Déjà vu, of the worst kind

It happened in November 2008 once and now the story is repeating itself all over again.

Both instances involved two brilliant & delightful UTV movies –Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye, then and now, Kaminey. As Dibakar Banerjee said in an interview post OLLO’s release, “har picture ka ek bhagwaan hota hai” – guess these two movies share their deity.

The 26/11 terror weekend brought the entire city down to its knees for almost 3-4 days. Everyone was glued, watching the most horrific reality show unfold itself on national TV. Going to watch a movie in the theatres was the last thing on anyone’s mind. Oye Lucky opened to single digit % bookings over its first weekend and though it recovered with word of mouth, the damage had pretty much been done. Dibakar Banerjee most wonderful second offing, for all the cult status it has gathered since, wasn’t able to rake in the box-office moolah and get the eyeballs it so richly deserved.

And now, swine flu happens. The government hits the panic button and shuts down all schools and colleges for a week and all cinema halls for 3 days. I was just about to get online on Wednesday evening and book my tickets for the Friday evening show for Kaminey, when I heard the dreadful news on TV. I almost sunk. Aug 14 wasn’t gonna turn out the day I was so lipsmackingly looking forward to. Kaminey was going to enthrall everyone through its opening weekend, except for us flu-mania-stuck denizens of Bombay and Pune. I mean, yes, the swine flu scare is pretty real, but still. I am still not able to explain it to myself.

I don’t remember the last time I wished for the weekend to just zip by in a flash and so eagerly waited for Sunday to arrive.

The reviews for Kaminey have started flowing in and I am not one bit surprised by the unanimously positive reactions. I have yet resisted reading any review in detail, have skimmed through the titles and the ratings at the end. Don’t want to pollute my mind with any kind of details that will dampen the Nirvana.

The promos and the kick-ass soundtrack had set the benchmarks way too high anyways. The movie was definitely gonna be all that and much more. And am so glad it is. After all, it’s a Vishal Bhardwaj product.

Yes, having such unreal expectations from anyone is pretty insane, but then you watch any 10 minutes of The Blue Umbrella and you know that the man is sheer genius and that your heart won’t settle for anything mediocre. For all of you who haven’t watched this absolute gem of a movie, please do yourselves a favor and rent a DVD this weekend.

Meanwhile, the Kaminey experience is still two agonizing days away. The weekend has never seemed so long before.