Rab ney Bana Di Jodi- and it was well made!

When I was very young, I fell in love with the Yash Raj studio films. Their Lamhe was an experiment that bombed at the box office but, deservingly, managed a national award or two. It was a love story that only Chopras could have knitted so perfectly. Coincidentally, the time when I was in love for the first time, not exactly the first time, but I consider it as a first time because that was the time when I discovered that love indeed happens; one cannot only leave it at chance but also contribute to its happening. That love (for Yash Rajs) remained green for a while until the same studio came out with huge Box offices success but too many banalities in expressions ( read Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge). Yash Raj’s are well known for being bold with ideas and presenting everything in style; avant-garde in their style, they manage to give a Midas touch to any idea (read Silsilay). Later, any upcoming star would have refused the negative role that SRK got for Darr fearing the demise of a promising career of the lead actor. But Chopras never let that happen, they insured that SRK got what he merited.

Few years later, when much water had flown down Thames, I fell in love with SRK himself, although not because of Chopras but a Nikhil Advani’s film that come out of Karan Johar’s studio. Coincidentally, I was in love too, for the second time, again the particular reason for mentioning it is that I had arrived at a point from where I could distinguish categorically the love with the notion of physical attraction that also includes sexuality. SRK ruled every heart with a bang and easily managed a particular slot for himself with the help of a boy/man next door image. And after the success of Chak de India he even started his own variety of activism on the silver screen: Neo Feminism.

Rab ne… Jodi rather was a Jodi (coupling) of Chopras with SRK. Back with bang!! What else do we say? The way these people mix realism with cinema is only typical of them. The theme of the film was that all ordinary love stories are indeed unordinary. The film did justice with the theme and actually made things feasible, accept for the metamorphosis of Surinder Rai Shahni, a Punjab Power Clerk into Raaj the coolest Jat. What I also like about Chopras is the way they always manage to redefine love and even make it look plausible!! Hats off! Love as a notion has always been vague and indefinable unless of course Mills and Boons are our bed partners. “You kept my head high in front of my friends, that’s love for me”, with these words SRK turns the table on that Kal ho Na Ho story, in which love was not complete without a traditional sacrifice or even Kabhi Alvida na Kehna, that put a question mark on the eternal characteristic of love, which was, according to the film, could be equally recreated in the middle of a marital disaccord.

Ironically, the more things became retro, the more they remain modern, well that’s not the lesson, that’s the way things are represented. Touching husband’s feet and doing a Mission Impossible II act on a bike, both were parts of a changing spectrum that includes all the elements of a Masala flick. Like it or not, Chopras are not chauvinistic (as wrote by Khalid Mohammed in his review of the film), they rather try to propose a possibility that exist even against all odds: that of being happy with the Politics of Situation as proved by Julia Kristeva, in other words, all women who ‘surrender’ themselves to household chores are not necessarily unhappy. Neither do they believe in taking things lying down, for ex. that Dhoom II scene. SRK reminds too of a perfectness that is at the moment only apparent in words and not in deeds. Yes, he unconsciously executes a perfect plan, that of making his wife fall in love with him and he does it without any ‘Macho’. His alter ego, Raj, is probably the result of a man’s subconscious mind dominating his actions, and in the process, giving him the freedom and the perspective that he always longed for, but lacked due to the social pressure that came as a “bonus” with a brilliant and dedicated mind.

All these elements are a stark reminder of the fact that in the middle of all other experimental films be it A Wednesday or Rock On; the healthy family dramas can always give a run for money to the former.

Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye

If Cinderella were born in India, she would be Lucky. Yes, dreams are made of this, of TVs, VCRs, plasma screens and Mercedes. The film touches realism so closely that it ends up translating into everybody’s fantasy. A thief, born and brought to be one, realizes very soon that shortcuts actually pay. A hysterical father, a submissive mother and two ordinary siblings, all these elements can constitute any ordinary formula film in which the main protagonist has a promising future ahead, except that he becomes the victim of his society and thus takes an illegal route to success which is rather situational. Here, the hero breeds no such intentions, he neither boasts of philanthropy behind that disguise of a delinquent nor does he goes out to settle the score against that heartless society. He simply steals, that is his raison d’être. Valuable, invaluable, banal, all these are not his concern; perfection, pronounced as realism, contributes to the status of an otherwise ordinary child. Discussing about childhood, the film dares to bare all. It throws light on the pending issue of child’s psychology; something that is going bad will definitely end up badly, unless of course, there is a miracle, which, fortunately, doesn’t happen with the child in the film as it would have put this movie under a named category, in other words, the movie has no genre. Yes, it’s comical, if one dares to laugh on the day to day truisms, yes, it’s a thriller too, if one at last accepts the fact that every ordinary life is a thriller in itself, yes it’s a social movie, if one looks at these characters as indispensable parts of any society.

Talking about realism, the film reminds of the golden era of Hrishikesh Da. All disguises and deceptions (euphemism here) are acknowledged in the ‘civilized’ society up to a certain limit. A thief is not a thief for everyone, for a few, he is a ‘brother’, a lover or even a friend. Chameleons rule the society or at least, that is what they think. They have as much acceptability as any Lucky; they are good or bad, depends upon their ability to avoid foes. Help is not a virtue, it’s a method in which it is kept handy so that it is accessible whenever need arises. The heart doesn’t beat, it thumps, as a result, all necessity becomes urgency and a comfort takes the form of a sinful desire. Even the arrest scene of Happy alias Lucky makes the mockery of the system and makes it clear that although it was not the one that made Lucky a criminal but it didn’t do enough either to avoid him from becoming one. He got the taste of that criminality even before he committed his first theft, which was in the form of his friend’s murder by local goons.

ROCK ON- Keep on

The Title itself is enough to turn away the audiences, considering the past Musical films: Yash, Taal, Zindagi Rocks to name a few. It’s a challenging genre not much experienced. We, in India, are far from Chicago and the Phantom of the Opera but that doesn’t prevent us from making a Musical film of high caliber. Taal was great, but more musical and less film, Zindagi Rocks was pathetic on both grounds. Rock On was a breather, both figuratively and idiomatically. Technical points apart, it was a high level entertainment; the adrenaline pumping department was taken care by the music; pure rock and nothing more! Lyrics, what lyrics? Yes, that’s actually what the Rock music is; the Bollywood rock, till date, has been too soft on ears to be qualified as real Rock. Metallica experimented with the soft rock with Nothing else matters but Metallica has an experience of quite a few years (a euphemism!)

The first half of the film paints a proustien panorama of life even further, it’s a nostalgia lived and relived. These four characters do not only cherish their past, they live in it and except for Aditya and Joe, they are happy to live in it. Proust’s reflections on the “Temps Perdu” mark actions of all the four singers, nostalgic or not, for them, it’s a “Passé qui ne passe pas” (the past that you can’t get rid of).

Another commendable part of the film is that the guitar gets its dignity back. With Dus (Manmohan Desai’s film that never saw the light of the day) and then with Mission Kashmir(Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s film that fell flat at the box office), the director trio of Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy did many beautiful experiments with the guitar that they continued with Dil Chahta hai ( remember Tanhai?). Now, Rock On lifted that torch so as not to let it blow off. ‘Music for the ear’ may be an understatement as it had a plot too although we saw a few reference to the English classical Full Monty, the same sort of camaraderie that holds the guys together and last but not the least, the late entry of the second fiddle on the stage. The music also gave the impression being ‘Anu Malikized’ (you know what I mean!), especially the beginning of Phir Dekhiye that sounded like the beginning of Imaan ka Asar from Kukunoor’s Dor.

Homme Mélancolique

Homme mélancolique, où recherches- tu ton âme ?

Cessée, a-t-elle, d’exister, tu vois !

Oublie tes vicissitudes, cède-toi à la foi !

Ne la retrouvera tu peut-être, mais sauras tu le calme !

Souviens-toi que tu es une esquisse

qui jette son bonheur dans les ténèbres de ses bêtises

qui nie la vie, qui se ment

et ensuite voit s’envoler sa passion avec du vent !

Tes espérances sont les rêves,

irréalisable, comme une existence parfaite,

malheureuses, comme la princesse de Clèves.

Sera tu pire qu’une bête

Sans gloire, sans émotions, sans rien

dans ta vie prochaine, si tu l’obtiens.

Ravi Rana, hiver 2008.

Singh is King

So now we all know that all the high flying Singhs actually carry a parachute 24/7. It's amazing, it's practical. Even Manmohan (Singh) carried something similar when he went to the parliament. Here, I am talking about the film, the mega-blockbuster, that's what I heard (actually read) about the film in the newspapers. The best part is that the film actually evoked the Visa worries unlike DDLJ in which Mr. Puri (senior) decides to fly back to India without giving a due thought to the visa hassles, daughter Kajol does it neither. All the talk about Khalsa being the choosen one, actually I have already heard it in a different context , provides the right mix of large heartdness and bravory. After Sopranos, it's Pajis, not one but all of them except of course Neha Dhupia, she had some problems with wearing turban, otherwise she synchronised perfectly in the gangbang (don't take too many ideas from this expression, it's as pure as "uskey (Lucky's) ma-baap ki aankhon main aansu, in other words, no intended pun).
As in any other Hindi/Punjabi/Hinjabi film, the protoganist falls in love too late, puri junior falls even later, almost at the age of a not-so-old-grandpa. Akshay Singh alias Happy does a Shah-Rukh Khan of Kal ho na ho here; he makes everyone happy, including the potential mother-in-law. The biggest relief is that he doesn't have to hand his crush to someone else, it rebounces to him, unlike........ Perhaps, that was one of the major reasons why the HT city compared Akki to ShahRukh. Let's see, what next, after Namastey London and SIK, perhaps Ludhiana to London!