'Hulla'baloo

Its been a while since I have visited this long derelict and probably decripit website. But I am indeed, very grateful to all of you for egging me on to keep writing. So I guess although my fingers are rusty and my creative right side of my brain is hibernating, I will try to grease the phalanges of my fingers and awaken the moribund neurons in my right brain with something I do with relative ease: a movie review. I did not pick up a Bollywood blockbuster or gigantic budget potboiler to shoot down: KJo what's with you? You haven't made your annoying genre of movies in a while: so much less fodder for some pseudo-intellectual like me to chew and churn to dust! I did not pick a Hollywood flick to gloss over and by the way, I found The Dark Knight a little overrated. I actually enjoyed a simple, seemingly nondescript movie like 'Hulla'. It does not have a fantastic concept or big stars. It is about a simple situation in a typical building complex in Mumbai. The protagonist (if we can Sushant Singh one) enters a new apartment with his wife and finds himself being disturbed every night by the night watchman's 'rounds'. His insomnia reflects on his quality of work and his irritable disposition throughout the day. He tries to deal with the problem in every perceivable way: pacifying the watchman, talking to the secretary of the housing society, using sleeping pills, earplugs, bribing the watchman with new job prospects and even lodging a police complaint. What is interesting is how a small problem like the watchman's rounds snowballs into bigger issues and becomes a social commentary on people's self-centered and self-absorbing ways. It is used as a background to portray contemporary socio-economic wars that happen everyday in a highly stratified urban India. For instance, when the secretary of the society (played by Rajat Kapoor) finds his wife comparing his economic status to that of the protagonist's, he tries to bolster his self esteem by claiming that the security arrangements he made for the society serve as an exemplar for other neighbourhoods to follow, that being the greatest achievement of his lifetime of failing attempts at doing business. The sense of defeat that the middle aged secretary feels as he watches the newly wed couple enjoy a car and a two bedroom apartment while he grapples with his ramshackle Kinetic Honda and a family of three living in a one bedroom apartment is a picture straight out of middle aged middle class urban India fighting to keep its head above the water in the onslaught of the DINK (double income no kids) couples and newbies earning twice the former's current salary. The servile attitude of the watchman who grew up in colonial British ruled India and listens not to reason but only the orders from a man of heirarchy and the transformation of a normal sophisticated and successful stock broker into a raving self-absorbed vengeful maniac are also very real scenarios. What I really liked about the movie was that it ended with a karmic message without being too preachy. As a result of the stock broker's insomnia and his irritable nature, he ends up pulling down the stock price of a company that his client has invested in and is forced to quit his apartment which was being financed out of the client's pocket and to add to the repercussion, the secretary who also has a stake in the company is forced to sell off his apartment to cover for the loss. So with both ending up as losers in a battle of egos they have to let go of their vainglorious attitudes and eat a humble pie in front of the whole society. For those who watch movies with an intent to escape into a world of fantasy and unrealism, this movie will seem as bland as boiled vegetable: avoid it. To me movies do not serve as entertainment, they are a reflection of today's society: in terms of attitude, aspiration and values. 'Hulla' made a passive commentary on it in a realistic and in a sense, sattirical way. The very fact that there is money invested in such a movie shows that the concept of realism is not dead in Indian cinema which sadly for a good part of the time invests in mindless megalomania.