Barfiland or H.I.P.Land!!

H – Homage

I – Inspiration

P – Plagiarism

Barfi! Is going strong at the box office, and the reactions have been quite good so far. Though the critics liked it but most of them were not very impressed.

In this post, Inside the Celluloid draws a line for what can be called homage, inspiration or plagiarism. As we believe that “copied” is a derogatory term, we have replaced it with HIPed. Now the onus is on the audience to decide where does a particular scene fits in – H or I or P. Had it been some other filmmaker, it would have been easy to say that it was all homage, but it’s not all the same with Anurag Basu who has quite a history - Saaya, Murder, Gangster, Life in a Metro, Kites. And more so because Charlie Chaplin can be counted as a genre now. Having said that, as I wrote in the movie’s review (click here), I like his direction style and his display of craft in bringing the magical moments together. The way he cherry-picked the right elements to create a visual panache made him the cynosure of all movie-watcher’s eyes.

To start the homage, inspired or plagiarised debate, first watch the following videos.

The Chaplinesque Effect

1) Let’s kick start the innings with the movie’s promo – a cat –and-mouse hunt scene with Saurabh Shukla and Ranbit Kapoor.

Here is the original scene from the Charlie Chaplin movie The Adventurer.

2) There is a scene in the movie where Ranbir is sleeping under the cover of a statue that is inaugurated. That scene is HIPed from Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Charlie Chaplin scratches his leg but Ranbir adjusts his underwear because it’s obviously funnier.

Couple of pages from the adorable, tear-jerking “Notebook”

3) There is a scene in Barfi where Rupa Ganguly tells her daughter Ileana about her lover. The scene is HIPed from The Notebook.

4) Priyanka coming and lying next to Ranbir during the final scenes. But it would be too farfetched to say that even the climax is HIPed because it’s quite a generic scene.

The funny side of Barfi Keaton

5) There is a scene in the movie where Ranbir is on a ladder and the cops are trying to catch him from either side of the ladder. That scene is HIPed from Buster Keaton’s Cops.

Why the Oriental cousins should be left alone?

6) This clip from Kikujiro. Seems like the art director was told to even get a similar nail and place it in the same way.

7) The bicycle chase scene in the narrow lanes and the act of tapping the windows reminds you of Jackie Chan's Project A. Doesn't it?

Masand’s favorite

8) Rajeev Masand of CNN – IBN has mentioned in his review that the kidnapping subplot seems to be inspired from Gone Baby Gone. Agree or Die!!

Let’s start Singing

9) There is a scene in the movie where Ranbir walks into a door and his nose gets bent. There is also a scene where he sits on a sofa with a dummy and tries to entertain Priyanka. Both those scenes are HIPed from Singin' in the Rain.

Watch the video from 1:50

Yesteryear’s Hindi cinema breathes a new life

10) Here is the Koshish scene from which the scene of Barfi asleep and not listening to his father’s screams is inspired from.

Oh my dear Mr. Bean – Are you “Back to School”?!

11) The scene where a piece of paper sticks to Barfi’s hand and he finds difficult to get rid of it.

Mind the Rat!!

12) Is the white rat in the rotating cage taken from Emir Kusturica’s Black Cat, White Cat?!

Watch the video around 1.40

(Vikramaditya Motwane, director of Udaan in an interview with Rajeev Masand told about Kusturica’s 1995 film Underground. He went ahead saying how he happened to watch this Serbian movie at a film festival, how it changed his perception towards life, how it made sweeping changes to his film appreciation, and finally how it honed his film-making skills. Taking all the cues from the interview, I have watched Underground and other films of Emir Kusturica. I strongly recommend them for avid lovers of cinema)  

It’s all in the CHARACTER!!

13) The two lead characters - Barfi and Jhilmil - inspired from hollywood movie Benny & Joon and the Korean film Oasis.

“Hey boy, we are also there” – Yours truly, AD WORLD

14) Ranbir Kapoor sitting next to a semi-naked guy and reading a newspaper.

"Three" is the flavor of the season

15) The three musicians playing instruments in the film is from the animated movie Rango.

Are you in mood for wholesome ransom!!

The ransom note (of Rs 7000) which is a collage of letters taken from various newspapers/magazines is taken straight from Baby’s Day Out and even the way the letters are shown through the camera is same.

Eye for Detail

16) Some details from Mani Ratnam’s Thiruda Thiruda (Tamil) / Donga Donga (Telugu)

Show some sympathy

17) The kidnap-ransom-father’s surgery episode. Even Sympathy for Mr Vengeance has a similar theme.

Catch the tomato

18) The scene where Barfi throws food stuff and other goods out of the freight train to the poor kids and then challenges Shruti to jump out of the running train, which she easily does, was HIPed from the movie Fried Green Tomatoes. 

What’s in the body??

19) The scene where Jhilmil sees Shruti’s body and tries to imitate in front of mirror is from The Other Sister, and also her being brought from Muskaan.

Not that beautiful

20) Barfi’s walk as he goes to kidnap Jhilmil and Barfi taking Shruti on a bicycle ride is from Life is Beautiful.

Unwind this rewind

21) The time rewinding scene after proposing to Shruti and urinating in a crop field scenes are HIPed from Lover’s Conerto.

From God’s own country

22) The shoe throwing scenes to attract the attention of Jhilmil was apparently HIPed from Mathilukal - an award-winning Malayalam film directed by Adoor Gopalakrishnan. Watch this part of the film from 40:55 onwards... 

 

Finally, our favorite!!

23) […] Anurag Basu disinters the innate Jean-Pierre Jeunet (director of the path-breaking French film Amelie) in him to create a world of capricious and unfeasible set design. […]

This one is from Inside the Celluloid’s review of Barfi! (click here). Suresh Sistla adds to that saying, “There is this music which plays almost constantly throughout the movie. It’s HIPed from these two songs from Amelie.

Homage, Inspiration, or Plagiarism – Audience, please decide.

P.S. Don’t get into intricate details to decide whether this blog post is H or I or P. Here, we are only taking about Barfi!