Shanghai - Not a Movie Review

Shanghai is for adults only.

At this point I must clarify - though pornography etc are rated, apparently for adults only, they are majorly patronized by minors and sophomores. In all likelihood, they are made mainly for non-adults. The restriction is, I believe, just a marketing ploy.

Shanghai is adult in adult-like way. That's why, perhaps, kids might not be able to appreciate it. You don't have to challenge their sense of thrill or appeal to their juvenile curiosity by imposing fake restrictions. This film is not very filmy, and could taste rather bland to those who are used to spices. It's an ordinary movie in which, to the utter dismay of audience, nothing dramatic takes place. No revenge, no redemption, no catharsis, not even gunshots. Besides, Shanghai is a world without heroes; mere survival takes all. And there is no justice, no explanation, and no escape. Worse, there is no "The End" to it. The script ends but the story goes on; inside your mind, and outside the theater, the story goes on. It's not unlikely that the your own multiplex was part of the story. You couldn't muster courage to order popcorn in the interval.

Shanghai is a scary movie.

Again it's time to clarify - though horror flicks typically involve cartloads of ghosts and gore, they don't really scare. The better ones manage to shock or disgust. Others just bore. The fault lies in their premise - that death is inherently horrible, and there can be nothing more horrible than a horrible death. For starters, I doubt that death is inherently horrible. And I have no doubt that a horrible life is by no means less horrible than a horrible death. A horror movie ought to depict life in its gory details, without offering escape or even hope of escape. From that point of view, life itself seems horrible, and our existence terribly lonely and helplessly futile.

The individuals in Shanghai are horribly lonely. And why not? Their relationships, with anyone or anything, are fragmented, contractual, and often disposable. They are either uprooted or being uprooted, all of them. They are condemned to live with strangers. And they themselves live like strangers all through their lives. Meanwhile, world around them changes faster than they could get a hang of it. They run breathless only to find out the ground beneath their feet has turned into a treadmill. Life goes on humiliating the weak and outsmarting others, making one feel perpetually betrayed and cheaply traded. Even destruction is reduced to a mere job. Ironically, but not unusually, one is killed by the very people who one fights for.

Final Comments

To me, Shanghai was like an underground Fight Club, where I had gone to get punched in my gut. I did get punched, and it did hurt for a while. I enjoyed the pain too while it lasted, but the punch had landed at wrong place. And that left me a bit upset.  

In the final analysis, the movie fails in bringing home the horrors of mindless development. Instead, it strays into the easy path of showing how corrupt our politicians are. As if we didn't know!

As if we didn't know that it was inspired by Costa-Gavras' masterpiece 'Z', which is a classic political thriller. Unfortunately for Shanghai, Z is a film about systematic suppression of freedom of expression under junta-rule and not about wholesale destruction under the aegis of economic development. Dibakar Banerjee, one of the most intelligent film-makers of Hindi Cinema, manages to localize the story well, but fails to fit into perspective.