The Good, the Bad and the Bollywood

Bollywood in 2016 pushed and pulled in different directions. For each good ‘un, there were three terrible ones, but that’s the way it rolls. SHUBHRA GUPTA picks 11 top releases of the year (an extra one for luck, obviously) Well-crafted story based on a real-life incident which got called out for lack of complete veracity, but gave Akshay Kumar a solid, believable role. Much after the release, and the noise over censorship that led up to it, it came out that the film may have been based on a popular American hard-boiled crimethriller. But it doesn’t take away from the way it showed the drug menace in a state, and how it degrade humans. Alia Bhatt turns in an award-winning performance. One of life’s great pleasures is to watch a star chomp hungrily into a role, and deliver a terrific, well-rounded performance which plays fully to his strengths. It matters not that Fan wasn’t a blockbuster; it will matter that Shah Rukh Khan played it the way he did. A couple of things made this film: Salman Khan admitting to middle age, and having to submit to a plot. He still thrust his pelvis out in song-and-dance, but also gave us a character with an arc. Yes, this happened. Can education give you the necessary push in life? A housemaid in Agra believes so, and propels her reluctant daughter into learning. Good performances by an ensemble cast — Swara Bhaskar, Ria Shukla and the delightful Pankaj Tripathi bouy the tale. The film has three Delhi-based young women face up to male entitlement, patriarchy and near-rape, and gave us the statementoftheyear:nomeansno.kirtikulhari, Taapsee Pannu, Andrea Tariang and Anriuddha Roy Chowdhury, take a bow. The biopic based on the inspirational tale of Neerja Bhanot, the air hostess who gave up her life to save many in her hijacked craft, packed an emotional wallop. Sonam Kapoor made us believe. There were some things this film didn’t get right, but two strong elements in it places it in our list: that Bollywood families can have secrets and be unhappy, and that older protagonists can be even more engaging than the flighty young. Rajat Kapoor and Ratna Pathak Shah made this one for me. Just before Leonard Cohen walked off the face of the earth in November, he left behind one of his finest hours in the form of You Want It Darker — a contemplation on life so extraordinary that it will remain universal in the times to come. Through 12 elegant tracks, he paid an ode to death in his cracked, gravelly voice, scalded by many a cigarette, heartache and experience. “If thine is the glory, then mine must be shame. You want it darker. We kill the flame,” his voice reverberated in the title track. It was one of the finest releases of the year, and Cohen’s death three weeks after its release made it matter so much more. Antony Hegarty, who now goes by the name Anohni, collaborated with electronic giants Hudson Mohawke and OPN to put political realities in their soundscape, warbling about “child molesters” and “mass graves”. Hegarty sang of drone warfare in Drone bomb me, putting herself in the shoes of a young girl, and crooned about Obama and the disappointment surrounding him. Her powerful voice wrenched your heart with every utterance of violence and patriarchy. AND THE Concepts, stories and rhetoric of death in Nick Cave’s albums aren’t new. But Skeleton Tree came to us after Cave’s son, Arthur, passed away after falling off a cliff last year. While it had begun much before Arthur’s death, the album’s delivery is replete with notes of mourning. Cave’s bruised voice takes you on a journey, with Jesus Alone, Girl in Amber and Rings of Saturn.whenhesings It's alright now, there isn’t an iota of closure there. The darkness was all too real, making it one of the finer albums of 2016. Bowie’s swan song, Blackstar, his 25th studio album, was released on his birthday and two days before his death, distilled with the crystal clarity of Ziggy Stardust and the indelible impact he left on modern music. The kaleidoscopic album encapsulated the genre-blending sensibilities of Bowie. Free-flowing jazz flowed smoothly in between electro-pop, heavy synthesizer and drum machine beats. If The Soft Parade by The Doors was an entire album, with Daft Punk and Dizzy Gilespie sitting in on recording sessions that, perhaps, would have covered a fraction of the sound that Blackstar manages so seamlessly.