Driving past Prateeksha, I saw a posse of policemen guarding actor Amitabh Bachchan’s corner bungalow in Juhu, in anticipation of pro- or anti- reservationists creating trouble. Gosh, I thought, it must be an explosive film. And, any follower of news knows that over the last week there have been many angry voices against the film. Now I don’t know who director Prakash Jha’s PR agent is; whoever it is, the person deserves kudos for the way hype has been created around the film when it clearly doesn’t warrant any of it. Nor does the film warrant a title like Aarakshan, which means reservations. The film is less about reservations and more about education and should rightly have been called Shikshan (education). But will the political class froth at the mouth over such a title? Will the media then cover the film in such great detail? No. Another PR coup, in selecting a sexy title. Ajay Devgan must thank his lucky stars for not having the dates for regular director Jha, leading to Saif Ali Khan stepping in. On paper it must have seen like a stellar role, to play a Dalit which must have seemed novel for the latter given his blue blood, but in reality Saif has little to do in the film. He does an impressive turn in a confrontationist scene with Prateik (when he mouths that Humein mehinat ka paath padha rahe hain aap? dialogue), has a ball bashing up helpless guys in another scene, but on the whole Deepak Kumar the character is unconvincing. He goes missing for a while after taking a rickshaw presumably to the Truth be told, there is only one main character, played by Amitabh Bachchan as the principal Dr Prabhakar Anand, and everyone else is mere extra. As this is a character the thespian has played before, in Mohabattein, it taxes him little. Prateik, who impressed with his naturalness before the camera in Jaane Tu Yaa Jaane Na, seems out of sorts here. But what do you do when your character fades in and out of the script so! Deepika Padukone is no stranger to criticism of her acting prowess, which I always thought was unfair. I mean, how many Hindi films care for the heroine’s theatrics! As Amitabh’s daughter she does what is expected of her through the film, but when given the scene at the end that could shut her critics up, she flubs it badly. Dialogues are meant to be delivered, not spoken, she needs to be told. Manoj Bajpai plays the schemer yet again and does it with relish. Thankfully, he doesn’t have a change of heart at the end which is a relief. Because everyone else does! Saif reveres his principal, changes his mind, and changes his mind yet again. As does Prateik. Deepika walks out on her parents, and once outside has a quick change of heart. Saif goes to Cornell, has a change of heart, and comes back. The board of trustees has a change of heart and sacks their stellar principal. Through all this, one man stands firm, and that is Dr Prabhakar Anand. Everyone around him ultimately see that he was right and they were wrong, and all ends simplistically. On the whole, when a fine bunch of actors don’t impress you as you leave the auditorium, the director has to shoulder the blame. For not having the conviction in seeing the plot through and meandering into the next bylane. Granted, in a fractured society like Don’t the offspring of those who were denied access to education and a life with dignity for generations have a right to overthrow the inhuman yoke and seek their place in the sun? Of course they do. Shouldn’t merit be the ultimate yardstick in a society that is trying to build itself after centuries of subjugation? Of course it should. Alas, And any film that sets out to tackle such a topic needs to be nuanced, which Aarakshan clearly is not. At 20 reels could it have been shorter? Maybe, had it stuck to what it set out to do. The way it is done, Aarakshan feels like two films separated by the recess. After clobbering you with two songs in the first 30 minutes, making you dread if it will turn out to be a musical take on reservations, there’s a drought of songs after that. The Saif-Deepika romance is underdeveloped for fear of overshadowing the main story, which is fine. But their breakup and reunion happen too easily, like the climax which almost makes you guffaw.
Driving down to the preview theatre in the suburbs for a dekko of Prakash Jha’s Aarakshan, I heard on the FM station’s news break that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati has banned the film for two months in her state. Wow, I thought, must be an explosive film.
Archive for the ‘Bollywood’ category
Because Shikshan is not a sexy title for a Prakash Jha film
August 17th, 2011Vikram’s Raavanan is better, as is Prithviraj’s Dev
June 18th, 2010Ever since Roja, Mani Ratnam has wanted to go pan-Indian. And I am not talking only in terms of the plot, but the audience too. Few, if any, directors have consistently bridged the north-south divide in sensibilities. The seasoned Mani Sir knows that ultimately it’s the story and the telling. Roja took in its sweep both the tumultuous north and the placid south, but it can’t happen every time with every film. But you can’t blame Mani Sir for trying.
He has been trying since then. With Bombay. DilSe/Uyire. Guru. After some time he must have realised that dubbing a Tamil film into Hindi doesn’t make you a Hindi director. With Aytha Ezhuthu/Yuva he tried a new tack — making the same film in two languages, with a different cast.
You can take a Tamil director out of Tamil Nadu, but you can’t take Tamil Nadu out of him. To me Mani Sir’s films have always been about the native idiom which, in a vast, diverse culture as ours doesn’t translate easily — the reason why he must have decided to make two films at one go.
Still, I’ve always found his films appealed more in Tamil than in Hindi — surprisingly, even the all-new Yuva was not as good as its Tamil counterpart, a viewpoint shared by many of my bilingual friends.
Naturally, then, the wait was to see Raavanan and Raavan to decide if I was being biased in favour of his Tamil work. Having just emerged from a marathon session of film-watching, let me say this: I would never watch the same film in different languages one after the other for anyone except Mani Sir.
Like the Mahabharat, the Ramayan is an amazing epic, containing within it every emotion possible apart from telling you that goodness and evil are not black and white concepts. Ram is the hero, divinity personified, but he still killed Vali unfairly. Raavan is the villain, yes, but he was not one till he lost his heart to a married woman and kidnapped her. Was Ram right in asking the virtuous Sita to undergo an agni-pariksha? You can debate the two epics endlessly, which accounts for their timelessness.
This, however, is not Mani Sir’s first nod at our ancient epics. My alltime favourite film of his, Thalapathy, was a takeoff on Karna’s story set in modern times. Just as Raavanan/Raavan is.
The premise is tantalising. The wife is kidnapped by a powerful leader to settle scores and kept in captivity. What if the two end up liking each other? Only Mani Sir could have the vision to see the epic in such terms. Can the modern Sita played by Aishwarya Rai go back to her husband? Does he suspect her? Do they separate? A brilliant premise, except the last few minutes.
So, there is little to differentiate between the two films in terms of treatment. In the Tamil, Vikram, superstar down south, plays Veera (the role essayed by Abhishek in Hindi), Prithviraj plays Dev the cop (Vikram plays it in Hindi), and Aishwarya plays Ragini in both. Aside from the rest of the cast, there is really nothing to differentiate the two films barring a few frames.
Vikram told our Patcy Nair that Aishwarya was the real hero of the film — after seeing both versions I can understand why. This to me must be the most physically challenging role she has played in her career, and every time she stumbles through the river, jungle, or jumps off the waterfall, one needs to remember she had to shoot the scene twice, once in Tamil and once in Hindi. Incredible!
There was never any question of the so-called Bollywood top brigade of heroines coming anywhere close to her, and with Raavanan/Raavan she has simply put herself in a different league. The Kareenas and Katrinas and Priyankas can contend among themselves, but Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is beyond them. A combination of ethereal beauty and mind-blowing talent like her will not be seen again in my time, I am sure.
Which brings us to the male performers. I did say there was little in terms of treatment between the two films, but there is a mountain of a difference in the performances.
Veera/Beera needed to be menacing, edgy and playful at the same time, and yet come across as credible when he loses his heart in the blink of an eye. To me, Raavanan soars because of Vikram. Abhishek’s Beera, on the other hand, makes the right expressions and sounds, but doesn’t go beyond them. I am not saying Bachchan Jr is not good, just that Vikram in the same role is better.
Vikram, too, gets only a conditional vote. I am not a cineaste, so I am not aware of other actors having played the main role in one version and the counterpart in another, the way he has played Raavanan in Tamil and Dev in Hindi. Unintentional, yes, but Mani Sir’s decision to have him do this (Abhishek the Raavan, approached to play Dev in Tamil, refused) reinforces that good and bad are only relative, what is good in one setting need not be good in another.
It must challenge any actor to don the greasepaint and play one role, remove it, don another makeup and play another role in the same frame. Vikram does Dev well in Hindi, but I must admit that Prithviraj, perhaps because he was unburdened by the challenge of playing two roles, does a better Dev in Tamil.
And may I add that A R Rahman’s music appealed to me better in Tamil before the film’s release, and this has only been reinforced after seeing its picturisation. Kattu Sirukki sounds better to my ear than Ranjha Ranjha; ditto, Keda Keda Kari Aduppula over Kata Kata; and Kodu Potta over Thok de Killi. It’s Vairamuthu’s lyrics in Tamil and Gulzar’s in Hindi – so you know it’s not about the lyrics.
With Raavanan/Raavan, Mani Sir returns to familiar territory, abduction of a spouse, which earned him a nationwide following with Roja. But Roja was not just an abduction tale — through the human interplay it also took in the political hot potato of the time, the Kashmir insurgency.
In his latest, he seems more interested in the human interplay and treats the issue of tribals’ fight for rights as a mere backdrop, referenced by a comment here, a barb there. Catching it by the scruff of its neck is what one would’ve expected of Mani Sir.
Tamil: 3 stars. Hindi: 2 stars
Beyond My Name Is Khan
February 15th, 2010
Dear friend Arthur J Pais reports from
Of course, given that SRK films always open well, we will never know how much of these collections can be attributed to the ideological clash with the Shiv Sena which spilled on to the streets, making it appear at one stage that the film will not be released in Mumbai.
The real test for the film will be the subsequent weekends. Hype and media blitz can only take you past the first weekend, the film needs to be really good to sustain it beyond.
I have not seen the film as yet, the hype keeping me away from the theatres and away from my usual pattern of catching an SRK film the first weekend itself. And for all those yelling about the need to take a principled stand by watching the film, thanks but no thanks. There are other, more effective ways to take a stand against the Shiv Sena.
At least three of my associates who have seen MNIK have turned in an adverse opinion. One of them is an ardent SRK fan, you know, the type who goes to his bungalow Mannat on his birthday. She says the film was good till the interval after which it starts to degenerate. Another, a cerebral watcher of films, thought the film was a disaster and has tweeted this: My Name is Khan is not worth the hype and hoopla. Perhaps, the last 45 minutes saved the film. Otherwise, a real disaster. Another viewer, a person with who I share cinematic sensibilities (barring Mangal Pandey on which we disagreed; he thought it was terrible, I thought it was good), couldn’t stand MNIK. He called me apoplectically after coming out of the theatre to rant about how terrible the film was, SRK cannot act for nuts, this being KJo’s worst film till date etc. The whole morning has in fact been spent in listening to his outburst.
Three negatives from three different viewpoints are enough to keep a buff off the film, I should think. But I will watch it, since I am an SRK (not KJo) fan.
Even though there is the Hindu-Muslim angle. Uh-oh.
I avoid films with a Hindu-Muslim storyline. It cuts too close to home.
That was the reason I have not Mani Ratnam’s
Equally, the resistance to see Rizwan Khan-Mandira on screen is enormous, but SRK may end up scoring over Mani Ratnam I think even though I am not dying to see a story about a Hindu-Muslim couple onscreen. It’s not easy to be an inter-religious couple, and I don’t like films romanticising it. Everything is not hunky-dory like in the film where I saw Rizwan and Mandira offering namaaz and praying at the mandap in the same room. It is a cute cinematic moment, yes, but cinema is not life. It is a dream. And Bollywood is the biggest dream.
Growing up, I’ve always wondered why the bulk of the love stories around me involved people of the same community. I mean, if a Tamil Brahmin were to marry a Tamil Brahmin, what is the need to take the love route, isn’t it the same as an arranged marriage? Shouldn’t love be between persons of different communities, different faiths?
But I realised that most of us circulate within members of our own community, so the chances of meeting folks from other communities are less. We may have a social acquaintance with them, but nothing beyond that. Is this changing in the new
An inter-religious wedding that does not involve conversion calls for a tremendous amount of understanding and largeness of heart to accommodate the other. And conversion is another bugbear with me; how many people have asked why I or she has not converted. Because, you moron, there is no need to. If people of various faiths can live together in a country, they can easily do so in a house, too.
Then there is the other statement someone else made: Oh, you must insist, ours is the superior religion. Oh yeah, I suppose God himself came down in all his glory to tell you this? Utter poppycock! Faith and god are manmade constructs, and the sooner we accept it the better for mankind. I am all for faith, god, worship etc, I am a staunch believer myself, but I hate it when the belief becomes ossified. Which it is most of the time.
Then there is the other extreme, as exemplified in our films, of sweetness all around. I don’t know if MNIK has avoided this pitfall, but I am very wary of it.
Sometimes the cynic in me comes out and makes me think. Why did SRK, who was sounding conciliatory 10 days before the film’s release – talking of having met Balasaheb many times sharing a coffee with him, etc – suddenly dig his heels in, reigniting the controversy with Matoshree? Things were cooling down nicely, till he pulled back. Did the
As I said, I am a cynic, and my mind does wander down this road…
I couldn’t see 3 Idiots till four weeks after its release, and I was glad I saw it so late, away from its hype and pro- and anti- campaigns. The theatre was a full house even on the fourth weekend, and the film was wonderful. The way my life is looking now, it’s likely I will be seeing MNIK in its fourth or fifth week. Free of all the hype.
Postcript: I came across this old article of mine, hope you read that/
