5 Cinematic Gems That Showcase His Brilliance News24 –

Nagesh Kukunoor has carved a niche for himself in Indian cinema with his unique storytelling and deeply impactful narratives. From gripping political thrillers to heartwarming tales of hope, his films leave a lasting impression. On his birthday, here’s a look at five of his finest works that define his brilliance.

1. City Of Dreams Part 1 and 2 (2019, 2021): Produced by Applause Entertainment, this is the best political drama yet on the Indian OTT platform. What starts off seeming to be a take-off on Mani Ratnam’s most recent political drama Chekka Chivantha Vaanam turns into an engrossing crackling cat-and-mouse drama about a political empire in Maharashtra where siblings squabble for power after the patriarch (Atul Kulkarni) is gunned down. Straightaway, City Of Dreams encircles a cluster of power-hungry characters whose motives are never cogent, let alone comprehensible. There is always a sense of more going on here than meets the eye. Writers-directors Nagesh Kukunoor, Rohit C. Banawlikar peel off layers after layers of subterfuge to reveal a system of governance that thrives on corruption and deception. Deftly interwoven, the plot moves in mysterious ways embracing characters who are at once cunning and naive. The aforementioned wounded politician’s daughter Poornima (a very lovely and emotionally empowered Priya Bapat) fights it out with her out-of-control debauched brother Ashish (Siddharth Chandekar). The two actors play off against one another with controlled acerbity, bringing out Shakespearean levels of power-greed as the plot unfolds in a gripping game of one-upmanship. Priya Bapat is especially effective, negotiating the power spaces that her father has vacated with guarded velocity.

In one sequence, Poornima Gaekwad accompanied by the family advisor (Jiten Pandya) meets a business benefactor friend of her father who informs her in very crude words, that he is ready to be ravaged in the missionary position but won’t be sodomized. The characters shock themselves with their sudden swerve into sleaze, none more than Sandeep Kulkarni playing the political family’s money launderer. Playing a placid family man with crippling financial liabilities (money launderer with no money: get the irony), he cultivates a secret life where he watches ‘Sunny’ (as in Leone) in Badan Part 4 and befriends a mysterious seductress. Kulkarni brings out the frightening stillness that defines his character’s existence.

Not one to go down without a fight is Ajaz Khan’s burnt-out encounter cop act. He is a once-powerful man now forced to look at his pathetic personal and professional life straight in the eye. The part is memorably written. And Ajaz Khan makes the best of it though he could have mumbled his lines more coherently. The problem with being Marlon Brando is we don’t know what he is saying. The series has some striking threads of plotting, fluttering across the episodes with inviting assuredness. My favourite is the loan agent Gautam (wonderfully played by Vishwas Kini) and his unlikely telephonic friendship with the brutalized sex worker who calls herself Katrina (Amrita Bagchi). There is potential in this friendship for a full-fledged feature film. City Of Dreams focuses not so much on the city of Mumbai as its ambitious power-hungry characters whose yearnings spill into a bloodbath. This is a well-written, finely performed web series with significant recall value. The writing is bold and effective, never afraid to call out its character’s flaws, no matter how embarrassing. At one point when the two siblings squabble over their father’s political throne, the brother tells his sister, “I am not willing to be Manmohan Singh to your Sonia Gandhi.”

Politics never seemed more interesting. And farcical. The line dividing the world of politics and crime in City Of Dreams is so thin, it is almost non-existent. The simmering cornucopia of characters are forever in the danger of slipping through the cracks. And many of them do. Poor Purushottam (so poignantly pathetic as played by Sandeep Kulkarni). As Poornima Gaekwad’s trusted lieutenant, he finds himself falling into the honeytrap. Flora Saini is curiously tragic and seductive as the moll who ensnares and destroys poor Purushottam. I loved her sequence at the end where she comes to meet Purushottam’s simple trusting wife who asks the pretty lady if her husband had an affair with her. Without blinking, Flora denies it. Sometimes a lie is worth many times more than the truth. Even Mahatma Gandhi thought so. Not that there are any Gandhian politicians in this intricately conceived game of power and deceit. Our heroine herself is no saint. She has the blood of her own brother on her hands from Season 1. Now in Season 2, she pays the heaviest price possible for a woman and mother.

One of this season’s great joys is to watch the amazing Priya Bapat play the estranged wife to a political activist Mahesh Aravale (Addinath M. Kothare, well played). And before we shout ‘Aandhi’, Kothare himself describes himself as Sanjeev Kumar in Gulzar’s film and even hums Tere bina zindagi se koi to his estranged wife.

2. Dor (2008): How far would you go for love? That’s the question which the narrative softly raises. How far would YOU go to see this film? That’s the question every movie enthusiast should ask loudly. Very frankly, Dor takes you by complete surprise. Of course, you expect a certain aesthetic and technical finesse in a Nagesh Kukunoor creation. But nothing he has done so far—not the under-rated 3 Deewaarein and certainly not the hugely-feted Iqbal—prepares us for the luminous spiritual depths and the exhilarating emotional heights of Dor.

3. Dhanak (2016): This is a very rare product of a breed of cinema where simplicity and intelligence come together in an unlikely marriage of excellence. The main characters are a little blind boy who is a brat and a whiner and a major drama king, and his elder sister, wiser beyond her years, endlessly exasperated by her kid-brother’s antics but committed to being his support and anchor as they set off to meet, hold your breath, Shah Rukh Khan, who is committed to restoring his eyesight.

4. 3 Deewarein: Having got satirical laughter out of himself, and us, in Hyderabad Blues and Bollywood Calling, Kukunoor spread his discernibly strong vision of human caprice and destiny’s damning jokes across the theme of great power. 3 Deewarein is a prison story that had to be told. The characters, big or small, are so palpable in their pain, we feel their presence long after the film finishes.

5. Aashayein (2010): This film is structured as a journey from a bright delusory light into a place where the radiance comes from a consciousness of why mortality is not to be feared. In John Abraham’s eyes are mapped the entire history of the human heart, its follies and foibles as it struggles to make coherent the indecipherable logistics that define our journey across that bridge which everyone crosses from this world to the next.