Bumm Bumm Dhole

Bumm Bumm Bole

Director : Priyadarshan

Writing Credits : Screenplay/Dialogues by  Manisha Korde, Story by Majid Majidi

Music : M.G. sreekumar, Tapas Relia, Azaan Sami

Cast : Darsheel Safary, Atul Kulkarni, Rituparna Sengupta, Ziya Vastani

What goes for the film : The lack of exposure that a majority of our film viewers are subject to.

What goes against the audience : Another murder by Priyadarshan. This time, a rape thrown in for good measure.

Cinemaa Opinion : If you’ve seen Children of Heaven, be prepared to feel suicidal after watching this. If you haven’t, rent it instead of watching this one. Scroll down for a detailed review.

 

 

The first thing to strike me in Priyadarshan’s Bumm Bumm Bole was the adapted from credit to Children of Heaven & the story credit to Majid Majidi. The elevation of my spirits over this fact was very short lived since the opening scene gave away the cheating in this too. A terrorism angle? Give me a break, Priyan…for Majidi never wrote anything to do with a terrorism angle in Children of Heaven. Wouldn’t the adaptation credit have been enough? Anyways, moving on to the film, if I had to describe it in a sentence, I would call it a verion of Children of Heaven diluted with melodrama and adulterated with an unnecessary terrorism track. Think about it…if I were to pick up a large scoop of vanilla ice-cream, add to it a dollop of jaggery, a dash of pepper powder, bake it in the microwave…and pass it on as “my version of vanilla icecream”, how would you react to it? If you’ve seen Children of Heaven, your reaction to Bumm Bumm Bole wouldn’t be different.

Enough said about the terrorism track, that shifts the focus away from the core of the film, and doesn’t add anything worthwhile. To top it up, there’s a tangential and equally unnecessary swipe at subjugation of the poor through an attempted rape. The obscene product placements (Adidas, Gatorade, Hansaplast etc.) are in complete contravention of the film’s mood. The dialogues & BGM are designed specially for melodramatic effect. The setting is kept a secret for no good reason. A puzzle to crack for the audience…tea estates (north-east?)…kashmiri costumes (kashmir?)…marathi & convent accents (mahabaleshwar?)…but they don’t have terrorism looming there, do they? Keep guessing till you come across that blink and you miss it (I did) mention of Shillong that gives the puzzle away. Good suspense in the plot…right? Effectively kill the essence of the film, I’d say, and Priyan has proved time and again that he’s a master at it.

The accents are a result of a gross miscasting. Agreed…Atul Kulkarni is one of the better acting talents out there, but the moment he opens his mouth for his first dialogue, he gives it away. His “Kalyanni…” is just the trailer…picture abhi baaki hai, mere dost. For Kulkarni gets the loudest dialogues in the film, and he hams his way to the hall of fame with them…all along in a heavily accented dialogue delivery. Darsheel Safary is a sad case here. First of all, the time this film took in production shows the most in the scenes involving him. One can clearly see that he’s aged more than the time that the film’s story spans. Moreover, his convent accent is hardly suited to his character. But then, no other kid would’ve drawn in the crowds like Darsheel does. And its sad to see such an adorable, natural talent being wasted in miscasts like this. The girl, Ziya Vastani, is equally adorable, perhaps more, and sounds like a baby nightingale when she speaks. But her dialogues, way more than what you’d expect a normal child of her age can fathom, are such a letdown.

Trust the Iranians to make the best films for and about children. Children of Heaven remains a mascot of the Iranian industry’s efforts towards the genre. Its a touching tale of affection, innovation and enterprise; a tear-inducing account of the economic disparity within Iran; a poignant look at relationships, between siblings and a father-son. The film is beautifully balanced, treading the thin line between drama & melodrama with amazing dexterity. The performances are natural & sincere. To cut a long story short, its one of the best films ever made. Period.

Trust Priyadarshan to murder a film. This time though, he proves he can do worse. He rapes the film of all its dignity before killing it in cold blood. He stirs up all the emotions of the original in a blender and comes up with a uniform emotion splattered all over the film – heavy melodrama. He makes a mockery of the tasteful depiction of the rich-poor divide of the original through caricaturish characters. The father-son relationship that was built out of concern, innocence & strength in the face of adversity in the original is changed into one of frustration, admonition & fear in this one. The original showed a nuanced brother-sister relationship with playful sibling rivalry, affection & concern. Priyan clouds all the nuances with the heavy influence of the “Original Indian Value” of Tyaag (Sacrifice).

As usual, a majority of our film viewers will lap it up as sensitive handling of a delicate issue. My opinion – if lifting a film without giving due credit to the original is a crime, officially adapting a classic and murdering it is a sin. Bumm Bumm Bole is an occurence of that sin at its fathomable worst. Would have been more apt if the film was titled Bumm Bumm Dhole.