Ishqiya

   One word... sesky. If you know what sesky means... you'll like the movie. If you don't... you probably won't.
 

I found it kinda Tarantinoesque... but that's probably just me. The dialogues are laced with expletives and phallic references... Vidya Balan sings hindustani, cusses like a hitman from UP( Not tat I know any hitmen from UP) and gets two small time goons to help her kidnap a man. Fantastic role. Really. And fantastic Vidya. If you don't get the jokes you can still watch it for her. Then there's  Naseeruddin Shah, if anyone could pull off the role of aging crook falling madly in love without making it maudlin or slapstick or plain nonsensical it's Naseeruddin Shah... he was the old-world charm dimension to the film routinely lapsing into fantasies of Vidya in very very 60s settings... and Arshad Warsi plays horny uh amoral? thug very convincingly. Underneath the horniness and the lack of morals... he wasn't all that bad. Sorta like a knight in denial... but not quite. Besides everyone in the movie was gray at best... no good guys in white hats and bad guys in black here... but then that's how it goes in life as well anyway. One o my fav characters in the movie though was Naseeruddin Shah's sister... well, she doesn't really come on screen, she's mostly a part o the film through phone conversations, but this is what she sez to her husband "...Woh(Shah) aapke gunhegaar hain... par mere bhaijaan bhi hain... aur rakhi agle mahine hain. Ho sake to unhe chod dijiye... nahin to maar dijiye... faisla aapka"... which loosely translated means... "he has commited a crime, but he's my brother and rakhi's only next month... so let him go if you can. If you can't, go ahead shoot him. Its all cool" and this when the husband is holding a gun to Naseeruddin Shah's head... all said in a tone that sez ' I am having my hands manicured, I have a K-serial to watch next, don bore me with trivial issues'... like I said... there's a lot in the dialogues. So if you don understand what Arshad Warsi is all about when he says "Toh aapka ishq, ishq hain, aur hamara issex?"... don watch this film... but if you do... definitely definitely sesky.

The Bicycle Thief

Watched Vittorio de Sica's 'The Bicycle Thief' today and I think its one of the best, most touching, most well-made films I've ever watched...

The story, set in post World War II Rome, centres around two days in the life of a man named Anotnio.  It begins with him getting a job and realizing they won't hire him without his bicycle... and when he finally gets it, it gets stolen. Antonio then ,with his son Bruno and a friend, sets out to find the bicycle thief...

I loved the way each tiny detail was captured in this film... nothing missed and not a single thing too blatantly expressed. Whether Antonio was treating his son to a meal they couldn't afford... or cornered in an alley trying to fight off a mob of men angry at one of them being accused of stealing the bicycle... he is heartbreakingly real. And you wish with him for his job to be saved... for his bicycle to be found...

My favourite character though is Bruno. He takes the cake for being the perfect boy... endearingly following his father around, examining each cycle bell, each tyre to see if it could've been part of theirs. Preparing to pee on a wall in the middle of a chase :)... Shutting a window before leaving home to protect his baby sister... and trying and tripping and tripping and still trying to keep up with a grown man's long strides...Bruno...is absolutely adorable :)

I couldn't help but love the characters... I couldn't but be absolutely involved... Everything a film should be... this film was.

Loved it.