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Strictly for children because an adult who’s used to watching multiple genres of films might find “Pahuna: The Little Visitors” a touch boring. Not just because it’s a children’s film. We’ve watched and enjoyed numerous children’s movies before, but Pahuna, even with all its effort, lacks that charm to hold adult attention. At the same time, from children’s perspective, it could be a cute little film that also gives them a few handy moral lessons along the way.

A family fleeing violence in a hilly border area of Nepal makes tries to cross over to Sikkim in India. They join other villagers in the process and on their way, the children—Amrita, Pranay, and Bishal—get separated from their parents. The film does not give any timeline but from a few references in the dialogues, we can assume the date is right after the 2001 royal massacre in Nepal. The ages of the children are also never mentioned; perhaps the eldest Amrita (Ishika Gurung) as well as her younger brother Pranay (Anmoul Limboo) is around 10-12, with a couple of years between them. Bishal, the youngest, is an infant.

After the children get separated from their family, they join the villagers making their way to a church in Peling, Sikkim, seeking refuge. The group includes a know-it-all old man called Rai Budo (Mahendra Bajgai) who spins tales laced with false information about Christianity. The young children take his stories seriously and are instilled with deep fear of Christians, specially the church priest. Not wanting to risk their lives with Christians at the church, the children run way from the group and find themselves living in an abandoned bus in the jungle.

The story of Pahuna, even though it sometimes places children in rather harrowing situations, is a feel-good account of how children learn from their environment and adapt to it. Left alone with no adults to take care of them, Amrita and Pranay take on the role of breadwinners as well as caretakers for infant Bishal. They face conflicting situations as the film progresses and despite their young age, come up with solutions that will keep their family together. Young children become adults in Pahuna and display earnestness, accountability and dependability in a way that could inspire other children watching the movie.

Produced by successful Indian actress Priyanka Chopra’s Purple Pebble Pictures, and written and directed by Paakhi A. Tyrewala, the 1hr 28mins drama has all the characteristics of a Bollywood feature film. The background score is lively, the original soundtracks melodious, and the cinematography able to capture the essence of the hills. The overall packaging is simple, organic, yet commercially sellable.

The dialogues of Biswas Timshina are the only let down. It is evident that the film has used mostly non-actors in all roles and acting coach Veena Mehta has done a decent job of grooming them to express themselves on screen.

But Timshina’s dialogues are so uninspiring, they take away the spark of the characters. Timshina seems to be trying too hard to suppress the Sikkimese Nepali argot. The need to represent a region with a sizable Nepali-speaking community is lost in Timshina’s efforts to make all conversations sound formal. As a result, in some scenes, the characters seem to be reading out of a Nepali textbook. In all fairness, it might be a deliberate move to make dialogues more comprehensible, but again, the dialogues do alienate the characters from their settings, which is a definite no-no.

Who should watch it?

Children should, and learn a few things maybe. Adults can definitely accompany them and guide them through the proceedings, as well as explain the situations that might be confusing for the young ones.

Rating:

2.5 stars

Pahuna

Genre: Drama

Actors: Ishika Gurung, Anmoul Limboo, Mahendra Bajgai

Director: Paakhi A. Tyrewala

Run time: 1hr 28 mins

During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, a battalion of redcoats from the East India Company Army are outnumbered and trapped in a cave in a remote Indian village. Their commanding officer Lt. Col John Lynedoch (Richard Dillane), a fanatic believer in black magic, summons the power of Betaal, and tragedy strikes. He turns into a zombie, attacking and infecting his own soldiers till the villagers find a way to contain the army inside the cave itself.

Fast-forward to present day: a team of Indian soldiers called the ‘Baaz Squad’—an elite unit of the fictional Counter Insurgency Police Department (CIPD)—under the command of their leader Commandant Tyagi (Suchitra Pillai) and Commandant Vikram Sirohi (Vineet Kumar Singh) arrive at the same village, apparently to fight Naxalite rebels. Only Commandant Tyagi knows the true reason for their presence there. Bloodshed follows and the trapped soul of Col John Lynedoch that is under Betaal’s spell is accidentally released, unleashing havoc in the village.

Despite a strong production team, an opportunity to create a precedent, and a setting that could send shivers down the audience’s spine, the hype of “Betaal”, India’s first zombie horror web television series, died as soon as it was released. We couldn’t figure out why, so we watched it. We were so disappointed that zombie movies/series will never be the same for us anymore.

With Bollywood’s “king” Shahrukh Khan’s company Red Chillies Entertainment as one of the producers, expectations from the series, the first of its kind to be made in India, were definitely high. But writer/director Patrick Graham’s effort to give life to the undead, Indian-style, has turned into a cheap spoof of actual zombie movies.

We’ll not comment on the acting on this one because there seems to be no difference between the dead and the undead. Everyone appears in a sort of daze throughout the series, with no idea of what they are doing. Experienced actors fail to make impress and new faces don’t even solicit any attention.

Most appalling is sheer lack of seriousness evident in the production unit. Despite the backing of a major production house, the flaws in the series are uncountable. For instance, the soldiers of the supposed elite unit communicate through wireless headsets. That’s normal. But the wireless sets used in Betaal look like they were outsourced from one of the outsourcing companies (read: call centers) in India—so not pleasing on the eyes. There are so many of these eye-hurting details and jerks that a book on “Everything wrong with Betaal” could be written.

The efforts to Indianize the undead scores yet another own goal: The zombies in Betaal can be warded off by a mixture of salt, turmeric and ashes! The only thing remaining was to add a bit of “gau mutra” to the mix and the credit for the script could have been given to the infamous “Go Corona Go” singing state minister of India.

Without a single scene that could be called scary or at least exciting, the series never escapes its lethargic mode. The zombies here are a product of bad prosthetic work and pale in comparison even to the demons featured in ‘Ramayana’, the 1987 Indian TV series. Actually, the ’87 ghosts and demons were a lot more convincing than the zombies in Betaal. There’s also a crafty allusion to the mythical  “Vikram-Betaal” characters from Indian literature, but all creative efforts are lost in the chaotic dissonance of the series.

Luckily, it’s only a four-part series, with 44-49 minute episodes. The final episode hints at Season 2 but, surely, that ain’t happening.

Who should watch it?

If you’ve seen zombie movies like “Night of the Living Dead,” “Train to Busan” or even “World War Z”, you’ll regret Betaal. We recommend you give it miss, or just fast-forward through the first episode if you’re very curious.

Betaal

Rating: 1 star

Genre: Horror

Director: Patrick Graham

Actors: Richard Dillane, Suchitra Pillai, Vineet Kumar Singh

Run time: 3hrs (approx.)

I find war stories horrifying. They always send a shiver down my spine, even if they’re fiction. I guess that’s because you know something similar has probably happened somewhere and continues to happen across borders even today. Real-life accounts are worse because someone has actually suffered and you can’t fathom how humans can be so cruel to inflict unimaginable pain on others.

‘The Librarian of Auschwitz’ by Antonio Iturbe is based on the experiences of Czech teen Edita (Dita) Kraus who was a prisoner at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Though Iturbe interviewed Dita to write the novel, the book is actually a fictionalized account of real-life events.

Dita and her parents led a privileged life in Prague—her father was a reputed lawyer—before being taken to Auschwitz and then to the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Besides narrating Dita’s experiences at the camp, Iturbe also richly imagines the lives of those around her while building a narrative that stays as close as possible to real instances.

When she was 14, Dita had one of the most dangerous jobs in the camp. She was to look after the eight books that prisoners had smuggled into Auschwitz. Books were forbidden—anyone found in the possession of one would be executed—and these books were used at the secret school started by prisoners for the children of Block 31.

Dita loves books, and takes her duty as librarian seriously. She’s forever mending torn pages and checking on those who are have borrowed the books to see if they are taking proper care of them during “school hours”. Dita also doesn’t hesitate to take risks. From sewing deep pockets in her clothes to hide books to disguising herself as a man to visit her ailing father to assuming her mother’s identity to spare her from carrying a corpse, Dita shows immense courage despite being acutely aware that death is just one wrong move away.

The violence in graphic. It hurts to read. People are dragged to gas chambers, already stuffed with dead bodies. They are beaten and starved—a lone piece of carrot in their soup is considered a luxury. And there is the ever-looming threat of becoming one of Dr Mengele’s lab rats. He is notorious for cutting up people without anesthesia, when not conducting life-threating experiments on them.

However, aside from the difficult content, reading the book is fairly easy. The words just flow and the stories seem to merge. No one is made to seem unnecessarily heroic. Holocaust sufferers and survivors are all heroes in their own rights and it is this fact that shines through in The Librarian of Auschwitz.

This is an important story not only because it’s about the power of hope in the gravest of situations but also because you realize the cost of war just isn’t worth it.  

“The Lovebirds” popped up on the new films section of Netflix this week. Going by its trailer, it definitely looked like an interesting rom-com. For one thing, with an inter-racial couple in the lead, it promised to be a fresh breath of air among the plethora of the new Netflix releases that have miserably bombed. But how many times have we been fooled by good trailers?

Jibran (Kumail Nanjiani) and Leilani (Issa Rae) are one of those live-in couples who find it difficult to come to terms with their differences with the passage of time. The differences in opinions and lifestyles get so stark, they are on the verge of a breakup. In fact, they are discussing a split when a freak incident on the road has them on the run from the law and what looks like a criminal racket.

Honestly, The Lovebirds has a pretty run-of-the-mill story. Every other rom-com features estranged (or almost estranged) couples running for their lives from baddies who never seem to get hold of them. Then, in the face of imminent danger, they realize they’re made for each other and all ends well. So, basically, it’s the presentation of plots and sub-plots within a clichéd story that makes these films differ from each other.

The Lovebirds, slated for theaters in late-April this year under the famous Paramount Pictures, was forced into a Netflix release because of the global Covid-19 lockdown. It does try to present the overused rom-com formulae differently. There are two “non-white” characters as main leads in a romantic comedy that has nothing to do with race. Also, the pairing of a “black and brown” couple is quite unprecedented. At the same time, the casting allows filmmakers to make a few jibes at the “racial profiling” problems the US has faced of late.

But even with the talented Issa Rae and the experienced Kumail Nanjiani in lead roles, The Lovebirds falls into the trap of old tropes. Directed by Michael Showalter, it follows the couple around the streets of New Orleans to give life to this story, but in vein.

The screenplay lacks the strength to keep the film amusing through its 1hr 27 mins length. A movie of that length should pass in a jiffy but not The Lovebirds. It struggles to maintain the steady rhythm of an entertaining comedy and when the story moves to suspenseful moments and thrilling revelations, the lead-up is botched. There’s no method whatsoever, which makes this film boring.

Despite his experience, Pakistani-American actor Kumail struggles to keep up the energy his character requires. The actor, who’s played dozens of roles in films and television productions, doesn’t look quite comfortable in the lead. Issa as Leilani is also not a memorable character. Yet the blame for the lackluster acting should also fall on the shoulders of the writing team.

The Lovebirds is a film about how a pair of perfectly normal people would react when they suddenly find themselves in complicated situations. Being involved in more than one murder, running away from police, hiding from criminals, and at the same time snooping around for clues to solve the mystery—everything in the film called for a face-paced, action-packed tempo. Instead, what the audience gets, in Lelani’s own words, is “The Amazing Race with dead people.”

Who should watch it?

It’s not the worst movie we’ve watched and still better than the highly anticipated Indian zombie series that recently to atrocious reviews. If you enjoy a bit of romance and a bit of comedy, you might just enjoy The Lovebirds in bits and pieces.

The Lovebirds

Rating: 2 stars

Director: Michael Showalter

Actors:Kumail Nanjiani, Issa Rae

Run time: 1 hr 27 mins

Genre: Comedy