Anurag Kashyap…the name precedes his films. In the case of Ugly, even the trailers, promotions, the Kali-Katha clip and the artwork preceded the film’s actual showcase on the silver screen. Welcome aboard Kashyap’s signature moves- unusual frame compositions, low angle shots, saturated colors, plot dissecting non-linear editing style, coarseness of language and grotesque human desire. These familiar strokes of beauty are used and exhausted within the first few shots of the film. After that Ugly unfortunately begins to turn ugly! 






Here’s 5 Reasons why: 

It is impactful when Shalini (Tejaswene Kolhapure) holds the gun in her mouth in the opening scene; it is emotionally impotent when she aims the gun at her husband towards the end. 1 short monologue about her woes does not convince the audience of her mental and emotional evolution.

The police interrogation is heart-wrenching when acted out the first two times; after that even the threat and torture becomes repetitive a.k.a. non-intimidating. Action on screen loses impact when the audience is left guessing for the cause. Why is Chaitanya (Vineet Singh) repeatedly arrested? Why is Rahul (Rahul Bhat) recurrently threatened?
Expletives look gritty, they enhance the realism of the film, they add texture to the characters BUT what they CANNOT DO is REPLACE the dialogues. After a certain point in the film, the power of the words is seeped out of the frame.

Characters need to be consistent if the audience has to understand and relate with them. Their choices can change but their core essence cannot be confusing, which unfortunately is the case with the pivotal character of Shaumik Bose (Ronit Roy). After the unreasonable, aggressive and merciless beating of Rahul, he plays the good cop, the fine man, the caring father- and its stops adding up for the audience.

You cannot have contemporary, cutting-edge context with archaic, outdated content. This is with reference to the antiquated investigation processes the police employs to trace the suspects. IP address, unique identification number, credit card records, online phone calling services- they can be legitimate elementary processes but to the audience exposed to international law and crime TV series, it cannot incur intrigue and anticipation. A plot that moves on the threshold of a police investigation needs more meat than this.

The final revelation and discovery of the kidnapped child- now could there have been a more lame and hasty attempt at providing a denouement to the central issue of the narrative after several detours and digressions? The audience is bored and exhausted with the missing child at the end of two hours; only to discover that the writer/director has forgotten to offer even as much as an intriguing twist to the tale. 

With a title that loosely translates into “Pain in the Ass”, one expects the defiant and the irreverent. Thankfully, director Amit Masurkar is protesting against both the money-spinning mindless Bollywood blockbusters as well as the pseudo-intellectual aesthetic world cinema. The movie is filled with allusions to the homegrown brands of directors like Anil Sharma, Mahesh Bhatt and Aditya Chopra as well as the film auteurs like Tarkovsky, Truffaut and Bertolucci. But while it alludes, it also evades the traps of either. What it does attempt and achieve is far simpler- a realistic cinematic capture of life as seen and felt by the subjective experience of the filmmakers.

The casting and the acting is kept close to the plane of realism to the extent that the acting looks unrehearsed. The deliberate pacing out of the background score lets the audience to believe that the film was recorded like a documentary rather than shot like a silver screen fictional film. The actors seem so natural and spontaneous; as if the director had set out to look for non-actors. Touted as a bro-mantic comedy, in parts it is acts as a powerful mockumentary on the phony film industry as well as the backyard realities of aspiring script writers. Masurkar reiterates his directorial vision in the dialogues, which are not imagined but rather revisited from personal or observed memory. Seldom does one hear the natural rhythm of human speech reflected in a cinematic projection of life. The tone and diction, expletives and naiveties all encompassing!

The film seems to drive home a simple truth about life- that we do not live life larger than life, we live life in all things, small and beautiful. Out in the company of Dulal (Naveen Kasturia), Ruma (Aditi Vasudev), makes conversations like reading the names of lovers etched in the stone walls of a decrepit. On the other hand, a dialogue espousing the profound philosophical conception of the futility of life is comically delivered through the caricature of a director and through the metaphor of a white handkerchief. The significant split between the two bros is shot amidst the ambient sound of the outdoor location with the innocuous backdrop of pigeons. There are more mid shots and long shots and the use of wide angle lens to shoot a scene dripping with emotional tension and internal and external conflict. The inversions and subversions are myriad and these scream out the contemporary lens view on life – the simultaneous thirst for the future and the need for fulfilment in the present, the simultaneous quest for fame and the need for the possibility of freedom.

The young is often distinguished by their ability to experience time and space in ways that are significantly different form their successors. The transience and transition of time and the transfer and texture of space both carry a refreshing flavor, in the film. Consider the juxtaposed scenes of Dulal at Ruma’s place enjoying the classical tune played by a guest and of Mainak (Mayank Tewari) serenading Oona (Rukhsana Tabassum) on his bike on the way to her house. The rapid editing pattern, which superimposes one scene and character over the other is one of the most powerful visual medium of communicating the contrasts in the two characters- the contained grief of Dulal and the fleeting fun of Mainak. Ironically, the fast paced bike ride ends in an abrupt anti-climax while the serene stillness in Ruma’s house becomes the new avenue for romance. Then there is the comic book-meet-stock motion photography-meet psychedelic manifestation of a drug-induced state of mind in the animated sequence that narrates the death of Gonzo’s (Karan Mirchandani) cat Fellini. The incredulous part is this: art and experiments with its form has been employed for the sake of it. There is no symbolism, no metaphors, no implications. It is a cineaste’s tryst with his art, a creator’s truth with his subject. It is this energy and “un-intention” that creates mis-en-scen like the one with Dulal at the fun fair with headphones peppered with disco lights. The darkness of his inner emotions against the intense lights around him, the stasis of his life versus the movement of the city, the mechanical construct of the street gizmo identifiable with the mechanical persuasion of life by the character. It is due to the bold and fearless spirit of the debutante that constructs frames through thin plant stems and pink flowers, through hanging handles in Mumbai’s local trains and through between the spread legs of the hot girl in the bookstore.

The camera finds its corners just as the creator seeks out his niche. The film finds its appeal just as the audience roots outs its conventionality. Sulemani Keeda definitely sows some tough seeds for the new age viewer to consume and crave for more. 

Shonali Bose has directed two powerful scripts earlier in her career, Amu(2005) and Chittagong(2012), both of which didn't manage to get its due at the box office. Her latest film Margarita With a Straw, has been impressing the cinema lovers at international film festivals including an award at the reputed Toronto International Film Festival(TIFF). This one is co-directed by first-time director Nilesh Maniyar, who's been an assistant director for Kaminey earlier. Looking at the trailer of the film, it seems to be Shonali Bose's best film so far, with a powerful performance delivered by the versatile Kalki Koechlin. 
Apparently, Shonali Bose's cousin suffers from the same disability as Kalki's character in the film, and Kalki spent a lot of time with her to prepare herself better for the role. As she says in this recent interview of her's at TIFF, "This is one of the biggest challenge I've had as an actor in a film", it does seem to be her best performance on screen thus far in Bollywood. 

Let's hope the film backed by Viacom18 finds a release in India soon and manages to get its due at the box office unlike the director's previous works. 

SYNOPSIS :
A rebellious young woman with cerebral palsy leaves her home in India to study in New York, unexpectedly falls in love, and embarks on an exhilarating journey of self-discovery.

TRAILER :

Once in a while, a film like 'Fireflies' manages to find a space for itself in the no-brainer masala entertainer dominated Bollywood humdrum. Sadly, the audience for such films is limited, however if you're one of them(like us) do catch this lovely film that released today, October 31.

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SYNOPSIS :

Fireflies is the story of two estranged brothers - Shiv and Rana. Shiv, a successful banker, lives in the superficial glitter of corporate Bombay. The younger brother, Rana, is a law school dropout who lives by the day. Though worldly experiences and illusions briefly illuminate the brothers journeys, a tragedy that befell them fifteen years earlier seems destined to repeat itself, just in new incarnations. Flames suddenly extinguish again, in an eerie heartbeat. The journey ahead echoing with voices and visions from the past, and the magic realism of the years gone by, beckons the brothers to find each other again. And the picture in the puzzle that was scattered so long ago. Fireflies come out in the night, just to light up the darkness. They live as long as the glow lasts.

TRAILER :