Dus Kahaniyan

Last week I went to watch "Dus Kahaniyan" , a bouquet of ten short films from Sanjay Gupta. A praiseworthy and unique effort, the film was surely interesting to watch [ far better than Karan Johar :) ], and I thanked myself for changing my decision in the last minutes to watch Dus Kahaniyan instead of Om Shanti Om. I watched the latter by borrowing a dvd from a friend, and realised , I did a good thing by not spending Rs 200/- [150/- FOR TICKET +REST FOR SNACKS ] :) on OSO !!Anyway, back to Dus Kahaniyan - ten stories of different nature, not all of which are very well done. There were the occasional loopholes in the scripts too. But overall, good effort on part of the six directors and the producer to serve a platter of interesting cookies to choose from , rather than a plate full of oily soggy full meal :), which you are bound to take in!!Now, a short synopsis of each of the stories. I really don't remember the exact order of the films, except the first and the last one,and so I am jotting them down as I remember them. I will not write down the full stories here, in case, someone is interested to view the film after reading my blog.Matrimony
Cast:Arbaaz Khan, Mandira Bedi, Sudhanshu Pandey A short story about a conjugal and extra-marital relationship. Tight, well written script, with use of lots of close-ups.High on the Highway
Cast:Jimmy Shergill, MaasumiA story about a young boy and a girl, who are most probably living in together [not sure], and who leads a heady life. An incident on the highway one night changes their lives for ever. Too much use of jerk, blurry and shaking camera to denote the restlessness in the lives of the protagonists .Also, too much use of distorted sounds to add up to the overall jerky effect. In the end, I didn't like the film much. It tried to be different, but failed in its attemptLovedale
Cast: Aaftab Shivdasani, Anupam Kher, Anuradha Patel, [I don't know the name of the heroine]An attempted love story, with loads of loopholes in the script, finally leading to a weak narrative.The romantic naming [Lovedale], the picturesque locations and the soft lights didn't help much in convincing the viewers.Sex on the Beach
Cast: Dino Morea and othersThe only sexy :) story of the lot!! - but what a waste !! It failed miserably - neither was it a raunchy story leading to some voyeuristic pleasure, not did it excel as a  horror film [ which it seemed was the attempt ]. It started off well, but then slogged so much, that I was neither excited nor afraid :(Pooranmaasi
Cast: Amrita Singh, Parmeet Sethi, Minissha LambaA touching story , which somehow reminded me of Gulzar's works, because of its poignancy . If I am not wrong, this film is directed by Meghna Gulzar, so no wonder , some of the master strokes were reflected. It is a story about a mother, a daughter, a lover and a mistake. One of the best of the lot.Rice Plate
Cast:Shabana Azmi, Naseeruddin ShahThis is the best film among the ten, not because it is starring two of the greatest actors of our time, neither because it is a film that reminds us about the futility of religious divisions among mankind, but because, it has a straight, simple yet strong storyline.Both the actors were at their individual best, and you tend to remember the story even long after you have come out of the hall.Gubbare
Cast:Nana Patekar, OthersA much better weave than Lovedale, Gubbare is another love story of a different kind, though the end was predictable since halfway of the film. Nana Patekar has done similar roles earlier also, and this time too, he was quite convincing. The use of muted tints throughout the film helped in adding to the sobre yet romantic mood of the film.Strangers in a Night
Cast: Mahesh Manjrekar, Neha DhupiaA different type of story where a woman discusses an encounter with a man which she cannot forget. A very interesting ending, the intensity of the mood accentuated by use of warm colors and shadows.Zaheer
Cast: Manoj Bajpai, Diya MirzaA good story. The film started off and continued through the beaten tracks for quite sometime, until at the end, where comes the shock. This is one film that did not show its name [i didn't see it ]. I searched the net to find the name of this film.Rise and Fall
Cast: Suneil Shetty, Sunjay DuttThrough- and -through gangster movie . Use of camera angles, colors, textures, locales are reminiscent of recent Hollywood and Bollywood gangster movies. Highly predictable from almost the beginning, the film could have been a couple of minutes shorter :)But overall, as I said in the beginning, Dus Kahaniyan was a much better experience than watching a sugar coated  Karan Johar film, or the total Bhelpuri Om Shanti Om. On a more serious note, Dus Kahaniyan will brush up the confidence of short film makers in the future.