Happy Holidays

In between our families extensive Christmas celebrations in Salzburg and Switzerland, here´s wishing you all Happy Holidays from MiniKhan, my family and me.



















PS: MK is addicted to Xmas cookies. Say goodbye to his six-pack.

Prapancha Pash - A Throw Of Dice

Lets stick with the not so usual Bollywood fare for one more moment and go back to the very early years of the Indian film history. And by very I mean 1929. Late silent film era early.


















Ever since I saw the trailer of Prapancha Pash - A Throw Of Dice sometime last year on one of my DVDs I was hooked. I like Silent movies and this one is a very important one for Indian cinema history. Directed by Franz Osten, a German director that started to work in India as early 1924.

Osten was working as a head director for Emelka Films in Munich, Germany (which would later become Bavaria Films) when the company was approached by Himansu Rai (who later founded Bombay Talkies Ltd), who was looking for co-operation partners who would invest in Indian films.
The first film that was co-produced was "Prem Sanyas", India´s first international co-production. Four years later Osten once again traveled, along with his crew, to India for "Shiraz" and later that year he started to work on "Prapancha Pash". A monumental film, shot on real locations throughout India, with hundreds of elephants, tigers, horses, real jungle sets and thousands of junior artists.









The story of Prapancha Pash is an adaption of the Mahabharata´s game of dice. Two kings, one good - Sohat, one evil - Ranjit.
The evil one is greedy for Sohat´s kingdom and during a royal tiger hunt Sohat is "accidentally" wounded with a poisoned arrow. Plan saphal? Arre nahin! Luckily the "accident" happens close to beautiful Sunita´s house, the daughter of a healer. So he is nurtured back to health and gets the girl on top. Happies endings? Phir nahin. There is still the greedy Ranjit. And unsurprisingly he also falls for beautiful Sunita and driven by jealousy, greed and some other not so nice traits he tries everything to create a rift between the two young lovers.









His most devious plan is set in motion at the eve of Sohat and Sunita´s wedding. He lures the young king who has a dangerous weakness for gambling into a game of dice where he plays foul and Sohat loses everything. His kingdom, his crown, his freedom. And now being reduced to the status of a slave, he even loses Sunita. How mean! Thank god Sohat´s closest servant has a nosy beta. He finds the loaded dice and now we can head straight to the climax.









Even if with a length of only 72min it is a huge film. The cinematography is great. Osten´s use of real locations creates an authentic even realistic feel. The story is well rounded. It just works. Bas.

Btw. the DVD I got has another interesting feature. The movies score is done by Nitin Sawhney. The BFI (British Filminstitute) restored the filmprints in 2006 and Sawhney got to compose a new score for it, that was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. In fact there were a few live performances since 2006 in London (more dates might follow) and now there is a UK DVD and German DVD that also features an interview with Sawhney.









As much as I love Nitin Sawhney, the score is not really a perfect fit for the movie. The power of silent movie scores lies in the parallel storytelling they usually provide. Sawhney claims Ennio Morricone and Bernhard Herrmann (two of the greatest film composers in history) as his musical influences and that is where the problem might be rooted. I feel that his music just accompanies the pictures and that is too little. It did not touch me. Not that the pictures and visual storytelling would not be able to stand on their own. It is just that I would have preferred a little more Max Steiner with his exuberant use of Leitmotif and moodtechnique, Mickeymousing and continuous Underscoring.









But still this is one movie you should not miss. It is a classic. I really do hope that more films of this section of the Indian film heritage will find their way back on the screen.

PS: Satyajit Ray saw Franz Osten as the founder of a Realism School in Indian Film. Osten became a guru to Indian cinema dignitaries like Raj Kapoor, Sasadhar Mukherj or Dilip Kumar until he was incarcerated by the British in 1939 as citizen of an enemy´s country (especially since he had joined the foreign section of the NSDAP in Bombay in 1936) and later was banished from Indian soil.

PPS: Btw. concerning the alleged kissing-on-screen-tabu that should stem from these times. Bakwaas hai. There are two big fat dead-on-the-lips smooches in PP. Hah!
PPPS: Oh, and another thing. Prapancha Pash is perfect for Movie Improv-Karaoke (no distracting dialogues *g*)

Dus Kahaniyaan. Not too good. Not too bad. Not too ugly.

No one can question my dedication towards Bollywood anymore. I really had my doubts about DK...Sanjay Gupta producing a film with 10 shorts (and directing 4 of them). Not the savest initial position. Still we showed up last Friday at the cinema for our now usual first day/first show date only to find out that the print was not there yet. Bleh. Both shows had to be canceled. By Saturday afternoon my motivation to watch it was close to zero. But thanks to a nagging phone call from fellow BW-fanatic Ezri I pulled myself off the couch and we gave it a last try. Good thing we did. Dus Kahaniyaan is not a key moment in Hindi film history but we had a very good time watching the 10 films.










Over the last year I started to love the format of shorts in film (I honestly didn´t before) So I was curious how the master of rip-offs, color filters and skimpy clad item girls managed to fare with a format like this.

10 films. Each about 10 minutes in length. An impressive cast. 5 directors apart from Gupta.

Usually when you watch that amount of different stories in such short time you tend to forget the forgettable ones right after you come out of the cinema. Well, we rather easily managed to get 9 of the ten films together in the right order.
But let me give you a short overview about all of them..

Matrimony: Arbaaz Khan. Mandira Bedi. Married couple. No kids. Bored wife to busy multinational company vice-president. And an extramarital affair. Nice twist. Director: Sanjay Gupta

High on the Highway: Jimmy Shergill. Mausmeh. A very stoned Jimmy and his girlfriend. The moral of the story: Thou shalt not get high on a highway. Especially at 4 am. One of the tougher stories. I especially liked the (very dark) lighting. I love it when directors/ cinematographers have the guts to work with darkness. Director: Hansal Mehta









Zahir: Dia Mirza. Manoj Bajpai. Manoj moves into an apartment that has a beautiful young woman living next door. He takes a liking to her. She blocks his advances. The group of adolescent punjabi boys sitting behind us where reacting to this the strongest. And even I had to cheer at the final twist. Director: Sanjay Gupta

Pooranmashi: The only story that is set in a rural surrounding. And it is shot in a very straight manner. And thus feels a bit out of joint compared to the rest of the shorts. But it still packs a punch. Daughter (Minissha Lamba) is all set to get married when her loving symbolic gesture to her mother (Amrita Singh) causes a tragedy. Director: Meghna Gulzar

Strangers in the night: Neha Dupia. Mahesh Manjrekar. Wife tells husband her lives most memorable moment. It drags a bit. And the hand licking and kissing is rather yucky. Also the - in itself - powerful twist is a bit too far fetched the way the story builds up before. And the acting is a bit to sterile. Director: Sanjay Gupta









Lovedale: Aftab Shivastani. Neha Uberoi. Anupam Kher. It seems as if no true Bollywoodfilm can stand without a pinch of Masala. And Lovedale covers almost all the necessary points. Naive. Sweet. Plus it made me wanna see more of Aftab. He´s cute. [insert girly giggle] Btw. The earring was fugly. Very. Director: Jasmeet Dhodi

Sex on the beach: Dino Morea relaxes on the beach, when he finds a book in the sand. And a minute later a girl (Tareena Patel) in a very golden Bikini approaches him. The spookiest of the lot and the by far weakest. Because it is so predictable and in fact boring. But Dino looks cool shirtless and wet. Additional note: There were no Jet-skies in 1901 or 1946. Director: Apoorva Lakia









Rise Plate: Shabana Azmi. Naseruddin Shah. Clearly the highlight for me. The Story about a Hindu nani and a Muslim uncle and their fight over a rice plate had some fantastic moments. It also was the one short I wished would not end. Even if the twist was predictable pretty soon. Director: Rohit Roy

Gubbare: Nana Patekar. Rohit Roy. Anita Hassanandani. Newlyweds on a bus quarrel. Wife is miffed and changes seats. Sits down next to man holding a bouquet of red balloons. And he tells her why. Warning: there might be tears. Director: Sanjay Gupta (I did not think he might have it in him to tell something so sensible. But then again.. once you cast Nana you would have to work hard to ruin your film)









Rise and Fall: Suniel Shetty. Sanjay Dutt. And here is the stereotypical Sanjay Gupta I´ve been waiting all evening. At least for the storyline that he directed. There is a second storyline directed by Hansal Mehta that gets interwoven into the Sanjay/Suniel part. A local gangster and his closest aid/friend. And a story of loyalty and betrayal. Unfortunately it is not that good. Neither the story, nor the execution nor the acting by Sanjay and Suniel. A bit anti-climatic. It is understandable that Gupta placed the story with the biggest star at the end but "Rise Plate" and "Gubbare" are so strong that "Rise and Fall" gets overshadowed by them. Directors: Sanjay Gupta and Hansal Metha.

So yes. I had an enjoyable evening. And no. You don´t have to rush to the cinema to watch it. You can easily wait until the DVD comes out. But give it a chance.

Jaan-E-Mann. Quite late. I know.

I´m cleaning up my drafts list once again, and found a post that I started writing over 6 months ago. I guess that everybody has seen J-e-M by now, but if you resisted so far, maybe this piece can convince you to finally give it a chance.

When I was a little kid, my favorite picture books where books of the kind like the "Where´s Waldo?" series. I could sit for hours and look at one page and still find some new details and invent stories about the drawn characters.









Jaan-E-Mann is the grown up, moving pictures version of a "Where´s Waldo" book. The first time I watched the movie was last year´s Diwali and I liked it somehow but could not quite make up my mind about it. I decided to wait for the DVD release and give it another go. And I was right. Jaan-E-Mann is a movie that needs to be watched at least a second time. Every time I watched it since I found some new totally crazy details.









Sirish Kunder doesn´t offer a very new or exciting story. Sirf woh purani kahani about ek ladki aur do ladke. Here boy no.1 is Suuuperstar Salman Khan, the ex-husband of former college beauty Preity Zinta. Since the Suuuperstar thingy does not quite work the way he planned it, he has trouble coming up with the alimony Preity´s lawyer demand.









Luckly former college geek now astronaut Ahkhay Kumar shows up on the search for his college dream girl Preity and Salman and his chachu Anupam Kher come up with the idea of marrying off Akshay to Preity to get rid of the alimony demands. Kahani khatm? Naah, there´s a bit more. Former geek still has a problem with "tha´ ladies" so Suuuperstar and Chachu decide to send Salman along with Geek to New York to play a little "Cyrano" and make sure the fixing up works out. So far - so hilarious and there are, from a totally girly point of view, I have to confess, pretty convincing moves our man Salman comes up with.









The bad thing about Jaan-E-Mann: You clearly see that this is the director´s debut movie. He goes overboard on style-over-substance at times. He doesn´t manage a narration that is fluid throughout the film. After a totally hyper first half, the more conventional narrational path he takes in the second part feels almost a bit slow.









The good thing about Jaan-E-Mann: It´s the directors debut movie. He goes overboard with some of his ideas, visuals and his editing. He actually caters a devil may care attitude about many of his visual ideas, especially in the first half, that one seldom finds with more experienced directors. And that is what I loved about Jaan-E-Mann.

Oh and after watching OSO I can now clearly state that Farah and Sirish are a match made in heaven. May their combined insanity live long and prosper.

Aata. Can be a timepass.

Yes. I do watch films besides entertaining MiniKhan. Being host to a celeb like him is time consuming but still when the shipment from anytamil came yesterday, I knew what I had to do.








Have you ever read the liner notes on the back of official South Indian DVD´s? I stopped reading them before watching the film long ago. They usually spoiler the whole film. And the Aata DVD is no exception. On the other hand the verdict the authors of said notes are always passing is very often spot on. And the guy writing the one for Aata, worded some of it better then I could ever do. Please allow me quote:

Sri Krishna (Siddarth) is a film delivery man cum son of a theatre projectionist. He meets a beautiful girl at a jathara. That beautiful woman Satya (Illeana) is actually running away from Vicki (Munna) who forcibly wants to marry her. Vikki is son of a home minsiter and he is a bad guy. [Parts left out due to heavy spoilers. And I mean heavy. Except for the last 2 minutes the text tells every major twist] There is a twist in the tale in the end. M S Raju has tried to capture the chemistry between a beautiful young couple, Siddarth and Illeana. He has succeeded in projecting Illeana as a glamour girl. [The following part about the comedy, I don´t agree with the writer. At all. But then, Telugu and Tamil film comedy is something I have slight difficulties with] Her glamour and Suniel´s comedy (especially the hotel room sequences are the best comedy track) are main highlights of Aata. Comedy is a major plus point and also Illeana´s skin show [!!]. The theatre comes down with laughter at Suniel´s hotel lobby episode. It is situational comedy at its best. Chota K Naidu´s cinematography is another scintillating feature [Oh yes]. He has captured the river Godavari so beautifully and has brought richness to the film [Bilkul]. Director V N Aditya´s direction is neat [Autch!]. Aata can be a timepass.

Still, not all is lost. If we check the all important checklist for the discerning drooling Schnuffel cineast:









Schnuffel wearing pink - check
Schnuffel wet - check, check and check etc. ad infinitum
Schnuffel and puppies in same frame - check
Schnuffel fooling around - check
Schnuffel in full action mode - check









Schnuffel dirty and bleeding - check

What can be better than passing time with that...

I knew he would like it there..

We have final exams in our Sound Engineering department at the moment so the studios usually are off-limits to visitors but lunch break today provided a perfect moment for MiniKhan to still sneek into the studio to jam with the guys and fiddle with the mixing desk.














He is not the greatest of bass players but he does groove behind the drumset.














On another note. MK is getting a bit restless now. Because in perfect Bollywood-filmshoot-in-Austria tradition we have to postpone the filming schedule we planned for his stay. Postpone. Not cancel. Samajhe?

[PS: Wanna know what happens at such exams? Watch Pixars newest short Lifted replace the victim with a musician and it shows pretty much what is going on during some of them...]

Today is a good Sanjay day

The writer of this blog is very happy today. Sanjay was granted regular bail by the Supreme Court. He will be released from jail during the next 2 days. He has to hand in his passport, deposit a bond and report to the CBI branch in Mumbai once a month. His next court hearing is 6 months away. That is good. He managed to get through by far worse for the last 14 years. He can manage this too. So I´m happy.

And then I got news that from December 7th Dus Kahaniyaan will play at the UCI in Vienna. Sanjay on the big screen as early as Friday after next. So you bet I´m very happy.














I know, I know, there is a bit of a risk that DK might just not be it. But I like its basic concept and there are some very cool people involved in this film(s) and being the eternal optimist I can´t wait to see it.

Chestnuts, Punch, Thrills and early Christmas fun

The last weekend in November marks the start of the beginning of the Advent season in Austria and that is when all those beautiful Christmas markets open. Since MiniKhan did not get to celebrate Diwali I thought he should at least get as much of Christmas celebrations as possible.

So after we finally arrived at my sisters´ and he was back to his usual charming self, we took him along to our visit to Salzburg´s picturesque Christkindl-market where we also met with my mum and MiniKhan´s new best friend, my Naani.














Right in the beginning we had a short scary moment, when Sebastian, my 14 months old nephew, got hold of MK. But being the professional "thrills" coordinator he is, he managed to get out of that unharmed (and the big serving of candy cotton afterwards helped to calm his nerves)














After that he really got into an early Christmas feel. Checking out the stands with tree ornaments and sweets, having a glass of Lionsclub Punch and taking in the incredible scenery.














He even got to meet Salzburgs most famous son, W.A. Mozart and he could not resist having his picture taken in front of a "Empress Sissi" display.

















He simply loved it in my hometown (and he finally put on some weight munching on chestnuts and cookies)

He can be a bit of a pain in the a**

What did we learn this weekend?
MiniKhan can be rather impatient (as is said about his alter ego) and that is quite irritating.
Our journey started very ok. He was happy when we let him drive for a bit...








But that lasted only for a few minutes...
We´re not even out of Vienna, when the first "Are we there yet?" came...








30 min later. "And now?"








Another 30min down the way: "But now we´re there, hai naa?"








Thankfully he fell asleep short after Ansfelden..

hanging out with the gang and a costume fitting session

There was so much going on at the OSO premiere, that MiniKhan had very little opportunity to just hang out, chill and gossip with the cool people of my Viennese BW gang. That´s why he was very keen on accompanying me to our usual hangout spot at Vienna´s Cafe Coffee Day in the 1st district yesterday.













But even there a bit of filmi work was waiting for him. We had a fitting session scheduled with his costume designer, Gabi, for the little film he´s going to shoot here. Thankfully he was very pleased with the way his Don jacket turned out (As if there was any doubt about that. Duh.)

And, tomorrow MK is going on a short weekend trip to Salzburg. I did not tell him yet, but he´s going to meet his new best friend, my grandma, again. As she is too visiting my family. Look for a write-up of his adventures in my beautiful hometown not earlier then Sunday night.

more fun in the snow and a new friend

So MiniKhan nagged me into driving to the mountains to get some more authentic winter wonderland feel. Last saturday the weather was perfect and I took him to visit my Naani in Semmering.














And boy those two hit it off instantly. Nani loves Bollywood films and has a special sweet spot for SRK (quote Grandma: "that nice young man"), so it came as no surprise that the two were inseparable and up to mischief the whole day. He even did his "Rahul - routine" for her. (Something he so far has refused to do for me. Not fair.)














They were constantly putting their heads together and came up with the funniest stuff. Like when MK said: "Do you think I´ll get myself into trouble with the Pepsi guys if I do this..?"


















To which my usually very sophisticated Grandma said. "Oh fish. India is so far away. Who cares?"

Fun in the snow.

So MiniKhan had a lot of fun meeting all those great people at the OSO premiere and we all were partying pretty hard. But he had no time to recover and relax after it, as he had to accompany me to work and help me teaching my filmmusic classes.













And then one morning last week he woke me up all excited because it had been snowing all night. And even when I warned him that his wardrobe was not too suitable for that kind of weather, he insisted on building a snowman.


















..And had a ball doing it. So much, in fact, that he nagged me into taking him to the mountains to get some more. But that is a different story...

MiniKhan at the OSO Premiere

There was a lot going on in Vienna on November 9th. Not only did Om Shanti Om premiere here, national TV covered the event and everybody was dressing up for the occation. November 9th also marked the date our celebrity traveller MiniKhan arrived from Germany and instantly used the opportunity to meet with fans from Switzerland, Germany and Austria and watched the premiere with a bunch of overexcited girls and gals.


















So yes, he´s back from hiding. For all those fearing the worst.. Ab fikar mat karo. He´s alive and very well and I got a little story coming up that might explain if not excuse his absence.