The best aspect about the movie is despite being 150 minutes of running time, there still is a lot of room for breathing for numerous casts, parting their stories city-by-city and connecting and assembling in a proper way. There is a spectacular balance of entertainment, humor and seriousness of plot and its sub-plots.
Much awaited Civil War movie was highly billed for Stark/Cap rivalry but to be perfectly honest with the review-readers, it was more about Bucky/Cap eternal friendship.
As far as original comics storyline is concerned, the accuracy is below average because a lot of characters are not introduced in MCU and their plots are precisely neglected. The Superhuman Registration Act in original story is replaced by Sokovia Accords, a bill produced by UN and signed by 117 countries. Spiderman’s significance from original story is heavily reduced as well as Baron Zemo is cleverly added in the movie with superb amount of suspense.
At the very same time, presenting a different Civil War then the highly critical-acclaimed comic book story of the same name will exaggerate some logic behind passing the Sokovia Accords bill. As the US government put a blame on team Avengers for significant damages and deaths occurred in the major events while fighting Loki and Ultron, non-super human brains will fail to understand why Ultron creator Tony Stark is not sentenced for life in first place? Why isn’t Scarlet Witch imprisoned for assisting Ultron in that case? Highly unreal for any sensible govt or powerful authority to produce a bill to limit their powers and recruit them among the ranks instead of catch and imprison them for all the damages and casualties and fight against them in court for justice.
Another brainless event is the highly billed circus show – the 6 man tag team match in airport. Although the movie easily offers one of the best action sequences and almost all the fights are well-choreographed. No matter how much the viewers including myself will laugh, enjoy and get pure entertainment from this almost 10-minute combat but commonsense will fail to understand the highly expected serious intensity of life-and-death fight between hashtags TeamStark and TeamCap turning into series of jokes and apologies while punching each other. Stark’s bringing unskilled combatant schoolboy Peter Parker for his acrobatic and web-sticking skills in this mission itself is the destruction of commonsense. Oh yes one more thing, that airport was empty. *FFS*
A more sensible fighting sequence is the last epic combat between Bucky/Cap and Stark which is full of fury and merciless.
Overall, Cap’s third installment is overall the best MCU movie after Winter Soldier. Among all the intros, my pick is Black Panther. Being the most important movie in MCU for all future movies, the story will forward towards anticipated promises. The conclusions are the beginnings as this universe is a never-ending saga towards long journey expanding to their Phase-IV.
A big NO. The real event propels you that Hugh Glass, the leading character of the movie played by Leonardo DiCaprio, was attacked by a female bear.
Now why did I begin my review this way??? Because many of us were actually concerned that we will watch sex-scene between Baloo and Mowgli but the rumor was awful.
Now what makes the movie special? I would rather replace the word ‘special’ with superior. The answer is EVERYTHING!!! Consider DiCaprio/Hardy performances, AGI’s direction, fighting sequences, cinematography, costume designing, bear attack, Frontiers vs Native Americans and many more. The movie is superlative.
The only concern pushing towards minus is its accuracy, the accuracy of Hugh Glass’ legacy, the accuracy of bear attack, the accuracy of Glass’ survival, the accuracy of attack by Native Americans on the expeditions team. There has been a lot of confusion over the legacy of the story. There are not a lot of authentic sources to prove what part of story is true or false. Most specifically the tragic bear attack which was witnessed by no buddy but the victim himself.
Let me reflect and justify my very first line of this review. A huge focus in the movie has been on antagonist John Fitzgerald played by Tom Hardy killing Hugh Glass’ son Hawk, which leads him to revenge upon survival attempt. The whole movie grows on his miracle survival from a likely death so that he finishes him. Sadly the core of the story is pure fiction. Forget Fitz killing his son, there is no proof that Hugh Glass had any child. Hawk being of mixed-race is an invalid question or typing error. Glass’ marriage with Native-American woman also has doubts because historic details are still unsure if Hugh Glass really was once captured by Pawnees where he found her, loved and married.
So if there is no evidence of Hawk being Hugh Glass’ son then with simple understanding there is no revenge on Fitz for killing his son. In fact the legacy is that when Glass received mortal wounds after bear attacks, expedition leader Captain Andrew Henry, played by Domhnall Gleeson in movie, pays two men to stay behind the soon-to-be-dead body of Hugh Glass until his death to give him a Christian burial. To add the spice, movie further shows Hawk volunteering the payee leading to his murder by agitated Fitz.
Some scenes agreeable with the facts are;
Hugh Glass was a fur trapper and the bear attack occurred near the banks of the Grand River of South Dakota. He did come across two bear cubs until big momma had her say. The female grizzly bear did break his leg and punctured his throat.
Hugh Glass was indeed dropped behind to die by the two men, Fitz and young Jim Bridger, played by Will Poulter due to the harsh fact that he wasn’t breathing his last for several days. Further confirmation is that both guys placed him in a grave, collected his weapons and off they go.
Further diggings confirm that the Native Americans depicted in the movie are the tribe of North Dakota, Arikara who suffered a high rate of fatalities from smallpox epidemics resulting in drastic fall in their population back in 18th century. Years later they moved between South and North of Dakota.
Enough of history!!! Now let me strive to focus on the movie….
What makes Hollywood cinematic industry so special than the others??? No not that Hollywood belongs to the United States. Actually, Hollywood introduces you to people from different diversities and backgrounds that cook and bring their ingredients in their kitchens to display a delicious food and bring a change in taste for the consumers. Now ‘The Revenant’ shows United States of the early 19th century and the story is based on a frontier legend who met his sorry fate after attack launched by Native Americans. And this movie is directed by a guy who has lived all his life in Mexico. Some great minds present great movies in great ways.
AGI had a splendid vision to present The Revenant and is obvious in his powerful direction. Many scenes are eye-opener like I am repeatedly mentioning attack on the expeditions team by Native Americans and Hugh Glass many phases of survival. But the best among all is the bear attack which will easily shut you up. This scene is built on your nerves. The human abuse is shot in a way that you would feel if the beast is skinning you.
I must say the VFX team has done magnificent choreography of this attack. It is not only that the viewer has a look at this brutal beating; the whole animal behavior is carefully read. Watch step by step, the way cubs are made feel unprotected, the way momma bear responds and attacks the gunman, the way the beatings begin i.e., stepping over and throwing all mighty weight on Glass, grabbing by mouth and swinging, then throwing on ground and gashing him. This shows the bear-behavior was carefully studied by all the involved makers.
The ‘sympathy’ factor for both human and animal is challenged because the attack scene has two consecutive parts connected in one-shot frame. First the mother bear attacks with understanding that gunman will kill the cubs and leaves later. But then the gunman tries to survive by shooting at mother bear and turning the other face of coin with sympathy where mother bear and gunman becomes villainous in their ways concluding with animal killing while trying to save her cubs. One of the best dramatic scenes I have watched in recent years!!!
One of the most remarkable aspects of the movie is that the whole movie is shot in natural light without the use of CGI which made the life of working crew worse than hell as some parts of shooting in Canada met unexpected fall in temperature to -25C. During the times when Canada met shortage of snow, the whole shooting was in fact shifted to Argentina. This showed life-and-death commitment to present ‘REALISM’ in the picture for which they crossed most of the limits.
The director himself stated in one interview to prefer natural light over CGI this way, “Everybody was frozen, the equipment was breaking; to get the camera from one place to another was a nightmare. If we ended up in green screen with coffee and everybody having a good time, everybody will be happy, but most likely the film would be a piece of shit.”
There is no dispute after hard sacrifice in the beauty of making this movie. When the viewers watch this in one frame, the presentation is natural and folking brilliant. Like Birdman, we will again watch some spectacular lengthy one-shot scenes confirming AGI directional class.
Besides deserving award-winning direction, the whole movie is also build on two powerful performances. Tom Hardy’s character of Fitzgerald is foxy and full of rage who opposes Glass’ advice to abandon the vessel and march on foot after Native Americans’ attack. He digs reasons to oppose him and watch for a better moment to kill him. I would say Glass/Fitz are the bestest combination of plus and minus whose characters are made to oppose each other. Despite many inaccuracies in the movie, Hardy’s character gives reasons of bringing balance between the two. Being in limelight of his career, Tom Hardy has another well-reputed performance in his CV. Due to much change in locations and shooting dates, Tom Hardy left a well-fitted Suicide Squad role of Rick Flag character to complete The Revenant without delay.
Leonardo DiCaprio ended his long-curse in Oscar functions by finally winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his leading role in the movie. He has many marvelous performances to his acting credits and easily is one of the greatest actors of his generation to have worked with many great directors like Scorsese, Spielberg, Tarantino, Nolan, Eastwood, Mendes, Scott, Allen, Boyle and Cameron which is quite rare in any filmography.
Keeping his whole acting career under scrutiny, it is easy to pick this role as the toughest of all the roles he has done in the past. The portrayal is highly physical than his dialogues. All judgment is based on his survival mode where he drops himself into icy water, eating raw bison liver (LDC is vegetarian btw) and sleeping in horse carcass. He even wore that bear skin in most of the scenes which was real and brought from a park department in Canada. More to a misery, the skin weighted over 100 pounds. And while attempting all such dares, he maintained his acting stance. Full marks to his performance.
The Revenant is the answer to the finest filmmaking. Decades later, critics will easily pick this movie among the best things happened in cinematic industry. I would like to congrats the whole crew for the perfect and deserving outcome. Also I would like to pay my special thanks to the readers who reached here reading a whole lengthy review till the conclusion. Perhaps some special movies deserve a lot of writing.
Now who was Rudolf Abel? Shortly speaking, Abel was born in UK to Russian émigré parents, which means born to the couples living in political exile. He served Soviet military and fought against Nazis in WWII. After the war, he lived as spy in US where years later he was caught by FBI. The director began his part in the movie from here and I think that was a good decision.
The movie has two phases blended splendidly. One is Donovan/Abel phase and the other is Powers/Pryor phase. The other phase is story of two Americans. Francis Gary Powers was American pilot whose CIA spy plane was shot down by the Soviets in 1960 and Frederic Pryor, a graduate student, was caught by East German police without any charge a year later, who was studying there since 1959.
Spielberg offers sharp visual historic presentation of the famous exchange occurred in Glienicke Bridge. The famous exchange scene has been shot at very same historic site. The dare and gallantry of James B.Donovan is well explained, his wit saved Abel’s hugely expected hanging sentence into a 30-year imprisonment which turned into nationwide massive shock.
When it comes to tell history, the most important aspect to the viewers and readers is ‘deep intensity’. Spielberg successfully sketches deep realistic intensity hitting your head hard, specially at two different scenes. One is the court scene when the judge declares Abel’s punishment to 30 years instead of hanging, next 5 minutes are the peak of boiling points. The other scene is Donovan witnessing Berlin Wall shooting, facial expressions of Tom Hanks who plays Donovan here are priceless.
Bridge of Spies is committed with 90% historical accuracy with slight alterations i.e., all critical points under the incidents happened and presented in the movie are true. Spielberg’s frequent collaborator John Williams did join to compose movie’s score but left for Thomas Newman due to health issues but Newman justified his musical presence and didn’t make us miss John’s score. Production and costume designs were super-excellent, one simply cannot expect an error in these two departments as Speilberg has been veteran of many many historic movies.
Pace is slow but adaptable. Mark Rylance as Rudolf Abel is a showstopper who deservingly won Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for this role. Overall, Bridge of Spies is a decent history digging movie from a very important time-zone of the 20th century.
“And when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
The Alchemist is Paulo Coelho‘s most famous book which he wrote in mere two weeks and published in 1988. The book is on the list of one of the most read books in the history of literature with the name mentioned in the Guinness World Records for being the book translated into most languages. By 2015, the book has been translated into 80 languages and had sold more than 65 million copies.
The book is about Santiago, the Andalusian shepherd, dreaming about finding the treasure in the Pyramids of Egypt. Santiago makes up his mind about the quest for treasure. He meets numerous people during his spiritual journey who inspires/influences him and will give that same impression to the readers.
The book can easily be fragmented into four parts:
The first phase is Santiago’s dream and contribution of gypsy woman and old king of Salem, Melchizedek towards the boy’s goal of treasure digging.
The second phase is his life in Tangiers where he is robbed and works for a crystal merchant.
The third phase is the expedition at al-Fayoum Oasis where Santiago meets an Englishman who is in search of the Alchemist. This is where the boy falls in love with Fatima but she persuades him to find the treasure first.
The final phase is meeting his last inspiration, the 200-year-old Alchemist himself. He plays a very important role in the boy’s treasure hunting.
The Alchemist is a human torch on a journey of hope with supernatural power towards WILL. Need a hand? Then hold this book and read. The book has one story but we all are connected somehow. A tremendous guide!!
Why this book inspires you after reading? Because no matter what religion you follow, what faith you obey, what career you pursue, whoever or whatever you love… the flow of the story teaches you something at every turning page. The reader is at ease solving the riddle of his life.
The author digs more about the human psychology and spiritual philosophy of life than you may act/react at your side in your own world. At every point of twist, the author shatters the puzzles and fixes them for your most difficult questions to be answered.
Paulo repeats some specific words and during the storyline, the writer indirectly emphasizes the readers to work on it. Some of these are omens, personal legend, the soul of the world and maktub, etc. ‘Maktub’ is an Arabic word that means ‘It Is Written’. The word is used by a few of the characters repeating when the character is at the defining moment where they choose to say ‘Maktub’ that whatever happening is written in your fate. The word is introduced by the crystal merchant.
Melchizedek talks about Personal Legend to Santiago, which he defines as “it is always what you want to accomplish in life.” The word ‘Omens has its own prominence like the previously mentioned words. Paulo has repeatedly motivated his main character Santiago to follow his ‘Omens’ to find the treasure. In an interview, Paulo defined “Omens are the individual language in which God talks to you” which gives a more clear point to a common person. The word ‘Omens’ is the highest level of motivation by which one can succeed. To my understanding, there is something in me and you that creates and builds your wants, and empowers you to reach your goal and make it possible. That something is your Omen, and God creates and builds your omens only if you want Him to assist you in achieving/accomplishing. That is how some specific Coelho words are worked on the human minds helping them to live and breathe a better life.
Creativity is remarkable. Some names in the books are major references that the reader must understand. The name of the old King is Melchizedek who actually is mentioned in the Book of Genesis18-20. Melchizedek holds kingship of Salem which is a biblical name of Jerusalem mentioned in Psalm76:2. The two stones, Urim and Thummim which he gives to Santiago are basically associated with the sacred breastplate worn by the High Priest of the Israelites. These stones are mentioned in the Book of Exodus which is used to determine God’s will.
The Alchemist has the possession of Elixir of Life and Philosopher’s Stone. Both are legendary substances. Philosopher’s Stone is a chemical substance that turns any metal into gold whereas Elixir of Life is a drink by which the drinker is granted eternal life/youth and never gets sick. Both the substances of Alchemists are called their Master Work.
London Times says that Paulo’s books have had a life-enchanting effect on millions of people, so as this book. And New York Times has a better compliment for his writing which says that this wizard makes books disappear from stores. I am not admitting that my life has changed, but I am admitting that by reading this book, I am becoming aware of my options when I am surrounded by life’s complicated issues. Now I will be more at ease than before to decide why, what, when, where, and how to do it. Paulo is like a spiritual teacher becoming the reader’s imaginary friend, motivating and cheering you by reminding you to follow your omens. Such a book is recommended to every reader who surely will learn a lot from it.
Thank you so much Rossie Nathalie for suggesting this book…
The Islamic Republic of Pure Land has a bitter history of feudalism amongst the chieftains and the headmen stretching for decades. The woman’s pride and dignity have been dependent on the word of mouth fouling or polluting her for the hunger and lust of the tribe’s godfathers. The traditional silence of women on beatings, torture, and harassment is still a freedom’s wail. But there was a time in Pakistan, this silence was never whispered to the outsiders and diggers until one lady opened her mouth to the world and faced the consequences for speaking the truth – Tehmina Durrani.
Tehmina Durrani belongs to an influential family. Her great-grandfather, Mohammad Hayat Khan, served the government of British India and played an important role in establishing MAO College at Aligarh under the guidance of his close friend Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Her grandfather, Liaqat Hayat Khan, also served British India who was once minister of Patiala and after independence; he became Pakistan’s ambassador to France. Her father, Shakirullah Durrani, was a huge name in banking who worked in PICIC, ICP, and later on, held notable positions in PIA as managing director in 1969 and governor of State Bank of Pakistan in 1971.
Tehmina’s name and rank stabled more when she married Ghulam Mustafa Khar, the Lion of Punjab. Mustafa Khar is one of Punjab’s most powerful politicians, who was among the founding members of Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party. Their marriage had a disastrous impact on her personal life which led to shaping a controversy-bound book ‘My Feudal Lord’. The book was a European best-seller and made her name among one of the most successful Pakistani authors.
‘My Feudal Lord’ would sound like a soap opera with some spices of melodrama but the reader will fall behind the centuries-old gate of the haunting dungeons while notching the details. A reader unknown to Ms. Durrani may highly predict the insider of an almost 400-page storybook but the style of narration is propelling enough to harvest a forbidden fruit of the evil seed. The book brings out the hatred for the feudal and shows the true colors of the offensive decisions made on the throne by ruling over women by playing foul games.
The book is divided into three parts consisting of 18 chapters.
The first part is her introduction, her first marriage with Anees and falling in love with Khar resulting in divorce with the former and marriage with the latter.
The second part details the married life of Durrani and Khar in political exile, her sufferings and beatings, her support for Khar in the political movement, and sister Adila’s involvement.
The final part is the final phase of their married life with many emotional fluctuations and turnarounds making the reader think about the most possible ending.
One thing should never be forgotten while reading, this book is mainly the story of Durrani and Khar narrated by Durrani. This is half the narration of what we come to know from her. Khar never wrote a book nor do I think will be interested to speak about this topic ever. Durrani was actually Khar’s sixth wife with an age difference of at least 15.
Another major aspect of the book is that by reading it, the reader will clearly understand the persona and psychology of Tehmina Durrani. It is her story but more than that she opens her world and invites common people to let them know who she is? what does she think? what is her take on male domination in Muslim society? what is the role of a person who has a dual role of a husband and a politician at the same time?. The book is more like a conversation between a mental patient and a psychiatrist where the former is Ms. Durrani and the latter is you the reader.
Many times you would even come to understand that she wasn’t wise enough to understand Khar’s art of deception. She easily fell prey in his cage and lost her mind. Ms. Durrani did break traditional silence by writing the book, but with the tale, she should have presented her short analysis summarized from her life as what exactly went wrong. Reading about her life will raise many questions e.g.,
Are all feudal lords omen to their women?
Is love really blind enough to fall into prey that easily?
Do parents contribute to their daughter’s marital misery?
Is defending your awful husband for the sake of children a wise decision to keep your marriage and protect your family image from falling?
Which decision was the worst? Leaving the first husband or marrying Khar?
I honestly believe, there should have been one particular chapter of her analysis where she would summarize and provide answers to the most complicated questions arose from her life, like the few I raised above. Those details would definitely hit on the eastern and western societies and their readers.
Ms. Durrani is indeed a brave individual who suffered the pain all those years and kept the marriage that long. This book is highly recommended to those readers who want to place the woman’s rank and acknowledge her role in society. This revolutionary book is a moral victory over a complex society. May you stay strong with high spirits, Amen.
The title says it all. British author Louise Brown tours you to one of the shadows of the great Badshahi Masjid, the Diamond Market of Lahore which has a rich history of songs, dances, seductions, pleasures, fake and broken promises; and being a source of pleasuring men for centuries since the Mughal-era. It was once a land where the trained courtesans used to conquer the hearts of emperors.
The Dancing Girls of Lahore is a story of Maha, a classical dancer whose virginity was sold to an Arab Sheikh when she was only 12, but her existence cornered in the Walled City. Her fate is gashed with the timeline the author pens in each of the eight chapters, highlighting her struggles in raising money and children.
I am confounded shall I pay my compliments for mustering the author’s courage, bestowed in her for shaping a book blazing her analysis, research, and token of her lifetime in a historic sex market of Lahore or shall I appreciate the writer’s courtesy towards the humans of an entirely different world to whom she spent every inch of monotone…
It is quite a lantern of outcry from the details of a dark frame with hopeless life stories coming from an author who herself is a mother of three young children (by 2000). So I find super-naturally an extraordinary writing from a mother who forwards us a tale of a sex-selling mother Maha and her children i.e., soon-to-be sex workers in early teenhood.
The delicacy of the book lies in the anecdotes, descriptions of customers and various individuals, street foods and religious festivals, and history diggings over national and religious significance. Another impressive factor of reading this account is defining/detailing of the characters. Not only the leading characters have been pedals of bicycles, but also the minor individuals who carry less prominence were folded with some amount of paras.
Reading the book has the comfort of fragmenting the pages by the headings which will ease the readers to read summarized details. Louise also covers the sorry state of transgender/shemale prostitutes in the bazaar. Also the use of Punjabi and Urdu words forward more output towards the meanings for comprehension and adding swear words ignite the sketches of emotions which is quite hilarious at some moments. Enjoyable parts are where Maha always turns ferocious and begins swearing. The author has made a careful observation of Maha.
Overall, The Dancing Girls of Lahore is a book presenting a terrible insider of a low-morale social life of the poor in the city of hearts but simultaneously a marvelous read of a summarized four-year timeline in a red-light district which guarantees interest towards the author’s explanations and research. It is a heartbreaking story that most importantly focuses on the lives of women residing there and confronting the horrors and cries. A ravishing sorrow…
Dil Dhadakne Do is aquatic soap-opera comedy movie and compressed version of the high-society based tv serials hugely focusing on doubts, gossips, raising eyebrows, open-mouths, bedroom phenomenons, legalities of relationships…
Plot? Unmarried husband/wife Kamal Mehra (Anil Kapoor) and Neelam Mehra (Shefali Shetty) plan their 30th wedding anniversary on cruise trip. Host Kamal Mehra is a businessman of a bankruptcy-knocking company and is planning to bond their son Kabir Mehra (Ranveer Singh) with daughter of his fellow business colleague to boost business and personal relationships but the next generation family friends have their say as few among them have complicated relations. Very interesting plot innit? *standing ovation*
PLUSSES:
1) Performances are first-rate. Mehra quadrangular family is amazing. All the four members of Mehras; Anil, Shifali, Priyanka and Ranvir have produced scintillating performances. It is hard to pick one or two of the best among them.
2) 30-year dry marital veterans, Mr. and Mrs. Mehra are the best on-screen chemistry to watch. Amazing timing of conversations between them.
3) Ranvir-Priyanka bro-sis dual is very natural and ideal bond to watch. Both offer very fantastic emotional support to each other, and the strength of their bond during complicated situations is the best thing to watch.
4) Dialogues are naturally flexible and approves that Farhan Akhtar is inherited with powerful writing from his father. Let me prove my point with two entirely different situations. One is the funniest vomiting scene which will LYFAO and the other is highly intense family ice-breaking conversation in medical center. Both are dramatically insane in mode of situations and timing of emotions but the dialogues in both the scenes will make you feel.
5) Dog as narrator is a very catchy innovation. Aamir Khan as Pluto the dog is a wonderful narrator and thought-provoking dialogues are written by Javed AKhtar.
MINUSSES:
1) Running time of this movie is 2 hours and 50 minutes. I repeat, 170 minutes. Exactly!!
2) Unnatural choreographed and very uninspiring songs.
3) Over-exaggeration of family relationships. Too lengthy Priyanka/Rahul Bose moments. So many parivar conferences.
4) Unusually one of the most ridiculous Final-Ten-Minute conclusion of any BIG movie.
5) Too many family sagas and none of them well-defined. Alright Mehra family is the central figure but the supporting connections all sank with absolute collapse e.g., the characters Noorie, Rana, Amrish uncle (Farhan’s dad) and even a promising character of Manoj Pahwa‘s Vinod was cut too short.
6) Farhan Akhtar’s potential role turn out to be a special-appearance jukebox. A richly deserving plot-pacing device enters the screen extremely late and instead of bring close to conclusion, expands the melodrama with his affair with Priyanka and exaggerates.
There are two highly speaking points from the fictionally existing plot which indirectly focuses on very serious issues:
1) Dog’s autobiography: Pluto the dog is loyal pet of Mehra family. The dog is the narrator of movie where it watches the events happening in its surroundings and delivers/confesses the moral, emotional and social differences between a mute animal and a social animal.
One of the best writers in Bollywood, Javed Akhtar has penned dialogues for Pluto the dog and from Amir Khan’s voice, not only his remarkable dialogues are social satire but multi-dimensional in all walks. Pluto is a philosopher who separates his identity and differ with opinions he revolves around. That is the most impressive element of the movie.
2) Clash of Ideologies among the Generations: A tussle is hustled among the ranks not only in Mehras, but all the invitees of cruise trips where the chemistry of two generation ages to an extent. Oldies are backbiters and gossipers, high-society conservatives and admins of relationship conundrums. Contrary, their children i.e., the new generation or the new breed of friends and cousins have a different taste of humor and better understanding of complicated relationships among them.
The parental control among the Mehra pair is limited to the extend where financial benefits of business is involved. A folked up 30-year married life has a huge but bad impact on both brother and sister which mentally blocks their wish list towards the reality. Like I mentioned above, the highly intense scene in medical center between the Mehras is an ice-breaking emotional breakdown of the whole movie where all four desperately fall on heated argument.
Zoya Akhtar is a highly talented director from a richly talented family of acting and literature. But this movie is below par as compared to her previous two movies. DDD is no match with Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara. The Mehras, dialogues and pluto’s narration makes the movie attractive but the plot do not justifies or appeals the movie length of almost three hours. Could have done better.
Factory Siren | Bengal Freedom Movement | Japanese Gang War | Chinatown | Chemist | Paan Box | Opium | Detective | Newspaper | Ganges River
What if I tell you there is a fictional detective story which connects all the keywords mentioned above? What if I tell you that Detective Byomkesh Bakshy! is one of the most well-equipped detective movie made in Bollywood? In 21st century, the other detective movie coming close to this was Sujoy Ghosh‘s Kahaani (please don’t say Tarkieb). But the reason why I love Dibakar Banerjee‘s movies is the depth and intensity of the script involving all the characters in tremendous harmony. And he has done it again.
Byomkesh Bakshi basically is a popular fictional detective figure in Bengali literature. The character was created by Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay and he wrote 32 stories between 1932 and 1970.
Dibakar introduced a highly impressive story sketching a war-torn Calcutta of the pre-independence in which Byomkesh takes the case of a lost man whose fate lies under an evil genius. Byomkesh is lost in the open secrets and discoveries but his skills and wits are his answer to every threat.
Being used to of watching many international detective programs, I found the outcome of movie very freshly baked in its genre. The reason is a diverse environment and acceptance of Bengali rich literature. A powerful story transformed and wonderfully presented by a better director.
Movie offers a quality of story-telling in a ridiculously fluctuated pace. When Byomkesh begins spying, movie goes slow. When Byomkesh investigates, movie goes fast. Between the tones, he pauses the viewers at some dramatic scenes to capture more attention.
With the seriousness of the script, there is unbelievably dark humor at some portions. Soundtracks are attractive and again fresh to your ears, you surely won’t expect some hard metal in 40s Calcutta. Soundtracks are equally balanced and compiled of Bengali, Hindi and English numbers.
Performance is flying carpet where outstanding performances deserve huge compliment. Anand Tiwari as Byomkesh’s sidekick, Swastika Mukherjee as dancer and spy, Meiyang Chang as opium dealer are performers that cannot be ignored. Sushant Singh Rajput as detective Byomkesh was a decent pick but very challenging at the initial stage of his career. He is talented and I appreciate to take this challenge. Actors like Akshay Kumar, Ayushmann Khurana or Abhay Deol could have played this role very well.
The best among the performers was theater legend Neeraj Kabi as Dr.Guha who runs a male hostel. Reports are that Dibakar’s first pick was Aamir Khan for such a vital role but he rejected for Dhoom 3???
Overall this surely is one of the five best Hindi movies of the year for me.
Predictions can meet your opinions and social media brains can vow the lost words framed in the past. It is an emotional rectifying bond of unheard whispers with uninvited gunshots. So when the music is loud, you are at temporary betrayal of daunting hope…
Unheard of your cost, the weapons had its say and the case was dismissed in the court of shadows. When bad things happen, word of mouth has no protection. The reason why yours and mine opinion differ is because we use our own brains for the textures to follow, to the faith we believe and methods we retrieve. Same methods are voiced to the readers and listeners, they tweet you and become a league. From here, if brain was wrong that day, you cannot expect the league today has its ideal foundation towards the solution. It will certainly drive a wrong road. Non-classified u-turn is unhygienic for melting egos.
A Friday night of many thousands of travelers, visitors, spectators, musical ear-folkers, sports-addict and concertgoers met their horrors in major European city – Paris. Gunfire and blasts were heard and the terror was installed by night. A series of mass shootings and suicide bombings has so far caused lives of 130 civilians and gashed around 350 others.
Locations were;
1) La Belle Equipe – A very popular Bistro, which was of full capacity when the shootings happened and killed at least 12. One witness said that the shooting at this site lasted for three minutes!
2) Le Carillon/Le Petit Cambodge – Former is café-bar and latter is a Cambodian restaurant. Both are located directly opposite to 408-year-old Saint-Louis Hospital. So far at least 12 are reportedly dead.
3) La Casa Nostra pizzeria – at this location is reported that a man with a machine gun fired on its terrace and killed 5 people.
One boring day, I was sitting idle on my office chair, had less burden of work and no idea of what-to-do was existing. Then I began clicking my old Facebook albums and I found few albums of my past trips with my globetrotting buddies. And I realized that the year 2015 was empty of any attempt of exploration. Then my brain cells discovered a puffy cloud of thought that I should dig some interesting sites on Google Maps. Minutes later, I found a route between Rabigh and Yanbu, opposite to Mastourah which lead towards two ancient villages of Al-Abwa and Khuraybah. The pictures of ruin sites on the Google Maps looked very interesting. I marked the place and informed my fellow Pirates of the Arabian the new spot to dig the treasure of history.
Weeks passed by, and our commitments didn’t match to drive any weekend till 18/9. Our plan was to reach the destiny at the time of sunrise to avoid unbearable temperature. But somehow the plan didn’t work and left Jeddah by sunrise. The place is 257km away from Jeddah but if you drive between 120kph-140kph, you can easily reach within three hours. The chosen transport of legitimacy was Mazda 6 2014.
Our first stopping was at the Raheli station where we bought a can of Pringles, few Bison energy drinks, couple of Kit-Kat chunky, Max-Chili flavor of Lay’s, bottles of cold water, half kg of bananas and a packet of seeds.
Some plans hesitate our desires and get delay and that was the very same case with us when we left by sunrise at 6 am but the advantage of leaving late was that we had all benefits to get our eyeballs seduce to the nature’s beauty existing on our left and right. The sun rising on my right promised mountain eclipse with the light rays waking the land and our sleepy mission. I didn’t sleep that well because I generally am much used to of sleeping maximum 1 am but for this plan, I had to change my normal routine and off to bed at 11 pm and coming out of grave at nearly 3 am.
My friends, Athos and Porthos, have been in major contribution in all my/our expeditions that include Madain Saleh, Johfa Fort, Thee-Ain Village and Wahbah Crater. This Abwa-Khuraybah plan was our first expedition since Nov.2014. Yeah, commitments and responsibilities have delayed/postponed our plans to that amount of time. This was the first time that we three drove the same car in any trip. Most of the time, not more than two were driving in any trip. I always had issue of mobile battery charging as my Xperia Z is always spitting life faster than blood due to tremendous use of making high-quality videos and images. But this time, my buddy brought inverter.
The temperature was touching in mid-30s and was promising that the heat will folk us hard. We three always share common understanding of playing roadies musical tracks in our vehicle. Mostly these are trance and house music. So we basically have no musical disagreements while the destiny is breathing.
We never realize that the time passed so fast as the destiny was less than a dozen kilometers. Our first mission was to spot a site of religious significance; the grave of Bibi Aminah (R.A.), the mother of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.). Aminah (R.A.) was Qurayshi by tribe from Banu Zahrah clan. When the prophet was 5 or 6, Aminah introduced him to Yathrib (Madinah) and his extended family. While traveling back towards Mecca (Makkah), she fell ill and died. And she was buried in the village of Al-Abwa God knows where this grave is? Hellooooo anyone!! I am in the middle of the road! On my left were some suspicious mountains which make me feel the probability of her grave and on my right was a small village where my fellow diggers were using the toilet.
It was pretty silent place and I saw few children playing until they stared at us and ran towards their guardian. Didn’t know if I scared them *feeling annoyed*, do my face carry a haunting image? Oh I also noticed a herd of sheep staring at us. They do respond and speak in God knows very very strange voice. I did ask one of the kind if it knew the grave but failed to understand its gesture.
We actually were too urban for the place and its inhabitants as the car approached towards us and began interrogating. He was a very rude man who had no intention to help us in locating the spot and told us to leave asap. We did leave and relied on the Google map.
We stopped to the opposite site of the mounts where we were predicting the possibility. We climbed one of the easiest low-altitude mountain and began sniffing around for 20 minutes. There was no help and we googled the site and found some images of her grave with the stones colored green and some had the stones covered with green cloth. With confusion arousing and rising temperature welcoming, we left the spot with disappointment. Fate was not with us to stand near the grave of prophet’s mother and I was scared of our plans meeting further failure when the village of al-Abwa was nothing but a wasteland with few dozens of people holding their heart and walking on the street. As it was Friday morning, so there was an understood silence with all the shops closed. There were many ruins and wild bushes installed to make the place look either interesting or distressful enough to expect a zombie by our next stopping.
After 10 minutes drive, things became lively when we saw a small farm. In our surrounds, there were mostly private properties with land cruisers. Google Maps was confusing us in picking an exact route towards Khuraybah where I had my target for the purpose of this trip to view the old ruins what I viewed in my first attempt while sitting idle at office once. Those were improper roads going towards Khuraybah but it wasn’t that hard. Reaching such hard tracks with ease is comfortable if you have a SUV.
Yesssss we made it!!! By some distance I stared an ancient mosque which was in google maps. There was some life back in our mission as we reached the spot. The place surely is not well-known to the common travelers as we found an ancient mosque and some 63 same-dimension ruins of most probably shops or houses. There is some sign of civilization far a distance but there is no sign-board to explain us what history lies here. Sun heat was getting worse as I began sweating and our mobiles warming. Making videos became a problem as we tried to cover most of the important figures of the site.
I explored the interior and exterior side of the ancient mosque with no dome and minaret above the ceiling. The ceiling work is all wooden furnished which gave us some idea that the work is not that ancient as compared to the houses built on marble mountain in Thee-Ain village where the ceilings were made from juniper trees. The same juniper case was in Deira City of al-Ula, the old town consisting of 1032 houses.
My fellow pirates decided to climb a nearby mountain to explore and have a complete look of the view on an altitude. Meanwhile, myself down near the mosque, I spotted a large rock with ancient islamic calligraphy with the words of Shahada. And that was the only rock I found. I tried to locate more familiar rocks but that was the masterpiece.
Some historians or archaeologists should dig this place and come with some useful results. This place is inviting and explorers like we did feel the heat but found an amazement in checking such historic place. I have tried to research this place on the internet and some literature sources are indicating that sites of Rabigh, al-Abwa, Khuraybah and Johfah were once a pilgrim station for Syrians and Egyptians.
The mountain climbers descend down as we approached towards the vehicle to take rest. Minutes later, we left towards the ruins again. These are 63 ruins, each carrying almost same width as the height cannot be considered because some of these are incomplete. Each ruin is consisted of black stones. There was nothing in these ruins. Only few were covered with thorns and wild plants. None of the ruins had ceilings which creates further more doubts of its ever being houses or shops. How come the houses or shops never have ceilings? Out of 63 ruins, 23 were partitioned. Yeah we did count below the teasing sun. Our stay at Khuraybah was not more than 90 minutes but exploring with such amount of time at the temperature somewhere near 40s is still some craziness.
We left the spot with some great experience and while we were taking u-turn towards Jeddah, we swiftly decided to check Masturah beach. Masturah sea is located exactly opposite road of the targeted site. We were hoping to witness heaven of sea-view in Masturah but happened contrary. It was unexpectedly a very dull and boring place with no life at sea. Not a single human existed on the beach and it was understood.
Masturah is not only a beach under the surface of Red Sea but carries historic significance. Islamic geographers and travelers in old times have mentioned few way stations and one of them existed long time ago in Masturah where water was abundant. It also was a small sea port in early Islamic period. Masturah today is differed with new and old areas divided by old road that leads between Makkah and Madinah. The old Masturah was a station as mentioned above, and there were huts and plenty of wells. Each well was 8 meters in depth and its wall 1 meter thick.
Anyhow we left the spot with no change in emotions. While returning back, I was driving and my fellows were extremely tired and taking a nap. It was a wonderful trip and folk yeahhh!! we did miss Friday prayer lol.
Sami Naik | Film Critic 