~~~~~~Titli Movie Reviews~~~~~~~

Titli is a solid directorial debut but it could have been so much more, feels Raja Sen.

There's a world of difference between red and maroon.

You might not expect him to know that distinction, but Vikram does.

A security guard at a mall who moonlights as a carjacker, Vikram is furious at that very fact: that you think he doesn't know better.

In one of the finest performances I've seen this year, Ranvir Shorey is spectacular as the elder brother in Kanu Behl's Titli, the story of a dysfunctional family of bottom-dwellers. It is a performance of rage and nuance, of unexpected tenderness and misplaced nobility, and bloodthirsty cynicism. Shorey nails it, and it's hard to take your eyes off Vikram.

Behl's film, however, is not about Vikram.

It is about the youngest of three brothers, Titli, a kid scrounging up to buy a parking-space in a shopping mall, looking to some kind of future away from the hellhole where he lives.

As setups go, it's super, and Behl -- shooting on 16mm film -- gives us a sparsely coloured, visually impoverished movie.

Behl has the look right and his ensemble is impressive, but the film itself suffers from too much navel-gazing. Too much time is devoted to purposely phlegmatic meditations and too little on fleshing out actual characters, showing us how they tick.

We are pointed to characters and their contradictions but -- save for Shorey's Vikram and Shivani Raghuvanshi's fabulously acted Neelu -- they are not explored beyond their helplessness. There is no acuteness; all we really know about them is that they are all miserable. And the narrative, almost sadistically, impels us to suffer along with them.

For a film that takes pains to looks realistic, it hinges on too feeble a plot, a raise-money-in-limited-time wheeze that could have been done in many ways, like in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels fashion or, given producer Dibakar Banerjee's work, like in his resoundingly magical Khosla Ka Ghosla.

Titli does very boldly to eschew both comedy and style for a more arid approach, but the narrative rationale is flimsy: What, for instance, is happening to the money from all the carjacked cars?

Shashank Arora, who plays Titli, does so with the right kind of world-weariness and has enough hunger and desperation in his eyes -- and, it must be said, on his frame -- but his Titliness isn't given enough rein. He goes through the film wearing the same expression of bewildered blankness, and while that inert nothingness is becoming fashionably confused with top-notch acting in Hindi cinema these days, it doesn't help flesh out the character. He does erupt for one moment of white-hot rage later in the film but it, appearing so abruptly, serves more to derail the film than anything else.

Arora isn't a bad actor and wears his inscrutability consistently, but a film like this needs a preternatural talent tugging it along, someone meteoric and jawdropping, like a Gael Garcia Bernal maybe.

Titli is a solid directorial debut but it could have been so much more, feels Raja Sen.

There's a world of difference between red and maroon.

You might not expect him to know that distinction, but Vikram does.

A security guard at a mall who moonlights as a carjacker, Vikram is furious at that very fact: that you think he doesn't know better.

In one of the finest performances I've seen this year, Ranvir Shorey is spectacular as the elder brother in Kanu Behl's Titli, the story of a dysfunctional family of bottom-dwellers. It is a performance of rage and nuance, of unexpected tenderness and misplaced nobility, and bloodthirsty cynicism. Shorey nails it, and it's hard to take your eyes off Vikram.

Behl's film, however, is not about Vikram.

It is about the youngest of three brothers, Titli, a kid scrounging up to buy a parking-space in a shopping mall, looking to some kind of future away from the hellhole where he lives.

As setups go, it's super, and Behl -- shooting on 16mm film -- gives us a sparsely coloured, visually impoverished movie.

Behl has the look right and his ensemble is impressive, but the film itself suffers from too much navel-gazing. Too much time is devoted to purposely phlegmatic meditations and too little on fleshing out actual characters, showing us how they tick.

We are pointed to characters and their contradictions but -- save for Shorey's Vikram and Shivani Raghuvanshi's fabulously acted Neelu -- they are not explored beyond their helplessness. There is no acuteness; all we really know about them is that they are all miserable. And the narrative, almost sadistically, impels us to suffer along with them.

For a film that takes pains to looks realistic, it hinges on too feeble a plot, a raise-money-in-limited-time wheeze that could have been done in many ways, like in Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels fashion or, given producer Dibakar Banerjee's work, like in his resoundingly magical Khosla Ka Ghosla.

Titli does very boldly to eschew both comedy and style for a more arid approach, but the narrative rationale is flimsy: What, for instance, is happening to the money from all the carjacked cars?

Shashank Arora, who plays Titli, does so with the right kind of world-weariness and has enough hunger and desperation in his eyes -- and, it must be said, on his frame -- but his Titliness isn't given enough rein. He goes through the film wearing the same expression of bewildered blankness, and while that inert nothingness is becoming fashionably confused with top-notch acting in Hindi cinema these days, it doesn't help flesh out the character. He does erupt for one moment of white-hot rage later in the film but it, appearing so abruptly, serves more to derail the film than anything else.

Arora isn't a bad actor and wears his inscrutability consistently, but a film like this needs a preternatural talent tugging it along, someone meteoric and jawdropping, like a Gael Garcia Bernal maybe.

Raja Sen 3/5

🥺

can't post .. chalo will do in one post...

Rajeev masand

Can't choose your family!

Titli

Rating:

October 30, 2015

Cast: Shashank Arora, Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial, Shivani Raghuvanshi, Lalit Behl, Prashant Singh

Director: Kanu Behl

Titli, co-written and directed by Kanu Behl, is a hard film to shake off. I've watched it thrice now since it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May last year, and it still manages to get under my skin. It's not just the brutality that always and inevitably affects me, but also the haunting performances of its cast, and the fascinating portrait of a family raised amidst a tradition of violence and female subjugation.

Shashank Arora is Titli, the youngest of three brothers, living together with their father in a small, cramped home near a sewer in one of East Delhi's squalid neighborhoods. Titli has been plotting to break away from the family and ditch the life of crime and violence they're so deeply entrenched in. Oldest brother Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) is hotheaded and prone to cruel outbursts. Middle brother Bawla (Amit Sial) has a kinder manner, but is fiercely loyal to Vikram. Armed with a hammer, and little by way of conscience or pity, the two brothers routinely hijack cars on the highway, and often recruit the youngest to assist them in their job'.

When they learn of Titli's plan to flee the nest, the brothers get him married, hopeful that a wife will ground him, and optimistic that she could be a worthy accomplice in their work. But Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi) has an agenda of her own, and Titli makes a deal with her that could help them both get what they want.

Behl and co-writer Sharat Katariya's sharply observed screenplay shines a light on an endemically cynical world. Everyone here is corrupt or lying, and hope is in short supply. The beauty of the script is that none of this feels manufactured or fake; you can smell the rank desperation in the air.

It's also a meticulously detailed film, and Bahl urges viewers to look and listen for themselves, and not merely wait to be spoon-fed. From Bawla's sexual orientation to their father's own violent past, Behl asks you to read between the lines, never overstressing or simplifying the facts.

Titli unravels briskly, and it's riveting from start to finish. Much credit for that must go to a fine ensemble of actors who really sink their teeth into these parts. Ranvir Shorey leads the way with a terrifying, terrific performance that doesn't miss a beat. His Vikram is the kind of guy you'll hope you never have to encounter.

Watching the film earlier this week, a whole year after I'd last watched it, the violence still felt stomach churning, and I still came away impressed by the unexpected moments of humor that Behl had managed to sneak into this intense drama. Titliis relentlessly grim and yet unmistakably powerful and moving. It may not be everyone's cup of tea - it's especially not for the squeamish - but it's an unflinching study of family in the way that the movies rarely provide.

I'm going with four out of five for Titli. Brace yourself, you will be rewarded.

(This review first aired on CNN-IBN)

Titli
Cast: Shashank Arora, Ranvir Shorey, Amit Sial, Lalit Behl, Prashant Singh, Shivani Raghuvanshi
Director: Kanu Behl
Rating: 5/5

If you are familiar with the noxious, dark underbelly of Delhi, director Kanu Behl's Titli hits you in the guts right from the first frame. Because it is about a world that co-exists right in our midst, a world so lowly that we ignore but never forget while driving back home in the still of the night. Even if you haven't been to any such place in the capital, or encountered the people who inhabit these crowded bylanes, the fact is that Titli could be about any city, and its people. All you need to do is change the actors as per your ethnic and regional requirements for this tailor-made story of stark class difference in urban districts.

Titli (Shashank Arora) is the youngest in a family of poor car-jackers who live in the outskirts of Delhi. These bylanes are occupied by people who're oscillating between the idea of a better life and their ruined present. Titli's elder brothers, Vikram (Ranvir Shorey) and Bawla (Amit Sial) are emotionally traumatised, drifting from one day to the other, without any concrete plan for their future. It's this oppressed section of the society which is untouchable for the growing corporate' India. The brothers, and their father (Lalit Behl), make ends meet with whatever they earn from petty road robberies (they call it gasht').

Ranvir Shorey, Shashank Arora and Amit Sial in a still from Titli. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

One day, the brothers decide to marry off Titli just so that they have a female member in their gang who could help them trap their victims more easily. The bride, Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi), refuses to be a part of any crime. Instead, she has her own dreams, and expects Titli to help her fulfil them. But, will this be possible in a densely populated street whose sunlight has been blocked by nearby skyscrapers?

Ranvir Shorey in a still from Titli. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

Titli grips you in a weird way. You recognise these characters: They could have studied with you in college, sold you second-hand motorcycle parts... even threatened you with a baseball bat when you bumped into their scooter at a traffic signal. The close ups of this dysfunctional family disturb as these give you an insight into a world far from shining showrooms and international food joints. The magical effect of Super 16 film format introduces you to the inner world of these otherwise lonely, hopeless, misguided and tyrant men. Siddharth Diwan's photography brings to the fore the backward velocity of the people living under the false pretension of a metropolitan life.

Writers Sharat Katariya and Kanu Behl don't keep you at an objective distance. They challenge you to stop ignoring the so-called social blots, and once you're sucked in, they make you believe that the injustice behind the rough exterior is systematic. It could be anything from the patriarchal mindset to the hurried urbanisation, or maybe it's a mixture of both and many more twisted theories. The language, lifestyle and aspirations of these people living beside a gutter prompt a lot of Dilliwaallaahs to deny their existence despite knowing that it's actually the civilised' world which is contributing to pushing them over the edge.

Titli simply dreams of getting out of mess that his surroundings offer. (YOUTUBE GRAB)

One scene from Titli will haunt you for long: Bawla staring at women employees inside a parlour attending to their male customers. The scene is striking because this man could be anyone around us -- from the migrant to the garage worker -- who feels stifled in a big city, seething with anger at the injustice life's meted out to him. It could be a snake-pit, or a volcano on the verge of eruption. The truth is that none of these people on the margins of life are dreaming of owning a palace ever. All that they want is some respite from being tossed around by the world around them. Guess what does Titli dream of? He wants to own a car parking business!

A world beyond right and wrong, it's a quest for a dignified life. Vikram keeps eating even if his father coughs his lungs out. Bawla cries while Titli listens to it with indifferent expressions. Vikram's estranged wife threatens him with a lawsuit and he silently sobs. In absence of any form of solitude, they have learnt to deal with their individual pains by inflicting the same on others, sometimes through words, and mostly through slaps.

If Neelu is a victim, so are the others. Their tenderness turns into a mindless tough exterior in no time. However, you get engulfed with so much melancholy just five scenes into the film, you want some hope to seep in, and it only gets even more realistic. Titli's screenplay is so amazingly crafted that it grips you by the collar, and makes you live all that is happening on the screen.

No, Titli doesn't frighten you. It doesn't make you privy to some private conversations either. Instead, it pushes you out of slumber and makes you see the after-effects of a waywardly classic liberal economy.

Ranvir Shorey as Vikram has given the best performance of his life, but the real show-stealer is Shashank Arora as the glum, disinterested Titli. His morose face is the entry point of depression. He is every bit a wretched youngster whose dreams are crushed under a pile of violent developments. Amit Sial is perfect for a character that is as miserable as a butterfly circling a lamp. Shivani Raghuvanshi has an ideal face for Neelu's character, and she has done justice to it.

Kanu Behl's Titli is the most impressive film of this year so far. Its tryst with reality will keep you hooked till the end, to say the least. Titli is the latest gem from evolving Indian cinema. Don't even think of missing it.

ksh post limits..🥺 i guess mods will do the merging

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/hindi/movie-reviews/Titli/movie-review/49593392.cms

3.5

indian express 3.5

http://indianexpress.com/article/entertainment/movie-review/titli-movie-review-it-is-harrowing-but-imperative-viewing/

mumbai mirror 3/5