Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Ten stories - one movie

Dus Kahaniyan

Have you read those Kumudam and Ananda Vikatan half page stories with a twist? After reading few of them, you can easily guess what the twist would be. Several stories of Dus Kahaniyan fall under this genre. It would seem interesting for the people who are encountering short stories( even in the visual medium, a short story is a short story, no?) for the first time.

Of the ten stories, Poorna Manshi and Rice Plate had received the maximum good reviews. Rice Place stands out due to Shabana Azmi and Naseerudin Shah. I have never seen Naseer in a similar role. With a Child like Smirk, he endears you. In general, I don't like Shabana Azmi and always felt if Smitha Patel had been alive, Shabana wouldn't have had the chance to rule the Parallel cinema world like she did. Inspite of the grudge, they stole the show in this Hindu Muslim Behen-Bhai story.

Poorna Manshi never gave me enough time to get into the Characters. This was one of the stories that made me realize why this 10-15 minutes stories in a movie format would not work. I feel(umhm..) it is very important to establish an emotional connect with the characters. That takes time. Before I could empathize with Ma, Beti the story was over.

I did not watch one of the stories. 'Matrimony', a well executed story with Mandira Bedi and Sohail Khan would fall under the typical half-page short story with a twist. So do three more stories, 'Strangers in the night'(conversation between two stone faced people), 'Gubbare'(lovely acting by Nana) and 'Lovedale'(pathetic in all ways).

The Gangster one with Sanjay dutt and Sunil shetty(Sunil/Suniel - they can add all the alphabets they want, but I am going to use only the required alphabets in a name!) was going for something good, yet hadn't crystalised well.

With regard to actors, the already known good ones like Manoj Bajpai, Nana Patekar, Naseeruddin, Shabana stand out. To my surprise, Amrita was good too. Others don't surprise you either. Neha gave me an unintentional laugh. Sanjay dutt and Sunil shetty together kill the last story.

Compared to Scriptless bollywood movies, this is definitely a DVD watch.

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for sharing,I always wondered about this movie,will check it out at least on dvd :)

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