Why Paheli scores over Black?
So, should Black have been India’s official nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar? I am afraid the answer, for all the world-class trappings that film boasts, is no.There are at least three names that Black and Paheli share: Amitabh Bachchan, Rani Mukherjee and cinematographer Ravi K Chandran, who did outstandingly well with the camera on both films. But that’s where the similarities end. Black and Paheli ate completely different kettles of fish.
And my reasons are
1. Completely original
2. Paheli is ‘Indian’ all the way.
3. Paheli, shorn of formulaic Bollywood conventions and borrowed technical flourishes, is indeed streets ahead of anything else that Indian cinema has thrown up in the last 12 months.
What goes against Black
1. It is derivative in terms of content and style
2. The drama at the heart of Black, a film that is ironically European in that way it is lit and cut, is obviously far too melodramatic and shrill for Western sensibilities
3. Being in English for the most part, Bhansali’s film wouldn’t really have qualified as a ‘foreign language’ film!
posted by Adarsh Krishna at 3:11 PM
1 Comments:
Interesting post. I have not seen Paheli, so I dont know if it is better. But I have seen Black. You cannot say that it is European style because its lighting is dim and has a lot of English. It looked closer to Mani's (or P.C. Shriram's) films to me. And which Desi film doesn't have English in it these day? Moreover, the use of so much English is justified for this movie because it is an Anglo-Indian family and such familier *are* like that in India.
I liked Black's story and Rani's acting. In my opinion, it could have been a good bet for the Oscars. For the next year's representations, it can as well be Iqbal. Have you seen it?
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