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Friday, September 13, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD MUKKABAAZ
EDITOR'S PICK
'Mukkabaaz' Anurag's most sensitive film (Review By Subhash K Jha :
Rating ****)
Really, we couldn't hope for a better start to our movie-going spree in 2018.
Mukkabaaz is many things at the same time. To begin with it isano, it not just
an ode to pugilism. It is an ode to that thing called love.
Mukkabaaz is Anurag Kashyap's most romantic film to date. It's about, believe it
or not, love at first sight when Bareilly's self-proclaimed Mike Tyson, aka
Shravan Singh (Vineet Singh, startling in his transformation into a ferocious
fighter) happens to see Sunaina (newcomer Zoya Hussain, expressive in her
silences).
The sequence where Shravan falls in love brilliantly yokes violence and
tenderness, and sets the pace for what is to follow. This is a film steeped in
the ethos of ethnicity, immersed in the culture of caste and gender prejudices.
But it's not as bereft of hope and humour as one would think Kashyap's milieu of
mofussil mayhem would be. This is a mellower more sensitive world, a world of
love and compassion in a universe of corruption and debauchery.
The smalltown setting is chilling in its bold undertones of violence. Kashyap's
Bareilly (as we come to know the setting to be) is run by a glorified goon
Bhagwan Das Mishra (Jimmy Sheirgill) a sadistic patron-saint, who early in the
narrative asks the local Tyson to drink his urine from a bottle, "like holy
water".
We never know whether Shravan actually performs the offensive act of
subservience. The film's anxious editors (Arati Bajaj, Ankit Bidyadhar) cut away
from the sordid sequence of subjugation.
But knowing Shravan we can easily conclude he would never eat shit, or drink
pee. This is a boy-man on a mission to prove to the world and his disapproving
father, that boxing is not a soft option but a hard career decision.
In the film's most powerfully acted episode Shravan hits back hard at his
father's contemptuous reading of his son's ambitions, taunting the older man for
achieving so little in life. It's a scene of abject filial cruelty performed
with such guilt and hurt by Vineet Kumar, that a potentially stereotypical
father-son confrontation scene acquires a towering personality denoting the
entire gamut of conflicts that go into the aspirations of one generation as they
are passed on to another.
Son says, father has no respect for his passion. Father thins son is talking
about 'fashion'. It's a silly confusion, that hides the larger growing tensions
simmering in small towns where youngsters want to make something of their lives.
But what????
Linguistic confusion plays a major part in driving the plot forward. The actor
Shree Dhar Dubey who plays the hero's buddy insists on using smatterings of
angrezi in his conversations. A conceit that infuriates our Shravan.
Elsewhere cow vigilantes are busy, for no particular reason, thrashing a suspect
while someone films the brutality on a phone. In the smalltown fables of Kashyap
and his ilk of directors mofussil directors, video recordings on phone are
indicative of how roughly hewn technology is into every day life.
Our hero roughs up his casteist senior at his workplace. When the man wets
himself in fear Shravan gleefully films the man's humiliation. It's not just
villains who expose their dirty subconscious.
The dialogues and situations are pronouncedly scatological, as they are wont to
be in a Kashyap film. But the tone changes oh-so-delicately when Shravan is
around the love of his life. Balancing between bouts of boxing brutality and
episodes of unfettered tenderness Mukkabaaz is Anurag Kashyap's most vividly
written and fluidly executed film since the underrated Dev D.
The performances are so powerful you fear they would outdistance the director's
mastery over the patois of mayhem, and none more powerful than Vineet Kumar in a
career-making role and performance that compares favourably with Robert de
Niro's boxer's shots in Martin Scorcese's Raging Bull.
Not that Kashyap is Scorcese. Heavens, no! Kashyap is on a trip of his own,
tripping cheekily over the live wires that are thrown all over the bleak brutal
and wounded landscape of his films. And it's not just Vineet Kumar who comes
forward with a performance that defines the director's quenchless thirst for
searching out the violence that underlines life lived on the fringes. Ravi
Kissan and Jimmy Sheirgill are rqually superb in their roles as the coach and
the ganglord. These are actors who know the culture of caste and gender
politics. They feel the throbbing veins of violence.
As the narrative progresses it acquires the personality of a tightly-wound
entity coiling and recoiling into shapes of tenderness and venom. Mukkabaaz is a
different more balanced and less unsettled beast than any film Kashyap has made.
While all his recent films portrayed the dark ugly sinister underbelly of
mofussil existence this time, just this once, the Director has allowed himself
to explore the tricky relationship between love and violence with gentle care.
This is the Director's most sensitive film to date. It hits a hard punch. And
not just in the boxing ring.
Bollywood star Nawazuddin Siddiqui is all set to star opposite Italian actress Valentina Corti in Tannishtha Chatterjee's directorial debut. The 'Manjhi' star had everyone wondering after posting a picture with the Italian star on social media. He also added an intriguing caption to the image, "Ye ladki mere Rome Rome me hai."Read More
Always interested in layered characters: Jimmy SheirgillActor Jimmy Sheirgill, who will soon be seen in "Saheb, Biwi Aur Gangster 3", says he is inclined towards playing difficult and challenging characters on-screen."I am always interested in characters that are much layered and difficult to play. So even though someone comes to me with the main lead, it has happened in the past that I opted for a smaller role in that same film because as an actor, I can contribute more to make that part interesting," Jimmy told IANS.The actor is known for his work in films like "Mohabbatein", "Munna Bhai M.B.B.S.", "Bas Ek Pal", "Mukkabaaz", "Tanu Weds Manu" and "Special 26".Read More
In the city of Bareilly (UP), aspiring boxer Shravan (Vineeth) slogs day and night to achieve his dream of being a recognised boxer. Things go awry when he falls in love with a high caste, mute girl who happens to be the niece of his arch nemesis, the head of the state boxing federation, Bhagwandas Mishra.
