Director Anurag Basu’s Barfi!, India’s official Oscar entry, has failed to qualify for the ‘Best foreign language film’ category for the 85th Academy Awards.
The film, featuring Ranbir Kapoor as a deaf and mute boy and Priyanka Chopra as an autistic girl, was a runaway hit at the box office.
71 films from across the globe were sent for the Oscars, out of which nine have been shortlisted, which will further compete to make it to the final five nominations.
9 films that are still in the running for an Oscar nomination are..
- Amour (Austria)
- War Witch (Canada)
- No (Chile)
- A Royal Affair (Denmark)
- The Intouchables (France)
- The Deep (Iceland)
- Kon-Tiki (Norway)
- Beyond the Hills (Romania)
- Sister (Switzerland).
Ishaqzaade was the second directorial venture of Habib Faisal and it starred Arjun Kapoor (son of Boney Kapoor) and Parineeti Chopra (cousin of Priyanka Chopra). Faisal had previously delivered the feel good Do Dooni Chaar and expectations from this movie were already high thanks to the hit music by Amit Trivedi. The mere fact that Yash Raj Films, a production house famous for candy floss saccharine-filled epic romances, decided to finance this movie says a lot about how far small budget movies in India have come. Although, the ending was unsatisfactory, the highly believable world created by Faisal and Parineeti Chopra’s competent Zoya more than compensated for the “preachy” ending and the regressive twist after the second half. Arjun Kapoor showed his mettle with his gaon ka rugged Parma.
It seemed like Shakun Batra will forever be stuck as the ever-connected first assistant director in Bollywood having served as the first AD in films like Don, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na and Rock On. But Karan Johar gave him a chance to direct his first film for Dharma. Off he went, to get his screenplay organized and eventually returned with a script he had co-written with Ayesha DeVitre. The film was sanctioned, and it got made. Inspite of the lead actors being A list actors, everything about the film screamed “Indie!” The way the music was used in the movie, the way the shots were taken, the way the story was told in chapters made it very clear that Shakun was inspired from films like Garden State, The Graduate and 500 Days of Summer. The music reminded me of good ol’ Simon and Garfunkel. The ending was unlike anything we had seen in any Hindi romantic comedy before, and that is what made the film so believable. It did not go for a lazy, happy climax but dared to think differently. And, it paid off. Imran and Kareena were the right amounts of coy and innocent in the film. I personally can’t wait to see this pairing back again in the Puneet Malhotra directed, Dharma produced film in 2013.
This delightful jolly film set in rural Punjab never failed to entertain for a minute. This film was billed as the first Hindi film to be based on food. I will have to agree with that claim since “Bawarchi” was not a proper food film. It could have easily fallen into the trap of serving us one Punjabi clićhe after another, but Sameer Sharma (the director) steered clear from making that mistake. Instead, Sameer served us a life-of-slice narrative about love. Love for food and love between an odd couple. Huma Qureshi and Rajesh Sharma deliver two pitch perfect performances and alongwith the cinematography and rollickingly realistic Punjabi folk music, this film delivers and how. Luv Shuv Tey Chicken Khurrana will surely find a place among films like Khosla Ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Dev D, Band Baaja Baarat, and Do Dooni Chaar, to name a few.
After having delivered three staggeringly powerful and moving pieces of work in Khosla Ka Ghosla, Oye Lucky Lucky Oye and LSD, much was expected from Dibakar Banerjee’s most expensive film yet. And it delivered, to say the least. To say that this film frightens you about the state of affairs in the India of 2012, will be an understatement. If watched will full patience and concentration, Shanghai has the power to shake you up like no other film of 2012. It tells a morbid tale of how India aspires to be ambitious but the terms of the ambition is held hostage to the whims and fascinations of a few people. The film boasts of terrific performances from almost all of it’s lead actors (Kalki was the odd one out). Abhay Deol, Farooque Sheikh, Pitobash Tripathy, Supriya Pathak and Prosenjit, all deliver fantastic performances. But it’s Emraan Hashmi’s Joginger which will stay with you long after you’ve seen the film. Here, he shows the talent this “serial kisser” has inside him. The star Emraan never overshines the actor Emraan. This film will take Emraan places (it already has, having signed an Interntaional film recently). He may risk losing a part of his loyal fanbase if he continues to do offbeat films like these but if he keeps doing a Jannat 2, a Murder 3 or a Raaz 3, his stardom is more than likely to remain intact.
I will collectively refer to both the films as Gangs of Wasseypur (or GoW) as Anurag Kashyap shot his Bihar-set magnum actioner as one film. This film boasts of the highest set of actors with almost 200 of them having dialogue-speaking roles. The logistics of making a movie like this is simply mind-boggling. Yet, Anurag not only accomplished the almost impossible feat but also earned critical and commercial plaudits all over the world. GoW is a stark portrayal of the coal mafia and politics, and about the influence and rivalry of two colliding families in Dhanbad. Manoj Bajpai in the first part and Nawazuddin Siddiqui in the second part, deliver two of the most terrifyingly real performances you are likely to see on screen this year. Richa Chaddha, Huma Qureshi and Reema Sen showed the soft power that women carry in these parts of India. The film was released at just the right time (when the Coal Gate scam had just been exposed by the CAG) and it reaped it’s benefits. GoW1 outrun the much more commercial Teri Meri Kahaani (both films released on the same Friday). Special mention must be given to Sneha Khanwalker’s fantastic soundtracks for both the parts. In my opinion, GoW had the best soundtrack for any film this year (only rivalled by Pritam’s music in Barfi). Oh, it also gave us a brilliant actor in the form of Tigmanshu Dhulia.
Yes yes, I know this movie stars a Superstar like Akshay Kumar but OMG had to be included for it’s superlative yet simple narration of a very profoud story. Also, Akshay’s role in the film was never highly publicized. Paresh Rawal was always supposed to be the lead actor in the movie. OMG is based on Paresh’s Gujarati play “Kanjibhai vs God” which in turn was adapted from the Australian movie “The Man who Sued God”. Paresh Rawal gave one of the best performances of his career as the atheist Kanjibhai who goes to every extreme length imaginable to avenge the “myth” of God and the business around religion in today’s India. I won’t make any social comment on the movie’s lesson, but I’d say the lesson given in the movie strongly resonated with me (being an atheist for a long time). Akshay Kumar needs to be praised for promoting OMG properly without ever going overboard and it eventually paid off. OMG went on to become one of the most well received movies of the year and having earned 82cr, it is also the highest earning of all the films in this list.
This movie gave Hindi cinema it’s most inherently talented actress of the 1980s back – Sri Devi. The fact that a lead Superstar actress of the bygone era who made a mark with strictly commercial films chose a film like English Vinglish as her comeback vehicle to the Industry, speaks volumes about the change Hindi cinema has gone through in the time she wasn’t around. English Vinglish gave us a talented new woman director and writer in the form of Gauri Shinde (wife or R Balki, who has directed Cheeni Kum and Paa). This is the freshest perspective of a middle-aged Indian mother’s life for a long time. It gave us Shashi, who is cute and innocent and steadfastly stubborn, all the same. Shashi’s zeal to learn English mirrors the zeal that middle class Indians have when it comes to establishing themselves in their careers. English Vinglish gave us believable characters (everybody knows a person like Shashi) and apt cinematography of a New York Hindi cinema hasn’t captured much. The group that Shashi encounters in her English tuition class is the most rememberable group of characters Bollywood has given us ever since Kabir Khan and his team won the nation’s heart with Chak De India in 2007. Films like this need to be made more regularly, and something inside me tells me we will so more such heart-warming films like English Vinglish in the near future.
Paan Singh Tomar gave us a glimpse of India that we rarely get to see on screen, these days – a rural, distant India of the 60s, 70s still reeling from the Independence struggle. This much-delayed and much-appreciated movie by Tigmanshu Dhulia chronicled the life of Paan Singh Tomar, a long distance runner who represented India in the 1964 Tokyo Asian Games but later became a dacoit to avenge a personal tragedy. Irrfan Khan as Paan Singh Tomar showed us what a powerhouse of talent, he really is. Sadly enough, the west seems to be giving him his due more than Bollywood. The detailed direction, and the real shot taking along with fantastic acting by everyone involved made sure that this “Indian” received acclaim from all quarters. One thing is for certain, Paan Singh Tomar, will be remembered for a long long time.
Vicky Donor showed us that a film doesn’t need to have big stars or a big budget to make an impact. Vicky Donor, Shoojit Sircar’s sophomore feature film, showed the perils of sperm donation, the social stigma attached with the subject and yet, this film never takes it seriously (even in the climax). Ayushmann Khurrana, the effortlessly talented MTV VJ, debuts as Vicky Arora and writes a song, composes it and sings it in the film. I don’t think I haven’t heard of a lot of people who have seen Vicky Donor and not become a fan of Ayushmann. If he chooses his films correctly and uses his talents well, this sperm donor will go a long way in Bollywood. His was easily the best debut of the year. Also, someone else manages to make a comeback of sorts with this movie – Annu Kapoor. His Dr. Chaddha is the loudest, and the most likable character of Hindi cinema in 2012. Yami Gautam makes her mark as the Bengali bride to Ayushmann’s Punjabi groom. The sequences highlighting the culture divide has been directed with panaćhe and even though it resorts to a few clićhes, you never actually mind them. The music was totally appropriate. John Abraham needs to be given a lot of the credit for producing this film and promoting it properly. All I can say, is I can’t wait to see what the John-Shoojit-Ayushmann combination gives us next. The wait for Madras Cafe (formerly Jaffna) and Hamara Bajaj is killing me already. And, BTW, of all the films in this list, Vicky Donor has, arguably, the most repeal value. Even after all the praise I have bestowed upon this film, it is still not the top Bollywood Indie of the year.
The decision of choosing Kahaani as the Top Bollywood Indie of the year was the most difficult and the most easy decision at the same time. There was no Hindi film made in 2012 better than Kahaani and yet, I identified with and loved Vicky Donor a bit more than Kahaani. It was a very very close call, needless to stay. I went with my head at the end.
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