Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Anahaat (Eternity)-Marathi -2003
Anahaat is a simple story told in a stage play style. Excellent cinematography, the beautiful sonali bendre,well decorated hampi ruins and rich costumes all add up to give a visually pleasing movie.Amol should be appreciated for bringing such richness & grandeur with minimal characters and budget. But the beautiful sonali's presence is balanced by the old Anant nag and deepthi naval who's age shows even after heavy makeup.
----story-----------
Anahaat tells the story of malla raja(Ananth Nag), who has gone impotent. The senate asks the Queen Sheelavathi(Sonali Bendre) to go through an ancient custom called niyog.Where she is supposed to select a male of her choice and spend the night "from sunset to sunrise" with him, to produce a heir. The queen is not consulted on this. The senate insists that she follow the age old custom and the king is bound by his duty.what happens to the queen is the rest of the story.
-----------------
The story of the movie is based on Surendra Verma's play "Surya Kee Antim Kiran Se Surya Kee Pehli Kiran Tak"(From the last to the first ray of sun), which Palekar had translated into Marathi and directed in 1972.
The story of Anaahat revolves around three characters, apart from the king and queen there is Mahattarika(Depthi Naval) who is the cheif maid and a childhood friend of the king.As she is close to both the king and queen, through her we come to know the turmoil both of them go through because of the niyog.
Apart from a close study of characters, the story is also about giving choice to women and separating sex from love.This is a very bold movie and again amol palekhar should be appreciated for bringing out these kind of movies.
Cast and credits:
Sonali Bendre .... Queen Sheelavati
Anant Nag .... The King of Shravasti
Deepti Naval .... Mahattarika
Art Direction:
Nitin Desai is the art designer and he has done a lot of research to bring the richness to the movie.The movie shows the indian way of keeping track of time. They use something called ghatti-ka-patr where a vessel is placed in water and time is calculated by units of the time taken for the vessel to fully submerge into water.
The jewels used in the movie are supposedly authentic gold.
Music:
The movie has very good music.Most of the singing that happens in the movie are supposedly dhrupad.
Trivia:
The film was shot in 18 days in Hampi, a world heritage site near Hosbet, Karnataka. Palekar required special permission from the Archaeological Survey of India to shoot deep within the ruins of the Vijaynagar empire and also after sunset.
Amol Palekar
Awards:
Anaahat (Eternity) received the Best Artistic Direction Award at the World Film Festival in Bangkok.
Links:
Anahaat home page
Friday, November 25, 2005
Diksha(initiation)-1991
Diksha is based on Jnanapith Dr.U.R.Anantha murthy's story "Ghattashraddha".Like his famous novel samskara, this story also takes a critical look into the upper caste brahmin community in southern karnataka.Similiarly this story like samsakara center's around an acharya, who is made to decide on the supposed sin committed by his daughter.The time period of the story is 1930's.
----------------------story-------
Narayan bhatt alias nanni is made to go through the diksha(initiation)at a teacher,acharya udupa(Manohar singh)'s place in a distant village.The master has a widow daughter(Rajshree Sawant), who falls in love with a school teacher.The consequence causes a stir among the conservative community. The acharya's attitude towards that issue makes srikar(K.k.raina) someone who had his diksha through the acharya, and koga(Nana Patekar) a low caste servant who has high regards for brahminhood change their mind.
-------------------------------
It is a tought task to bring the writings of Dr.Anantha murthy to screen.As his stories are multi layered and filled with allegories. Diksha has done its best.But given a choice it is better to read the book.The movie's straight forward narration with sometime exaggerated acting makes this an ordinary movie where Dr murthy's various perspectives are lost.
Ghata Shradhha as a book also seems to have some of the samskara's way of approaching the story , the question of what is the right and wrong way to live for a brahmin.Like samskara here also the learned acharya is questioned.In diksha the acharya, the most learned of all is challenged by two people.The well learned srikar and the uneducated koga.He falls in both their eyes.Koga says "I was able to save your daughter from forest,snakes and wild animals but was not able to save from Brahmins" and questions his core when he asks what is the purpose of being a perfect brahmin when he had failed to be a good father.
For a teacher "Diksha is a unique and rare process of making the life of a disciple more pure, more enlightened and more successful".Also diksha is considered as the second birth of a brahmin.His physical birth being the first and his initiation(mental birth) being the second.
Like samskara, you can feel the multiple meaning of the title diksha at the end.The acharya punishes his daughter in the most cruelest form and falls before the eyes of srikar and koga who take a positive step of stopping to support the wrong customs and initiating themselves to live life in a progressive way.In a way these two undergo a diksha.The low caste koga recites the slogas better than the acharya's students,meaning that reciting slogas is nothign but a thing of practice and its not something that only a brahmin can do.There are more things like this to analyze in the movie as this is from a book by Dr.UR.Anantha murthy.
Cast & Credits:
Manohar singh
THe movie is well supported by some great artists like manohar singh, srikar(k.k.raina), manjunath(Vijay Kashyap),koga(Nana Patekar).One thing i didn't like was Nana patekar's supposedly south indian accent.
The movie has a good cast.Manohar singh,Nana patekar,vijay kashyap and K.K raiana all have done a good job.Nana patekhar as koga talks in the supposedly south indian accent.I dont understand why even art movie director's also use the mehmood accent as the default south indian accent.
Vijay kashyap and K.K.Raina
Music is by mohinderjit singh.He has also done a good job with the background scores.
Arun Kaul
Arun kaul with mrinal sen during the mrigaya shooting.
The movie is Directed by Arun Kaul.who was the screenplay assistant for gulzar in movies like Ijazat, Lekin etc.
Awards:
37th film fare award 1991
Critics' Awards for Best Film Diksha (Arun Kaul)
BEST HINDI FILM, NATIONAL AWARD, 1991: Rajat Kamal (Silver Medals) for both the Director and Producers.
Trivia:
The same story was already made into a movie by Girish Kasaravalli.Yes, his first movie Ghatashraddha ,which got him the first national award for best film in 1977 is based on the same story.
Links:
manohar singh
Arun Kaul
Wednesday, November 23, 2005
Ankush
This is a serious movie which starts out well but ends badly. It's a rough and engaging movie that depicts the violence on the streets in its crude and ugly form.The story is about a group of unemployed young guys who went bad because of the society and in comes a girl who changes them all and she is followed by the villain who makes them bad again. An usual story, with some realistic acting performance, especially that of the always angry hero nana patekhar. But the fact was that this story was made in 1986 and was kind of unusual for that time period i guess. The realistic and pacey direction by N.chandra sets the movie apart. But he seems to have been in a rush to complete the movie as the movie rushes to an usual climax.
Nana Patekar .... Ravindra Kelkar 'Ravi'
Rabia Amin .... Manda
Ashalata .... Anita's mom
Raja Bundela .... Saxena
Arjun Chakraborty .... Arjun
Madan Jain .... Shashi
Nisha singh .... Anita
Mahavir Shah .... Gupta
The credit of the movie has the name of arjun chakraborthy and madan jain before nana patekhar.
Music
kuldeep singh
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Siddhartha -1972- English
Siddhartha is based on Herman Hesse's famous novel of the same name. The story is the quest of a young Brahmin boy siddhartha who wants to break away from the routine life that he leads and see the outside world. What follows in one man’s quest to know the ultimate answer. Siddhartha's spiritual journey to attain ever lasting peace transforms himself into a saint, carnal pleasure seeker, material wealth seeker and then ultimately to a simple boatman. As a boatman at last he finds his answers and finds peace with himself.
The movie is an exotic indian spirituality story cooked up for the western audience of the early 70's.The character i guess was made to be identifiable with the hippies of the 60's and 70's.The movie is very visual.There are very few dialogues and the story is mostly told in visuals with big time jumps. Guess most of herman hesse’s philosophical thoughts and story narration was sacrificed for the visual narration.
For an indian viewer there isn't much exotic stuff in here. It is just a rehashing of hindu philosophies.
Cast and Credits:
Shashi Kapoor .... Siddhartha
Simi Garewal .... Kamala
Romesh Sharma .... Govinda
Pinchoo Kapoor .... Kamaswami (as Pincho Kapoor)
Zul Vellani .... Vasudeva
Amrik Singh .... Siddhartha's father
Kunal Kapoor .... Hassan, Siddhartha's son
Shanti Hiranand .... Siddhartha's mother
There are a few nude shots of semi garewal and some kissing scenes in the movie.Semi garewal gets the distinction of being first by any indian actress to do them.
The movie is brilliantly photographed by the swedish photographer Sven Nukvist, who has photographed many of Ingmar Bergman movies.The photography might not look that different from the photography of current films. But the fact is this movie was shot in 1972.
Direction by conrad rooks
Music:
Music is by hemant kumar.The music again seemed to have been made to target the hippies. BGM's include various chants and bengali songs.
Monday, November 21, 2005
Haazar chaurasi ki Maa(Mother of 1084) -1998
Probably the most sentimental and sensitive of all nihalani movies,this is a gem of a movie.Nihalani who mostly deals with strong male characters this time deals with an old mother.The protagonist sujatha chaterji is not a feminist who wants to fight against the society but an ordinary working woman, who lived in her own small world and never thought anything outside it.Nihalani this time targets the women folk like sujatha to think beyond there homes and have social responsibility. Inspired from Jnanpith award winner maheshwatha devi's story, the main character Sujata Chatterji is such an intresting one that it made jaya bachan come out of her acting career's, 19 year break to do this movie.
----story----
The movie is the story of sujata chatterji coming to terms with her death of her son brathi chatterji. Brathi is one of those "Best and the brightest of bengal" as told by siddharth in Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.A brilliant student who gets involved in naxal activities and dies.Sujatha a mother who was totally unaware of her son's naxal links is taken back by it and she feels bad that she didn't know anything about what was going on in her son's mind. The rest of the movie is her efforts to understand her son and understand herself.
----------
Sujatha chatterji is called to identify a body.she identifies her son amongst the lined up bodies.
She ask the police officer saroj pal(Milind gunaji) "Can i take my son back?".
for that he replies, "No we wont give the BODY to you".
Brathi chatterji has simply become dead body number 1084.
The body is cremated by the police.Except for sujatha and her daughter in law nobody is there,all the other family members are more involved in distancing themselves from brathi.Why are they distancing themselves??.why is the police not giving the body to his family members??. what is happening??.so many questions pop up in our mind.We are clueless on what exactly is happening, which exactly reflects the mind of the main protagonist sujatha chatterji.
Jaya Bachan
Govind nihalani again does his style of the protagonist fighting at different levels, a mental struggle with herself in the inside world and the struggle against the outside world.Lot of people accuse sujatha.They say that she didn't take care of her son properly, that's why he ended up in bad ways. The doubts gets to her also. Did she make a mistake in his upbringing??. Why didn't she know what was going in her son's mind.what she wrong?? that becomes her internal struggle, outside she has to cope with her husband who cheats on her and the other selfish family members who don’t care about brathi.
The movie then follows sujatha who pieces together various information’s regarding brathi to know him completely. She reads his books, visits his friends house etc. Brathi's involvement in naxal activities surprises her.For her he was that same little boy who, she had to personally take care.She tells herself that a mother stops to understand her son after a while. She carries on with the same idea that her son is still the same person who she used to know. But in reality she is not aware of the fact that the little boy who was not thinking for himself, has grown into an independent intellectual man. This realization leads her to look at him as an individual, rather than as her son and with that her admiration for her son brathi grows stronger.
A little knowledge of the naxal raising and students participation in calcutta in the late 60's and early 70's would be helpful in understanding the movie better.Check out my post on this for Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi.
Seema Biswas
Every character in the movie is beautifully done. Seema biswas is mother of somu another young guy who gets killed with brathi. Somu's mother is from a poor family and she cries for her son and feels bad about the whole incident and she forgets it and movies on.But her life remains the same, nothing changes. Whereas sujatha on the other hand does not cry out, she keeps those emotions to herself. She takes it all in and goes deeper into them and channelize them into positive action, which gives a purpose to her life.
yashpal sharma,Sandeep Kulkarni,Riju Bajaj,Joy Sengupta
This is probably the only movie that tries to make the audience sympathize with he naxalites, it gives an up close look at their lives and those who were closer to them. It gives various views of how their families suffered because of them and how their families never understood them. Here are these brilliant students who talk about MAO , Lin PAO line of total annihilation of the classs and read Vladimir MAYAKOVSKY etc, on the other hand there are family members who are either illiterate or completely unaware of any of the ideologies or dont have any wish to change the prevailing system or fighting against it.In their eyes like many other people they simply become murderers. They are not given the recognition that they fought for some purpose.And even after their death, their family members get treated badly because they were related ot the naxals.
Nandhitha Das
The movie starts with the citizen kane style narration, off a dead body with the story slowly revealing itself.The last day of brathi is played out in various scenes by different characters. Nihalani makes us work to tie these different scenes to make sense out of it.
The movie also uses the appendicitis of jaya bachan as a metaphor. Sujatha relates between the political situation that her son fought on the outside world to her own personal situation in the small world of her home.The tyranny and isolation that she faces in the house comes to an end with the breaking of her appendicitis, symbolically meaning breaking of her old world which started and ended in her family.Now after the appendicitis burst she is newly born into a broader world where the society is also part of her family, where she has social responsibilities also to take care.
One of the important thing that lot of people didn't like about the movie was the way it portrait the naxals, as saviors and people who wanted to bring revolution in a romantic way and that the violence that they committed were glossed out.Nihalani accepts those charges but says that, it is exactly what he wanted to bring out.The question of whether what the students did was right or not, so that people can discuss upon it.
Maheshwatha devi, Jaya bachan, govind nihalani, nadhitha das
Cast and credits:
Jaya Bhaduri .... Sujata Chatterji
Anupam Kher .... Dibyanath Chatterji (Brati's father)
Seema Biswas .... Somu's mother
Milind Gunaji .... Saroj Pal, Police officer
Joy Sengupta .... Brati Chatterjee
Nandita Das .... Nandini Mitra
Yashpal Sharma .... Laltu (Brati's comrade)
Milind Gunaji
This is the movie where you will see the credits say "Introducing" Nandhitha Das.Another new face in the movie was joy sen gupta who acted as brathi. Jaya bachan and anupam kher where great in the movie. Milind gunaji was also good. The way jaya eagerly listens about the fatal day from seema biswas was just beautiful.
Music is by Debajyoti mishra.
Anupam Shyam
Not sure who this other guys is, he comes as the RPG launcher kishan in drooh kaal
Trivia:
The original Maheshwatha devi's story ends with the breaking of the appendicitis of the sujatha character but nihalani has added so much to the story to give the beautiful climax of this movie.
Monday, November 14, 2005
Droh kaal(Times of Betrayal) -1994
Droh kaal is another great movie from nihalani. Another intense movie, which could have become a masala loaded commercial movie in the hands of a regular commercial film director, for it had all the components for a commercial movie. But Nihalani as usual stayed away from the commercial components and took his audience up-close into the mind of a police officer, Abhay singh.
------story-----
Police officers DCP Abhay singh(Om Puri) and DCP Abbas Lodhi(Nasrudeen shah) are friends. Abhay singh comes to know about Abbas lodhi's secret operation called danush. Danush an operation which aims to infiltrate the naxal gangs to gain more information goes well,till one of the secret agent is caught. The naxal gang who desperately what to know about the other members of operation danush, terrorize abhay singh and his family.whether abhay singh gives in or not is the story.
------------
The movie starts with the scene of Abhay singh's dream of suffocation/torture. An afraid abhay singh wakes up from the dream.That fear is the key to the movie.The whole movie is built on fear.Except for abass, most of the other characters are afraid of something or the other and they all become betrayers.Ironically the hero's name is abhay(Fearless).
Aashish vidhyarthi
A violent and anti people state not only perpetuates violence. It also generates counter violence.
The movie moves like a chess game with police and the naxals on opposing sides.Wins and loses are there on both sides.One thing that is common between the opposing sides is the betrayal of there trusted people.To an extent family is also a common vulnerable point for both sides. Whether it is the RPG launcher guy kishen or abhay singh they both start thinking about betrayal when it comes to their family.
Kitu gidwani
This is one of those very few movies that shows naxals as ideology driven peoples, rather than blind violence perpetuators.On the other side it shows the price the men in uniform have to pay for dealing with them.The line between a police and naxal, blurs a bit when some police personal turn traitors and some police spies who infiltrated the naxal gangs, almost become insurgents by killing innocent people to get into the good side of the naxal leaders.The viscious circle of betrayal and violence continues on both sides.
The movie like many govind nihalani movie has violence. But you hardly get to see the blood and gory mutilated bodies. The violence is more mental, both the sides believe in breaking down a man mentally through fear and physically through tortures.Fear becomes and important weapon for both the sides and if anyone is caught his limit to bear pain is tested and test is concluded only when he hits the breaking point.
When the movie ends, it leaves us with a great respect for the men who fight insurgents in our country.
Illa arun and saddiya siddiqui
Cast and Credit:
Om Puri .... DCP Abhay Singh
Naseeruddin Shah .... DCP Abbas Lodhi
Mita Vasisht .... Sumitra Singh
Annu Kapoor .... Surinder
Ashish Vidyarthi .... Commander Bhadra
Amrish Puri .... IGP Pathak
Milind Gunaji .... Shiv
Manoj Bajpai .... Anand
Vinit Kumar (as Vineet Kumar)
Ila Arun .... Zeenat
Kaushalya Gidwani .... kishen's wife
Saddiya Siddiqui .... Gulshan
Rajiv Dhingra (as Master Rajiv Dhingra)
Achyut Potdar
Shri Vallabh Vyas
Manoj BajPai & Milind Gunaji
Manoj bajpai and Milind Gunaji are the two undercover agents sent to infiltrate the naxal group.One of the earlier movies for both the stars, manoj bajpai hardly comes in 2 scenes.
All around good performance by everybody.Especially Ashish vidhyarthi, who stole the show with his sterling performance.
If you are wondering who is costume designer behind the filmi style commondo dress that ashish vidhyarthu wears in the movie.It is Pia Benegal daughter of shyam benegal.She is also the assistant director for the movie.
story,script,direction and photography and produced by govind nihlani
Music:
Actually A.R.Rehman was supposed to be the music director for Droh Kaal.He even composed music for it.But was Rahman was forced to opt out of 'Droh-kaal' when he lost all his compositions for the movie owing to a computer system crash.I guess it was good fortune he didn't go the background scored for Droh Kaal cause he sucked big time with bgm's during that time period.
Vanraj Bhatia
vanraj bhatia did the background scores and he has done a good job.
Awards:
Ashish Vidyarthi won the national award for the Best Supporting Actor award.The performance that was aptly cited as "bringing credibility to his role with
strength and total conviction".
Links
manojbajpai site
Pia Benegal
Thursday, November 10, 2005
Party -1984
If you ask me what is the story of party?. Then i have to say 10 small stories and still i wouldn't have told the story.Party is just a look at the minds of upper strata people, more specifically at the people who are involved in arts through a party.
A party is thrown to congratulate writer Divkar Barve(Manohar singh) for receiving the Government of India literary award.The story takes that as the base to look into various artist's personal and public life.
The movie is based on Mahesh Elkunchwar marathi drama 'Party'.Govind nihalani who usually presents two or three characters up close in his movies, this time presents a whole gamut of characters. When you watch a movie with so many characters, you tend to forget many of them as soon as the movie is over.But in party the screenplay is so well written that it is successful in making us remember most of them.The main reason being the fact that every character is unique and colorful, with its own worries and moral stand.
Akash Khurana & illa arun
The movie starts with various characters preparing for the party.Those scenes are also used to give a peek into the personal lives of those people who are going to attend the party. When the party starts and we get to see more peoples and the rest of the movie is just the party shot entirely in that house.No location change, no big action/romance sequence, it is just dialogues from then on.But even though it is all dialogues, the screenplay is as usual engaging in the nihalani style.Every small bit of scene, dialogue adding to the wholeness of the movie.
The characters are intellectuals who discuss so many things, in those small party conversations, various important questions are discussed. one of the important question being that the moral stand taken by an artist and an individual should be the same.simply preaching and practicing. In the discussion the avinash (Om puri) says.
Use the media as a weapon.If the artist is not politically committed his art is not releavent.
Again when people argue the importance of art as an entertainment and recreation, the doctor(Amrish puri) replies that
if an art form fails to reach the state of an epic. If it fails to show a new path. what use it is??
kk raina & soni razdan
As usual as the movie progress you get to know more about every character, on the surface they all look as people with social responsibilities who are very happy.But we come to know later that they are not so.Every character seems to have its need or it is in search of something. Vrindha the marxist is worried about getting married at her age. Rohini on not being loved, bharath on not being recognized etc.
Amrit is one character who you are made to admire, eventhough he does not come into the movie till the end.The whole characterisation of amrit is just built on the views expressed by different people in the party.
The movie comes to a nice climax,the party ends, exposing the shallow and hypocratic people.
Nihalani uses this same idea of Party as a stage to expose the hypocritical people in his other movie 'hazar chaurasi ki maa' and also this same theme was used in the movie page3.
Mahesh Elkunchwar
Mahesh Elkunchwar who acted in aakrosh has written the movie.You can even look at this movie as an extension of aakrosh as if (Bhaskar Kulkarni)nasrudeen shah the hero of aakrosh changed his mind regarding his fight for the tribals and became amrit of party who left everything to work for the tribals. Like aakrosh party also points at us for just talking and not taking any action against the injustice caused to the tribals.
Cast and credits
Party is one of those movies like trikal, mandi where u can see a whole array of indian alternate movie actor and actresses.
Vijaya mehta
Manohar Singh .... Divkar Barve
Deepa Sahi .... Sona Rane
Rohini Hattangadi .... Mohini Barve
Shafi Inamdar .... Ravi
Vijay Kashyap .... Guest
Akash Khurana .... Agashe
Vijaya Mehta .... Damyanti Rane
Pearl Padamsee .... Ruth
Amrish Puri .... Doctor
Om Puri .... Avinash
K.K. Raina .... Bharat
Soni Razdan .... Malvika (Vicky)
Mohan Bhandari .... Naren (Vicky's husband)
Naseeruddin Shah .... Amrit
Ila Arun .... Herself
Achyut Potdar .... Himself
Jayant Kripalani
Benjamin Gillani
All round good acting. Especially mahendra kapoor,Vijaya Mehta and rohini hattangadi. Rohini was just awesome in the movie.
Rohini Hattangadi
There are a few characters who come for a a few frames like Achyut Potdar who doesn't even get one close up shot. He is shown at the start of the party when barve arrives to the party.
Madan jain comes for a scene in the play in which shafi inamdhar is acting
Ravi jhankhal is one of the guy in the party.
Trivia:
#)The characters talk about various authors from Naipaul,salman rushdie,zeney and Federico García Lorca(govind later made his movie rukmavathi ki havelli based on his play) etc.
pearl padamse & vijay kashyap
#)Naipaul's names comes couple of times. Ruth when asked about naipaul's style comments that he is bitter. Amrish puri the doctor waiting in the reading room reads Naipaul's "The bend in the river".
Monday, November 07, 2005
Shades of Govind Nihalani
In aakrosh as soon as the movie starts you see the scenes of lakhania close-ups after burning his wife. All dark just a close up of him, then his father and the rest, a minimal music in the background. Everything is minimal in that scene but the impact is deep. Without speaking a word you are already made to feel the tension and become curious about that character.That says his success as a cinemetographer.
OM puri in aakrosh
Nana Palsikar in aakrosh
Nihalani's words
Sometimes i wish it is all night in nihalani movies. For the night brings the uncertainty, the lurking danger. It frightens the character that is already threatened, pushing the already confused mind into dark. And that is when the master plays on his characters, intensifying the scenes with emotions in close-ups of partially lit faces.
Amrish puri in Aakrosh
Nihalani is a cinematographer of his own style, unlike other cinematographers who indulge in capturing the natural beauty of mountains, rivers and greenery, nihalai indulges in capturing the human expressions. And capture it in a way you won’t forget.
Om puri in ardh satya
He brilliantly uses lighting in his movies to add so much to the scenes. The scene becomes highly intense and the visuals gets etched into your mind.Overall the scene is enhanced many folds because of the way the objects in the frame are lit.
Jaya bachan in Haazar chaurasi ki Maa
A light source is kept at a distance, in a dark room. That light brings out the thoughts of the character, the character is in touch with itself, a moment of consciousness at work, captured in celluloid.
Om puri in ardh satya
A light source and a half lit face, a trademark nihalani shot comes in so many movies.But it never bores me.It doesn't matter whether it is the beautiful smita patil or the old Nana Palsikar.The shot of smita in partial light is one of my favourite.Her dusky beauty enhanced many folds by the light.
Smita in aakrosh
Kunal Kapoor in Vijeta
Jaya bachan in Hazar chaurasi ki Maa
Nihalani loves the lamps that would be an understatement. All his movies will have various scenes played near light source. This kind of lighting and characters placement around it i think is to make the user more focused on the character and its expression that the usual distraction that happens when so many objects are in the frame. Another way of bringing to the color films the undistracted attention that the audiences give to the characters in a black and white movie.
Nanditha das in Hazar chaurasi ki Maa
smita in ardh sathya
Mita vashisht and om puri in droh kaal
rekha and sashi in vijeta
Aashish vidhyarthi in drooh kaal
Aashish vidhyarthi and om puri in droh kaal
Aashish vidhyarthi and om puri in droh kaal
Mita vashisht and om puri in droh kaal
Amrish puri in ardh sathya
Ompuri in tamas
Aakrosh
OM puri in aakrosh
Nana Palsikar in aakrosh
Nihalani's words
The first and the most essential thing to study is the lighting because it is the lighting which gives a different kind of feel to the film. Every cameraman has a preference for a certain kind of lighting for eg I have a little liking for half lit faces. Composition is another important factor.
Sometimes i wish it is all night in nihalani movies. For the night brings the uncertainty, the lurking danger. It frightens the character that is already threatened, pushing the already confused mind into dark. And that is when the master plays on his characters, intensifying the scenes with emotions in close-ups of partially lit faces.
Amrish puri in Aakrosh
Nihalani is a cinematographer of his own style, unlike other cinematographers who indulge in capturing the natural beauty of mountains, rivers and greenery, nihalai indulges in capturing the human expressions. And capture it in a way you won’t forget.
Om puri in ardh satya
He brilliantly uses lighting in his movies to add so much to the scenes. The scene becomes highly intense and the visuals gets etched into your mind.Overall the scene is enhanced many folds because of the way the objects in the frame are lit.
Jaya bachan in Haazar chaurasi ki Maa
A light source is kept at a distance, in a dark room. That light brings out the thoughts of the character, the character is in touch with itself, a moment of consciousness at work, captured in celluloid.
Om puri in ardh satya
A light source and a half lit face, a trademark nihalani shot comes in so many movies.But it never bores me.It doesn't matter whether it is the beautiful smita patil or the old Nana Palsikar.The shot of smita in partial light is one of my favourite.Her dusky beauty enhanced many folds by the light.
Smita in aakrosh
Kunal Kapoor in Vijeta
Jaya bachan in Hazar chaurasi ki Maa
Nihalani loves the lamps that would be an understatement. All his movies will have various scenes played near light source. This kind of lighting and characters placement around it i think is to make the user more focused on the character and its expression that the usual distraction that happens when so many objects are in the frame. Another way of bringing to the color films the undistracted attention that the audiences give to the characters in a black and white movie.
Nanditha das in Hazar chaurasi ki Maa
smita in ardh sathya
Mita vashisht and om puri in droh kaal
rekha and sashi in vijeta
Aashish vidhyarthi in drooh kaal
Aashish vidhyarthi and om puri in droh kaal
Aashish vidhyarthi and om puri in droh kaal
Mita vashisht and om puri in droh kaal
Amrish puri in ardh sathya
Ompuri in tamas
Aakrosh