KITSCH KITSCH HOTA HAI
Shah Rukh and Deepika shine in a barely-okay potboiler that should have been much better. Plus, a fascinatingly dark anti-romance with newcomers.
NOV 11, 2007 – FARAH KHAN MAKES ME LAUGH. I love catching Main Hoon Na — most of it, that is, till the protracted last parts — whenever this sublimely silly first feature of hers plays on TV. I love listening to her interviews — yes, including the one where she sweepingly declared that all critics are retards — where her utterances make it clear that no censoring whatsoever occurs between her thinking something and her saying the same thing (which is why she’s so entertaining; after all, who wants to listen to politically correct bores!). And I love reading about her, as in the recent piece in Outlook, where she reportedly screamed at the cameraman for leaving SRK’s crotch out of the frame while canning the by-now-infamous fab-ab number Dard-e-Disco. (In her own words: “‘We are not shooting a Bengali art film here, get [the crotch] back.”?)
You can sense that she’s one of those all-too-rare born entertainers, which is surely why the last shot of her second feature, Om Shanti Om, is what it is. (It’s the one with her on a red carpet, and it caps her signature scene: the fun song that introduces us to the cast and — most generously — the crew.) And yet, throughout the film — which tells the before-reincarnation-and-after story of junior artist Om (Shah Rukh Khan) who is in love with top star Shanti (Deepika Padukone); it’s sort of Karz-meets-Madhumati — I kept wondering why I was fidgeting so. Why was I feeling so distanced from the proceedings? Why didn’t anyone on screen seem worth caring about? And, most frustratingly, why was the film so full of things that, by themselves, are entertaining enough, but when they all come together, never quite explode in the way that you want?
One reason could be that I think Vishal-Shekhar’s soundtrack is absolutely fantastic — so many songs of so many different moods, yet everything united organically through the Om Shanti Om theme — and it made me want a movie that would live up to it. But only (the beautiful waltz) Main agar kahoon and the kitschy Dhoom tana (a spoofy, spirited trip down Hindi film music videos down the ages) are worth sitting through. Otherwise, Dastaan-e-Om Shanti Om — this film’s equivalent of Karz’s Hamlet-ish play-within-a-play — is such a garbled mess of choreography that I had to strain to see what exactly was going on. (And this, from Farah Khan, who practically reinvented the way film songs are staged.)
The lovely romantic solo, Aankhon mein teri, is butchered and served up in unappetising slices. Dard-e-disco becomes a generic item number with firang dancers, reflecting none of the cheeky sense of fun in the lyrics (that somehow manage to rhyme “‘disco”? with “‘San Francisco”? and “‘pichle maheene ki chhabbis ko“?). Deewangi — the nod to Naseeb’s multi-star special appearance within a single song — goes on far too long. (Did they really expect us to hoot and holler over Aftab Shivdasani? Suniel Shetty? Arbaaz Khan? Dino Morea?) And worst of all, Jag soona soona laage — an evocative piece of melancholia, where the crushed-heart hero rants about the stony nature of the world and the people around him (“‘paththaron ki is nagari mein, paththar chehre, paththar dil“?) — is ruined when a stanza is sacrificed to a trite stretch of monologue whose sentiments have already been expressed far better in the lyrics.
A major part of the charm of Old Bollywood is the way the soundtracks were integrated into the films — which is why we sat through the worst of them, because even if everything else was lame, there were at least these numbers to look forward to — but the problem in Om Shanti Om isn’t just that the choreography of the songs is a little off; it’s that the choreography of the film itself is a little off. There’s no rhythm, no pace — and for the most part, it just plays like a cluttered collection of scattered good bits, thanks largely to Farah’s philosophy of “‘when in doubt, cut to the shtick.”? It’s hard to tell a coherent story — even to the extent that you want a masala potboiler to be “‘coherent”? — when you keep cutting away to the next great Bollywood in-joke.
But I must say that these gags are the best part of the film. Om Shanti Om gets going with a riff on how the Nasir Hussain productions used to open — you know, with the basso profundo intonation of “‘Kya ishq ne samjha hai”¦“? — and proceeds to skewer (affectionately, though) everything and everyone from Manoj Kumar to Sooraj Barjatya (a brilliantly conceived bit) to the one-time staples of our cinema (the drunk scene; the buddy-bonding scene; the kheer-making maa who enjoys a teary reunion with her long-lost beta in a scene that frames her such that we can’t miss the truckload of medicine bottles by her bedside) to even Mughal-e-Azam. (Kirron Kher hams wonderfully as Om’s mother who wails that, had she not been pregnant with him, she might have played Anarkali; he dismisses her with a “‘takhliya“? as a snatch from Pyaar kiya to darna kya echoes in the background.)
A lot of these initial portions play as if Farah Khan wanted to spoof our earlier filmmaking conventions — and so long as that seems to be the intent, Om Shanti Om chugs along merrily (if somewhat aimlessly). But then the director appears to change her mind. Suddenly, we are in a film that’s no longer simply taking potshots of the movies of the time, but one that’s actually being made along those lines, in all seriousness. And after a point, this hot-cold mix becomes extremely annoying, and Om Shanti Om goes on for so long that the refrain that there’s more to come — “‘Picture abhi baaki hai“? — stops being funny and starts seeming a threat. I began to dread just how much more this already-thin material was going to be stretched. Where there was a sense of joy in the way Main Hoon Na came together, here you see the struggle in trying to make everything fit.
And once the film gets into its (relatively) serious mode, you sorely miss the presence of a strong villain. Arjun Rampal is fine as the bad guy given a pencil moustache to twirl, but he’s barely there — and one sin no self-respecting masala movie in the old days would commit is to downsize the antagonist. (And it doesn’t help that Rampal underplays this part, going for purring, silky menace — it’s all very today — when an unabashedly old-fashioned, over-the-top approach would have been more appropriate.) Farah knows her Bollywood, so even with all this, she does achieve a few affecting moments, as when Om is reunited with his pal from a previous life (Shreyas Talpade, who’s good but underutilised). This is the kind of setup that your brain recognises as laughably corny, but your heart embraces in an almost Pavlovian fashion. If you’ve grown up with a certain kind of Bollywood film, you just can’t not respond.
And the other thing Farah knows is her casting — and her leads tide her (and us) over the many rough patches. Deepika Padukone is one of the finds of recent times, even if she’s cut adrift in the second half. Not only does she look fantastic — she’s one of those people who manages to stand out even in a burqa — she also brings back to mind the regal, somewhat stand-offish, touch-me-not quality that some of the older heroines had (and which has all but vanished in the overexposed — in every sense — girls of today). And Shah Rukh gamely mocks himself (and the repetitive nature of his romances) in a role that plays right up to his natural hamminess. He’s so right for the part, you can’t imagine anyone else as Om. (And it’s a terrific return to the more “‘popular”? Shah Rukh Khan after his wonderfully Zen outing in Chak De India.) In a hilarious scene where Om talks to Shanti for the first time, he’s so starstruck that he can barely say anything. His brain is forming these perfect sentences, but they just won’t come out of his mouth, which contorts itself in the most hideously funny ways — and for once, Shah Rukh finds perfect use for that famous stammer and those famous quivering lips.
LOVE, IN REAL LIFE, is rarely as all-out sweet and high-minded and uplifting as it is in the movies, and the last thing you expect is two blue-blood Bollywood newcomers to service this nihilistic notion of romance — but that’s what Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (making confident, competent debuts as Raj and Sakina) do in Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Saawariya. You do not expect the grandson of Raj Kapoor — a fact referenced endlessly through the film, right from his appearance in a bowler hat — to make his debut as the third wheel, entering an ongoing love story as the “‘other man”? when Sakina is already pining for Imaan (Salman Khan, playing not a character so much as an abstraction of an idealised love, and portraying a gravity he never has before). And you certainly do not expect Anil Kapoor’s daughter to choose as her first film one where her character can most charitably be described as a masochistic, self-destructive, passive-aggressive manipulator. But here they are, putting their all into this dark, doomed love story — and at the mercy of mainstream cinema’s most eccentric craftsman.
Bhansali’s trademark is stamped all over his latest feature — from the deliberate artifice of the sets (some of the visuals actually look like matte paintings) to the deliberate artifice of the dialogue (sounding like a hangover from the purple prose mouthed by Jackie Shroff in Devdas) — and the director is going to win no new converts with Saawariya. You’re either a fan of his obsessive-compulsive, over-the-top vision of cinema or you’re not — and this film is solely for members of the former category to see what this mad-scientist director has brewed up in his (as always) hermetically sealed laboratory, where not so much as a whisper of wind from the world we consider as “‘normal”? is allowed entry. (Non-fans, in other words, should — and most likely will — stay far, far away.) There’s a moment here where a group of prostitutes congregates in prayer, and what’s sung is Aye malik tere bande hum, the devotional number from Shantaram’s Do Aankhen Barah Haath. Whether Bhansali intended this as homage to the older filmmaker, I don’t know, but there’s surely some sort of subliminal kinship he feels with the latter-day Shantaram, whose baroque musicals like Navrang are the very definition of an acquired taste.
You cannot mistake their works for anyone else’s, so singular is their pursuit of the visions that consume them — and it’s not very difficult to see why Bhansali was consumed by Dostoevsky’s short story White Nights (which forms the basis of the exquisitely mounted Saawariya, and which another baroque stylist, Luchino Visconti — ironically, one of the earliest neorealists, go figure — made into a similarly dreamy, theatrical, studio-bound film). For one, there’s the romantic-denial angle that Bhansali explored earlier in Devdas. (There it was Devdas who spurned the love of the available Chandramukhi while pining for an unattainable Paro; here, Sakina waits for Imaan, who’s left her and may never return despite his promise to do so, while ignoring Raj’s puppy-eyed devotion to her.)
Then there’s the language itself. Even in what must be a watered-down translation, here’s what a passage from White Nights reads like: “‘Surely when the hour of parting came she must have lain sobbing and grieving on his bosom, heedless of the tempest raging under the sullen sky, heedless of the wind which snatches and bears away the tear from her black eyelashes? Can all of that have been a dream — and that garden, dejected, forsaken, run wild, with its little moss-grown paths, solitary, gloomy, where they used to walk so happily together, where they hoped, grieved, loved, loved each other so long, so long and so fondly?”? Um — sobbing on a lover’s bosom? Tempest raging under a sullen sky? The wind snatching away tears from black eyelashes? So long, so long? Heck, there’s even the attention to art direction we’ve come to associate Bhansali with, what with gloomy gardens and moss-grown paths.
And as is always the case with Bhansali, when these verbal constructions — namely, the pictures inside our heads — finally translate into the pictures inside his, there’s that initial adjustment shock. For me, this came during the picturisation of the Jab se tere naina number (beautifully sung by Shaan and composed by Monty, who delivers an altogether excellent soundtrack). Raj bursts into this song after being smitten by love at first sight, and he goes understandably berserk. But the flailing-limbs choreography is so awful — and, yes, so over-the-top — that he doesn’t look lovestruck so much as a lunatic. The difference between the two may not be much according to Bhansali, but still, it’s bizarre, all that prancing around in nothing but a towel. (At one point, Raj goes to the window and actually whips it off. So he’s doing what exactly — flashing his neighbours? And this is a romantic conception?)
On the other hand, there’s Pari, which Raj sings in front of a colony of prostitutes. The song takes off on a chance remark — to the extent that such a thing is possible in Bhansali’s fetishistically detailed universe, where very little is left to anything as capricious as chance — by Gulabji (Rani Mukerji, who’s very good as Raj’s conscience-cum-cheerleader) that their miseries, over the years, were alleviated by listening to fairy tales, pariyon ki kahaniyan. And as the number unfolds, we see why these women — these battered, aged, shapeless streetwalkers — needed these fantasies. When Raj fantasises that this angel he’s invoking with his song, this pari, will melt in shyness before his gaze (“‘dekhoonga jab main use, mujhse karegi sharm woh“?), we see a woman cover her face with a veil, as if she’s taken a cue from his lyric and is blushing. But when he brushes aside the garment, you see what she was really trying to hide — an ugly bruise from a client.
This clash between the idealised fairy-tale world and the real world is a theme that runs throughout Saawariya. Later on, when Sakina has fun during an evening out with Raj — he serenades her with the terrific title track — you feel she’s finally shaking off memories of Imaan, but then the clock tower rings out, and she realises frantically that it’s time for her to go to the bridge on which she waits all night for her man. (Talk about a bridge over troubled waters!) Here, it’s a real-life moment that transforms, in a blink, into something out of a fairy tale. Sakina suddenly becomes Cinderella, and she runs away from Raj without even leaving behind the comfort of a glass slipper. Sakina lives in that dream world, waiting for a Prince Charming who’ll come and claim her and sweep her off her feet, and you can’t help wondering why Raj fails to understand that he can never ever break through that bubble of illusion. (That’s why, I think, Bhansali tells us at the outset that his story is set in a dream world, a “‘khwabon ka shehar.”?)
Then again, maybe Raj is simply an innocent optimist — an innocent, because the first time he walks into a bar, he asks for a glass of milk, and an optimist, because his capacity to love remains undiminished despite doling out pieces of his heart to practically everyone around him. (This includes Zohra Sehgal, in rip-roaring form as Raj’s landlady). And that’s the strangest thing about Bhansali. He has a loud, in-your-face style — a style that’s anything but subtle — but, at the same time, there’s so much nuance in his work, so much to dig into and so much to discover. That’s probably why the promos for Saawariya felt so weirdly incomplete, because a vision this wholly integrated cannot possibly make piecemeal sense. I’m still undecided whether I actually like Saawariya — it’s too cold a film to instantly embrace, and quite likely the coldest romance we’ve seen in Bollywood; its delusional characters are anything but sympathetic — but the way Bhansali has chipped away at the corners and painted in the nooks certainly leaves plenty to be admired from afar.
Copyright ©2007 The New Sunday Express
Baradwaj Rangan 
brangan
November 10, 2007
About those comments… Jeez, ONE DAY is too much to wait? 🙂 Jai, but that’s what the review biz is today. Earlier, my reviews used to get published ten days after the release (in the supplement), but now it’s two days — and even this is apparently too late
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Aditya Pant
November 10, 2007
Well worth the wait…
I haven’t seen OSO yet (going for it in a few hours), but my reaction to Saawariya is exactly the same as you…”I’m still undecided whether I actually like Saawariya”
What didn’t work for me was Bhansali’s trademark opulence, which although visually stunning, worked against the simplicity of the story.
And what does one say about the most expensive promotional vehicle for the Kapoors?
Here’s my take on the film:
http://urgetofly.blogspirit.com/archive/2007/11/09/saawariya-review.html
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Ravi K
November 10, 2007
I take it that Indian film producers do not give critics advanced screenings?
“Om Shanti Om chugs along merrily (if somewhat aimlessly). But then the director appears to change her mind. Suddenly, we are in a film that’s no longer simply taking potshots of the movies of the time, but one that’s actually being made along those lines, in all seriousness.”
That was what I felt about MHN. The comedic, irreverent part of the film gave way to all-too-earnest scenes. Its as if Farah Khan did not trust that her audiences could accept a wholesale skewering of beloved film conventions and chickened out at the end. I did think that MHN was pretty clever, though, so I look forward to seeing OSO (when the ticket price goes down 🙂 )
From your review I gather that Farah Khan spoofs several decades worth of film conventions. Do you think that she should have stuck to parodying one or two genres? The better Hollywood parodies I’ve seen (Airplane!, Naked Gun trilogy, Hot Shots! films) only take on a few genres and not all of Hollywood.
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Rahul Tyagi
November 10, 2007
Great reviews baradwaj! Obviously I’ll only know if I agree with you when I finally get to see the movies, but I can completely relate with your feelings about SLB’s style. He does things with visuals/sets/music that are certainly impressive.. and yet… that over-the-top melodrama just keeps you from REALLY feeling anything.
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Shilpa
November 10, 2007
Rangan, you were rare breed who did not like Chak De India and area rare breed who goes overboard in liking Sawariya.
Do we see a pattern emerging. I am sure if it was Abhishek Bachchan or Amitabh Bachchan in Om Shanti Om you would have loved it.
Hardly matters! Globally Om Shanti Om is whipping Sawariya.
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Akshay Shah
November 10, 2007
Magnificent reviews as always Rangansir!:-)
On OSO: “And, most frustratingly, why was the film so full of things that, by themselves, are entertaining enough, but when they all come together, never quite explode in the way that you want?”—this about sums up my feelings towards the movie too!
“âPicture abhi baaki haiâ? â stops being funny and starts seeming a threat. “–Haha…your sense of humour is just too good;)!
On SAAWARIYA: I really liked it! And your review throws so much insight in to the movie it’s wonderful. Quiet easily the finest review i’ve read so far on SAWARIYA!
Love “And you certainly do not expect Anil Kapoorâs daughter to choose as her first film one where her character can most charitably be described as a masochistic, self-destructive, passive-aggressive manipulator”!-superbly worded
“This clash between the idealised fairy-tale world and the real world is a theme that runs throughout Saawariya. Later on, when Sakina has fun during an evening out with Raj â he serenades her with the terrific title track â you feel sheâs finally shaking off memories of Imaan, but then the clock tower rings out, and she realises frantically that itâs time for her to go to the bridge on which she waits all night for her man. (Talk about a bridge over troubled waters!) Here, itâs a real-life moment that transforms, in a blink, into something out of a fairy tale. Sakina suddenly becomes Cinderella, and she runs away from Raj without even leaving behind the comfort of a glass slipper. Sakina lives in that dream world, waiting for a Prince Charming whoâll come and claim her and sweep her off her feet, and you canât help wondering why Raj fails to understand that he can never ever break through that bubble of illusion. (Thatâs why, I think, Bhansali tells us at the outset that his story is set in a dream world, a âkhwabon ka shehar.â?)”And again:-)!
Here are my thoguhts on both
http://aakshayshah.blogspot.com/2007/11/akshay-shah-reviews-sawariya-hindi-2007.html
http://aakshayshah.blogspot.com/2007/11/akshay-shah-reviews-om-shanti-om-hindi.html
A.Shah
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Abzee
November 10, 2007
Haven’t seen both the films yet, but your reviews are a joy to read anyways. Especially loved your review of Saawariya- you’ve pretty much made me visualize the film in my mind’s eye.
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Anush
November 10, 2007
felt OSO was a pretty good entertainer … kinda movies u call pasia vasool … cud not get Balcony tickets and saw it with the ‘masses’and everyone seemed to really enjoy it !
the spoofs kinda made up for whatever was missing in the story .. really loved Akshay Kumar and AB jr …
one more interesting thing is the Kapoor factor … the movie is infact made by the last man who has made it big in Bollywood without a filmy family behind him …
in the movie without the ‘surname’ he is a struggler and when he is born with a Kapoor behind his name he becomes an instant superstar !
This movie by an interesting coincidence has actually released against a lavishly mounted ‘launch vehicle’ of a movie starring Two Kapoor star-kids !!!
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brangan
November 10, 2007
Aditya: “Well worth the wait…” Oh yes, 24 WHOLE HOURS! What a wait indeed 🙂 But that look was very deliberate, no? But I’ll take a look at your review first.
Ravi: Nope. The English films are screened in advance, so we get at least a couple of days to write the review. No such luck with the Hindi films, though I thought at least Saawariya would buck the trend, it being a Sony release and all. And yes, OSO isn’t just the seventies. One song has Sunil Dutt in his Amrapali duds, and there’s a reference to Mother India as well. But she does stick to parodying “hindi cinema” in general, the Hindi Cinema of the pre-multiplex days.
Rahul Tyagi: Thanks. About Bhansali, he gets a bad rap simply for making the movies his way. I’ve read so many reviews of Saawariya that ask where the city shown in Saawariya exists, and that is SO not the point. I can get it if you don’t like his style, but to go into an SLB film and then to fault it for things he’s so not trying to achieve (realism, geographical correctness, etc.) seems really weird.
Shilpa: I did not like Chak De? That’s news to me. And I’ve gone overboard in liking Saawariya? That’s news again. Thanks.
Akshay Sir: Thanks sir. I’ll see what you had to say…
Abzee: How come you haven’t seen these two? 🙂
Anush: BTW, that Akshay Kumar bit is from the web. A friend showed me a YouTube clip with that same avtion-comedy scene, gun in crotch and all. But Akshay was great, wasn’t he? 🙂
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vimal
November 10, 2007
Hi BR,
Well, I havnt seen both the movies yet. Will b watching OSO today in sometime. Its always a treat watching spoof movies. But I never liked Main hoon na.
Reading all the reviews of Saawariya, reminds me of the Tamil movie ‘Iyarkkai’ starring Shaam, Arun kumar, Pasupathy and a new heroine. The story is exactly the same, but the presentation is totally different. If in Saawariya, the heroine waits for her mysterious lover on a bridge, in Iyarkkai, she waits on the light house. If I am not wrong, the movie even won a national award for the best regional movie. Probably, it was also a cinematic version of ‘White Nights’.
I could be wrong too. Please correct me as I havnt seen Saawariya yet.
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aloo-mattar
November 10, 2007
Baradwaj
Went for a 1st day show of OSO last night in the bitter cold of the midwest, since I thought this is a movie that deserves to be encouraged.
But your review is spot on, it gave vent to what I felt too.
The slaughtering of the sound track is just criminal, I was dying to listen to Ajab si and could have wept at the way it was treated.
Btw, I can imagine Saif doing a better job as Om. (esp the 2nd half, since the character isnt too far from who his own life)
This movie has SRK in just TOO many frames. Dude, fatigue sets in, and he aint exactly easy on the eyes.
One stand-out: The faux tamil potboiler scene, complete with the pussycat, et al.
– The best fake tamil I have heard from a mainstream bollywood hero in a while.
Lastly, I have come to the conclusion that i dont like SLB after all. Like black when I saw it, though I dont, in hindsight.
There’s somthing to his style which rings untrue, cant put a finger on it. (or maybe I just dont like being manipulated and the non subtleness of it all)
cheers
ps- thanks for the rapid downtinme with both reviews.
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Jabberwock
November 10, 2007
Dude, please do me a favour and send me an SMS each time you’re about to put up a new review…that way I can avoid visiting your site until I’ve written my own thoughts down. Once again you’ve preempted a lot of what I wanted to say about OSO – notably the “Suddenly, we are in a film that’s no longer simply taking potshots of the movies of the time, but one that’s actually being made along those lines, in all seriousness” bit. And the ending just went on and on; that Madhumati twist at the end gave the impression that Farah K had chickened out of making it a wholehearted Karz tribute for some reason.
I didn’t care much for the music though, and thought that was a weakness – especially in the climactic song, which at one point plays over the “Ek Hasina Thi” palimpsest almost stanza by stanza.
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Shilpa
November 10, 2007
Mr. Rangan,
you may think that you have camoufladged your reviews with some fine English, but it is apparent to most what your views are about both Chakde India and Om Shanti Om.
Just go through your Guru and Naach review and you will know how you write when you like a movie.
Thanks for replying,
Shilpa
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Deepa
November 10, 2007
Watched OSO yesterday and had the exact same thoughts. How could someone who made Main hoon na so entertaining (of course cutting out the emotional parts) make a movie like OSO? Inspite of so many laugh aloud moments, the film completely failed to engage. Though I must admit, nobody plays SRK like SRK. The first few scenes immediately after the intermission when he plays the star, were such a treat to watch.
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Supremus
November 10, 2007
Watched Saawariya last night – absolutely loved it, and couldnt agree more with you. I dont see critics are ripping the movie as being totally unrealistic, surreal and all – I mean, when was teh last time Bhansali made a reaslitic movie. And when did Saawariya promos ever suggest it was going to be not surreal…
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Shuchi
November 10, 2007
OSO: Agree with you on everything except that I liked Arjun Rampal quite a lot. Also, the portions in which Om-2 recollects and reunites with people from his past life are ineptly/hurriedly done. All that is so critical to the reincarnation theme. It seems as if Farah mainly wanted to do this spoof thing and only added on the “plot” as a half-hearted afterthought.
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Abzee
November 10, 2007
Baradwaj- OSO and Saawariya next week for me. During Diwali and Ganpati, family comes first. BTW, I must stress again that your Saawariya review is one of your finest pieces ever. Whether you liked the film or not is besides the point(and it seems the jury of your reason is still out on this one), but you’ve laid the film out so beautifully. Such eloquence, and with such ease!
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Amrita
November 10, 2007
Interesting, I didn’t see Saawariya so much as an anti-romance as I did the full blossoming of a long nurtured fetish. I didn’t write a review of it (not quite anyway) but imo this is a movie that did exactly what Bhansali wanted it to do.
Oh, and I carefully skipped over your OSO review because I plan to watch it later this week and you’re generally so spot on (hey, no pressure!) I didn’t want it to color my perceptions.
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S
November 10, 2007
umm…. This is the first time I have seen you directly talk about somebody’s off-screen personality in your review. Aren’t you the anti-thesis of Farah Khan, polishing every word from up there? ( I am not complaining, just remarking, actually glad you are this way).
I really could not stand Main hoon na. Didn’t we just leave all these illogical good for nothign cinema behind? If you really want 70’s back, get hrishi da back, please!
For some reason, I thought OSO will be lot of fun as farah and srk aren’t really people who are afraid of some tongue in cheek remarks and they are doing a film parody.
SLB does not belong to the same galaxy as mine, I just wanted to read your reviews! I suffer withdrawal symptoms otherwise.
Shilpa:
As another reader, I don’t see any such bias. I really thought he liked chak de india, probably not as much as lot of other movies, but cdi(with lot of cliched moments, not really path breaking cinema rather a different cinema for its times) was just that as well.
The problem might be, he comes from the angle of cinema, while you might be viewing it from the angle of srk film!
He is by far, the most truthful reviewer(truthful to himself, more important than anything else).
—
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aloo-mutter
November 11, 2007
dude,
another pt of interest:
is the partho ray chacarcter a snide look at Pradeep sarkar, what with the bimal roy- satyajit ray – guru dutt angle?
i think bindu gets some of the plummiest dialogues.. esp the scene where rampal spots the bhoot and bindu goes – ‘maine kaha tha make up mat utarna’
this is easily the funniest clean hindi movie i have seen since gol maal and jaane bhi do yaaron.
and ye i do agree that srk is simply too good in some scenes, no denying.
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vimal
November 11, 2007
Hi BR,
Just watched OSO and the only expression i had was “DARD-hEi-Mujkko”!!!
Shah Rukh is charming.He does his best. Infact poor fella, can not do anythng more than this in the name of acting. Deepika is simply over hyped. Arjun Rampal was lookin good and has also done a better job. and talented Shreyas is wasted. The star studded and the six packed song looks forced jus to pull in crowds.
The first time Farah made a film, she said its a tribute to the 70s. And during the making of this movie too, she said the same thing. How long is she going to have this same excuse to make a better film? I would rather watch the inspired 70’s movie and a latest filmfare award function to have an overall effect of the movie. However, the credits in the beginning and in the end looked creative.
They shudve also issued a statutory warning during their extravagant marketing campaign claiming that this movie is only for those who have nothing else to do in life !!!
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Raj
November 11, 2007
Hi,
This is the first time I’m commenting on one of your reviews and one thing that I have to mention is that your reviews always seem to reflect my thoughts – be it the No Smoking review or these two.
I loved MHN, in the sense that I can see it over and over again and have a good laugh. OSO could have been so much better – there was a lot I took back, the Manoj Kumar and Barjatya gags, I actually liked a lot of sequences in the second half, but it could have been so much more entertaining. I personally thought that some of the gags in the first half could have been better executed, though my favourite bit in the movie was seeing Om Shanti Om (the real one – the Rishi Kapoor song), the first time I saw it on the big screen, being born in the 80s.
Saawariya was horribly pretentious at many levels, cold is the perfect word. Yet, I loved the performances and it was probably for the first time that I saw poetry that touched my eyes but not my heart, performances that I loved but characters that I shockingly could feel nothing for, something that was filled with so much yet was horribly empty and hollow. Ranbir and Sonam were brilliant – Raj and Sakina were pathetically written. There are times that I remember the movie and think that it was beautiful and lyrical, there are times I remember it as pretentious and an insult to Raj Kapoor films of yore. Maybe it’s just Bhansali’s style that has never appealed to me, barring Khamoshi, which I loved. I thought Black was over rated, and here, instead of feeling for the protagonists in what was touted to be a ‘simple love story’, the blue-ness of it all just overwhelms me and leaves a rather bad taste – you can call it Blue, a sequel to Black, by Sanjay Neela Bhansali. If the censors wouldn’t have chopped off the shot of Ranbir’s derriere in that moronic song, you could have gone on and called it a blue film, with all puns intended.
Sorry for the rant, I guess this comment is rather long. It’s just been an overdose of disappointment from two films which could have been so so much more.
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brangan
November 11, 2007
vimal: Haven’t seen Iyarkai, but I do remember it winning an award. “DARD-hEi-Mujkko”? 🙂
aloo-mattar: “The slaughtering of the sound track is just criminal” – yeah. this is one of the most “complete” scores, and I listened to it a ton of times before the film. And to see it finally on screen was a letdown. “This movie has SRK in just TOO many frames.” He *is* the hero, you know? 🙂 BTW, can anyone explain the Nikhil Advani lookalike (during the tiger-wrestling scene) repeating everything twice? I didn’t quite get that bit…
Jabberwock: You should listen the score as a standalone… The two romantic numbers and the sad song are standouts. And you know that my thing with SMS-s is like yours with smileys 🙂
Deepa: Actually, for me, the post-interval portions were a bit annoying. I enjoyed SRK far more in the first half. He was just terrific, especially with that fake tiger 🙂
Supremus: You seem to be the first person to have “loved” Saawariya, but I do see your point about Bhansali. I don’t know why we keep equating “good cinema” with just a certain type of filmmaking and don’t give a chance for people to do their own thing. For all my issues with Bhansali, I respect the fact that he never plays it safe.
Shuchi: “All that is so critical to the reincarnation theme.” Ah, thank you for recognising that masala movies need to have a good screenplay too. There are so many people who say things like “Oh, it’s just a masala movie” and dismiss all the problems they had with it, as if “masala” were a catchall absolving agent.
Amrita: “full blossoming of a long nurtured fetish.” Hmmm… actually i would like to read your review along those lines. You do mean, Bhansali’s fetish, don’t you?
S: I think I talked about Aamir’ off-screen personality when I wrote about Fanaa. The “anti-thesis of Farah K”? In what way? Hey, that rhymed 🙂 And thanks.
Raj: That’s a very nice mix of contradictions you’ve written about Saawariya. About “poetry that touched my eyes but not my heart,” I felt that too — but is that a “failing” as such? This isn’t about Bhansali’s cinema but in general. There are a lot of cold-fish great movies out there, and I the whole “touching the heart” thumb-rule may not be the best way to approach them. And actually, Khamoshi is the one Bhansali film that did nothing for me. Great soundtrack, though.
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Arunabha S Roy
November 11, 2007
“subliminal kinship he feels with the latter-day Shantaram, whose baroque musicals like Navrang are the very definition of an acquired taste”
I thought this was an extremely perceptive, tongue-in-cheek and apt comparison. I liked your Saawariya review more than I like the man’s films. Good work !
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Ravi
November 11, 2007
Was surprised you did not mention the Awards scene at all…I thought it was outstanding. And the movie entertained me enuf for me to forgive all its flaws…SRK outdid himself!
My two cents up on my blog.
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Amrita
November 11, 2007
Oh, absolutely Bhansali’s fetish 🙂 I didn’t review the movie because I’m still in two minds about it but here’s what I mean:
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Arunraj V.S.
November 11, 2007
The content and the review is well written. Kudos to the writer. As far as the movies are concerned, well I was fortunate to watch both the movies first day first show..
Saawariya is a tribute to Moulin Rouge. It is a piece of art and the visuals are the kind never seen before. But however the movie is devoid of story.
OSO is a masala movie which could have been made better. It is a safe bet aimed towards box office and it will become a superhit. However the movie could have been bettr made. The humor could have been better and there could have been more thrills…
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Ron
November 11, 2007
baradwaj
haven’t watched OSO, but just a thought. what makes the cut here, really? the original masala is sneered at and the ones who rip off the very masala and re-work it up in a plush, contemporary package (in the name of inspiration and the rest of it) are celebrated as champions? i mean SRK, yet again, is getting raves for being himself — the hammy himself, that is (a noted reviewer has swooned over his over-the-top act). why the nod to this mediocrity and patented predictability, when the rajnikants and the shankars and the david dhawans continue to be a critically panned lot?
i feel that farah khan gets away with her stuff in the guise of this whole goofy, good-hearted “tribute” to hindi cinema from the past. felt that way with MHN, at least.
and hey, any chances of catching you on azhakiya thamizh makan here? 🙂
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oops
November 11, 2007
Ok do i need to say that your review is good again ? I know, compliments are always welcome but c’mon…. ask for a ruppie every time you hear that – it will be a better deal 😉
I’ve seen OSO. How funny it was ! Really entertaining even when i couldn’t get the jokes about post 80’s – 90’s movies. I like the way SRK fights all the criticism about its overacting style… he hams more than ever !! And it works !!
But it’s true that the movie could’ve been better. Main Hoon Na came as a surprise. It was so refreshing, that we didn’t even remember what went wrong in the movie. We didn’t care !
What’s wrong with OSO is that it doesn’t meet with big expectations. I had little ones, so i was satisfied 🙂 The second half could’ve been better though. But i still like Farah’s brand of cinema, what she wants to do. She doesn’t always succeed, but i like that.
In the battle of not so good actors with not so great careers, Arjun Rampal take the edge over Dino Morea, Aftab Shivdasani or Tushar Kapoor 🙂 . Hey, we always talk about the battle to be Bollywood king, but why no one cares about those who are struggling at the end of the queue !!? 🙂 Arjun Rampal is really good, and i hope to see his sexy face-style-attitude in an other bad ass role.
Cant’ say if Deepika beat Sonam (I’ve not seen Saanwariya yet) but she beats… all the getting old actresses in their early 30’s who ask herself why after 10, 15 year of careers they are still struggling with every 20 year old new girls on the block. Another bad news : Deepika is here to stay. Rani, shoot the goddamn daag and wake up !!
Shreya Talpade is good. With a good mix of big and independent or relatively little production, he’ll have a very promising future in this industry.
Overall : OSO = good entertainment.
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ak
November 11, 2007
http://suganthis.blogspot.com/2007/11/saawariya-iyarkai.html
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Gopi
November 11, 2007
Aah… Baddy baddy baddy, I had to force myself not to read your review before I wrote my own. I still haven’t read your OSO review as I am yet to view it. You know, your writing is like a major addiction. Everytime I lie down to sleep, I open Opera Mini on my cellphone to come here and read what you have to say. So the last few days were tough for me knowing that new words have found foot on the blogosphere that emerged from your brains. Ok enough fanboy-isms. Your Saawariya review is really beautiful, and the direct quotes from the book, a marvelous insight into the poetry behind it all.
I have a request; can you read my review of Saawariya and give me any brickbats or other comments you might have. By the way, anyone from this site can do the same. If it is against policies of this website, please feel free to reject it.
http://visionsandperceptions.blogspot.com/2007/11/saawariya-poetry-24fps.html
Gopi
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Santosh Kumar T K
November 12, 2007
Mr.Rangan,
One look at the title of your post,and I couldn’t resist this (though unrelated)
http://madness-of-madras.blogspot.com/2007/06/kitsch-kitsch-hota-hai.html
🙂
As for Farah “uncouth” Khan, as much as I don’t subscribe to her school of thought, I catch every glimpse of her in print, or in motion. Her interviews make for a good read, and as I said, those are the guilty pleasures I allow myself.
PS: spoke to Mahesh Aney yesterday, the DOP of Swades and thanked him after umpteenth viewing. Where could I find your review on Swades?
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ram
November 12, 2007
Dear Rangan,
I do appreciate your intelligence in reviews. And I did see Saawariya in New York and found it extremely dull..I was looking at my watch, twitching..loved the visuals, sets..and am not really bothered about the space time..
But the movie just didnt work for me. I am surprised by your review. Is it because you have to take a contrarion view..
Really liked Black..but you should have seen the audience reaction..and this is an audience which has seen lots of cinema..not one person liked it..there are some movies that can be debated..but there was such a universal opinion that all the hard work that had been put just didnt click..
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sakthi
November 12, 2007
I haven’t seen the movie. But after reading reviews about both films and speaking to the people who watched it and seeing the promos, your review was as I expected. Not trashing saawariya as everyone did (everyone forgot it was a film by the man who made devdas:)) and having some reservation on om shanthi (as you had on sivaji :))
Good review to read..
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gayathri
November 12, 2007
Reading the story of “Saawariya”remind me of this tamil movie I saw and really liked, “Iyarkkai”.
Similar story line, girl waits for captain of a ship, sailing away. the captain promises to return and she waits for him. the other man walks in, really loving her and helping her to find her captain.
she is on the verge of accepting the other man’s love when the captain retunrs….
is that what saawariyaa is about? I really wanted, because I so loved “Iyarkkai”
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Shantesh Row
November 12, 2007
Dear Rangan, your thoughts and comments on cinema are as lucid as the language you choose to pen them in.
My two cent’s worth having seen OSO (and somehow not wanting to see Saawariya.) – someone told me cinema is life seen with eyes half open (or half shut if you are a pessimist.)
Though OSO had nothing in terms of a skeleton, it amazed me how much it fit into the above philosophy. It is as if Farah Khan decided to make the film with her eyes half open, but this gesture was more of a wink – a subtle wink at all the films that were a part of the staple diet of her growing years.
Whilst OSO is nothing but eye candy dished out with liberal doses of every kind of masala, one particular thing got my memories going. Last night, at the theatre, I was amazed how some of the key dialogues were being repeated by a shrill 5 year old kid, ad nauseum, much to the amusement of everyone around (not to mention, the kid’s prattle was at times more humorous than the film!)
I was immediately transported to my own childhood, when my parents or uncle/aunts would take me to see the latest Amitabh Bachchan potboiler (invariably Manmohan Desai’s) and I would watch goggle-eyed at the strange concoction that unfolded before me, repeating dialogues that I did not know the meaning of, but enjoyed nevertheless. I rooted loudly when Allah Rakha the falcon swooped down in Coolie, when Amitabh ‘flew’ his taxi in Khuddar, when the Big B entered the pool, horse, carriage et al in Mard.
OSO is that kind of film. One that connects with that childlike innocence we seem to lose so efficiently when we grow up. Farah is a child at heart, and her effort ratifies this. There is an element of fantasy that she has woven into every seen. Not ‘dreams’, but large helpings of the ethos of The Alchemist, as narrated by a child.
For all its shortcomings, I thoroughly enjoyed OSO. Simply because I discovered the child in me again. The same 7 year old who would dream of going to a Badal, Bijlee, Barkha cinema in Mahim, Bombay and watch larger than life heroes do unreal things to really vile villains, even as I bit into two salty soggy samosas wrapped in white paper, crunchy oily yellow wafers in plastic satches, quaffing Campa Cola and blowing bubbles in it to worry the patron on my neighbouring seat.
Aah, the magic of movies!
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Suparna
November 12, 2007
Just loved your review of sawaariya…its so insightful..here’s a link to what i felt…would love your comments sir
http://passionforcinema.com/saawariya-a-viewers-take/
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Ravi
November 12, 2007
And Rediff stoops lower….they have actually copied your title for the latest OSO review.
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brangan
November 12, 2007
Arunabha S Roy: Thanks. It’s impossible not to make the connection, no?
Ravi: I did mention the awards scene in passing: “And Shah Rukh gamely mocks himself (and the repetitive nature of his romances)” That was a reference to the two film clips shown at the ceremony.
Arunraj V.S.: Thanks. But regarding “the movie is devoid of story,” don’t you feel the “story” — after so many years of the cinema — has become secondary to the writing and the making?
Ron: But Sivaji did get raves, didn’t it? I didn’t care for it, but I thought a lot of critics did. MHN worked for me big-time. Every character was a joy, especially Boman Irani, Satish Shah and Sushmita Sen. It’s such an inventive movie — ref. the spitting in Matrix mode or the neo-qawwali where the students suddenly hold up their textbooks as daflis and start keeping beat to SRK’s singing. About david Dhawan, I think Partner got a lot of good reviews too. Not caught any of the Tamil films yet. Not too sure about ATM, but I do want to check out Kannamoochi Yenada.
oops: If only I could find a way to implement that moneymaking scheme of yours 🙂
ak/gayathri: It appears that Iyarkai too took off from White Nights, from what you describe…
Gopi: Thank you. And it’s somehow fitting that you read a Bhansali review on “Opera” Mini 🙂 Will check out your thoughts…
Santosh Kumar T K: Oh, I’m sure a ton of people have used this title before. It was late, and there was a lot of Diwali celebration around — so it was all I could do to just finish writing up these reviews. Maybe I just “assimilated” something I read earlier 🙂 The Swades review idf on this blog, just do a search
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brangan
November 12, 2007
ram: Thank you. And no, I do not do an audience/critic poll before beginning my reviews so that I can sound the polar opposite – “maa kasam” and all that.
sakthi: “everyone forgot it was a film by the man who made devdas” Touche.
Shantesh Row: Thank you for that beautiful comment, so full of love for the magic of the movies. Ever thought of writing reviews? Reg: “I rooted loudly when Allah Rakha the falcon swooped down in Coolie”, can you imagine what it must be like not to have grown up with those movies? Imagine the kids today, whose only exposure to the Old (and Original) Bollywood is through films like OSO. “Everything is such a campy hoot” and all that. Wonder what they’d make of say, a Mughal-e-Azam or even a Main Tulsi Tere Aangan Ki.
Suparna: Thank you ma’am. You’re probably the second viewer who like it, after Supremus.
Ravi: As I said, it’s not exactly the most original title in the world. I should have suspected it the minute it came all too easily. I was toying around with something based on Saawariya — “Wait Loss” and other such cheesy creations — but at some point, I just wanted to be done and get on with the remainder of Diwali, so…
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Shantesh Row
November 12, 2007
Yep. Campy for me was watching Puneet Issar play Superman. Campy for me was watching Joginder shoot people with his fingers. Campy for me was watching Crazy Boys Vs Dracula Junior or Transylvania 6-5000.
Thanks for suggesting a career as a film commentator. Have been in advertising 10 years as a copywriter. Feel the itch to write scripts now. Maybe I shall also take time and pen a few thoughts on my trysts with the silver screen.
I wish you all the best. Continue to inspire us with your sublime analysis (not all of which, I agree with, but DON’T MIND IT as Shah Rukh would say!)
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Shuchi
November 12, 2007
Add me too to the list of people who liked Saawariya! Maybe I went with low expectations, having read all the bad reviews…but whatever, I saw the film as a surreal theatrical performance and appreciated it that way.
My mom who was hoping for a Fanaa-style twist with the Imaan character was rather disappointed 😉
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APALA
November 12, 2007
Hi BRangan:
Have not seen both films yet but will be seeing OSO this weekend. I had fun with MHN and hoping that this one will be fun too!
BTW, ATM is such a torture that it would easily be the WORST one tamil movie of the year – to put it mildly!
I am not sure about that Kannamoochi … too! But I would chekc out POLLATHAVAN (Dhanush) – which looked like a dark film!
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chhote saab
November 13, 2007
Bade Saab, As always loved your reviews, might not agree with all of it, but love it nonetheless. In fact everything Shantesh Row wrote in his 2 posts, about OSO and hindi movie nostalgia, was what I wanted to write – he just expressed it better. OSO worked for me. Haven’t seen Sawariya.
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Kumar
November 13, 2007
You should sue Rediff, if not for copying your title, then atleast for the crap that they put in their website these days!
Great reviews, as always!
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aloo-mattar
November 13, 2007
Baradwaj
I just had to bring this to your notice, a little gem in the song Dhoom-tanana.
There is a line “Bhool ke saare kaam kaaj, Sajnee”..
Gosh, it was laugh aloud funny when I heard it and segues beautifully into Shahrukh’s spasmodic aisle-dancing. (correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot think of a single song that has these (rather prosaic) words used to such deadly effect)
That one on-screen moment transported me halfway across the globe…from the cool, antiseptic, plastic environs of a corporate american multiplex chain, to the business end of the stalls of Pune’s Laxminarayan theater, (where we would find ourselves after last minute negotiations with the friendly paan waala cum ticket pirate outside). And all those glorious memories of potboiler moments, punctuated, by the frequent, balletic outpourings of the (frankly) tough-eggs who were the habitues of that esteemed theater.
Just as it did for Shanthesh, this time space wormhole is what OSO opened so well for me, though some soul in the movie would have certainly helped.
Also, if I am not mistaken, Farah has added wolf whistles at stategic points in the songs themselves. I am a little sad that she felt the need to do so, but it certainly works wonders for folks like me, banished to the hell of polite cinema-viewing.
More power to the drunken aisle-dancers, I say. This is a call for revolution in the aisles of all the generic mulitplex chains. Since soulless corporates are probably going to successfully destroy all single screen instituions, I hope that atleast people will not be too shy to import some of our hallowed cinema watching tradtions into them.
(which leads me to suggest an idea of a piece on theaters, maybe. Considering your industrial-strength film watching schedule, I am sure you have accumulated enough memories. 🙂 )
Inquilab zindabad!
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gayathri
November 13, 2007
you would be intersted to know that the rediff review of OSO has the same title as yours…but i saw the title first here
🙂
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brangan
November 13, 2007
Shuchi: “surreal theatrical performance” is just about the right way to look at SLB films — performance art captured on film. A lot of what Ranbir does here is what a mime would do, and I wonder if that’s why we first see him dressed in that bowler hat and that tee with black-and-white horizontal stripes (you know, standard-issue mime uniform?). I guess such a performance would come off as weird in a “realistic” film, but not here. But did you like it because of the low expectations or did some of it actually work for you?
APALA: Yeah, I heard nothing but bad things about ATM. How are ARR’s songs picturised?
chhote saab: Of course you liked OSO. As a character actor in a seventies film would have put it, “Isme koi shaq ki gunjaish hi nahi hai” 🙂
Kumar: Thanks.
aloo-mattar: Oh wow! It’s so nice to see someone actually *listening* to the song while seeing it, as opposed to merely the latter. I admit I’m generalising a bit, but for all the attention the audiences pay to lyrics today, it wouldn’t make a difference if the entire song were filled with constructions like “dhoom tana”. You should watch Saawariya, for SLB is another one who takes extreme care to sculpt his images according to his lyrics. SPOILER: In “Yoon shabnami,” for instance, Ranbir finds himself in the midst of a gathering waiting to sight the Id ka chand. The point of the song is to show how his “rock-star” magic is slowly creeping into that conservative atmosphere, so he’s dressed in a lurid red velvet while everyone else is in pure white. (You know, bringing in a dash of colour and all that.) And the funniest part of the song is where the singer hits an unexpected high note (at the beginning of the third line), and the people around him put their fingers in their ears 🙂 Like the film or not, you certainly cannot say they haven’t worked hard on it, and not just on a production design level. “More power to the drunken aisle-dancers, I say.” Amen.
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Aditya Pant
November 13, 2007
I didn’t care much for OSO, despite all the hearty laughs I had through all the jokes. But as many people have said and you have also implied, it didn’t engage me
The only portion that got me emotional during while watching OSO was a shot in the final credits where Pyarelal walks with his old-age limp on the red carpet. Truly a superstar in his hey days (along with parter Laxmikant), all he gets to do here is “arrange” for a song. BTW, he did a brilliant job with the arrangement…in true LP style. How I wish he was called in to do all the songs of the first half…that would have been great. Afterall, the music for “Dreamy Girl” was credited to LP.
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Sagarika
November 13, 2007
brangan: Decided to throw myself into the throes of masochism by reading *just* the comments here instead of the reviews. There’s an off chance I might catch one of these over the weekend and the devil in me suggested it’d do me good to take Jabberwock’s advice and savor the reviews for dessert!
I’m actually glad I did ‘coz reading the comments thread on your much-awaited posts is an exercise in exhilaration, in and of itself. There’s aloo-mattar who suddenly seemed to have morphed into aloo-mutter…but wait…they are actually TWO different people (are we talking a reincarnation here too…And no, no, I didn’t sneak a peek, the thread mentions it). And there’s Chhote saab paying obeisance to Bade saab; a hero-worshipping oops suggesting a money-making scheme that might actually take off bigtime but our man, the hero, is too good for such, um, schemes (and cut here to a flashback from March 18, 2005, where our hero has already considered, and apparently given up on, such a scheme, only with a bigger amount: “If only I had a hundred bucks for each time I ask a Tamil film personality who heâs dying to work with, and he shoots back in one-hundredth a nanosecond, âMani Ratnam.â?” Ref: Rathnavel write-up).
And that’s not all. There’s much appreciation of the “love for the magic of the movies” and vindication of the heartburn from being “banished to the hell of polite cinema-viewing.” What with “Crazy Boys Vs Dracula Junior” mentions intermingling with wolf whistles, and our villain — Mr.Skeptic personified — the “Don” (or at least its sound-alike) onlooking (with an imaginably snide smirk and a frown) the galaxy of drunken aisle-dancers toasting the hero in a celebrationary stupor…Now, don’t we have enough already, in these comments, for a potboiler? 🙂
“âMore power to the drunken aisle-dancers, I say.â? Amen.” Indeed. “Maa kasam” and all that…
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Shailesh
November 13, 2007
Title seems to be picked from you. You might want to get this changed. Link below
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2007/nov/12sai.htm
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Pranali
November 13, 2007
I watched Sawariya and found the film to be excellent. If you have not understood the film say you did not , dont say the film is bad. It was beautiful to watch, great sets, the acting by both the newcomers was good, Rani Mukherji did a fabulous job, Salman had a small but apt role. The music was awesome. It was as if a poem was being recited on screen, reminded me of a beautiful dreamy English peom.
SLB movies are brilliant and a piece of art, definitely not for masses who take interest in crap/meaningless movies like OSO.
Keep an open mind, all movies need not be the same with a hero and his silly heroine dancing away to senseless songs, this movie is different and may not appeal to all but it is definitely not a bad film……kudos to SLB …he is a genius.
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Shashi
November 13, 2007
Baradwaj,
Alert your fan following (that includes me!) via SMS about your latest review with
http://www.smsgupshup.com/
Disclaimer: I work for Webaroo.
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Rafi
November 13, 2007
Om shanti om will be this year’s biggest blockbester.Very nice,interesting,funny and a good use of time watching this film.Shahrukh Khan again proved that he is the best(he is proving it for long 15 years).
Sawariya is a time wasting film.SLB better write a novel.He must feel lucky that his poor sawariya is being compared with great om shanti om.
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APALA
November 13, 2007
Hi BRangan:
About the songs in ATM – Less said is better!! ARR’s songs are good (if not the best) but the they pop on the screen, just wants you to look for the EXIT! Why is Vijay so much after this garlands, “ego-filling” prizes – I dunno!! (Maybe plans for the “CM” chair in the future!!) One song is watchable and that’s the re-mix song! (Shreya was so lame and intolerably irritating!)
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Zazu
November 14, 2007
Wow – THAT is a fantastic review. Really puts a whole new perspective on the film for me. I was pretty disappointed by this film but this review makes me look at the film in a totally different light. I think my expectations were too closely aligned to what Dostoevsky was trying to convey in his story. I didn’t like how the protagonist changed from the isolated loner in the story to a happy-go-lucky lightweight in the movie because it made his love more prosaic –this was not a love that would be the one moment of bliss that would sustain him for the rest of his depressing life – but was your more garden-type variety of love – painful, but chalk it up to a learning experience. But now I see that may have been the point.
Interesting that the chief complaint that most have had about this movie is that the love story between the two leads is not terribly compelling – maybe that’s Bhansali’s comment about the nature of that kind of love? I had felt that his desire to use star kids like Ranbir Kapoor was his wanting to play Pygmalion and starting with good base material (as if genetics determines acting ability!), but maybe this too is meant to reference the romantic ideals that Raj Kapoor embodied
And that is so true about Dosteovsky’s language matching Bhansali’s sensibility – intense, obsessive, angst ridden edging on maudlin – is there a cinematic equivalent to purple prose?
One thing though – the music for OSO is fun but terribly formulaic. You mention the composer’s use of the theme – Main Agar Kahoun uses the theme cleverly but the rest of the time it’s just tacked on as an intro, as a verse, or stuck on very clumsily at the end of Deewangi Deewangi – probably the worst song on the soundtrack – if you were to ask somebody to write a parody of a high energy Bollywood dance number from the past five years, this is pretty close to what he or she would come up with!
Monty uses a theme too in Saawariya – you hear it at the start of Thode Badmash – and he interweaves it into four other songs to accentuate and connect them very effectively. But the difference with his use of the theme is that he varies it – for example, it starts Yoon Shabnami in a minor key, listen to how he uses a variation of it in Pari in particular. That and his wonderful arrangements of the songs hold together the music to evoke and sustain a mood and why the album sounds only better and better with more listening. Monty really put a lot of thought into the music and you can tell.
The problem though is that with music so evocative, it does come as a shock if what is put on screen doesn’t match what you felt the song was going to be about. Thode Badmash stuck out in particular for me – this sweet, giggly song about her mischievous lover – that is what she is going to write to the fellow she’s spent a year waiting for?
Sorry to go on but your review gave me lots to think about. And I don’t keep a blog, so there you go! Thank you so much for the insights. I hope Bhansali can read it – maybe it will provide some comfort for him – there is nothing like the pleasure the Indian press and public seems to derive from kicking a man when he’s down. The film is a failure, but it’s an honorable failure, better than a dishonorable success.
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Vivek
November 14, 2007
Dude, you know your cinema man. Just wish OSO had more scenes with Deepika in it. “Touch me Not” is just the phrase. Just wish she didnt have to chew bubble gum, to prove she was in the 21st century.
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G
November 14, 2007
Rahul Tyagi: Thanks. About Bhansali, he gets a bad rap simply for making the movies his way.
Well worded. I feel safe in skipping his movies but I love the guy.
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Priti
November 14, 2007
baradwaj, i stumbled upon this web page, containing reviews of indian movies by one peter nepstad… he seems to be a review author with rotten tomatoes also… he rents these dvds of mostly Z grade bollywood movies and reviews them, mostly snake movies (sample: jungle ki nagin, devi, nagin, naag shakti, naag devi, with an occasional dil se, sholay or mother india thrown into the list :D) india still seems to be thought of as the land of snake charmers eh? he also seems to be a huge parveen babi fan 😀
u might be interested, in case u havent read this stuff already
http://www.illuminatedlantern.com/cinema/review/archives/country_india.php
this is his rotten tomatoes page:
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/author-5381/?cats=1%2C+2%2C+3%2C+4%2C+5%2C+7%2C+8%2C+12%2C+13%2C+14%2C+16%2C+17%2C+18%2C+19%2C+20%2C+21%2C+22%2C+24%2C+23%2C+26%2C+27&genreid=&letter=&switches=&sortby=&limit=50&page=1
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brangan
November 14, 2007
Sagarika: I think that’s something of a first, a summation of blog comments 🙂
Pranali: “reminded me of a beautiful dreamy English peom” Any particular reason why the poem is “English” in your analogy? (As opposed to, say, poetry in general)…
Shashi: The reviews go up on Saturday. Surely that much can be remembered without a reminder 🙂
Zazu: “the love story between the two leads is not terribly compelling – maybe that’s Bhansali’s comment about the nature of that kind of love?” I would say the original story is itself a comment on that kind of smitten-at-first-sight love. About the music for OSO, of course it is formulaic. You’re meant to get it all on one listen, and with that mandate, V-S have done a very good job. (BTW, I think Dard-e-dico is the worst song on the soundtrack.) On the other hand, it took me a number of listens to get Saawariya’s music. It’s much more layered and I just wish Bhansali had roped in better lyricists. But this man really knows his music. My thought on Thode Badmash was that it’s partly about Raj, partly Imaan. Though she’s dictating the letter to Imaan, she’s also begun to (by that time) find Raj interesting. hence a bit of playfulness in the initial portions of the tune before it soars like a prayer in the stanza (“mera Imaan ho tum” and all that stuff, which is practically a crescendo). Oh, and please don’t apologise. It was a pleasure to read about your engagement with the film – and the music in particular. Thank you.
Vivek: “Just wish she didnt have to chew bubble gum” – but without that quirk, there’d be nothing to remember the new Deepika by. I mean, what else did she do? 🙂
Priti: Thanks for the links. I think there’s another site too, dedicated to “bad” movies from around the world. but can’t recall the name right now.
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Aditya Pant
November 14, 2007
Rangan – how right you are about SLB’s choice of a lyricist. Except for a few songs in his entire career, Sameer’s lyrics have always been trite. The only notable ones I can think of right away are “ye raat khushnaseeb hai” from Aaina, and the more recent “Ya Rabba” from Salaam-e-ishq.
Maybe it’s my Gulzar bias, but I think that only Gulzar’s abstract poetry could have done justice to SLB’s vision.
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raj
November 14, 2007
zazu, tip of my hat to you. One of the most expository comments I have seen on these pages. Great observations about the music – I think the point you made about Monty’s background score and theme music usage – it sort of brought a smile to me – because this is what tamil movie watchers have been exposed to for more than 25 years and have taken for granted while one used to flinch at “Wah Wah Ramji” showing up as interlude for “Didi tera”, with the latter returning the courtesy in the former’s interludes. ( I may not be exact about the song titles – but you get the drift). This is one of the reason Bollywood music was a pain to hear in the 90’s (leet’s not even discuss the washed out 80’s) and though it’s changed a lot with particularly the efforts of Rahman and S-E-L, it’s obviously not gone away.
For the moment, I am inclined to give the benefit of doubt to V-S, that perhaps this miz-n-match of interludes-and-tunes was also part of the parody effort, particularly if they were parodying L-P. Werernt these guys behind Taxi 9211? That one had a good score, a decent BGM(note, decent not great or even very good). Howeverr, 70’s also belonged to RDB, so the score might have borrowed a note or two from him instead of sticking to the Kalyanji-Anandji and L-P assembly line.
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brangan
November 14, 2007
Aditya: SLB and Gulzar – now there’s a thought. And if we could somehow add Vishal Bhardwaj to this mix as music director… 🙂
raj: I do think V-S were given the brief to be follow certain music conventions, just as Farah herself was following those conventions. But even with that considered, the theme has been used as opening (in the lament, Jag soona sonna), as central riff (dastaan e Om Shanti Om), as interlude music (in Main agar kahoon)… So it all fit in very well, I thought, these various “reincarnations” of the OSO theme 😉 About RDB, I guess Farah more than paid her dues to the man in Main Hoon Na, so she went for the more popular L-P in OSO.
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Nithya
November 14, 2007
Aankhon mein teri (Ajab si) seems to have been very heavily inspired by “Jab se tumko dekha hai sanam” from Damini, a Rishi Kapoor , Meenakshi Seshadri starrer.
Man after 3 days of wondering where I had heard that tune before I can sleep in peace now. Looking forward to a review of the “Bee movie” :).
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raj
November 15, 2007
BR, I think reincarnation of the theme music is not bad – but you should execute it with finesse. That’s where the point about Monty made me smile – ‘cos I’d take it for granted having been brought up on Ilaiyaraja. Take Azhagi for instance – practically, the bgm for the movie is variations of Oliyile Therivadhu but you hardly ever feel it while watching. There are so m any brilliant – and spontaneous and appropriate – variations that they get buried in the mood of the scene. Thats GENIUS! (BTW., Azhagi is probably an assembly line effort,for all that)
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oops
November 16, 2007
I’ve seen Saanwariya finally ! Some thoughts from my sisters who usually hate bollywood movies and thought the first half of OSO was a disaster.
The movie : boring.
Ranbir Kapoor : great abs ! Good actor, very effective.
Sonam Kapoor : bad actress. Too theatrical with all those “ah, oh”
Rani : good interpretation. She finally woke up and shot the Daag ! More convincing here than in LMCD (that’s my take)
Salman Khan : Looks like a terrorist. We don’t know what he does. The first time we see him, he’s praying under the rain. Crazy look, no smile. At the end, we don’t understand who can really waste one year of her life waiting for this guy.
Lollipop : cute
My take : beautiful, not too long. Ranbir have a great body, a pretty little back (i’m a woman, i have to notice those details) and he’s very effective for his first appearance on screen. Not the case for Sonam, cute but need to work on her screen presence.
Too much song, but it’s all made up by everything around. Sets are beautiful.
The only thing that put down all these good points is that we don’t really care for the story, Raj pain don’t touch us so we watch the movie without being involved.
Saanwariya = good paint
For me OSO > Saanwariya because i do care for Om (or at least i can laugh at him or with him)
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oops
November 16, 2007
BUT… Saanwariya is perhaps a better film (i wanted to add)
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amarprem
November 16, 2007
Saawariya needs an artistic mind to understand it and appreciate it which i m really sorry to see that not many have.It is one fine movie and its the best example of giving indian cinema a new dimension.Its just like a fairy tale and until u realise that you cant understand it.Its a musical depiction of two lovers and two different perceptions towards love.You dont have to relate it to reality coz its a dreamy tale which makes you smile.otherwise a granny can never keep her granddaughter tied up to her with a safety pin.Some take it like nonsense but i think it needs an imaginative mind to actually appreciate the delicacy of incorporating simple ideas into a classic movie.loved it,The effort done in creating the sets and the hand painted backgrounds have not been invain and i seriously feel this movie might not strike out too loud in the beginning but will definitely grow onto its audience.Thumbs up SLB.
whereas OSO, is nothing comparable to Saawariya.They belong to two different classes and theres no sense behind OSO.M highly disappointed by Shahrukhs interest and involvemnt in a movie this baseless.
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APALA
November 19, 2007
Hi BRangan:
Finally saw both films last weekend here!
OSO: was entertaining but I think MHN (minus the matrix-climax) was better than this one!! But good to see that Deepika can really act in her first movie!!
Saawariya:
Surprised that this resembled so much of the tamil movie “Iyarkai” by Director Jananathan – which came 3 years ago and won a national award too!! This one is more sophisticated (with rich set pieces etc.,) but still I think the tamil movie was FAR BETTER and MORE SATISFYING! If you have not seen that one, please do see it and let me know whether you liked that better or not!!
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udai
November 20, 2007
Hi can anyone suggest me if there are any professional courses on screenplay and script writing which are offered in india and are worth applying to?
While on that I would be much obliged if you could visit my bolg and give a direction to my attempts at writing. The blog is -www.gurukagyan.blogspot.com
Sorry for the spam, but couldn’t think of a better audience to give tips on this. Sorry again.
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Shalini
November 30, 2007
Bhardwaj,
Really enjoyed reading your review of OSO. You echoed my thoughts on the movie, but in a far more analytical and elegantly articulated way.
I imagine you get this sort of “you took the thoughts right out of head” reaction often. Hope it doesn’t creep you out.:-)
I do have one point of disagreement with you – the music of OSO. While to me the music was the best thing about Main Hoon Na, OSO’s soundtrack was rather disappointing. Oh, it does it’s job in the movie, but has no attraction for me outside the film. Perhaps that’s the difference between being inspired by the have-dholak-will-beat-it-endlessly duo of Laxmikant-Pyareleal instead of the great RDB.:-)
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raj
January 10, 2008
Shalini, wow! Thats an apt summing up of L-P.The dholak that they bought during Dosti never was consigned to the attic until Pyarelal himself went up the attic!
“have-dholak-will-beat-it-endlessly” – :-).
OSO was disappointing musically – amen to that – so tired music. The only explanation is Baradwaj’s – they wanted music that summarised the period of the movie, so ended up imitating L-P. Was MHN inspired by RDB? I thought not. We dont want to sully the good name of RD Burman, do we?
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rangana
February 19, 2008
Just saw OSO.
I know, I know.. but I never read reviews before watching a movie so as to not get biased and to avoid spoilers – even though it means that I have to sit out of the circle every now and then.
I usually agree with your reviews (probably around 95% of the times except for the occasional Veyyil or Water which I liked a bit more than you) and your OSO review is so spot on.
Well, you mentioned in one of your comments that you didn’t get why people were repeating the lines in the “Rascalaa” tiger fight sequence. I thought it was because they were “hired” by Om and given a dialogue (“Wah, kya acting Hai!”) to repeat in front of Shanti. I hope I didnt miss anything deeper 🙂
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Sagarika
February 29, 2008
brangan: After all these months of listening, OSO’s music has finally wound its way into my favorites list. Ankhon mein teri in particular transports me to a happy haven of who-cares-if-they-come-true-or-not dreams, every time I listen to it. Love it! But having watched the movie at long last two weekends ago, I must agree with you that the way they “butchered and served up [the song]” was unappetizing indeed. But other than that, I just kicked back and let the movie take me on a joyride (and it did).
Shahrukh shines, undoubtedly. “He’s so right for the part, you can’t imagine anyone else as Om.” But of course. And just to watch his oh-he-so-reminds-me-of-the-Fauji-days antics I’m willing to silence my internal skeptic (“but isn’t this movie supposed to be a copy of a copy of a copy” – shut up, skeptic…there!) with a duct tape and watch OSO all over again. 🙂
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Fahim Farook
February 19, 2009
Again, I find your review to be analytical, thought-provoking, and intelligent 🙂 Most critics seem to write from the “this is what I liked and this is what I hated” POV. But you seem to leave “I” out of the equation and simply talk of the interesting aspects of each movie and that’s very enjoyable and eye-opening at times. Thank you for the enjoyment provided by your reviews …
(Yes, I’m going through old reviews and commenting :p But can’t comment on new stuff since I haven’t seen most of it …)
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Derek McCrea
September 5, 2010
I love the way you wrote this review, I can not get past the fact that the guy in the top picture looks like Jeff Goldblum from the side!
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Rishikesh
August 2, 2021
The only review of Saawariya I could connect with. I would even rate it above the Ali-Ranbir collaborations which tried to do a bit too much IMO Here the emotional trajectory is extremely clean and characters are easier to relate to. Loved the observations on Sonam’s character, hers was a possessive, problem character which made her all the more human. I could connect with the grey shades that emerge within Ranbir Raj as he sets the letter to fire in a finely captured sequence. Gulab Ji’s character too was a nice subversion. Here’s a third wheel who encourages the guy to find the person he likes. The love she has for him is so much more genuine. Only issue I thought was that Ranbir-Sonam scenes in the second half lacked the spark. The debuntants, particularly Ranbir fumble slightly when the tone gets a bit heavier. Hence the finale doesn’t really tear you up as it should. Otherwise a fine film, with some wonderfully well-written lines. I miss these films that can be categorized as pre-bollywood primarily coz in the urbane multiplex era there’s hardly scope for such poetic dialogue baazi. When is the next Bhansali movie releasing?
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