"Oye Boy Charlie", Kartik Vijay, and the Emil Kusturica connection

"Matru ki Bijli ka Mandola" is being described as a absurdist mad-cap movie, and the next song trailer, "Oye Boy Charlie", to be released fits in with that description:

Notes:
1. A couple of in-jokes: "Charlie" and "Dolly"
2. Shankar Mahadevan sings for Vishal for the first time (another example of a music composer singing for Vishal)
3. The brass band named "Kusturi-ca Brass Band", referring to the Serbian director Emil Kusturica (who is also known for his zany comedies and his brass bands, which has inspired songs such as "Emosional Atyachar")
4. The song's mukhDaa has a resemblance to the Mukesh song "Tauba Yeh Matwaali Chaal" from "Patthar Ke Sanam"?

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The Kusturica connection is also hinted at in this Mint interview with the film's cinematographer, Kartik Vijay, who also says: "The story is about a capitalist who turns into a socialist when he starts to drink"

Baradwaj on Bhardwaj

With "7 Khoon Maaf" around the corner, ace film critic Baradwaj Rangan explores Vishal Bhardwaj's fascination with and ability to render interesting female characters in a piece for Caravan Magazine aptly titled "Blood Sisters".

Warning: the essay contains spoilers about most of the films mentioned.

The original "Dhan Te Nan" (Gubbare) version

In an earlier interview (also posted on this blog before by Abhishek), Vishal had mentioned that "Dhan Te Nan" was reworked from an episode of the same name dfor "Gubbare" (Zee TV, 90s). The episode was one of the early directorial forays by Vishal and by most accounts was quite badly made :-). The video of the opening has surfaced now (Gaurav & Salil pointed to it), and features some bad choreography, a rocking train, and an even more juvenile Sharman Joshi.

Quoting from the interview:

“Dhan te nan was not designed specially for Kaminey. I had first used it in a telefilm called Dhan Te Nan. I had used that catchphrase and the tune in that telefilm.

Dhan te nan is a phrase that belongs to our film and music culture. For us Indians cinema is the biggest cultural entity. We often borrow illustrations and speech patterns from our films. Dhan te nan is used during bedtime stories for dramatic effect.

Whenever I used to tell mey son Aasman stories I’d go ‘Dhan te nan’ to create drama. This phrase remained with me.”

I have always wondered how Vishal's baby steps in film making would have been. Here's an example. Thankfully, he's become much better :-)

Here's the video (sung by Suresh Wadkar & Roop Kumar Rathod, and humming by Rekha Bhardwaj):

kaminey: early praise

Vishal Bhardwaj seems destined to be the guinea pig for all sorts of strange SNAFUs associated with film releases. Anurag Kashyap's problems were limited to censor bans. But the creative and talented Mr. Bhardwaj has had to deal with obscurity (Maqbool seems to have gained its admirers and fans almost completely by word of mouth and the occasional articles lavishing praise), hype dying with a whimper (a lot more was written about The Blue Umbrella before it finally hit the marquee, at which point it seemed to slide all the way out), strangely disappointing initial collections followed by a backlash of prudery (Omkara). And now it's the H1N1 wave that has prevented it from hitting the marquee back home in Bombay and Pune. The film has hit the marquee overseas and, as with Omkara, seems destined to get most of its early reviews from abroad (local limited screenings for critics notwithstanding).

And the early notes are promising. Nay! They are extremely encouraging in an eerie way. Raja Sen ends his enthusiastic take with Awefome!; Another positive review ends with praise for the director; Nikhat Kazmi gives it a full-star rating before gushing about it as does the Indian Express and Vasan Bala is drooling over at PFC. Anupama Chopra, writing for NDTV, starts by calling it the best Bollywood film she's seen this year. Taran Adarsh, the reviewer from hell, who pretends to be a critic while looking at films like a baniyaa, also has good things to say, ending with four stars out of five. Lisa Tsering (reportedly "the first Western journalist to write about Bollywood and Indian pop culture for the Indian press") calls it a smart vivid thriller. Baradwaj appreciates Vishal's respect for the audience's intelligence as he unfurls a favourable review. Rajeev Masand gives "this imaginative and original film" four stars out of five. Over at The Hindu, Sudhish Kamath is "dying to watch it again." Minty Tejpal loves the film (adding a disclaimer that he worked with Vishal on the screenplay of The Blue Umbrella) and can't get the tune out of his head.

And if you thought I was just looking at the good notes, allow me to offer Khalid Mohamed's take (the guy can't even spell "Bhardwaj" right, though).

oil be damned!

Why am I not surprised that someone named Ramnarain Sahu, a Samajwadi party MP, who happens to be the president of the Rashtriya Teli Rathore Chetna Mahasangh, has decided to nurse objections to the use of the word telii in Kaminey's catchiest song. First the naaiis and now the teliis. All Gulzar needs for a hat-trick is to tickle the ire of another occupational sect. I can't resist thinking of maaliis.

Vishal on writing and casting

Nice interview with Vishal (from this article in The Times of India):

I was at the airport and a couple with their little boy recognised me and started talking to me. The boy asked me “Uncle, what is the name of your movie?” and the father immediately said, “I will tell you later. Not now.” I said, “Why will you tell him later? It’s not a maa-behan ki gaali.” And I told the boy that the name was Kaminey. That kid laughed aloud.

Plus more on his other films.

(H/T: Mohit Kataria on the Gulzar Fans group)

The story behind Dhan Te Nan

Dhan Te Nan (roughly translated in Marathi as Wealth is Flatbread) is definitely the best track for me in the album. Have heard all other tracks just once and none of them have really hit home (Marathi - मनात घर करणे).

Vishal provides insight about how the track came to being

“Dhan te nan was not especially designed for Kaminey. I had first used the catch phrase and tune in a telefilm also titled Dhan te nan in 1998. It is a phrase that belongs to our film and music culture. For us Indians, cinema is the biggest cultural entity. We often borrow illustrations and speech patterns from our films. Dhan te nan is used during bedtime stories for dramatic effect. Whenever I used to tell my son, Aasman, stories, I’d go ‘Dhan te nan’ to create drama. The phrase remained with me.”

For a listen, the track is here. (see JR's post for full track listings). ऐका

Kaminey's music out

I don't know if it is available in stores yet, but the music can be heard online here.

The music is different from Vishal albums of the past, with an emphasis on electronica and remixes. However, there a couple of ballad-like songs and the social message song is well orchestrated.

The poetry of some of the songs is very good, as you'd expect.

Don't go in looking for an Omkara or No Smoking, though.

Vishal the lyricist?

This article says Vishal has penned lyrics for a song featuring Shahid Kapur & a social message:

The entire song sequence talks about the importance of using condoms, and playing it safe. Our source said, “Sukhwinder Singh lent his voice to this song and the lyrics go: Bhawra aaya aayaa re, gun gun karta aayaa re ... Yeh ishq nahih aasan, AIDS ka khatra hai ... pathwar pehen kar jaana- yeh aag ka dariya hai."

The absence of this song in the listing previously reported may well mean this could just be a little aside in the film. If this is yet another film hat of Vishal's, then he's on his way to opening a hat boutique.

Kaminey - track listing

From Bollywood Hungama

1. Dhan Te Nan (Sukhwinder Singh, Vishal Dadlani, Robert Bob Omulo)
2. Fatak (Sukhwinder Singh, Kailash Kher)
3. Go Charlie Go
4. Kaminey (Vishal Bhardwaj)
5. Raat Ke Dhai Baje (Suresh Wadkar, Rekha Bhardwaj, Sunidhi Chauhan, Kunal Ganjawala, Earl D'Souza)
6. Thode Bheege (Mohit Chauhan)

Lyrics by Gulzar of course.

The usual crop of Vishal favourites (even Suresh Wadkar) are here, with a couple of new features: Vishal Dadlani & Mohit Chauhan.

The hard-to-name & boisterous "Dhan Te Nan" is out on radio stations, and an online version can be heard here. It's very catchy and the mukhDaa is very easy to fit into your head. The Big G seems in top form.

Looks like the music will release soon.

A Bangla mafioso is called "Dada"?

A nice new angle to "Kaminey" is revealed in this article:

Supratik Sen, one of the writers of the film and also Bhardwaj’s associate director, says, :At the outset, there wasn’t any specific reason for using Bengali characters in the film. We just wanted colourful characters, not your trademark Maharashtrian dons who were the staple of standard Hindi fare. Debu Mukerji, Rajatava Dutta and Chandan Sanyal play three Bengali book-keepers, involved in shady businesses with a screwball streak to them."

Given that this is supposed to partly be a 'caper' film, one wonders if this is similar to the Hasidic Jew angle in Snatch.

August 14 is less than two months away.

Kaminey's possible release date: 14 August

With the massive pile-up of Hindi film releases getting cleared in an orderly fashion after the recently concluded producers' strike, Kaminey is likely to see the light of day on the 14th of August. There's no word on the music yet, but one would expect it to be about a month in advance.

Sadly, this is gleaned from speculation from the Kaminey Facebook group - UTV needs to realise that creating social network spaces for promotion isn't enough - got to keep communicate to maintain the buzz & momentum around their product on the said space.

Meanwhile, this is the official UTV page for the film.

Dreams, wishes, and meanings.

With the multiplex owners flexing their muscles and nixing new releases, our film fixes have become few and far between. There is a clear knock on effect on movie news; with no reel news, same old crap gets regurgitated in newspapers and film portals over and over again.

Only half decent piece of info is that Kaminey seems to have an official Facebook page (I might be slow in catching this one as I still dont have a Facebook page. Yes, and I still live in a cave.)

But that's not why I wanted to write this post. It mentions an Urdu verse Vishal has used (composed?)

“Raat din giley (Day and night I have complaints)
Meri aarzoo kamini (My wish is a worthless)
Mere khwab bhi kaminey (My dreams are a cheat)
dosti dil se thi (My friendship was from the heart)
Yeh hazoor bhi kaminey (But that you too were a rascal)"

I cant access the page, so don't know if the translation is embedded on the page or is thanks to Bollyspice, but I read it thus -
(Agree to the first 3 lines - I have complaints because my wishes and dreams are traitors)
dosti dil se thi (My friendship was with the heart)
Yeh hazoor bhi kaminey (But the heart too was a rascal)" .

What say?

Lambi race ka ghoda?

Amongst other things, HT has a significant scoop on Kaminey - the story kernel

In the film Kaminay Shahid plays a double role — Charlie and Guddu. The role of their childhood sweetheart is enacted by Priyanka Chopra. Three of them grow up in Dharavi, with dreams of making it big in life. Guddu aims to make it big in the right way, while Charlie is hooked [on to do all bad boys’ things] to betting horse race. But both shall pass a crossroad to reach their destination.

It says the movie was shot in real life locations like VT Railway station, Dharavi and Gateway of India.

and I guess, Mahalaxmi Race Course as well, considering the horse racing bit.

One thing I won't be betting on - VB's films releasing here in the UK. Unless they have SRK. Won't bet on that either.

"Kaminey" release notes

(All the upcoming info in one post as we lead up to the release of the music and later the film itself)

* (24 Mar) Kaminey is scheduled to release on 5th June says this news item.

*(23 Mar) Vishal says Kaminey is a caper film and confirms that he has sung for the film.

Fa-fever, Double Dose, and The Big G

George has been digging around for Kaminey news for the last week or so and has dug out the juicy tidbit that the other Vishal (Dadlani, do not confuse like IMDB) sings under this Vishal's baton and puts to rest speculation about who the lyricist is (by pointing to Gulzar-saab's oblique confirmation).

And to underftand why he replafes the phoneme "f" by "f" (;-)), you'll juft have to read thif, won't you?

Update
Abhishek Toraskar points to more evidence of Gulzar's association with the film in this link.

Kaminey - of speech therapists and release dates

Usually the accoutrement of slapstick sidekicks, Kaminey features speech defects in a central form. As this article reveals, great pains were taken by director and actor to try and get the 'flaws' right.

While this article says the film is going to release only in June. That's a long way off.

"Kaminey" peeks out

Screenings of Delhi 6 have been accompanied by a 'first look' at Vishal's upcoming release Kaminey (thanks to reader 'VanDee2008' for pointing out the news).

According to PhoenixNu, a PFC author:

KAMINEY (promo)…..looks KILLER!!!!! The Master is back and its dhan tarang dhan tarang…..coming FOON….how FOON ??? the wait begins!!

The "coming FOON" is because the characters played by Shahid Kapur have speech defects.

Routine news updates - Dec 2008

In what is certain to be the last post on this blog this year, some minor tidbits about Vishal that have appeared online:

Kaminey apparently progresses, though there's not much to report, if you discount the tabloid press's fascination with the lead actor's mysterious hair-style (sorry about that). On a more serious note, the crew were shooting on the day of the Mumbai terror attacks close to some of the assault sites and had to pack up in haste.
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Ruskin Bond, whose The Blue Umbrella" was adapted on screen by Vishal, is apparently "workin on two scripts" for the director.
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And finally, the gossip-vine has it that Vishal got involved in a fracas with Shah Rukh Khan. Yikes. The things we have to discuss when there are no new movies or music to talk about.

Taking stock

There hasn't been much to report on Vishal's upcoming films Kaminey or Ishqiya, unless you consider news items like Vishal drives Vidya crazy, or Shahid Kapur's six injuries.

The only salvage-able bits of interest are that Kaminey is reportedly being shot in and around Pune, and that once again, Naseeruddin Shah is conducting a workshop before a Vishal film. With that kind of preparation, hopefully, the results will be like in Maqbool (ok, with that fan-gush, we'll end this post).