Matru ki Bijlee ka Mandola

I didn't know what to make of the movie title but it made us curious enough to go watch it. And I quite enjoyed it. I can see why some people didn't though - its a whimsically made movie, bordering on the insane; but thankfully I was in a mood to lap up all the quirkiness that Vishal Bharadwaj could throw at me.

There aren't that many Indian movie makers who are brave enough to attempt a satire that so smugly refuses to put a boundary on imagination. Like Salman Rushdie's writing or Picasso's paintings, Vishal Bharadwaj's movies are gutsy in their quirkiness. That I love. I loved Pankaj Kapur's portrayal of the divided face of the Indian upper class. How tough is that character to pull off, to balance comedy with evil & tomfoolery with graveness. I loved Shabana Azmi's witches-of-Macbeth portrayal, especially in some of her monologues. For a restrained actor like her, it couldn't have been easy to be so overtly over the top. And I loved Vishal Bharadwaj's unhindered style. Its not easy at all to layer a satire under the bizzarre silliness of pink bulls & zulu dance troupes. It could easily be mistaken for just silliness.

Perhaps the movie could've been shorter, snappier; but I didn't get bored. I did wonder where it was going for a while, but that didn't last long. Its not a movie I loved, but I liked it a good deal.