Monday, January 21, 2013

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)
Barfi! (2012)
Genre: Comedy
Director: Anurag Basu
Starring: Ranbir Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ileana D'Cruz, Saurabh Shukla
Language: Hindi
Duration: 150 min.
Rating: 6.5
Summary:
Quirky romantic tale centered on a deaf mute man from Darjeeling.
Barfi! is a film written and directed by Anurag Basu with dialogue by Sanjeev Duta. It was India's official submission to the 2013 Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. It also recently won 7 awards including Best Film at the 58th Filmfare Awards, Bollywood's equivalent to the Oscars.

It's a farcical romantic comedy that borrows very heavily from its influences. Including many straight copies of scenes from classic Hollywood silents starring Chaplin or Keaton, as well as a visual style unmistakably made to resemble Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Amélie, and several other not so subtle homages to various recognizable popular films.

The story is set mainly in the 1970s and follows the title character Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor), a deaf-mute who goes through a series of misadventures and romantic involvement with two women: Shruti (Ileana D'Cruz), a beautiful newcomer from Calcutta who's betrothed to another, and Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra), an autistic girl from a wealthy local family.

Despite the lack of originality, the film does feature some excellent performances from the three leads. Kapoor handles both the energetic slapstick physical comedy and the heartfelt emotional sequences very well, D'Cruz is radiant and shares some fine chemistry with him, and Chopra impresses in a challenging role you wouldn't expect to see from a former Miss Universe World.

The soundtrack and score by composer Pritam Chakraborty is also pleasant, even if it's essentially a reworking of Yann Tiersen's soundtrack for Amélie, it's used to strong effect, often whimsically performed on-screen by three musicians who appear in the background or conspicuously off to the side to signal important shifts in the narrative.

Overall it's an entertaining piece which copies but does not quite capture the magic of the films its fashioned after. The length and repetitiveness in some parts also makes it a tough sell for mainstream international audiences. No surprise that this one didn't make the cut.
Bonjour Tristesse
Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

Barfi! (2012)

20 comments:

Murtaza Ali said...

Well... I am sick and tired of reading reviews that shower heaps of praise on Barfi! In comparison to those reviews I find your to be quite just and reasonable. Being an Indian I can tell you that masses here haven't got a very good taste for cinema, primarily because they are not exposed to quality cinema. They are so accustomed to below-average cinema that whenever something mediocre comes up it's treated with great admiration. If you talk to an average India he will have no troubles in calling Barfi! avant garde cinema. Sadly, this is not limited to the masses even the so called intellectuals sitting in the higher authorities (ministries, censor boards, etc) are prone to this syndrome. That's precisely why they chose Barfi! for the Oscars over more deserving films like Paan Singh Tomar and Gangs of Wasseypur. And then there were far films like S.S. Rajamouli's Eega from Southern Indian Cinema which were not even considered. And then they say that the Academy (and other international forums) doesn't give Indian Cinema the due respect that it deserves...

Mettel Ray said...

Don't know if I'd watch it but the last image makes me curious. Dancing in the leaves?

SDG said...

I agree with pretty much everything you said. I loved all the three leads and their performances and there were few moments that captured the heart but otherwise,all the copied gigs really turned me off.

SDG said...

Cool Down Murtaza. :D

Murtaza Ali said...

Don't worry Shantanu.... I am as cool as a cucumber!!! :-)

Murtaza Ali said...

Well... what's your take on Priyanka's portrayal which made autism appear like dementia? Phew... I just can't help but envy Anurag Basu's attention for detail!!! :-P

Lisa Thatcher said...

I would be furious about this just as Murtaza is below if I were from India. Personally I think Jeunet owes the world for what happened to us all after Amalie - those horrible Juno-esque films and their terrible writers. Its a sad thing to see India playing copy-cat.

However, its a great review - thanks BT. I liked being warned off just as much as I like to be encouraged.

d_4 said...

This sounds alright. I won't look for it, but maybe if I get the chance to rent it or if it comes on on some odd foreign films channel I'll watch it. I'd rather seek out to re-watch Amélie

Mette said...

I was really, really disappointed by Barfi - for the same reasons as Murtaza. Indian cinema produces such great films at times, but the ones gaining recognition in the country itself are often surprisingly low-brow. Not that I want snobby arthaus films to rule the theatres over there. But when a film like Gangs of Wasseypur is such a success at Cannes and other festivals, why don't Indian authorities understand that this is what works outside India? If the audience itself wants to see movies like Barfi, well that's another problem, but the image that most people here have of Indian cinema is not going to change until Indian cinema starts presenting itself in another way. Be proud of your movies - the good ones I mean!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Haha, thanks Lisa. I wonder if there has been a more influential film in recent history than that one.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Being a human I can tell you that the masses anywhere haven't got very good taste in anything :)


Sounds like I should try to watch Gangs of Wasseypur ASAP. I'll also add the others to my list. Thanks for the recommendations Murtaza.

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Glad you agree. What was your favorite Indian film from the past year?

Bonjour Tristesse said...

That's the second mention of Gangs of Wasseypur in the comments here. I really need to check that one out.

Which other recent ones would you recommend Mette?

SDG said...

That would be English Vinglish. If you can, try Kahaani or Shanghai as well. Would love to see your take on them.

Murtaza Ali said...

I agree with you on English Vinglish and Kahaani but Shanghai despite being good was a scene-by-scene rip-off of Costa-Gavras' 1969 political thriller Z.

Mette said...

I haven't seen many of the new films, but Chakravyuh is pretty good too. And I heard that English Vinglish is definitely worth a watch.

Murtaza Ali said...

Well... I agree with you about Chakravyuh. Despite some blatant flaws it's a great movie to get acquainted with the Indian Naxalite crisis which has been ongoing for the last so many decades. The movie screened at the London Film Festival and received a lot of flak due to its overall commercial tone. But, it's definitely worth a watch. Jha has once again drawn some interesting parallels with the great Indian Epic, Mahabharata... the movie has also been reviewed on my blog.

Murtaza Ali said...

It's always a pleasure, Bonjour! Actually Gangs of Wassepur is almost 5 hours in length and so it was commercially released in two parts of 2.5 hrs each. Another Hindi film that has impressed me a lot in recent years has been Anurag Kashyap's Gulaal (2009)... but a Hindi-speaking viewer is ought is enjoy it more than a non-native viewer. The same can be said of Gangs of Wasseypur, but to a lesser extent.

Mac Turija said...

Just a small itty bitty comment (hoping no one has pointed it out already) but Priyanka was Ms. World, not Ms. Universe. Ms. Universe 2000 was also Indian though, Lara Dutta. Otherwise, I thought Barfi was beautifully photographed. And yes, as Mette and others have pointed out, Gangs of Wasseypur was the bomb!

Bonjour Tristesse said...

Corrected, thanks Mac!

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