format, rather than any malicious intent of stoking egos or needling serious hurt (though, it is hard to imagine Abraham unbothered by such a negative remark). Her most iconic roles employ this cheekiness, and to some extent, audacity. While it is disappointing that Crew, which also stars the legendary Tabu and endearing Kriti Sanon has her co-stars, is unable to utilise her instinct for comedy and camp, her delicious charm still manages to leak through the otherwise underwhelming script. - J. Shruti
Film Festivals Galore
Too many film festivals is always a good problem to have. After last year's Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival, Mumbai is getting Red Lorry Film Festival organised by leading ticketing platform BookMyShow between April 5 and 7 at the Maison INOX and Maison PVR multiplexes in Bandra Kurla Complex, Mumbai. There are at least a hundred titles, including international productions and older classics and Indian films that have either not been shown before or have been screened exclusively at film festivals. Films we are looking forward to include Cedric Kahn’s The Goldman Case, based on the trial of Left-wing activist Pierre Goldman (Arieh Worthalter), who is accused of killing two women during a robbery. Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar-sweeping Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo and Willem Dafeo, will also be shown.
On the Indian front, there is Atul Sabharwal’s espionage thriller Berlin, Anushman Jha's black comedy Lord Curzon Ki Haveli, and Folk Road, a docuseries in which composer Vipin Mishra and actor Satyadeep Mishra take a musical journey across India.
Among the classic titles that will be screened are Italian master Michelangelo’s Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966), Alfred Hitchcock’s masterpiece Psycho (1960), Hitchcock’s late-career Frenzy (1972), and Orson Welles’s film noir The Lady From Shanghai (1947). And for those who are a bit tired of slow cinema, wanting something more commercial, there is Love Actually (2003), A Few Good Men (1992) and Jerry Maguire (1996). This goes in tandem with BMS's aim for this festival, which is to get people into theatres.
Further North, there is the Cinevesture International Film Festival that is taking place in Chandigarh between March 27 and 31. It will be screening both Indian and international titles, while also connecting filmmakers with investors, exhibitors and distributors. It is organised by Cinevesture, the company founded by Nina Lath, the former National Film Development Corporation Managing Director and Film Bazaar founder.
The international line-up has Anh Hung Tran’s A Taste of Things, Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest, Hirokazu Kore-eda’s Monster, the animated film Sultana’s Dream, the Iranian documentary Seven Winters in Tehran and Sri Lankan auteur Prasanna Vithanage’s Paradise, starring Darshana Rajendran and Roshan Mathew. Among the Indian titles is Gurvinder Singh’s Adh Chanani Raat, Rima Das’s Tora’s Husband, Jayant Somalkar’s Sthal and Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Malaikottai Vaaliban. - Prathyush Parasuraman
Our Reviews This Week:
Crew: Tabu, Kareena, Kriti Struggle to Take the Bro Out of the Bromance
Crew: Tabu, Kareena, Kriti Take You on a Bumpy Ride
Patnna Shukla: Raveena Tandon Stars in a Middling Social Drama
Tillu Square: A Rare Sequel That Improves On The Original
First Day First Impression of Aadujeevitham: Blessy’s Introspective Adaptation Balances Scale With Terrific Emotion
History of Female Friendships in Hindi Cinema
Following is an excerpt from Sharanya Kumar's piece. You can read the whole article here.
When they are not being eclipsed by larger-than-life heroes, the relationships that female characters have with each other have long been superficial or antagonistic. Moitra pointed out the hypocrisy of a term like ‘cat-fight’, which refers to a wild altercation between two women: “Nobody says ‘dog-fights.’ Men go to war with each other, but it’s always about, like, ‘cat-fights’ between two actresses. It’s just laughable, but that’s the way it used to be.” Perhaps that was why the final scene of Alankrita Shrivastava’s Lipstick Under My Burkha (2016) felt special. We don’t get a neat resolution to the challenges the film’s four heroines have faced. Instead, we see the women retreat to a safe haven, away from prying eyes, where they can share their fears and fantasies, smoke a couple of cigarettes, and laugh together. In one another’s company, they find a sense of understanding and support that had previously eluded them. It’s a pure, powerful moment of female friendship, something that still feels like a novelty in Hindi cinema nearly a decade after the release of Lipstick Under My Burkha.
The Making of Aatmapamphlet
Growing up in a society where one had to jump over the barriers of caste and society wasn’t easy for Ashish Avinash Bende and in Paresh Mokashi’s script for Aatmapamphlet, he found “something that I always wanted to say”. The sparkling comedy is about a boy and his group of friends, who stick together despite challenges like caste prejudices and economic disparities. For Bende, the film may be based on his own experiences, but it’s also an alternative reality. “This is a happy film. Everything is very happy, but when you are a Dalit growing up in this world, not all memories are good, right?” said Bende. “I was getting discriminated against, I was getting sidelined. The friends’ characters in the film are based on my own best friends, but they are not my best friends anymore. All these friends that I grew up with have inclined towards the right wing and I miss them. I wanted to show them: What if they hadn’t changed that much? I just wanted to express the feeling of universal brotherhood.” Initially, the struggle for Bende was to find the right tone for his story. “I just needed to put it into the right words, and Paresh has written it so beautifully (without offending anyone) and it made me want to tell the story to the world,” he said. - Kaira H.
You can read the oral history of the making of Aatmapamphlet here.
That’s all from us this week. We’ll be back, same time, same place with next week’s newsletter. This isn’t Fight Club and rules about secrecy don’t apply, so don’t forget to tell your friends to subscribe to FC Draft.