The Andaman and Nicobar Islands is threatened by the horror of the pandemic when the territory is infected by a mysterious disease. When hell descends and starts to take the lives of the affected, people from all walks of life struggle to survive. Solidarity embarks, families and friends get disjointed by the unwanted incidents. The medical experts and the decision-makers are muddled with such a complicated situation.
Kaala Paani, in these seven episodes, folds the viewers in the mighty scare of the widespread and makes us watch the toughest times of getting stuck in a situation where there is no escape.
REVIEW
This Netflix series brings back the COVID vibes. The entire setting of the screenplay that painfully welcomes disease precisely reminds us of the world we began to experience in 2020. Staring at people coughing in the public place, distancing from the affected ones, spraying on the doors and locks, wearing masks; it is a victory for the show that they settled the viewers with discomfort.
Kaala Paani’s writing grows in the nerves because the show runs several stories, dig in the lives of the main characters, and give us a deeper look in the complexity of human relations, their getting distanced, expressing their fear of losing someone or themselves.
The emotion code will break the viewers when they watch Kaddu struck with epilepsy, when Chiru is in state of shock receiving his mother’s ashes, when Dr. Ritu’s father is slapped in front of her, when Santosh listens to his wife’s hiccup and starts crying.
In fact, Santosh is the most heartbreaking character of the show. A husband who lost his wife, a father who lost his son, traveled with pain in quest of his daughter. Vikas Kumar has boiled his Santosh character with severe desperation. His slipping in to the hole settled our mind that he will have to overcome fear and somehow escape. And boy! what a physical performance that was. All his crying scenes were jaw-droppers.
Besides, the other standout performer was Sukant Goel as Chiru. Watch him when he offers himself to Dr. Shashi for the test and when he reacts over his mother’s demise.
Some parts of writing are very interesting. The panic in the festival was intense, so was the car almost crashing Kaddu. When water became a concern, notice the governor dropping only few drops of water on his toothpaste.
The show must be praised for its technical productions. If the series is based and shot in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, surely the camera work is one of the preferred focus. And we happen to watch some amazing shots throughout the show by Ewan Mulligan & co. Rachita Arora‘s background score, Dev Rao Jadhav‘s editing, and Biswapati Sarkar‘s writing are a few names to mention that they are responsible in the making of an excellent series.
And an Indian film or a TV show meeting a technical finishing with excellence rarely happens. But now I get to know that the show is renewed for the second season. And I cannot stop myself from admitting that I am a little impatient about the show’s return.
CLOSING REMARKS
Kaala Paani has a deeper message about the human evolution and survival. The entire defense of the governor on his action against the Oraka tribe is thought-provoking. Something inside us tell you that the failure in survival has put halt to many races and civilizations. To shape the world in the better direction or for a sustainable future, the old world has to collapse and disappear. Whether the wind of fortune takes them away or the poison of ego and hatred writes off their history. Only the strongest survives by defeating and killing the weaker. Kaala Paani just showed us the picture we do not want to see at all.
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I welcome all of you to my 9th edition of Bollywood’s Best for a calendar year. An effort I have been making for my own version of Filmfare since 2014.
The reason for blogging this particular material for the past eight years is because I and surely most of you have understood for a long time that the most prestigious award which is Filmfare has lost its credibility for some decades. The deserving people most of the time do not even get nominated or if they do, they do not win. Many potential films are least considered or perhaps not at all for Filmfare. Why? A few bullet reasons can be a failure at the box office, or a not-so-well-known cast leading to a lack of interest despite having a potential story.
So, with such yearly disappointments, I got annoyed and felt I had had enough of this nonsense. And someone has to take the initiative. I do not claim that I am the first to start my own Filmfare but it has now become a part of my nature to honor and recognize with the highest possible accuracy in my decisions every year.
I promise and guarantee that my picks will not sound reward but an award. My decisions will not be biased but simply on my judgment scale. Many of my finalized nominations and winners are about to surprise you like every year.
From 2014 until 2021, click any report below you would like to visit.
And since I have become a vlogger, a content creator, and a YouTuber, I am happy to inform all my readers that for the first time in 9 years, my annual report is transformed into a vlog. If you want to watch instead of reading, click below.
And I will no longer call my annual reports “My Bollywood’s Best of” whatever year. From this 9th edition, I am renaming it “The Dark Knaik’s FilmFair Awards”.
Note: “The Dark Knaik” is my avatar and the name of my YouTube channel. Subscribe to my channel here: https://youtube.com/@thedarkknaik
HOW FILMFAIR AWARDS ARE SHAPED?
Like every year, I present my nominations and winners for each category by dividing all the categories into three major sections.
The first is the ‘Musical Section’ that will have 6 categories.
Then the next is the ‘Technical Section’ that will consist of 12 categories.
And the last one is the ‘Major Section’ which will have 6 categories.
So, there will be 24 winners from 24 categories. And each category will have a maximum of 5 nominations.
Also, I will rank all the nominations of all the categories.
HOW WAS MY EXPERIENCE FOR 2022’S BOLLYWOOD?
I was generally disappointed after watching around 45 films from 2022. Bollywood had not much to offer, to be honest. There were several good stories but most of those failed due to bad execution. And then Bollywood’s mainstream aesthetics do not change. Unstoppable uninspiring musical scores, mentioning Salman Khan, needless songs, forced humor, unknown extras or unrelated characters knowing the dance steps in all the songs, stereotypical portrayals of hazuris and janabis, concluding the film on a terrible note, and many more.
THE DARK KNAIK’S 9TH FILMFAIR AWARDS
Readers!
The wait is over…
Allow me to honor Bollywood’s artistic and technical excellence in 2022.
Laal Singh Chaddha narrates his incredible story on the train to the nearby passengers as he travels to meet the love of his life.
INTRODUCTION
Laal Singh Chaddha is the official adaptation of the Oscar-winning film ‘Forrest Gump‘ with Aamir Khan returning to the silver screen after a gap of four years to play the Indian version of Tom Hanks‘ most memorable and one of Hollywood’s iconic roles ever.
REVIEW
So obviously, considering what ‘Forrest Gump’ means to the audience and the reputation it has built for decades being the darling of the global audience, there was immense pressure on Aamir Khan and the crew to put on a show that gives at least half-decent remake of the original classic. Most regrettably, Laal Singh Chaddha stands nowhere close to an average crafted film, forget about being a remake.
ALIEN KHAN
It is a classic disaster thanks to Aamir Khan that the mighty collapses right from the beginning when he opens his mouth to speak to the passenger on the train. It is no surprise that the center of satisfaction from the film rests on Aamir Khan’s shoulders. What surprises me is the actor, Mr. Perfectionist, who is well-known for his original takes on some interesting characters he has played throughout his career, is attempting to imitate Tom Hanks in Forrest Gump instead of bringing his own method. And in this process, Aamir Khan is neither convincing the audience nor appealing. And this is one of the major reasons for the film’s box-office failure.
When you listen to his Punjabi accent, it clearly sounds that something is not right. Aamir is certainly not the right choice for a Punjabi character and that was visible in Rang de Basanti. And then the younger version of Laal that he acted, it was like watching Aamir in ‘3 Idiots‘ and ‘PK‘. Same facial expressions and performance. And it is disappointing that an actor known for perfectly adjusting himself to the character has given identical performances in not one but three different films. In the younger version, he looked more mentally unstable than he was as a child. Extreme overacting.
WRITING NEXT TO NONSENSE!
The entire continuity questions the credibility of the screenwriting which is second to nonsense. Spreading humor in a drama for average entertainment is acceptable if executed well. But here, I feel as if the director was confused about how to justify the remake and connect the dots. First, he ridiculed India’s historic timeline to settle Laal’s stupendous journey to legacy. Second, he overstretched the plot and suffocated the audience in an awful second half. And third, the entire film looks like a Google translation.
Laal’s childhood highlights India’s state of Emergency under former PM Indira Gandhi, India’s World Cup winning moment occurs minutes later, and then the Anti-Sikh riots in Amritsar. If you have watched the film with active brains, you will realize that these three incidents occurred in different years. The emergency event happened in the mid-70s, India won the World Cup in 1983 and the riots occurred the next year. So how is the young boy Laal Singh Chaddha not growing for approximately eight to nine years? Or if the director is depicting that all three events happened one after the other which is more silly. In both cases, there is a big hole in the writing.
I must mention the supporting character of Bala played by Naga Chaitanya in his Hindi debut. It must have to be the most annoying character of 2022 or maybe of recent years. Playing the original role of Bubba from Forrest Gump, it was sickening to watch him repeat his passion for undergarments and remake scene-to-scene from the original source.
When you remake an original source, the writing demands a re-introduction on a whole new level of presentation expecting that the writer will come up with a thoughtful story adapting from the original idea. But here, Laal Singh Chaddha shows no intention to play a different beat. Besides adjusting Laal’s life story with the Indian side of historical moments, almost every plot development, almost every scene is straight from ‘Forrest Gump’. And this is one of the reasons why the audience disliked the film. The writer made absolutely no effort in coming up with their own idea to revise the whole plot.
WHAT A MISS!
In order to settle Laal’s life story with some historic moments, the film shows how the local boy of Delhi become a megastar in Bollywood with Shah Rukh Khan playing his own role. It was funny that his iconic arms-stretched-out pose was joked to be inspired by Laal. But what I want to complain about is a big miss. Amongst the three major Khans, the two who have never shared the screen as the lead or starred in the same film are Shah Rukh and Aamir. Salman Khan has starred with both of them in the past. And Shah Rukh and Aamir shared the screen for a few seconds in a cameo in Ashutosh Gowariker‘s “Pehla Nasha“. Despite the fact that Aamir Khan is the producer of this film and roped in Shah Rukh to play a cameo, they still didn’t share the same screen. How idiotic! What a miss!
PLUSES
Yes, ironically there are a few pluses like Satyajit Pande‘s cinematography and Tanuj Tiku‘s background score. A couple of tracks were good too. The makers raised the issue of domestic abuse well. But the biggest plus of the film that impressed me was Mona Singh who played Laal Singh Chaddha’s mother. She was impressive throughout the film. Watch her, particularly in the scene of the riots.
CLOSING REMARKS
So Laal Singh Chaddha has all the reasons to terribly fail at the box office and disappoint the audience. This has to be Aamir Khan’s worst performance in ages. He needs to become choosy again about the selection of his films because his recent run has been awful. Those who have never watched Forrest Gump can enjoy this translated version.
Was Laal Singh Chaddha that bad to be rejected in India? I don’t think so. We have watched worse Indian films than Laal Singh Chaddha. Then what happened?
I feel there was a particular hate campaign by the Hindu nationalists of the ruling party on a large scale that played its part. Back in 2015, Aamir Khan expressed his insecurity about living in India in one interview. That circulated before the film’s release.
The ruling party pushed its supporters to share more than 200,000 tweets demanding to boycott film with the hashtag ‘Boycott Laal Singh Chaddha’. That flamed severe hatred and due to this reason, Laal Singh Chaddha earned only ₹58.73 crore in India against a production budget of ₹180 crore.
Sami Naik | Film Critic 