Venue:  MovieTime, Raja Garden

An amazing anthology of four short films completely independent of each other. The directors in the order of the films are – Karan Johar (Ajeeb Dastaan Hain Yeh); Dibakar Banerjee (Star); Zoya Akhtar (Sheila Ki Jawaani) and Anurag Kashyap (Murabba).

Karan Johar and Zoya Akhtar’s films had an undercurrent of similarity in the themes – alternate orientation / choices. The other films were standalone in character. Below are brief outlines.

Karan Johar (Ajeeb Dastaan Hain Yeh)– This film is about the unprecedented sparks that fly in a married couples life after their path crosses with that of a gay intern from the wife’s office.

Though the film is interesting and quite bold for Indian audiences, I’m afraid, Saquib’s character will scare an already homophobic Indian Society even more. The character is very k k kiran (Just of Gay orientation and more realistic). You could have done better, Karan.

Zoya Akhtar (Sheila Ki Jawaani) – This film is about a pre-teen boy who, rather than playing football, loves dressing up in girl clothes and wants to become a dancer. The bonding with sister, issues with authority (read Father), dreading sports period the most in school etc  will strike a chord with a lot of gay men.

Anurag Kashyap (Murabba) – This film is about the travails a young man faces with a single piece of murabba (sweet conserve of fruit). This one’s gonna be liked by a huge population of Bacchan Devotees. This film could have been better if edited shorter by 10 minutes.

Comparison of the films is inevitable and our unanimous vote goes to Dibakar Banerjee’s Star – Based on a short story by Satyajit Roy, this film is about a wannabe actor (Nawazuddin Siddique) who gets his catharsis when he makes his sick daughter happy using his acting skills. Siddique and his co-actors, through their understated acting, succeeded in bringing this modern day fantasy alive.

This film has been brought together to celebrate hundred years of Indian cinema. We expected the individual films to represent the common concepts of Indian cinema (e.g., romance, sex, action, slapstick comedy, song and dance). Rather, Bombay Talkies, is more a reflection of the creative genius that is attempting to blow in fresh breath to the film industry.

A worthy tribute that sets the bar up so high for Indian cinema – the largest producer of films in the world.