Little ZiZou

Director: Sooni Taraporevala
Cast: Boman Irani, Sohrab Ardeshir, Imaad Shah, Shernaz Patel, Zenobia Shroff, Mahabanoo Mody-Kotwal
Synopsis: A peek into the closed Parsi community and their quirky ways. The movie also explores issues such as inter community marriages.

Producer: Dina Stafford, Sooni Taraporevala

A perfect movie for respite from a heavy week of stressing work, Little Zizou relieves your senses with its Parsi based plot brimming with top notch humor, screen play and very believable costume designing.Little Zizou is a journey through a child’s narration into the realms of a small Parsi setting in urban Mumbai. The eleven year old Boy, Xerxes (Jahan Bativala) believes in his angelic mother watching over him and help him fulfill his life’s ultimate dream- to meet Zinedine Zidane (from where springs lil Zizou) and older brother Artaxerxes (Imaad Shah) are children of Cyrus II Khodaiji (Sohrab Ardeshir), a near fanatic parsi who dwells on fundamental parsi beliefs and erodes non-parsi ways to secure himself power among the Parsis. Boman papervalla (Boman Irani) on the other hand, a liberal Parsi and owner of a newspaper is forever at loggerheads with Cyrus, deriving humor in seething at his fundamentalist views. The plot is further unveiled with Boman’s wife Mrs. Pressvala (Zenobia Shroff) showering her affection on the motherless lil Zozou which evokes jealousy from her own offspring Liana (Iyanah Bativala) whereas the older daughter pulls the strings of Artaxerxis’s heart who yearns for reciprocation of his love. However her affection is attuned to the likes of someone else and Artexerxis is heartbroken to learn of it.The director, Sooni Taraporevala has done a wonderful job of stringing together the dazzling performances by the cast into a tidy little movie that is both soft in its narrative and fast in pace, keeping the audience pleasantly meandering into the movie with several knots which in the end comfortably gets untwined and sorted. John Abraham makes hearts flutter with his charming looks which is all his cameo role calls for. All in all a good movie to pass a memorable Sunday with family or friends.

Karma aur Holi

Cast :	Sushmita Sen, Naomi Campbell, Randeep Hooda, Vikram Chatwal, Rati Agnihotri, Deepal Shaw, Suchitra Krishnamurthy
Director :	Manish Gupta, Alumni of NY Film Academy
Producer :	David Roma, Drena De Niro, Prashant Shah
Genre :	Family
Release Date :	6-3-2009

SOMETIMES, you ruin products with customising things for the local audience. KARMA Aur Holi is one such product. The dubbing – to Hindi – is so lacklustre and inane that sitting through the length of the movie is a pure test of your patience.

The film unfurls when a group of characters meet at Sushmita Sen and Randeep Hooda’s home for Holi. There’s of course Sushmita and Randeep, the married couple. Sushmita is unhappy about their not having children, while Randeep is secretly trying to a handle a financial crisis in his company with his business partner (Debbie Mazor).

Sushmita’s suspicious sister (Rati Agnihotri), who is married to Suresh Oberoi, is over-protective of her teenaged son. He finds himself ostracised by his classmates, thanks to his voyeuristic tendencies. Rati also does not favour anyone except Hindus and Indians.

There are Suchitra Krishnamoorti and her chauvinistic husband. And Suchitra’s outgoing sister Deepal Shaw, who wants to be an actress.

Then come the ‘star attractions’: Supermodel Naomi Campbell, as a struggling actress who discovers she is pregnant with her director-cum-boyfriend’s child.

And Drena De Niro (Hollywood actor Robert De Niro’s daughter), as a tarot card reader and Sushmita’s friend.

The Holi party they congregate at becomes the catalyst to revealing their secret desires and unfulfilled dreams.

Sushmita Sen dominates practically every frame in the movie and holds the movie together. A sight for sore eyes, her onscreen chemistry with Randeep is obvious.

As for the other actors, it is hard to critique a film that is completely dubbed, therefore missing any possible nuance that the actor might have evinced.

Speaking of which, not only is the dubbing jarring, the dialogues are also simply amateurish. You are caught between wanting to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it and letting your irritation get the better of you. Sample this. An African-American yells at his bodyguard, “Main item ke saath bathtub mein mazze le raha tha aur woh meri video utaar raha tha (I was having fun with the hot number in the bathtub and he was filming it all!).”

Then there’s the crudeness. Suresh Oberoi calling Rati a ‘monster’ and hatyaaran (murderess) for aborting her child.

Sushmita asks a businessman to get out of her house because his girl is a vaishya (prostitute).

Deepal Shaw seems to be attached to a camera throughout, and the only person she films is 17-year old voyeur Vikram.

Indifferent, sloppy editing, with no real rhythm, scenes just jumping from one scene to another and no plotline to speak of – no wonder Sushmita Sen backed out of promoting this film.

To give the film its due, the English version might perhaps not be so bad. You might want to check it out – if you like conversation-driven films and love Sushmita Sen.

Meanwhile, the Hindi version should have stayed safely in the can.