Brave new world - book review

When I started reading this book I wasn't very excited about it. I just wanted to read it since it was so famous, I expected it to be plain old dystopia. But as I kept on reading I got more and more interested. It's a classic. I would say one hasn't read enough dystopia if he hasn't read Brave New World and 1984. But where this book differs from most dystopic fictions is that the dystopic world described here by Huxley is not intended to be totally evil as it is in say 1984. The futuristic civilized society created by Huxley is presented as a solution for sustaining human civilization and the arguments are pretty convincing. Although as Huxley himself later accepted it may not be the only solution but it certainly is one of the solutions. In light of this important distinction, Brave New World turns out to be a really depressing read. One can't keep himself from thinking, if this is what it has to come to for human beings to survive, would I be well off dead !!

I don't want to give spoilers but will give a brief background of the story. The futuristic civilized society in Huxley's Brave New World is a highly materialistic world. Here human beings are in a way industrially mass produced. Hence there is no concept of mother or father. All are children of the state. The society has a strict class system in place, which is implemented right from the birth of a child. In fact the children are mentally conditioned in various ways to belong to their particular class through out their mortal lives and never dream of questioning the system, be jealous of other classes or be in any kind of conflict with them. The state takes various measure to keep its subjects happy like by free distribution of drugs, encouraging promiscuity etc.
There are though a group of people who do not live in this civilized society, they choose to carry on living the old way - where women are still viviparous. They are understandably called the savages.

Through this story the author tries to argue which alternative is better. But till the end the author remains undecided and ambiguous and I believe the reader too would feel the same way. A must read for all thinking minds and fans of dystopic fiction.

Jaya by Devdutt Pattanaik - book review

Reading mahabharata was a sudden and unexpected choice on my part. I have never been much interested in mythology but I remembered some of Mahabharata from B.R Chopra's epic TV adaptation and I thought to give it a try. I didn't realize reading this would be such an epiphany. Whether Mahabharata is a myth or history maybe a matter of perspective, but the one thing it is for sure is an epic, in all sense of the word. The numerous characters, their inner conflicts, their complex relations, their desires, their choices, their triumphs and travails and in the midst of all that eternal wisdom, spoken by God himself. The world of mahabharata is a deterministic world, where actions have consequences, if not in one lifetime then several births later.

I have often oscillated between being a believer and a non-believer, but this book has tilted my mind and brain towards the former. Mahabharata does in no way preach religion but it does speak about the authority of a supreme being over the world and its inhabitants. Unlike Ramayana, mahabharata is not a straight-forward triumph of good over evil story. The characters here are much more complicated, their choices and decisions more influenced by instincts than values, therefore the lessons to be learnt from this book aren't as easy to grasp either. What makes things even more complicated is the fact that Vishnu the so called supreme ruler of the world is born as a human being - Krishna, and plays a pivotal role in the whole story. This strange fact brings up a difficult question in the reader's mind - to judge or not to judge God.
This version written by Devdutt Pattanaik answers this question in a very consistent and satisfactory manner, and that to me was the biggest plus for this book. Whether or not you believe in or like the explanation is a subjective thing but I found his attempt to answer, commendable. Although abridged the author has managed to squeeze a lot of info and back stories on smaller/non-central characters in the epic, which keeps the interest of the reader alive. Another good thing about this book is that the author has included in almost every chapter little anecdotes about characters and events from various regional versions of the epic and folklores. The author has also given his interpretations of a lot of events in the book which build upon his central theme - the answer to the question - to judge or not to judge God.

I recommend this book to all who those who haven't read mahabharata. It is a good initiation.

Roadside Picnic - book review

This is one of the few sci-fi books with more philosophical undertones than sci-fi. It's a short and thought-provoking read, although it may seem kind of anti-climactic at the end, but the story's beauty lies in its simplicity. Although there are quite a few different concepts/theories hidden between the lines, but 1 that I found profound and central to the story is this -

Most of us think that man has an insatiable desire for knowledge. But this statement is too simplistic and naive. The man that we refer to in this statement, is the common man. The common man does have an insatiable desire for understanding but not necessarily knowledge. There is a subtle difference. Knowledge is more absolute and objective in nature when compared to understanding. Most of us seek to understand things that we don't understand, and most of us are content with a dumbed down or simplified answer to our questions, it's enough to sustain us through out our life. For example the question of God - most people are either happy with believing that there is a supreme being that holds all the reins to our lives or there is no such thing as God, we are the masters of our own fate. There maybe only a handful of people who are ready to do whatever it takes to find a real answer to this question. And those handful of people are faced with another insurmountable proposition - Can the question be answered within the limits of our existing knowledge and our capacity for understanding.To elaborate this further - any physics or engineering student will tell you that a perpetual motion machine is impossible, because it violates the 1st law of thermodynamics. Why is our science so sure about this? Because we haven't yet seen any phenomena that defies the 1st law and hence we never felt the need to question it. But what if we suddenly encounter a PMM? Does that mean our assumption was wrong? If it was wrong then what is the right explanation and can that be understood with our current physical understanding of the universe? But nevertheless, just because we can't understand something does not mean it can't exist.

To sum up, we search for answers to different questions throughout our lives, but more often we make/create answers for those questions ourselves.

A side note - The PMM was just an example from my end, I am not very sure, there actually maybe unquestionable scientific evidence defying its existence. But the author has used instances like this in his book, and I think he is urging us to not restrict our thinking to things that we already know. Remember when Einstein first came up with the theory of relativity, nobody believed him because nobody else could think the way he did. But with time he was proven right and we were able to expand our thinking to embrace a relativistic world.

The Beautiful and the Damned - book review

As the name suggests in this book the author has tried to capture several facets of life in modern India in its contrasting shades. How on the one hand Indian economy is booming with lots of outsourced jobs and foreign investment pouring in, and on the other hand millions of Indians are still living without the basic amenities, thousands of farmers are committing suicide every year and a lot of Indians are struggling to come to terms with the changing and confused environment. The idea is good, but I am not entirely happy with the execution. The author, Siddhartha Deb, himself an Indian, left India in the early 2000s to study in America, and he wrote this book on his return.

Let me give a brief overview of the chapters. The book consists of 5 chapters -

1. The opening chapter is about Arindam Chaudhari, the self proclaimed management guru and the chairman of IIPM and Planman media. In this chapter Deb tells us how Mr Chaudhari is making a living on the dreams and aspirations of the youth of India, who want to fit in and be a part of the corporate culture. He gives us a close look of Arindam Chaudhari the man, his background and business. And much of it is critical if not derisive. No wonder he got a court injunction on the publication of this chapter, hence in the latest copies of the book being sold in India this chapter has been omitted. But due to the negative publicity the chapter is easily available on the internet on various blogs.
2. This chapter is about the flag bearers of the booming economy, the Indian engineer. I found this chapter kind of confusing I couldn't really make out what point the author was trying to make, except for the fact that there is a great divide between the dreams and achievements of the engineers of today.
3. This chapter is about the plight of the farmers of India. Deb has focused on farmers from the telangana region of Andhra Pradesh who used to grow a crop called Red Sorghum. This chapter again, highlights some issues like - how industrial development has adversely affected Indian farmers, but lacks proper analysis.
4. The 4th chapter is about the huge mass of temporary workers in India. This chapter was much better than its predecessors, the author interviewed some workers from a steel factory in Andhra Pradesh, and gave us an account of their lives and their reasons for doing what they were doing.
5. The final chapter is about a girl from the North Eastern state of Manipur who works in New Delhi. This was the best chapter in the whole book. Although this chapter didn't deal with one single issue, but through the the protagonist's account of her life, the author pointed out the alienation that people from the North East feel from the mainland. The account was personal and very heartfelt, and in a way the protagonist Esther was as much the hero of this book as she was for her state and North East India.

Apart from the 5 chapters the book also carried an introduction where the author spoke of several things, most notable among them was about a man Named Abdul Jabbar who runs an NGO for the women widowed in the Bhopal Gas Tragedy. The book is a nice read, it brought forth a lot of things that I didn't know about my country, although the issues in general lacked in depth analysis, but then I don't think analysis of issues was the point of this book. What I disliked about the book and the author in particular was his mostly sardonic tone throughout the book, the kind of tone one finds (atleast I have experienced first hand) in Indians who have lived in the West for quite a few years and somehow feel themselves to be superior to the rest of us. Also the fact that I am prejudiced against these kind of people, may have led me to being too critical of the author.

All in all I would say The Beautiful And The Damned is a good fast paced read, with less of the beautiful and more of the damned. But the author can hardly be blamed for that, that's how our country is shaping up.

The best of World Cinema

Over the last few years I have been watching quite a few international films. After a close friend of mine introduced me to the world of world cinema around 4 years back, I have been hooked. Now having watched quite a few of the world's best movies I can say this much - a movie aficionado's collection can never be complete if he has not watched movies from different corners of the globe. Although Hollywood has been the mainstay of the movie industry for long, after a while (a while could last well around a decade) of watching Hollywood movies, things can become boring and monotonous. With the amount of movies made every year in Hollywood, its natural that a lot of the focus is on making money at the Box Office than producing quality. Plus Hollywood's love for cliched themes like - aliens, zombies, superheroes, vietnam war... there's only so much of that one can digest. But variety is not the only thing that world cinema offers. Its biggest offering is a different cultural perspective on life. I know how most of my knowledge of America its history and culture is through the american movies I have watched over the years. Same is true for world cinema. Cinema provides a lens to view the whole world. Also over the years there have been great non-american directors who have redefined cinema with their style.

Without wasting any more time, I will list here some of the best world movies that I have seen. Feel free to comment and suggest more titles. The list is in no particular order, I have made no effort to rank the movies.

• Cinema Paradiso - This was one of the first foreign language movies I had seen and it is undoubtedly one of the best. No movie depicts the magic of cinema better than this movie. Its the story of a small boy who grows up watching cinema in a theater called Nuovo Cinema Paradiso in a small Italian town and his relationship with the projectionist of the theater. This is one of the more conventional movies with a linear plot told mostly in flashback. The film evokes a feeling of nostalgia in the viewer's mind, of the days before the advent of digital cinema and surround sound. One of the most memorable scenes of this film is where - the local priest watches every movie in the theater before it is opened to general public, to check for objectionable clips in the movie. So every time he sees a kiss or a lady in a swimsuit he rings a bell that he holds in his hand and the projectionist marks the reel, to cut it out later. The music by Ennio Morricone is just sublime. Here is the IMDB link.

• Memories of Murder - I am a big fan of thriller movies and this one tops the list. Its a South Korean movie based on true events. 2 detectives looking for a serial killer. Doesn't sound too original does it. Well from a plot perspective it probably isn't. What sets this movie apart from other hollywood movies of the same genre is as I had earlier mentioned, the cultural aspect. A series of rapes & murders are committed in a small obscure town. The investigating detectives are not trained with the most up to date techniques to handle this kind of situation, their day to day work involves catching petty thieves and beating a confession out of them. And here they don't have the luxury of calling FBI to their rescue. This movie captures this gap beautifully, at times the detectives seem utterly helpless in their quest to catch the criminal, but never do they look short of passion or intent. This is a must watch for all thriller movie fans. Here is the IMDB link. 

• The Return - I can't remember a more emotional and moving story told in such minimalistic fashion elsewhere. The Return is a Russian movie by debutante director Andrei Zviagintsev. The story is about 2 young boys (brothers) and their father who returns to them one day suddenly after 12 years. All they remember of him is an old photograph. The whole movie is the story of a trip the 3 of them take to an island and how that trip changes their lives forever. The movie deliberates on the complexities of human relationships - how difficult it is for an estranged father to ever have a normal relationship with his children. The movie is beautifully shot and very leisurely made, at times slow but never boring. The Return is one of my all time personal favorites. Here is the IMDB link.

• Oldboy - If ever evil could be presented with style and panache, it would come close to Park Chan-wook's depiction in Oldboy. The evil here is not Satan or Antichrist or any such variant. Oldboy deals with the evil inside the human mind. This film was the second in a revenge trilogy by the South Korean filmmaker. The story shows how revenge consumes a man and turns him into a monster. The denouement makes you sick to the gut. But what stands out for me is the style with which even the most violent scenes of the movie were shot. One scene that comes to mind is a the corridor fight scene  which took seventeen takes and 3 days to perfect. I quite like Choi Min-sik's portayal of the lead character in the film. Over the years Oldboy has acquired a cult following. It set a new benchmark in extreme cinema which filmmakers have ever since tried to accomplish. Here is the imdb link.

• Children of Heaven - Children of heaven is an Iranian film by Majid Majidi. It is one of the sweetest films you will ever watch. The story revolves around 2 children (brother & sister) from a poor Iranian family and a pair of pink shoes. Saying anything more about the story would spoil the fun. The movie reminds us of the innocence of childhood. The movie earned an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film in 1998 but was beaten by the Italian world war 2 film Life is beautiful. Here is the IMDB link.

• All about my mother - This is one of the more complex films in this list and of all the movies I have watched. The movie deals with subjects like gender confusion, prostitution, drugs. This movie had quite a few passing references and undertones, all of which I confess I didn't understand completely myself - like references to A Streetcar named Desire and All about Eve. But the central theme of the movie is the woman, of all the roles she has to play in her life, how she is tormented and betrayed and hurt by men at different times but she deals with all that and fights throughout her life to establish her identity. The film's central character is a middle aged woman, a nurse who is a single mother of a teenage boy. The boy wants to become a writer when he grows up and is working on a project called - "All about my mother" for which he wants to learn about the father he never met and about whom he knows nothing. The son gets killed in a road accident on the eve of his seventeenth birthday, his mother then decides to embark on a journey to search for the boy's father with whom she had long lost contact. In a way the movie tells us the story of the mother through her search for her son's father. Pedro Almodovar received a Palme d'Or at Cannes for this movie and it also won an Oscar for the Best Foreign language Film. A brilliant movie and a must watch for any film buff. Here is the IMDB link.

• Cache (Hidden) - Michael Haneke's Cache gives a new definition to the mystery genre. Like Haneke's other films this one doesn't provide any concrete answers to the questions it raises.  The main plot goes like this - someone makes video recordings of a french family's house entrance from the corner of one of the streets, and leaves the tapes everyday on their footsteps. Creepy isn't it. The family gets scared and makes a complaint to the police, but they can't do anything since no apparent threat has been made. Then with the videotapes comes drawings which remind the main protagonist of an unpleasant event from his childhood. The rest of the film is about the hero trying to recall these events and trying to find out who his tormentor might be, but if he will find an answer or not ... well you will have to watch the movie for that. The movie deals with the subject of fear, the fear which is not palpable but buried deep beneath one's hearts. True to the title, the subject of this fear doesn't become very clear without a bit of a background. The movie indirectly relates to France's repressed memory of an unfortunate event in its modern history, la nuit noire, the night of October 17 1961, when hundreds of Algerian demonstrators in Paris were beaten and killed by the police. How even after so many years the guilt and residual fear from that event still haunts its citizens. Cache belongs to the genre of thoughtful cinema, its a mystery without its usual characteristics, scary background music, unexpected climaxes etc. Again a must watch for any film connoisseur. Here is the IMDB link.

• The Bicycle Thieves & Rashomon - No list of world cinema can be complete without these 2 classics. So much has been said already about these 2 movies that I am not going to comment any more. Both movies are absolute classics and have inspired great filmmakers throughout the world. IMDB link for Bicycle Thieves and Rashomon.

The remaining movies will be covered in part 2 of this blog post.

Abohoman Review

What is a film all about? Rituporno Ghosh's 2010 film Abohoman starts off with this line. Is a film about representing the facts as it were, or is it a filmmaker's own opinion about the facts and the characters that are part of his film. Or is a film about capturing moments and arranging them together to weave a meaningful story, a story that sounds believable, a story which the viewer can identify himself/herself with. Maybe it is all of the above, but a film can never come close to capturing all the complexities of a person's life, especially the complexities of human relations.

Abohoman, means Eternal; something that has been there for ages. The film is about the life of a renowned Bengali film director and his relationship with his son, his wife and an actress with whom he supposedly had a love affair. The film shows three different timelines (chain of events) simultaneously -

1. The Present - Renowned bengali director Aniket (played by Dipankar De) has recently passed away. People have gathered at his house to pay their respects. At the house are present - Aniket's wife Dipti (played by Mamata Shankar), their son Apratim (played by Jishu Sengupta) , his wife played by Riya Sen and a lot of other guests. Also present is Srimati Sarkar (played by Ananya Chatterjee) a renowned actress who was given her first big break in the movies by Aniket as Binodini, and with whom he was rumored to have a love affair.
2. The movie Amar Katha - Interspersed throughout the movie are scenes from the movie Amar Katha which was about Nati Binodini who was a renowned theatre actress of Bengal in early 1900s. The movie was directed by Aniket and starred Srimati Sarkar or Shikha, her original name.
3. The past - This timeline tells the story of Shikha's purported affair with Aniket, during the making of the film Amar Katha, and the effect this scandal has on his family and his son's life.

Binodini was Aniket's dream project and he once wanted his wife Dipti to play that role but that did not happen. But when he decides to take up the project once again he selects Shikha (Shrimati Sarkar), on Dipti's insistence, for the role. Aniket's first impression of Shikha was that of an unsophisticated girl but Dipti felt she had the chutzpah that Binodini's character required. Dipti prepares her for the role, gives her the name Srimati (another name for Radha) and also helps her learn to deal with a difficult director like Aniket. Eventually Aniket starts to grow a liking for Shikha, her coquetry, her uninhibited spontaneity. Aniket starts staying back at Shikha's place after shooting as the news of the scandal quickly spreads through the film circles and reaches Dipti and her son's ears. Apratim (Aniket's son) then a young man tries to console his mother in this time of difficulty. The affair is never openly discussed in the family, Aniket never admits that he is in love with Shikha, at best he was infatuated by her, but Dipti was convinced of their affair maybe because she thought that she lacked the youthful charm that Shikha possessed and was jealous of her. She resents Aniket for this and her resentment influences Apratim's feelings for his father. He writes an article in a popular magazine about his father's affair criticizing him severely; interestingly it was Dipti who had sent him to the magazine's editor to write something in the magazine and embellish his bengali writing skills. Years later, after Aniket's death Apratim tells his mother that he wants to make a film on his father's personal life. When Dipti opposes this idea saying it would be scandalous, Apratim then attributes the article he wrote about his father  to his mother's desire to avenge herself through him. Aniket himself was never disappointed or hurt with his son's article, although the editor of the magazine had called him up to inform him about it before the article went to print. Aniket had asked the publisher to print the article saying -"A son has written what he thinks of his father. why should we censor it". Aniket was aware what his son thought of him, but he never tried to explain himself to him, maybe because he was a complicated person, maybe because he was ashamed of himself or maybe because he didn't know what to tell him, but nevertheless he always wanted his son to scale greater heights than him and he thought the article was the beginning of a bright career. Caught up in all this was the outsider, Shikha, much like her on screen character Binodini (who was a prostitute but later became a theatre sensation mentored by Girish Ghosh), she felt lonely and a victim of unrequited love. Although she loved Aniket, he never quite returned the same affection towards her. Years later while talking to Apratim, she admits that Dipti (Aniket's wife) probably cared more for her than Aniket himself.

Rituporno Ghosh masterfully deals with the delicate nuances of human relations, without passing any judgement. The film contains some of the best dialogues I have ever heard and the director juggles with the three timelines quite skillfully. The torment in Shikha's personal life is juxtaposed beautifully with the problems in Binodini's life through scenes from the film. Binodini's relationship with her mentor Girish Ghosh in a way reflected her relationship with Aniket. The complex relationship of Apratim with his father is depicted superbly by Rituporno Ghosh. There is a scene where Apratim while caring for his father during his last days, tells him about the movie he wants to make on his life. Apratim says that he is afraid that the film could become too personal, he wonders if anyone would be able to identify with the film. Aniket replies by saying - "Do you think you are the only son who feels he has been betrayed by his father?". Aniket then asks him - "Can I make this movie with you?". Apratim replies - "Then mom should also be a part of it.". At that Aniket says - "yes why not, your mom should also be part of it, so should be Shikha, We all will make the movie together, bit by bit." That in essence is the theme of the movie. A person's life is shaped by so many characters that he meets through out his journey of life, but it's impossible for a film to embrace all the aspects, all the complexities of a person's life. 

All the 4 lead characters have delivered stellar performances. I was quite moved by Mamata Shankar's performance of a strong willed woman who takes care of her family despite all her mental trauma.I was disappointed that she did not receive a National Award. Ananya Chatterjee did receive a national Award for Best supporting actress, and so did Rituporno Ghosh for best director.

Abohoman is one of the best bengali movies I have seen, although I haven't seen many but I have seen most of Satyajit Ray's work. I don't think any other director of the present era could have dealt with such a delicate subject so skilfully than Rituporno Ghosh. The movie's biggest asset was it's powerful script, the writer  made sure that he didn't go overboard with emotions as is the case more often with Indian cinema. The dialogues were cleverly written - so that the words that were not spoken were as important as those that were.

It's a must watch for lovers of Cinema, bengalis and non-bengalis alike.

Shanghai review

I have been delaying this for some time now, mainly because I was in some dilemma about the movie. But I decided to watch the movie again to see if I missed some subtle points in my first viewing. Indeed the second viewing helped me make up my mind. So here is the review.

Dibakar Bannerjee's Shanghai is a look at the dirty and corrupt world of politics and bureaucracy in our country. It has been adapted from a novel Z by a greek diplomat, but the story has been molded to suit our environment. Dibakar Bannerjee has always had a knack for subtlety and satire, which he was able to put to the best use in Shanghai. Although Oye Lucky Lucky Oye in my opinion was also a pretty satirical movie, but political satire is something that people grasp more easily than other forms of satire, in that respect Shanghai hits the right note. The beauty of Shanghai's plot is that its very simple and clear, even if one is half awake during the first 15 minutes, during which a murder/accident takes place, one wouldn't find it difficult to guess who the perpetrators are. So plot wise there are almost no twists, in spite of this, the movie can become difficult to understand if one doesn't concentrate. That is because of its shrewd screenplay - the story is told in such a way as to try to confuse the viewer, hide some minute yet important details from plain sight, to keep the viewer guessing. Here's an example - while relieving my self during the interval I found quite a few people discussing/pondering over some very basic facts in the story line like -

• what is IBP
• who is Deshnayak
• what exactly does Abhay Deol do

Undoubtedly Shanghai is not for the leisurely movie-goer. If you want to chill out this is not the movie for you, you may well get annoyed after some time and leave. Moving on ... a quality of Dibakar Bannerjee that I quite like is his ability to transform an easy going, mostly uneventful or even happily treading along story, to a suddenly grave or almost shocking conclusion. He did this with the 1st story in Love, sex aur dhokha, I remember when I had gone to watch the movie in the theatre, I heard quite a few shrieks, sighs mostly from girls during the last scene where the boy and girl were brutally murdered. Shanghai doesn't have any shocking revelation or conclusion only a more satirical one, but the movie grows progressively gloomier with the passage of time, in tone as well as color.
Shanghai is high on symbolism like Dibakar's other movies, like Oye Lucky ... and keeping with the general style of the movie the symbolism is quite subtle sometimes accompanied by slight humor which looks almost unintentional and spontaneous. Here are some things that I noticed -

• There were quite a few scenes where a sweeper is seen cleaning something or the other. The guest house where Abhay Deol stays, it's dry swimming pool was being cleaned by a sweeper in the background in atleast 2 scenes. And on both occasions the swimming pool looked pretty dirty. Then the school which is made the inquiry commission's make shift office is also cleaned again and again. I felt it was an allegory of the dirty political and bureaucratic system which needs constant cleaning.
• Also there is the scene where Kalki and Abhay Deol both slip while walking out of the classroom. It looked funny but could also be symbolic.
• Then there is the scene where we see Farooq Sheikh working out in the gym and some guy, standing there holding a towel and a water bottle. Then there is this police inspector to whom the SSP gives his shades, his cap and mobile to hold as he takes them off one by one. It is a reminder of the bootlicking and sycophancy that is so characteristic of public service.
• The members of the Mukti Morcha are seen dancing and celebrating on the road almost everyday for no apparent reason, causing inconvenience to general public, blocking traffic. This is not so much symbolic as it is a true portrayal of the "Dabangaai" that a lot of political parties in our country thrive on.

Coming to acting. My pick was Kalki. She has cut a niche for herself in these kind of girl-troubled-within roles. The surprise package was Emraan Hashmi. He did justice to the small part that he was given. Abhay Deol was good as usual although I found his south-indian accent unconvincing and inconsistent. Pitobash plays a cameo, and proves that he was the right choice for the eccentric character of Bhaggu. Farooqe Sheikh played his role with consummate ease. Cinematography was good, not over the top. 

Shanghai at times looked like an experiment in resource optimization. There was hardly any self-indulgence from the director or the actors, and the editing was at times too precise. I say this because I tried hard to find faults in the movie, but I couldn't find anything significant. I doubt if Shanghai would resonate much in people's minds, but technically it was quite perfect. The lack of an out & out hero in the movie, who brings justice to the oppressed, is synchronous with the tone of the movie, but often that is the difference between a movie being good and a movie being memorable. And that is my major complaint with the movie - the lack of a strong character, one with whom the audience could empathize with. I felt both Kalki's and Abhay Deol's characters were under portrayed, their characters should have been developed more. Like it wouldn't have hurt to know what was actually Kalki's father accussed of, and what effect it had on her development and her decision to become a social activist. Abhay Deol throughout seems striving for a transfer to stockholm, maybe the story could have dealt more with his reasons to go to stockholm and what all compromises he made for that. All in all Shanghai is a landmark in Hindi cinema, we have had quite a few in the last few years, I would rate it 3.5/5. Keep looking for more gems from Dibakar Bannerjee.

P.S - I thought I would clear a few doubts which I guess some people who have already seen the movie may have. If you haven't seen the movie you could skip this part.

IBP stands for International Business Park, it's not the name of the CM's political party, it was a development project undertaken by the State Govt and a pvt company called Genron. Although her party's name is not taken explicitly anywhere, but on keen observation on a poster I found it was Bharatiya Rashtra Dal. There were in coalition with the Mukti Morcha or Morcha in the state whose leader was Deshnayak.
After the 1st viewing of the movie I was annoyed with the fact that the name Shanghai was not referred to anywhere in the movie, making the name of the movie kind of out of context. Although people shout slogans - "sheher nahi Shanghai hai" but the context is not apparent. Shanghai obviously stands as a symbol of a developed city, but in the absence of a direct reference it could well be Tokyo or New York or London. Why shanghai? On second viewing I found that in the penultimate scene when Abhay Deol and Farooque Sheikh are talking, Farooq Sheikh says this - "ye CM PM ban sakti thi. Hum China se bhi age ja sakte the". To me that's good enough.