Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Spectrum of an individual butterfly

Presenting the most giggle-inducing passage I have read in a book this past month. Christina Daniels’ I’ll do it My Way: The Incredible Journey of Aamir Khan contains this rhapsodic quote by Indra Kumar, director of the 1990 film Dil:
In Dil, I saw Aamir turning from a larva to a beautiful butterfly. But today, he can transform himself into a beautiful evening or a brilliant sunset with clouds of magnificent colours. He has the capacity to be the moon shimmering in the water below. He is such a powerhouse of talent that he can transform his personality into all these things and look beautiful. If in the beginning, Aamir was just an individual butterfly and his beauty limited, now he has acquired the capacity to create a spectrum of his own. That is his evolution.
I thought Karan Johar loved SRK and Herzog loved Klaus Kinski (remember “From the moment I saw him, I knew it was my destiny to make films and his to act in them”?), but this takes the director-star relationship into a hitherto unimagined dimension. I will never think of Dil the same way again (not that I ever really thought about it before).
[Coming soon: a review of the book]

P.S. I watched Dhobi Ghat recently. Aamir's determinedly faux-intense gaze, pursed lips and pointy ears reminded me of something but I didn't know what it was until a few days ago. Then I figured it out and felt happy again. See.




16 comments:

  1. It is posts like these that make people ask you, "How much did SRK pay you?" :D

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  2. Anon: It may surprise you but the world is not divided into three parts: SRK, Aamir and Salman fans. There are more people and more actors out there.

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  3. Ashok: true, but I think Anon's comment is a joke - it's a reference to something I've written before about the perils of reviewing (and also said in my TEDx talk).

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  4. Yes, I was referring to the TEDx joke that you made!

    But on a serious note, did you like Dhobi Ghaat? (and anything about that lad Prateik Babbar?)

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  5. I think this level of intelligent praise is JUST what Aamir Khan deserves. And thank you so much for noticing the 'determinedly faux-intense gaze, pursed lips and pointy ears'.
    (More giggle-inducing would have been better, but this will do)

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  6. जैसे शाहरुख़ ख़ान जब करण जौहर की फ़िल्में करते हैं तो वो उनके व्यक्तित्व से अलग एक खंड है, ठीक वैसे ही आमिर के व्यक्तित्व का एक भिन्न खंड है इंद्र कुमार की फ़िल्में.

    हुआ ये कि आमिर ने तो बहुत पहले ही उस अवतार को छोड़ दिया, और शाहरुख़ ने उस अवतार को ही अपना मूल बना लिया.

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  7. did you like Dhobi Ghaat?

    Anon: no. It had a couple of decent bits, but I was very disappointed overall. And I thought AK's performance in that film was one of the worst I've seen by a major star in recent times (right "down" there with SRK in Ra.One). It was a bad case of casting to begin with - just putting him in there, presumably to add to the film's star value.

    Should perhaps do a separate post about this, but the Dhobi Ghat DVD has a few short "deleted scenes" which I thought were very nice and mood-setting - they are basically a series of vignettes involving a labourer working on a Mumbai building. He doesn't talk or participate in the main narrative, but I think these scenes would have made for nice punctuation, as Kiran Rao put it in her introduction.

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  8. Jai, Once you know that Indra Kumar drinks his whiskey with cubes of frozen melodrama, everything about him will make eminent sense.

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  9. I had a cranky day. The simple humour of this post simply brightened up everything at half past ten in the night. Thanks mate.

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  10. Hehehe...this post made me giggle at the end of a long and annoying day. I remember Aamir Khan being referred to as a Hobbit somewhere, and since then I imagine him wearing an outfit like Frodo and mooning about...and I can't get that image out of my head anytime there's a reference to him.

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  11. We are going to get so much more of his pointy ears, faux-intense gaze and all in Satyamev Jayate. :-/

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  12. Aamir Khan vs Avataar Woman is a real good one.

    Though I don't know who will be insulted more.

    Can anyone bribe an important Jyotish/Astroler and get him/her to make the following public announcement..."Amitabh Bachachan will be cured of his illness only if he removes his wig".

    Add necessary vebiage - saturn in mars, looking at venus - to make the announcement important.

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  13. Ok, now I won't be able to look at Amir Khan OR Avataar in the same way again. Sigh.

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  14. Hah, that's hilarious. I used to think Aamir reminded me of Robert Patric looking robotically intense as T-1000 in Terminator-Judgement Day but Avatarooman will do fine

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  15. ha ha ha it struck me too (the avatar look) wen i watched the movie last month :):) so glad its not just me :):):)

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  16. The director in love with his actor. I remember a post of yours years back which implicated something same about SRK and Johar. Also Indra kumar's use of flowery langauage is a little at odds with his filmy output.

    Aamir Khan's Faux gaze is hilaious, the man's pretentions at being a great actor would never diminish. He is not yet in the SRK class of Hamming, however seems to be getting close with these steely looks which he carries like a perpetual badge.

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