It’s not worth losing your pressure cooker for its bizarre Booker. And the direction relies far too much on swooping crane shot takings.īottomline: this odd enterprise is neither a children’s film nor an entertainer for spectators of all ages. On the debit side, Binod Pradhan’s cinematography of the magnificent Jaisalmer vistas are ordinary. Bobby Deol, too, invests a glowingly warm quality to his part, almost as if he were reliving moments with his own son. Plus, Dwij Yadav is endearing the child has the most fluroscent smile since Madhuri Dixit’s. If you don’t sprint out of the auditorium, it’s only because of the emphasis placed on the need for a national literacy programme (girl children are conspicuous by their absence though). Surely, Karnik could have stressed upon the innocence and guilelessness of the boy instead of making him a cross between Bachchan and Guddi. Like it or not, the boy is even turned into a stereotyped angry child-man, what with the Deewar-like humiliating tattoo emblazoned on his hand. And for the last straw, there’s that cracko-wacko Booker acceptance speech. Alas, there’s something much too gratuitous about the kid giving up his gutka chewing habit, beating up a junior Gulshan Groverish bully, exhuming his fear of mice (how nice?), becoming an exemplary scholar and heavens, growing up to become a purely wooden Vatsal Seth (from the forgotten Tarzan The Blunder Car or something).
If only Karnik’s writing had developed this emotional aspect of an otherwise gaga screenplay. How wonderful – a star and a desert boy actually bond as equals! Sweet. Gratifyingly, the bonhomie between the two is life-affirming.
Next: you’re subjected to teasers from Abby-Mustan’s Soldier the kid claps, whistles and generally goes berserk till Bobby D shows up in person. Camel boy is Asia’s biggest ceiling fan of Bobby Deol the actor (played by Bobby Deol the actor). Incidentally, this masti ki paathshala is populated by an ancient gent who goes haw-haw-haw and dear old Sharat Saxena who keeps drinking from quarter bottles of rum? Life’s glum.īut there’s a tinsel lining. This despite the militant attempts of his morose mum, didi and a heftier version of Gayatri Devi, to make him attend night school. Snag: he’s uneducated in ka-kha-ga-gha and so goes duh-duh. Eeeps.Īnyway, the 10-year-old desert boy knows a smattering of French, German, Latin and fenugreek. Hmm, it’s about a camel-riding Rajasthan tourist guide kiddo (Dwij Yadav) who looks as if he’d be happier at home playing Ludo. No zing, Vicks just catches hold of a shocked electrician at a hotel’s banquet hall to narrate his memoir. Kyun controversy ho gaya naa?Īlas, there’s nothing remotely literary or controversial about what you eventually sample in this flashbuk-buk by Vicky Singh. The new winner is Vikram Singh aka Nanhe Jaisalmer, directed and written (oh oh, what about those allegations of snitching by another writer?) by Samir Karnik. Yup, the same literary prize snagged in recent years by Kiran Desai, Arundhati Roy and the patriarch-turned-prose-genius Amitabh Bachchan in Baghbaan. His novella is actually awarded the International Booker. Really, it’s enough to blow your pressure cooker. Sensing foul play, SV begins investigating her death only to discover that nothing is what it seems to be and that redemption doesn’t come easy… The situation gets further complicated when she is killed in a mysterious accident. Upon completion of his assignment, things take a turn when SV discovers that the woman is not who she claims to be. Intrigued and tempted by the opportunity to redeem his self worth, SV accepts. Stifled by the dreariness of small town existence and frustrated by his failure, SV’s life takes a turn when the wife of a powerful local politician arrives at his doorstep with an irresistible offer the chance for SV to play a real life detective by spying on her husband. Unfortunately, his maiden attempt, a novel called Manorama, sank without a trace and he has been reduced to writing for cheap pulp magazines. SV is a government engineer but his real ambition has always been writing detective fiction. Homage to the noir genre, MANORAMA SIX FEET UNDER is about an amateur detective Satyaveer Singh aka SV (Abhay Deol) in a small town who finds himself caught in a web of lies, deceit and murder. Navdeep has primarily designed it to be an honest and intelligent thriller, operating at multiple levels with an entertaining murder mystery serving as the vehicle to explore certain social and human issues as subtext. It is his take on the noir genre told in the context of small town Indian life. MANORAMA, SIX FEET UNDER is Navdeep Singh’s first feature film.