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After more than a year of continuously watching and reviewing Netflix movies/series, it started getting a bit monotonous. I know it’s an OTT platform and there are new releases all the time, but the whole waiting and watching does get a bit boring when you know you have to review a movie every week. So, I decided to surf through YouTube to see if I could find something interesting.

A quick search for Bollywood movies gave me multiple options but the one that caught my eye was the 2018 film “Baazaar,” for personal and semi-professional reasons. The Indian language crime/drama is largely based on the share market and it’s inside stories. Enough reason for an aspiring NEPSE trader to watch, you might think. Well, that is partly true.

The film uses two men from different walks of lives and backgrounds to tell the inside stories of power and money struggles in the stock market. Rizwan Ahmed (Rohan Mehra) is a small-time stock-trader in Allahabad who idolizes Shakun Kothari (Saif Ali Khan), a Gujrati share market tycoon based in Mumbai. Rizwan’s wish to work with the very best in the share market makes him chase Shakun, who in turn recognizes the youngster’s potential and thus begins a collaboration between the two men—the former a naïve entrant and the latter a ruthless whale. Facilitating their relationship is Rizwan’s co-worker and girlfriend Priya Rai (Radhika Apte), who has an already successful career in the firm they work for.

As Rizwan starts making money by the millions for Shakun, the two get close. Shakun, usually reserved and distanced, starts taking a personal liking to Rizwan and even their families, including Shakun’s wife Mandira Parekh (Chitrangda Singh), get involved. But like any bull or bearish trend in the market, their relationship also does not last long. Greed for power and lust for money comes between, with guile, treachery and retribution coming into play.  

Directed by Gaurav K. Chopra, Baazaar’s story feels uncannily similar to Oliver Stone’s 1987 masterpiece “Wall Street,” although there is no official mention in the credits. The writers of Baazar try to show the darker side of the stock market where deception and scam are just another day’s work. (This is kind of true for almost every share market.) The film has intense movements and suspenseful subplots to make it thrilling enough.

Still, the three writers credited for Baazaar do a lazy job of omitting the very details of how a market operates for real. There is a lot to watch in the film, but nothing to take away. It focuses more on the power struggle between the players than realistically show at least some actual processes that the audiences could relate to.

Badly written it may be but the film flows at a good pace, making its 2hr 17mins length bearable despite the boring soundtracks and background music. Like most of the Bollywood films on stock markets and finances, Baazaar too uses its females as mere tools in storytelling and pretty faces on screen. Both the central female characters—Priya and Mandira—played by the best actors in the industry were in a position to make an impact on the story, but the writers only make them blend and then fade into the background.

This lack of character-building for other actors, including Mehra’s Rizwan, shifts all the focus on Khan’s Shakun. Shakun, who has made it to the top of the market with his shrewd trading skills and a little help from his wife’s family money, is a multi-layered character with shades of black and white throughout the movie. The actor Khan does a fine job of getting into his character but still feels tied down due to the terrible writing and stereotypical characterization. 

Who should watch it?

Baazaar fetishizes the stock market and the uncountable amount of money that floats in it. Glorification of financial crimes works for some and doesn’t for others. So you know if you really want to watch it.

PS: We’ll most probably be doing a YouTube movie every alternate week. So if there’s something you’d like to get reviewed or saw a movie you particularly liked, please send us a link. We’re on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Or mail us at [email protected]

Rating: 3 stars
Genre: Crime/drama
Actors: Saif Ali Khan, Rohan Mehra
Director: Gaurav K. Chopra
Run time: 2hr 17mins

Tambudzai is a black Zimbabwean woman in her forties living in a women's hostel in Harare. It’s a temporary arrangement as she is older than the permitted age and has to find a place of her own soon. But having quit her job at an advertising agency after white male co-workers got credit for her work, she is struggling to find accommodation and employment. The traumatic experiences and hardships that she goes through affect her mental health and she is even institutionalized for a while. All in all, Tambudzai or Tambu has a difficult life.

Tsitsi Dangarembga’s novel ‘This Mournable Body’ that got shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize is somewhat bleak. But despite the general theme of despair running through the book, This Mournable Body is actually a story of triumph and the strength of the human spirit to persevere. Tambu is aware of the brutal reality of her situation but she never loses her sense of self. She is a strong character. She is every woman who has ever found herself in a difficult situation.

This isn’t a book without problems—it’s slow, for instance—but it shifts your perspective on things and that’s an important kind of storytelling. But what I loved about the book is that it is narrated in second person from Tambudzai’s perspective. You feel like you are Tambudzai and literally in the midst of all that is happening. Tambu is sometimes quite self-centered and thus a difficult character to like. If it hadn’t been for the writing style that put me in her shoes, it would have been frustrating to understand or feel connected to her.

I did, at various points in the novel, wish I knew more about Tambu—where she came from, what her childhood and growing up years were like, and how she ended up where she was. Turns out, This Mournable Body is actually the concluding novel in a trilogy. You needn’t have read the previous parts to pick up this book—it works fine as a stand-alone novel. But reading the other two books will definitely give you a better sense of things.

The first book, ‘Nervous Conditions’, published in 1988, is about Tambudzai’s childhood. The second, ‘The Book of Not’, out in 2006, follows her time at convent school before she starts working in advertising. Set 20 years later, the final instalment of the series chronicles the later years of Tambu’s life. It’s a sad depiction of how the education system is filled with false promises for black Zimbabwean women and how they deal with that reality. It’s also an essential commentary of sorts on class, race, and misogyny that divide most societies even today.

Three stars

Fiction

This Mournable Body

Tsitsi Dangarembga

Published: 2020

Publisher: Faber & Faber Limited

Pages: 363, Paperback

For someone who watched football in the 90s, the ponytailed figure of Roberto Baggio leading his team from the front in every match with the same zealous energy is a memory that can’t be easily erased. Nor can the iconic image of Italian football’s legendary forward and attacking midfielder ever be forgotten in the annals of world football. Baggio, in his career span of roughly three decades, gave the sport some of the most memorable moments and the biographical feature film “Baggio: The Divine Ponytail” (l Divin Codino) celebrates his contributions.

The movie starts when Baggio (Andrea Arcangeli) is 17-years-old and plays for the local team L.R Vicenza. Born to a lower middle-class family, Roberto lives with his parents and seven other siblings in a small apartment. The opening scenes with long shots in the confined space of his family home suggest how chaotic and equally colorful Roberto’s early life must have been.

Then, in 1985, he is recruited by the Serie A team Florentina, a big moment for him and his family. Everyone around Roberto seems to be supportive of his football career and see him making a name for himself and the country, except for his father Florindo (Andrea Pennacchi). Baggio has an uncomfortable relationship with his father and although Florindo is not totally against his son’s career, he is not very appreciative either.

But Baggio is unhindered by any negativity in his life, including a major knee injury he gets in the early stage of his career. Baggio quickly recovers physically and gets into Buddhism to help him recover spiritually and goes on to deliver record-setting performances in football. In 1993, he wins the coveted Ballon d’Or and is in the peak of his career when in World Cup 1994 he misses a deciding penalty against Brazil in the finals. This incident would haunt him for the rest of his life, even giving him nightmares at times.

The movie Baggio, directed by Letizia Lamartire, covers most of the footballer’s professional life and some of his personal life in a fast-paced sequence of events. The storytelling is quick and concise, but owing to its brevity of just 91 mins, the film feels more clustered than compact. Many questions have been left unanswered. There also seems to be a discrepancy in the chronology of Baggio’s life and career.

We get little into the life of Baggio and are shown more of what is easily available on the internet. For instance, his embrace of Buddhism, as shown in the movie, is unconvincing. Also, we are told in words that Baggio has had problems with his coaches all through his career, but we do not get to witness much of this conflict. Nor do we see his relationships with his fellow players, some of them icons in their own rights. For the rest of the film, there is just not enough conviction and emotion as expected in a passionate biography of a famous sportsperson.

Actor Andrea Arcangeli, playing Roberto Baggio, cannot be blamed for this though. He has done a convincing job of portraying the flamboyant Baggio on screen. He acts his part and definitely looks his part, doing everything expected from an actor. It’s the storytelling that lets the film down. The makers seem to be confused about whether they would like to show the professional side of Baggio, or his personal side, and end up not doing enough on both the fronts.

I had never expected I would ever say this, but this film is just too short! A sportsman with Baggio’s list of contributions and achievements should have definitely been given more screen time. With the healthy pace the film maintains, a 2.5hr long feature or even a mini-series would have been more interesting.

Who should watch it?

Football fans, new and old, unquestionably. Even if not as a good movie, watch it as an ode to the rockstar of international football. As mentioned, the film’s steady pace will not let you get bored even if you find a lot of pieces in the puzzle missing, and the acting performances are decent enough.

Rating: 2.5 stars
Genre: Biography, drama
Actors: Andrea Arcangeli, Andrea Pennacchi
Director: Letizia Lamartire
Run time: 1hr 31mins

Nineteen-year-old Sadie’s life hasn’t been easy. Raised by a mum who is at best indifferent, she realizes early on that she is going to have to get by on her own. She is fiercely protective of her little sister, Mattie, and tries her best to take care of her after their mother, Claire, runs away. Then Mattie is found dead. The police investigate but nothing conclusive comes out of it. Sadie knows who murdered Mattie and she is determined to bring the killer to justice.

Sadie buys a cheap car that’s quite literally falling apart and, with only a few meager clues to follow up on, hits the road. Along the way she meets many characters who take the story down different interesting paths. There’s a cranky waitress at a diner, a young woman on the run whom Sadie picks up as hitchhiker, and some high school kids whose lives are on the opposite spectrum of Sadie’s.

The basic premise is simple and straightforward but ‘Sadie’ by Courtney Summers is essentially a dark, heartbreaking YA novel about the price children end up paying when their parents make bad decisions. As Sadie searches for her sisters’ killer, you see how her entire life has always revolved around being there for Mattie, filling a place where their mother should have been. In fact, ‘Sadie’, I believe, shouldn’t really be slotted as YA. It will appeal to adults as well and make us value the things we have, so far, taken for granted. The beauty of ‘Sadie’ is that at no point does it just feel like a thriller novel. There’s a social drama element to it that makes it relatable and real.

The book alternates between chapters from Sadie’s perspective as she tries to track down a man who seems to have many identities and a true crime radio show transcript run by West McCray. He is trying to find Sadie by following whatever information May Beth Foster, Sadie’s surrogate grandmother, and the police are able to provide him.

The narrative is compelling and Summers is great at building anticipation and making you work your grey cells to try and figure out what might have happened. I remember reading somewhere that Summers, who has many other fantastic books to her credit, doesn’t believe in neat, happy endings. But what happened in the end in this book blew me away. I can’t get the story out of my head—and I have already read two other books and some short stories after completing ‘Sadie’. It still haunts me. And I think it will for a long, long time.

What makes the book so good?

The format in which it is written, alternating between the protagonist’s perspective and a radio show transcript.

Courtney Summer’s restrained and sparse writing that makes for a gripping narrative.

Interesting characters that Sadie meets along the way that don’t let the story take on a one-track mundane tone. You enjoy getting to know these fascinating, at times weird and disturbed people.

Rating: 3.5
Fiction
Sadie
Courtney Summers
Published: 2018
Publisher: Wednesday Books
Pages: 322, Paperback