IFFM 2015 program reveal @ Indian Consul, 1 July 2015

If I had time to Photoshop I'd put Mitu's face on the choo-choo.

A lot of important things were discussed at Wednesday's program launch of the 2015 Indian Film Festival Melbourne (IFFM). Themes of freedom and equality in Indian cinema, the revolutionary 'girl power' displayed in the animated Burka Avenger series out of Pakistan, Bollywood's role in the transformation of Indian society, even the predictably polarising subject of sexuality on the big screen.

What struck me throughout the afternoon press conference at the Consulate General of India, however, was the impossible task Festival Director Mitu Bhowmick Lange and her trailblazing team at Mind Blowing Films faced this year. Last year's IFFM boasted the most beloved star in the Indian universe, Amitabh Bachchan. Even today that sentence beggars belief. Did Bollywood superstar and Indian demi-god Amitabh Bachchan really come to Melbourne last year and participate in a variety of IFFM events, the finale being his appearance at the first-ever IFFM Awards in front of a packed and rapturous Princess Theatre? Did that actually happen?

Yeah, it did. And it was life-changing for all involved.

Time marches inexorably on, of course, and I imagine Mitu & Co. were daunted by the task of starting from scratch and gearing up for 2015's followup. But, like the words of the Little Engine That Could every American kid has programmed into his/her head -- "I think I can, I think I can ..." -- Mitu and her colleagues have pushed aside the weight of heightened expectations and delivered a festival bound to resonate in Australia, India and beyond.

Again.

Madhabi Mukherjee in Satyajit Ray's 'Charulata'

I'll be posting more in the coming weeks about 2015 IFFM offerings before it kicks off Friday 14 August with a screening of Prashant Nair's Umrika, a World Cinema Dramatic Audience Award winner at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. (Festival tickets go on sale 15 July.) As mentioned, Wednesday's press conference was held at the Indian Consulate on leafy St Kilda Road. No glitz, no glam, introduced eloquently by Consul General Manika Jain, the highlight for most was the magnitude of starpower coming to Melbourne: Anil Kapoor and his daughter Sonam, Kangana Ranaut, Imran Khan, Simi Garewal, Rajkumar Hirani and many others.

If those names mean nothing to you, here's a quick primer: Anil Kapoor's an East/West acting legend who's been a household name in India for 30 years. Sonam Kapoor's an actress on the rise whose fashion-sense lands her on magazine covers and outspokenness gives entertainment industry writers bahut headlines. Kangana Ranaut, an attendee of last year's festival, starred in one of 2014's biggest hits (Queen) and the 2015 blockbuster Tanu Weds Manu Returns. Imran Khan's a heart-throb who hails from Bollywood royalty (he's the nephew of Aamir Khan, a genius whose work you REALLY ought to know). Simi Garewal's a living legend who's been a radiant presence at the last two IFFMs. Rajkumar Hirani is back as well. He's only a writer/director with a string of box office success unmatched by anyone. Anywhere. In any market.

Kangana at IFFM 2014.

A truly astounding collection of talent and celebrity. And that's only a small pool of people on their way to Melbourne next month.

Living in Australia means finding many products, services, destinations and just about everything else claiming to be the 'Southern Hemisphere's greatest ...' but what we enjoy in Melbourne every year is verifiably the Southern Hemisphere's greatest annual celebration of Indian cinema.

For 2015, here's verification:

• An opening weekend that intentionally coincides with Indian Independence Day on 15 August. Both the Consul General and Mitu were especially proud to announce a flag-raising ceremony will be held at Federation Square to mark the occasion, followed by the always popular Bollywood dance competition.
• An equality theme with real, actual teeth: Films and documentaries deemed too controversial to be screened in India on gay and transgender issues, acid attacks on women, and religious charlatans, as perfectly satirised in Aamir Khan's PK.
• Screenings of blockbuster Bollywood films that defy East/West categorisation ... they're simply great films. In other words: They're safe for white people! You'll love 'em!
• The usual mix of arthouse and indie films that consistently exceed expectations and nearly always teach this child of the West as much as they entertain. 
• Films from Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal and other parts of the world where people live and love and lose and have stories worth sharing. 
• A showcase of India's greatest films, including screenings of digitally remaster classics by legendary Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray.
• A closing night world premiere of Kabir Khan's Phantom starring Saif Ali Khan and Katrina Kaif.

Choo! Choo!

Consul General Manika Jain makes opening remarks.

I look forward to snapping photos of Anil Kapoor standing both in the flesh and in closer proximity to Mitu next month.

Press conference crowd.

As always, I was struck by Mitu's ability to teach as well as promote. She wears her passion for all things Indian cinema on her sleeve but it's the wisdom behind her passion that lingers.

Race 2 the Bottom

Some films should end careers. 'Race 2' is one of them. Like a roadside bomb, this calamity should be defused and taken apart and studied before being dumped into the desert and blown into a million pieces.

Aradhna and I hadn't seen a Bollywood film at the cinema for several weeks so I foolishly booked tickets without skimming a single online review (Times of India & Rediff & are reliable red-flag-wavers). Dumb. Almost as dumb as 'Race 2'. No, very little is that dumb. An opened can of white paint is more clever than this film. My lapse of judgment will augment future behaviour but I can guarantee not one person responsible for this self-parody will extract wisdom from his/her cinematic treachery.

Treachery. That's what this film felt like. An act of violence against us, humankind. You need not be religious to believe a day is coming when our legacy as a species will be examined and judged. Who were we? To what did we aspire? What were our values? If 'Race 2' falls into the hands (or flippers or pincers or scanners) of our future evaluators all of humankind is doomed to perpetual ridicule, a meaningless, mean-spirited punch line in a sprawling 'All Recorded Life in the Universe' compilation.

I hesitate to admit Aradhna and I left at the film's interval because criticising a film not seen to end credits invites comparisons to knee-jerk book burners or shrill condemners of anything that draws blood from our fucked up world. But I'd bet the cretins responsible for 'Race 2' don't care who stuck around after laying out their dollars or rupees or wedding jewelry; admission fees aren't calculated on a rolling scale. You pay full price, you take your seat, you get sprayed with garbage, TOUGH TITTIES. By the time I knew 'Race 2' was doing actual physical harm to my nervous system, clipping it strand by strand with every intellect-gouging line uttered by fatuous, integrity-free actors, it was too late. My money and mind were G O N E and weren't coming back.

So I feel no shame venting about this film without knowing its ending. If anything, our early exit was a moral victory, an affirmation of free will, a guilt-free 'Up yours!' to The Mumbai Movie Man.

I won't describe the plot because there is none. 'Race 2' is a collection of loathsome characters who don't say or do anything that deviates from 1) showing how much they deserve to be avenged, or 2) showing how much they crave revenge. Whether it's due to Botox or boredom or both, emotions range from glamorous lassitude to glamorous ennui. These characters are all exceptionally good-looking. They live beneath cloudless skies. They're capable of superhuman powers when threatened. But they're mindless, one-dimensional cut-outs from an unimaginative child's dream. Each male and female glamazon stares just off-camera like a cat eying a dangled piece of string or a model-turned-actor imagining how they're going to screw their agent out of his or her cut. Lots of walking and talking and preening and glowering and pouting -- so much pouting! -- but nobody acts. Imagine being haunted by the inanimate ghosts of a fashion magazine for 3 hours in a darkened theatre. Oh, the paper-thin humanity!

"It looks good" was the consensus of the reviews I belatedly read. The shallowest of compliments and therefore appropriate for ‘Race 2’ -- but only if spoken slowly aloud, with a slight catch in the throat, like your enlightened self is leading a final charge for control of your voicebox so it may reverse course but the words have already been loaded and launched.

A female friend on Facebook wrote 'Race 2' was a "good movie" and mentioned the lead actress’s stellar fashion choices, a salient point if she’d just returned from a runway fashion show. I refuse to label my loathing of this film as a 'guy thing'. Not in 2013, when scores of websites monitor the style hits and misses of paparazzi-chased 'celebrities' around the globe. (Not to mention Aradhna was the first to say, "Let's go.") No. A basic standard for a film is its story, not its wardrobe. "It looks good" is zero justification for seeing a film, unless it's screening on overhead screens at the young adult clothing section of a mainstream department store.

The dearth of acting negates reviewing performances. Hence, a few cheap shots:

Saif Ali Khan: A new drinking game -- every time SAK yanks off his sunglasses, do a shot. You'll be hammered in 4 minutes.

John Abraham: You can dress a gorilla in a suit but it's still a gorilla.

Deepika Padukone: Makes her entrance in a long, white dress that’s slit into ribbons. Her thighs burst forth like sausages bubbling atop boiling water and nearly answer the prayers of every 13-year-boy in India. Maybe her Sharon Stone moment will make the Director’s Cut.

Anil Kapoor. A legend of Hindi cinema reduced to a character ‘hook’ that involves an addiction to fruit salad and making lewd comments to a bosomy, brainless personal assistant whose name is ..... wait for it ... Cherry.

Aradhna and I love seeing Bollywood films on the big screen and don't mind the occasional mindless escapism that Indian filmmakers crank out like samosas at a Hyperabad street market. But 'Race 2' is a blasphemous rebuke to the progressive evolution of Bollywood. It’s a ‘revenge film’ that succeeds only in unleashing a desire for hot vengeance upon its producers, publicists, distributors, and media defenders. Worse, 'Race 2' is the product of a male-dominated, incestuous industry that hates its audience and never met a woman it didn't believe deserved to be debased.

Considering the horror unleashed by a pack of animals last year on a bus in Delhi, and the resultant protests against India's corrupt police and misogynistic culture, you'd think a steaming mess-in-progress like 'Race 2' would have set off alarm bells around the studio. Of course it was shot and edited before that horrible rape and murder occurred but that doesn't excuse its makers from displaying a semblance of sensitivity or understanding of the current zeitgeist.

The truth is they're happy shoveling this shit because it's all they know. Like coal mining companies stripping the tops off of mountains or fishing trawlers laying waste to ancestral breeding grounds, there's neither concern nor responsibility taken for the permanent damage wrought by their avarice. Since vacating the cinema midway through 'Race 2' Aradhna and I have seen 'Zero Dark Thirty' and 'Silver Linings Playbook', a pair of Oscar-nominated films bursting with every imaginable human emotion and intriguing, multi-dimensional characters.

Even when I try to remember, I can't conjure the 'fashions' of either film ... besides the Philadelphia Eagles jerseys that pop up throughout 'Silver Linings Playbook'. I'm a Giants fan -- I've been wary of people in Eagles jerseys since before Bradley Cooper was born. But I'd still trust the judgment of an Eagles fan over someone who watches 'Race 2' and doesn't immediately curse humankind's creation of the moving picture.