I feel happy when I think of a particular set of filmmakers of Contemporary Indian Cinema, the way they are changing the language of cinema is indeed profound! Much Entertainment but at the same time, also Art.!! Truly demanding of a viewer in every respect, doesn’t let you sit laid back. Kaminey is an intense experience!
It needs courage to mock at once own self & the family that is my own Indian Cinema & Vishal shows truckloads of it! The way he uses the twin brother story in a completely Non-heroic, Unconventional manner is indeed human & touching! They are humans like us all, full of flaws & incompleteness! Also it is interesting to see when they swap the roles given to them by their destinies & become like the other. Guddu adopts the darkness of Charlie for a while & Charlie becomes fairer as the cinema progresses..
Also use of Guitar as a Central Device – a hippie instrument– an instrument which carries everybody’s dream in the film but eventually comes only to the twin bros – the tramps! It signifies invariably that the Dream belongs to the duo and no to the lusty world of gangsters!
Also the last gangwar sequence is supported by a melody, a song in stead of some ‘dhishum dhishum’ loud background score; it says a lot about directorial vision – Music brings the Unreal element on the surface... and it is amazingly shot that the Gangsters trivialize themselves & by trading their own Dream - when actually it is a matter of only One bullet, Yet they do
Also, I feel Indian Mind IS Musical & it indulges in Music for any and every occasion... Music truly foregrounds Kaminey... For instance, as we approach the scene between the cop and Guddu in jail custody, where Guddu can communicate his mind only when he sings... Language & especially Prose has its own pressure & power on us... whereas Music frees you in certain way... Guddu can speak only when he can observe this freedom...
A ) Also, I feel Indian Mind IS Musical & it indulges in Music for any and every occasion... Music truly foregrounds Kaminey... For instance, as we approach the scene between the cop and Guddu in jail custody, where Guddu can communicate his mind only when he sings... Language & especially Prose has its own pressure & power on us... whereas Music frees you in certain way... Guddu can speak only when he can observe this freedom...
B) Repeated use of words Matki & Matka is significant as to me it suggests the impermanence & uncertainty of life... Especially of the life of the underworld...!! Similarly the song Dhan ta daan... is also nothing else but the reflection & in a way an ironic celebration of our own internal & external chaos!!
The beauty of this film is one can never impose one single/gross meaning on it… it revolves more around the content & the suggestion which is the very idea of any Art itself that it doesn’t bind you to one single meaning but opens in front of you a horizon of possibilities & layers of suggestions..
Many more observations my mind is full of about Kaminey like the taking of the film, technical brilliance, humanness of the characters... Integrality of Music, Wonderful Casting, use of Images like Ghost-Masks while rendering Anti-Aids ( A ghostly disease ) Campaign Song & so on & on… But to conclude for now I would say Kaminey manifests my own Grayness & much, much more! I am going to watch it again! :O))
B) Repeated use of words Matki & Matka is significant as to me it suggests the impermanence & uncertainty of life... Especially of the life of the underworld...!! Similarly the song Dhan ta daan... is also nothing else but the reflection & in a way an ironic celebration of our own internal & external chaos!!
The beauty of this film is one can never impose one single/gross meaning on it… it revolves more around the content & the suggestion which is the very idea of any Art itself that it doesn’t bind you to one single meaning but opens in front of you a horizon of possibilities & layers of suggestions..
Many more observations my mind is full of about Kaminey like the taking of the film, technical brilliance, humanness of the characters... Integrality of Music, Wonderful Casting, use of Images like Ghost-Masks while rendering Anti-Aids ( A ghostly disease ) Campaign Song & so on & on… But to conclude for now I would say Kaminey manifests my own Grayness & much, much more! I am going to watch it again! :O))
Watched this and "Love Aaj Kal" last weekend after reading both the reviews on Rediff. Well... it was a big mistake. I should have seen Sholay 100th time. I am sure, these reviews depend on how much you pay the reviewer. I have decided not to watch any other Hindi movie unless someone I trust, tells me about it.
Re: Kaminey
by Chawat Manoos on Sep 08, 2009 09:44 PM
The one thing I have to agree here, this movie is very much like democracy. Democracy (atleast on paper) is said to be for people, by people. This movie is for Kaminey, by Kaminey :)
