>>DUS KAHANIYAN<< *FC* - Page 3

By: Upala KBR, Mid-Day
Monday, January 22, 2007   
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Sanjay Gupta's next project Dus Kahaniyan may not be a novel concept (Ramu attempted the multiple story format in Darna Mana Hai), but some sections of the media are hell-bent on proving otherwise.

Dus Kahaniyan is now a "mobile film" according to a well-known film website, meaning that it can only be viewed on cell phones once it releases. Needless to say, Gupta is hot under the collar about this.

Only teasers

"Hungama.com has tied up with 3GSM World Congress, the world's leading mobile communications conference, to be held in Barcelona (Spain) this year where they will show some films from Dus Kahaniyan. But they will be like teasers. The 10 films from Dus Kahaniyan will be made available on cell phones only after its theatrical release later this year," clarifies Gupta.

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Gupta is upset that his big-budget extravaganza is being called a "mobile film". Gupta says, "It's got a budget of Rs 15 crore, is a full-length feature film consisting of 10 short films of 10 and 20-minute durations. It's one of the biggest productions from White Feather Films this year.

Dus Kahaniyan boasts of a cast of 30 stars, including Sunil Shetty, Sanjay Dutt, Neha Dhupia, Dia Mirza, Manoj Bajpai, Arjun Rampal, Esha Deol and Vidya Balan. We have adapted original stories from writers like Roald Dahl and Harold Pinter and roped in big writers like Vishal Bhardwaj, Kamlesh Pandey, Gulzar, Javed Siddiqui, Kartar Singh Duggal and others.

We are also shooting special music videos for each film with Strings, Shibani Kashyap, Aryans, Anand Raaj Anand, Bappa Lahiri, Euphoria and Anu Malik."

Besides Dus Kahaniyan, White Feathers is also producing Shootout At Lokhandwala with Ekta Kapoor's Balaji Telefilms, directed by Apoorva Lakhia and Woodstock Villa, directed by Hansal Mehta.

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Dus Kahaniyan is a film made around ten small stories of approximate 10-12 minute length. Every story is a unique story and do not have any kind of link with the other stories. Six different directors have directed these small movies and for every story there are different set of actors. This film was promoted as watching ten movies on the cost of one movie, however at the end we realise that we have even failed in enjoying a single movie. This is a small film and run time of film is around 2 hours.

Already, earlier we have some similar versions of films like Darna Mana Hai, Darna Zaroori Hai and Salaam-e-Ishq. However, "Dus Kahaniyan" is weaker than all these movies. Out of the ten stories only three stories have something really to offer and rest of other stories are either below average or are total garbage. I admit that it is really-2 hard to make small ten minutes movies which are entertaining and justify themselves well. For this, we require a great combination of good story, solid theme, super acting performance, best direction and best editing, however, most of the ten short movies of Dus Kahaniyan miss on number of fields. Many times acting look totally unrelated to the mood of story.

One good short story in this movie is 'Pooranmashi'. The main stars in this small movie are Amrita Singh, Minisha Lamba, Parmeet Sethi and Vishwajeet Pradhan. Pooranmashi is about relationship between a mother and daughter and is good one to watch in movie. Other good short films are 'Zahir' staring Manoj Bajpai and Dia Mirza and 'Rice Plate' staring Shabana Azmi and Naseeruddin Shah. The biggest drawback of the film is that audience finds it very hard to relate with the film, during the whole movie, we move from one unrelated theme to other unrelated theme and that with poor execution.

At the end it becomes very hard to tell that what we have actually watched in this movie and what is "Dus Kahaniyan" all about? Absence of good music also makes this movie further dull and boring. Though, "Dus Kahaniyan" has number of good messages like all people are same, life is small and respecting different religions with some solid dialogues but poor delivery make these points irrelevant. People even can find more good entertainment on the daily soaps running on the small TV.

Rating- 1/5

by Rohit Tanejaa | Fri, 07/12/2007 - 16:00 | in

White Feather Films' produced, "Dus Kahaniyan", is an ensemble of dark, drab and depressing stories which fail to touch a chord anywhere save a few places. Although the concept of having multiple stories being told by multiple Directors is novel but the end results are either too stark or too niche.

The only 2 stories that stand out amongst the 10 are " Rice Plate" directed by Rohit Roy and " Gubbare" directed by Sanjay Gupta. The rest of the stories fail to hit the right chords. Especially the ones directed by Hansal Mehta and Apoorva Lakhia, although shot in a very avant-garde style, they have no soul in them. Both these film-makers are as in cohesive in their narrative as they have been in their earlier films. "Puranmasi", made by Meghna Gulzar, does have its moments though. Probably the most absurd out of the lot is, " Strangers in the night" by Jasmeet Dodhi, it is too verbose and the twist in the end fails to have the desired impact.

Amongst the ensemble of actors, Shabana Azmi in "Rice Plate", and Nana Patekar in "Gubbare", both give creditable performances. Amrita Singh and Parmeet Sethi in "Puranmasi" are endearing.  Jimmy Shergill and Masumeh Makhija in " High on the Highway" are convincing in an unconvincing story. Mandira Bedi is quite rightly measured and subdued in "Matrimony".

On the whole the entire film reminds one of the 'Rishtey', "X-Zone", " Saturday Suspense" slots seen earlier across various TV channels and fails to entice the viewers.  Sanjay Gupta has attempted to create a new genre in film-making and although technically most of the stories have been well shot, overall the impact is disappointing.  

Rohit Tanejaa is a film director.