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Tag: Begum Jaan

  • Non-Khan Bahubali2 shows the power of three — Rs 300 cr

    It is happy hours for the exhibitors, especially the multiplex properties. After starving for footfalls, Bahubali 2: The Conclusion has come as a saviour. Never look a gift horse in the mouth so no matter it is not a Hindi super star film, just a dubbed film from South. The film carried a solid brand equity created by its predecessor, Bahubali: The Beginning.

    The multiplexes tried all possible avenues to feed their auditoriums in absence of films. Earlier, they tried to programme IPL matches and other such events to no avail. Who would want to watch an exciting match of cricket in a dark hall under a disciplined guidelines when you can watch it at home or a restaurant or a club with drinks and full control over the proceedings with a remote in your hand?

    So, building multi-screen halls was not a wise decision which proves a liability when you don’t have a Salman Khan or Aamir Khan film. They give you a fortnight audience while others manage a weekend’s feed.

    Saying, ‘where the next meal is is coming from’ won’t be an exaggeration in case of these multiplexes.

    Bahubali: The Beginning came out of the blue and left promising a lot. Hence, Bahubali 2: The Conclusion, became the most awaited film by both, the audience as well as the exhibition trade. To every stakeholder’s relief, the film has more than lived up to all the expectations the earlier film promised.

    Because, except Bahubali 2 there is nothing the multiplexes as well as the single screens have to screen. They have been facing the ‘No audience, No show’ routine for a long time.

    *Bahubali 2: The Conclusion (Dubbed from Telugu) has been collecting figures all through its first week which most Hindi superstar films do on their day one or two if they manage to find a holiday release. In fact, the film has exceeded best Hindi film collections by miles.

    *Since the entire exhibition trade is surviving on just one film for the last few days, here is how and why: The film has continued to maintain collections in high crore range all through its first weekend by collecting Rs 40 crore on Friday and Saturday and peaking at Rs 46 crore on Sunday to end its opening weekend with over Rs 146 crore.

    The victorious run continued as the film kept on the same scale on Monday with part of India having a holiday. The collections dropped by 25% on Tuesday but that was not alarming since the film picked up again. Finally, the film ended its first week sweep of the box office with a total take of Rs 245.6 crore.

    The film has been enjoyed a fitting second weekend which is reported to have added another Rs 80.2 crore for its second weekend thus taking its 10 day total to Rs 325.8 crore.

    The other films released in recent weeks, Noor, Maatr, Begum Jaan, Naam Shabana, Phillauri have all ended with disastrous outcome.

    *Last week’s release, Mantostaan, despite a very limited release, has failed to draw the audience.

  • Dubbed film Baahubali 2 survives IPL fever

    Finally the film the moviegoer as well as the exhibition trade have been waiting for: Baahubali 2: The Conclusion, hits the screens. There will be debates about its merits. Its comparison with the first part, Baahubali: The Beginning, is inevitable. However, one subject, on which there will be no debates, is the film’s box office prospects.

    Baahubali: The Beginning created a solid ground work for this film, created a brand equity and made the audience wait for the Conclusion. Those involved made the most of it as they planned an open week release for the film at over 4,000 screens, a rare phenomenon for a dubbed South origin film.

    What Baahubali2 is expected to do at the box office is beyond what any Hindi film has done so far and may, hopefully, inspire Hindi filmmakers. Salman Khan and Aamir Khan have been the best draws so far when it comes to Hindi films. But, even their hit films fall short by a length of what this South dubbed film is expected to achieve. The film also stands to gain on its first Monday, it being a holiday in Maharashtra and some other states.

    The 45-day long Indian Premier League (IPL) T20 tournament, during which release of major films is avoided, seems to have had no effect on the collections of this film.

    The film opened to full or near full houses and maintained figures of over Rs 40 crore on all days of its opening weekend to come up with collections figure of Rs 128 crore for three days.

    *Noor, a film based on the Pakistani author/journalist SabaImtiaz’s book ‘Karachi You Are Killing Me!’ proves a damp squib. Totally out of sync with audience taste, the film fails badly. It manages to collect Rs 6.6 crore in its opening week.

    *Maatr, RavinaTandon’s film about gang rape and revenge finds few takers. The film just about crosses one crore mark to collect Rs 1.1 crore in its first week.

    *Begum Jaan collects Rs 2.75 crore in its second week to take its two week tally to Rs 17.85 crore.

  • Sequels & the need to cash in on previous successes

    The film industry is going through its worst period in a long time. Nothing seems to be working as film after films flop losing almost total investments. This, when private investors are staging a comeback to invest in film distribution business as the big houses have curtailed their activities.

    While the producers of recent films have been suffering, the main sufferers are the single screens as well as the multiplex chains who, besides servicing their investments, also need to tend to their fixed costs like, staff, power, maintenance and other such costs.

    This is a Catch 22 situation. While the independent producers, who are keeping the supply going, they have to do it in limited budgets. The multiplex chains won’t give them decent playtime or reduced admission rates and the paying audience won’t be lured otherwise.

    The stalemate continues.

    The recent trend seems to be of making wome- oriented films. That is fine. They do work at times as was the case with, Kahaani, Dirty Picture, Neerja, Chalk & Duster, Ki And Ka, Fitoor, Sarabjit, Begum Jaan, Maatr, Noor and so on. But, just a few worked.

    If Kahaani worked, why did Kahaani 2 did not? It did not because it came across as a product of greed. A need to cash in on the success of its predecessors. The makers did not even care that their ‘Dare It All’ protagonist of Kahaani was turned in to a helpless, hapless woman in Kahaani 2.

    Both new releases of the week, Noor and Maatr, were women centric films. Both faced disastrous outcome at the box office.

    Noor was much hyped as the Pakistani journalist writer Saba Imtiaz’s account of her life as a journalist in Karachi, among the most violent cities in the world. It was published as a book, Karachi, You Are Killing Me! The account had no story, looked like a dramatised and fictionalised writing. Nothing in the book seemed fit to incorporate it in the life of a Mumbai journalist.

    Maatr was a vehicle for one time sought-after star, Raveena Tandon, as a senior actor to return in her veteran avatar as a mother. She played a mother on revenge mission for her raped and killed young daughter. The film failed to get an opening of any kind.

    *Raveena’s comeback, Maatr, sadly, could not find enough footfalls to run a show. Turned into a ‘No audience No show’ affair as the collections remained in lakhs. The film’s promotion was poor too. The three day collections remained short of one crore at about Rs 70 lakh.

    *Sonakshi Sinha, essaying the role of a struggling journalist, lacked head or tail. Is a loser on all counts as the film barely manages to put together Rs 4.1 crore crore for the first weekend.

    *Begum Jaan, an outdated story told poorly, fails badly to incite the audience. After a poor opening weekend of Rs 10.6 crore, the film ends it first week with a total of Rs 15.1 crore.

    *Badrinath KI Dulhania has taken its six week total to Rs 114.7 crore.

    *Laali KI Shaadi Mein Laaddoo Deewana, Blue Mountain, Mirza Juuliet and Mukti Bhawan are also ran.

  • Begum Jaan…..A rebel without a cause!

    MUMBAI: The last memorable film on a brothel and prostitutes was Shyam Benegal’s Mandi. The theme was that wherever there are people, a brothel is bound to spring up and, otherwise, wherever a brothel comes up, a town is bound to come up.

    Begum Jaan is the remake of the Bengali language film, Rajkahini (2015). The closeness one can find between the two is about the women in the oldest profession fighting for survival.

    Actually, if one were to make a comparison as the women in the brothel, led by its
    founder, the character of Vidya Balan, resolve to stand their ground and fight out the battle of survival, it is with Ketan Mehta’s all-time classic, Mirch Masala, though it was not about prostitution. It was about saving a woman’s honour and, hence, the cause was justified.

    Begum Jaan is based around time when India was partitioned — India and Pakistan.

    Vidya Balan, a child widow, is disowned by her in-laws. Going through exploitation and hurdles, she ends up in prostitution. Being a strong-willed woman, she would do even that on her own terms. Her clientele includes big shots, influential people, even a king and some white men and officers who seek favours gratis. Ergo, Vidya wields great influence.

    Vidya has 11 women in her brothel, one old lady, Ila Arun, and a pre-teen girl, Gracy Goswami, a love child of one of her ‘girls’, Gauhar Khan. Vidya’s vast brothel, spread across a few acres, serves as a sort of shelter for women in distress who, eventually, join her trade. Socially ostracised, the brothels made their place away from towns.

    The girls live in bonhomie, they come from across India: Gujarat, Haryana, Punjab et al (how women from all over reached there in those days of great distances and limited transportation facilities is not answered). Maybe the idea is to make the brothel a representative of India: Unity in diversity!

    The place also has a Pathan sentry, played by Sumit Nijhawan, accompanied by his two ferocious looking dogs, all three totally loyal to Vidya.

    The going is good for Vidya and her girls till the powers that be decide to divide India into two countries, India and Pakistan. Here the film takes inspiration from various Partition stories written by the legendary writers, the likes of Saadat Hasan Manto. These are stories of unsuspecting bystanders, the kinds who unwittingly fell prey to the partition lines drawn by — Sir Cyril Radcliffe, the man in charge of The Border Commission, to divide the country.

    This is when the trouble starts for Vidya and her brothel. Her brothel falls right on the dividing line and to create the border and to separate two nations, it has to make way. Its very existence is in danger.

    The two men deputed to oversee the implementing of the division and build a barbed wire fence are the characters of Ashish Vidyarthi, a Hindu, representing India, and Rajit Kapoor, a Muslim, on behalf of the newly-formed Pakistan. That both are childhood friends but on different sides, is meant to add to the anxiety. Sadly, after creating a sort of ‘partition’ between both of them, their equation has been put on the back burner, except to show at the end that, both remain humane with their feelings intact to a wrongdoing.

    Both, Ashish and Rajit are at their wits’ end trying to make Vidya vacate her brothel when they approach a goon, played by Chunky Pandey and, as it is known in today’s world, give Vidya’s supari (a contract to get her out by any means).

    The film, which had started deteriorating gradually before interval, drops to its lowest hereafter. The very idea of introducing Chunky, his getup, his manners, take the film down. Towards the end, it swings between morbid and macabre.

    The scripting tries to incorporate too many angles. The main ones being a brothel at peril, two friends, now belonging to opposite sides, trying to fulfil a task entrusted to them, and the disaster they create when they involve a third party. But, the writers cram in many other side stories; that of a young girl child born at the brothel, a lusty teacher and his treachery, a love story between a pimp and a prostitute and so on.

    The idea may be to show the human side of those concerned, good or bad. The narration strays too often with the extra tracks and the pace drops.

    The direction is not really up to the mark. The idea of creating little India in the brothel is bad; as the women in the brothel converse in their native languages, be is Punjabi or Gujarati, none gets the language right, they make a mess of it. That after the film propagates all through that prostitution has no religion or regional identity! The women shooting randomly at the enemies! What are they shooting at, the brothel courtyard walls? Music is not as it should be for a kotha/brothel setup. Most such film in the past have set high standards. Cinematography is of standard. Dialogue is good though oft heard before. Editing, as in all such films where the director loves all that he has shot, is weak. A lot could be trimmed.

    Performances by all concerned are excellent starting with Vidya Balan leading the band. Other women are good but those who stand out are — Gauhar Khan, Pallavi Sharda, Indrani Chakraborty and Gracy Goswami. Ashish Vidyarthi and Rajit Kapoor are okay.

    Pitobash Tripathy impresses. Naseeruddin Shah has no scope. Chunky Pandey is pathetic. Rajesh Sharma is good as usual. Sumit Nijhawan makes a mark but Vivek Mushran is passable.

    Begum Jaan is a purposeless film. Having opened poorly despite a national holiday today, its prospects for improvement are suspect.

    Producers: Mahesh Bhatt, Mukesh Bhatt.

    Director: Srijit Mukherji.

    Cast: Vidya Balan, Ila Arun, Gauahar Khan, Pallavi Sharda, Priyanka Setia, Ridheema Tiwary, Flora Saini, Raviza Chauhan, Poonam Rajput,Indrani Chakraborty, Gracy Goswami, Pitobash Tripathy, Sumit Nijhawan, Ashish Vidyarthi, Chunky Pandey, Rajit Kapoor, Vivek Mushran, Rajesh Sharma, Naseeruddin Shah.