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Reviews
Kucch Luv Jaisaa (2011)
Middle age syndrome.
Kucch Love Jaissa is a woman oriented film where a middle aged home keeper ( Shefaali Shah as Madhu Saxena ) longs for a change and space in her daily monotonous life. Her's is an upper middle class family consisting of a decent and understanding husband ( Sumeet Raghavan,an ad agency executive ) and two adorable school going kids.What else can a spouse/ mother long for ?. She enjoys all goodies of life.Now the first twist comes. For some unexplained reasons ( perhaps she has to manage the daily chores by her self or /and ,having been neglected in the decision making sphere ) she ( after seeing off her kids to school and the husband to office) leaves her home for an unannounced outing ,a kind of an escapade. The immediate she does is to buy a brand new car on her husband's credit card.To kill time she window shops at a multiplex and there after walks into a restaurant for a bite.It's here that the second twist comes. She meets a mysterious character ( Rahul Bose as Raghav).Who is he ?His mannerisms ,the rugged looks and the way of eating food puzzles her.Any way,tele pathy makes her believe in this stranger.As directed, she moves along with this stranger in her car to places never visited earlier.Here the movie becomes a roadie in a metro. The third twist comes in the climax. The reality of the stranger is revealed ( he turns out to be an outlaw on the run ) . Also,the day being her birthday,makes her return home. The pluses of KLJ - Shefaali Shah is outstanding in her full fledged role as the lady in the pink on the move ( the pink dress suits her to the T ).She has a towering screen presence.Young girls entering films have a lot to learn from the acting abilities of Shefaali Didi/ auntie. Rahul Bose conveys a lot with his mono -syllables way of conversation.The casting is apt.Performances are good. Barnali Ray Shukla ,is a writer/ director with a promise.Shefali Shah ,the mother,is assured that her school going daughter would not get a-strayed in a relationship with a boy ( surprisingly the daughter is well versed with sensitive issues of sex and love at her tender age ). The one sided conversations on the cell add to the narrative. The minuses of KLJ -The characterization of Rahul Bose is sketchy and unclear.Is Shefaali Shah so naive as to accompany a stranger throughout the day unmindful of her kids coming back from school? Film after film it's being noticed that the new breed of singers are unable to hold their breath in the ending notes.Music directors must make a note of this.Neetu Chandra,otherwise a good actress,continues to be type cast as the gangster's mole film after film.Om Puri is wasted in a parental role.Makrand Deshpande hardly gets noticed in his cameo of the telephone booth owner. All in all,KLJ is a different kind of a film that could be enjoyed by the middle age viewers
404: Error Not Found (2011)
Thought provoking movie
The movie,404,is thought provoking .It poses the question -- is a paranormal occurrence based on some scientific interrelationship between the deceased and the perceiver or is it just a state of mind that makes one believe so ? Both,the traditional ( the paranormal haunts the tormentor / the occupier of a particular locale as a revenge after death ) and the modern approach ( the perceiver's mind is conditioned by forces beyond his control to believe in the paranormal ) are dealt with.The end result is not conclusive.Both theories can co -exist. A fresher,Abhimanyu ( Rajvvir Aroraa) ,volunteers to occupy room number 404 in his medical institution's hostel,despite it being haunted.The room had remained locked for several months as a former student had committed suicide for being depressed.He had been under the trauma of the scars of vicious ragging by his seniors plus the tag of being a loser.Paranormal activity begins to haunt the new occupant.None believes the occupants version.The question arises how to help the occupant.A professor,Abhimanyu ( Nishikant Kamat) ,opines that the occupant boy is not a victim of the spell cast by the paranormal,but his own state of mind is conditioned by persistent ragging,he is made to believe what others make him believe. The climax remains inconclusive though. On what counts does 404 get a thumbs up? Majority of spooky movies have concentrated on the bhoot-pret kinda approach to give a rationale and create a scare,404 focuses on the modern state of mind approach of the rationalists.The movie is engaging through out.Uniformly good and realistic performances appear on the screen.Nishikant Kamat needs a special mention.This reviewer kept on wondering why the authorities were unable to check ragging despite the law and supreme court's ruling against the barbarity ? The mystery gets revealed in the climax.The professor himself was experimenting on Abhimanyu through a gang of willing senior students who were set up to create fear in the junior to test his hypothesis for a thesis.It's a different matter that the professor himself had been under the spell of her deceased mother.The professor 's assertion that only the insecure believe in God and ghosts is debatable.His belief that the Facebook is a trap to subjugate the thoughts of subjects for commercial purposes is also debatable.At least the beliefs make us give it a thought.404 amply proves that it's possible to deliver good cinema with low budgets and it requires no stars and nach- gaana of the big budget kind.In fact it uneraths new talent. Where does 404 get a thumbs down? The experimentations on the uninitiated in institutions of higher learning can lead to permanent damage on the subjects.The gang of raggers never look like students,being overgrown,they look more of sidekicks of a gangsters than students.The scare element is missing. All in all 404 is a bold and a different attempt on the paranormal genre of films.The movie is destined for critical acclaim.