CRIMES OF FASHION
The glam industry’s dirty dealings are laid bare in a naïve morality play that just about scrapes through. Plus, a so-so comedy sequel.
NOV 2, 2008 – FASHION SHOULD BE, AT LEAST IN THEORY, the easiest watch ever – for, how wrong can you go, really, with a viewing experience that essentially involves pretty girls in various stages of leggy undress? Then again, this is a Madhur Bhandarkar movie, and before you know it, this reverie is quickly overrun by righteous fury. My problem with Bhandarkar isn’t that he’s latched on to a hit formula in the guise of “reality filmmaking,” which results in our multiplexes being filled up, every year, with the likes of Page 3 and Corporate and Traffic Signal. If he wants to shine a harsh light on the tucked-away nooks and corners of our magnificently flawed society – and, by extension, country – that’s his prerogative, and God knows we could use a filmmaker who diverts his resources to something more than just the provision of easy entertainment. My problem is that, once Bhandarkar zooms in on his area of interest, he isn’t so much a dispassionate chronicler as a decisive moraliser. He’s a judge who’s already convicted the accused, even before he gives them a fair hearing – and the only participant, in his court, is the plaintiff. The defendant exists solely to go through the motions of a fair trial, stretched to movie length. Even the trailers for Fashion came with a tag line that reeked of ominous finger-wagging: “In the world of fashion, you will have to lose more than just your morals.” Is it any surprise, then, that the film portrays the fashion industry as the inner circle of hell, equating sequins with sins?
My question to Bhandarkar is simply this: We know that the world of fashion – like any other world – is populated by both the good and the bad. Heck, if you made a movie about Nirupa Roy’s life, you’d probably uncover a few squirmy truths. So why not show us, along with the lows, a little of the highs? So these girls starve themselves and shoot up drugs and sleep around, but, along with the much-needed tap on the shoulder about these easy temptations, why not capture for us how it feels to be in front of an adoring audience that is, at least for an instant, a slave to your imperious catwalk pose? In an overlong film (which goes on for nearly three hours), couldn’t at least a few minutes have been set aside to show that the sacrifices have been worth it – when you stand there with the perfect clothes, the perfect legs and the perfect breasts, the perfect smile on the perfect face, knowing that all the men in the room want to be with you, all the women want to be you? Why not take a moment to savour what it’s like to be such an embodiment of physical perfection, before tearing down the world that demands – oftentimes cruelly – this perfection in the first place?
But Bhandarkar probably knows that his loyal audience is more likely to devour the seamy tabloid take of his story than the responsible newspaper version – and in that sense, he’s no better than a filmmaker from the sixties who telegraphed to his viewers that girls like Helen and Bindu were bad because they thought nothing of baring a bit of cleavage or lighting up a cigarette or tossing back a glass of whiskey. How do we know that Meghna (Priyanka Chopra, sinking her teeth into the best part she’s had in ages, and coming off fairly well) – a good girl from a good Chandigarh neighbourhood who’s now a model in the soul-sucking sin-city that is Mumbai – has turned bad? Because she has a glass of wine and goes to bed with boyfriend Manav (Arjan Bajwa). How do we know Meghna has turned badder? Because she’s begun to smoke. And how do we know that she’s at her baddest, at the scum-pit of supermodeldom? Because she takes drugs and – you’d better be sitting down for this – sleeps with a black man. Perish the possibility that this poor girl is trying to obliterate a series of disappointments – at work; with men – for at least the duration of an evening by fogging her brain with sex and sedatives. That would mean she’s a human being, and that these are her failures – whereas Meghna is really just a construct, a pawn to be played, and the failures are really those of the evil fashion industry.
In fact, we know very little of Meghna as a person. Yes, she says she wants to become a model – but what drove that idea into her pretty head? (Did she plop herself in front of the television set, one evening in the early nineties, and when she looked up from her homework, did she see Aishwarya Rai glittering on the Miss World stage? Is that why she entered the local beauty contest?) Yes, Meghna moves out of a live-in arrangement with Manav – but surely it’s not just because he’s a small-time model who had the temerity to demand why she came home so late one night? (Could it be that, in the heady rush of early supermodeldom, she’s seeking a man of more means and bigger accomplishments?) We keep asking these questions because, especially in the latter instance, the film offers no real reason for the breakup (other than, well, she’s in the fashion industry, and therefore everything is doom and gloom). Meghna walks out of the apartment, tears in her eyes and without a word on her lips, and instead of feeling for her, you want to shake her and sit her down for a frank talk with Manav. That’s how most of Fashion is – people do these things, not because of who they are or what circumstances they’re in, but because if they didn’t do these things, there’d be no cautionary tale to tell.
The one time Meghna comes close to being something of a flesh-and-blood creature is when she tells her married lover (Arbaaz Khan, who plays some sort of fashion czar) that she’s pregnant. He doesn’t miss a beat as he acknowledges the fact. Then amping up her womanly wiles, and perhaps wishing to up the ante in this game of who-will-blink-first, she says she wants to keep the child. At this moment, Meghna isn’t a supermodel; she’s just a simple girl caught up in the love of an unattainable guy, and despite her money and fame and independence, you sense she’s still middle-class enough to feel incomplete without a husband-figure, without a family of her own. Most other times, it’s Janet (Mugdha Godse, making a graceful debut) you care about and whose story you wish to keep returning to. It’s not just that Janet is the only person in the film who’s got her head screwed firmly on her shoulders, she also has an interesting sort-of love story with a gay designer (nicely played by Samir Soni, without the flaming, pinkie-up clichés that afflict all the other gay characters, most of whom are designers). And it helps that Janet is the only model in the film who’s not portrayed as a victim. (Kangana Ranaut is the third model, and along with Meghna, the second victim. The actress is given nothing but a series of shrill notes to hit, and it becomes awfully hard to watch her after a point.)
Fashion is far more successful in its early scenes, when it attempts to engage with the teeth and gears of the industry (which makes me wish Bhandarkar had attempted, instead of full-blooded drama, a claws-bared satire along the lines of Robert Altman’s Prêt-à-Porter, which for all its shambling aimlessness, was at least fun in a train-wreck kind of way). It’s amusing to pull back from the people and watch the bigger picture snap into place – like how a model coordinator (played amusingly by Chitrashi Rawat) is the lowest rung in the food chain, and an aspiring model has to then clamber up through photographers and agencies and designers. But even in these portions, it’s clear Bhandarkar isn’t as interested in the mechanics of modelling as he is in the unfolding of his morality play. (Act One: Ascent; Act Two: Fall; Interminable Act Three: Redemption.) Meghna’s first earnings are from an evening at a party, where she thought she’d stumble into valuable contacts, but realises later that the reason she’s there is simply to provide eye candy. Do we get to hear the whoop of joy of making some sweet money, especially considering she’s a single girl slugging it out in an expensive city? Of course not. Bhandarkar makes her lower her eyes, as if she’s shamed herself by making money this way. You have to admire, at some level, the brazenness of the man – he admits that the fashion world cannot be broken into without some amount of compromise, and then he judges you for making that compromise. He bangs the gavel. The case is closed.
HAD I DONE A ROGER EBERT AND WALKED OUT of Golmaal Returns after the first few minutes – in other words, had I experienced my own version of “Minutegate,” wherein the famous critic fled from a screening of Tru Loved after just eight minutes and went on to drub it in his review – I’d have consigned it to the category of trash. The early portions of Rohit Shetty’s sequel to his comedy hit are simply dreadful. Kareena Kapoor and Ajay Devgan (two actors who, to put it mildly, are not exactly gifted with comic chops) execute a tired variant of the routine where a TV-soap obsessed wife suspects her man of infidelity, and Sharad Saxena makes things positively painful with his unfunny malapropisms. But once the supporting cast kicks in (Shreyas Talpade, Tusshar Kapoor, and, especially Ashwini Kalsekar, doing a spirited takeoff on Rani Mukerji in Saawariya), the laughs begin to trickle in fairly consistently. The good thing about Shetty is that he’s a firm believer in the high-gag-ratio school of comedy, which ensures that even if two jokes fall flat, a third comes along to keep you amused. However, if – as we’re threatened towards the end – there is to be a third installment, would it be too much to ask that there’s more to it than just a random assortment of kick-in-the-crotch gags and movie in-jokes?
Copyright ©2008 The New Sunday Express. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without
Sid
November 1, 2008
Hey BR: Thanks for this review. Most reviewers usually let Bhandarkar get away with all the flaws in his films.
I thought the film was above average (at best) although I’m still putting it together in my head. The middling first half didn’t do the film any favors — nor did it help that Kangana was required to shriek all along — unfortunate because she’s usually a terrific address (the wardrobe malfunction scene was a great example).
I think I’ve finally reached my breaking point with Bhandarkar — though I wish he has at least one more Chandni Bar in him.
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Sid
November 1, 2008
LOL: Address = actress in that previous post. Dunno how that happened!
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Lee
November 2, 2008
Hopefully Fashion which you were too kind to call a piece of crap will not win any awards to encourage Bhandarkar to make more movies along this line. He is now officially the male version of Deepa Mehta – the see how they suffer school of filmmaking.
If you want to see a much better movie on the fashion industry check out Gia – no moralistic preachy tale.
I have given up on Bhandarkar.
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rs
November 2, 2008
Heck, if you made a movie about Nirupa Roy’s life, you’d probably uncover a few squirmy truths. 🙂
i feel sorry for him coz he seems to do so much research to come up with such shoddy results
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brangan
November 2, 2008
rs: Actually, I don’t think he does all that much “research” From the amount of depth in Corporate or Fashion, it just seems he’s Googled up a few facts.
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Tejas
November 2, 2008
One topic Bhandarkar hasn’t made a movie on, but he very well will – Film Industry. 😀
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Kishor
November 2, 2008
I really wonder of all the people in on this earth, Bhandarkar is the one who is giving us lectures on morality. He is the one who sexually exploited an aspiring actress and later added a scene at the end of Page 3 where Tara Sarma justifies her compromise with the director. Bhandarkar really needs a psychiatrist. His films clearly reflect sour grapes mentality. If Mumbai is such a bad place, then he should set an example either by working free for the producers or by going back to his village.
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arun
November 2, 2008
Thanks Brangan for the view. Not a single reviewer likes Golmaal yet this is a huge hit. What’s wrong with the audience ?
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Sujith
November 2, 2008
Chitrashi Rawat ..ahh..yes from Chak De India
Me think Bhandarkar has used a lighter hand when compared to his page3 days..a little less aiming to shock, playing to a wider audience etc…
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Archana
November 2, 2008
Its been three days since I watched the film and I was just waiting for this one review to re-iterate everything I sub-consciously knew but had to be pointed out!! Its just another melodrama with a ‘reality’ designer tag. Just like in the movie where a “designer wear” off Bangkok passes of as being someone’s creation.
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Pallavi
November 2, 2008
Well, I agreed with you when you said Madhur is not a good story-teller, and I ll go further one step and say he definitely doesnt seem to improvise on his characters in a real way, considering the irony, however he seems to have done his homework alright.
For me it felt like you thought Meghna was just too good to be true, and somehow wanted her to have this negative shade which you think every girl in a cosmopolitan city, rather in this “kalyug” world should possess. But I think its really unfair, why not let them be?
There was enough motivation for every decision Meghna took, which you probably overlooked, or may be which the director dint give enough visibility to.
For example, when Meghna leaves her Manav (he accuses her of sleeping with her boss indirectly through a euphemism), she saw in him the same sensibility of the fashion designer who accused her of sleeping with the director of Panache for having got the role of shoe-stopper without any before-hand experience. Why is it so difficult to understand that she was dejected coz her own boyfriend was probably was calling her a prostitute (atleast thats definitely how any girl would have felt in her place) ?
Meghna is a small town girl ambitioning for a Super model, maybe unaware of its vices or lets say setbacks to one’s personal life it offers. I think there was every justification provided for all the turns the story took, the director just dint have the subtlety to carry it through but I think its unfair altogether to judge a director this harshly calling his research a googled product.
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Raj Balakrishnan
November 2, 2008
Hi Baradwaj,
“He’s a judge who’s already convicted the accused, even before he gives them a fair hearing – and the only participant, in his court, is the plaintiff” – that was very nicely put. Bhandarkar takes his reputation of ‘reality filmmaker’ very seriously. I read that he appears in this movie as himself – a ‘reality film maker’! His movies are like Star News programs on the big screen.
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Priyanka
November 2, 2008
Hi! I have just begun reading your reviews and appreciated your particular take on Fashion.
I remember reading an interview of a model, Shivani Kapur who described her descent into drug addiction; she vividly remarked on the blankness and weightlessness that filled her mind during the worst of the time and yet ironically, the weightlessness simultaneously mirrored in her body guaranteed her constant work.
It would have been worthwhile examining to see a model’s transition from being an imperious goddess to this blank creature, rather than the tale of moral redemption that Bhandarkar narrates of the fashion industry.
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Itallcomesaround
November 2, 2008
What’s with the entire Greek Chorus thing? In this one at least he tamped down a wee bit on that – not entirely though, but replaced it with Priyanka’s overactive conscience talking nineteen to the dozen when we should be allowed to witness and make out own assessments. Too much telling very little showing.
Also, is there a petition I can sign to get Harsh Chhaya to never act as a gay man again?
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Sanjukta
November 3, 2008
I’ll tell you what Bhandarkar does as a film maker…his films are like him telling us, “all you sorry people who live in Yash Chopras’ dream land and know nothing of the real world, come to me I will show you how things in real world are.” And you go, “but dude this much I knew, I read papers you know, I know what goes around in the world.” but he is like, “Oh no you know but you don’t know how it happens, so now I show you how it happens.” But I know. Ok whatever.
If anybody has to get real and really open up his eye to the real world its Mr. Bhandarkar himself. His cliches are so annoying in films after films….
From Chandni Bar to Corporate to Fashion he is always playing this “good girl in a bad world” game and shamelessly claiming his films to be about feminist issues, oh crap they annoy me the most when I wear my feminist glasses.
One night stand and she is all shattered, oh cmon get real Mr.Bhandarkar, we do it all the time. Yes we women happily have one night stands…bad news for you. We happily abort too when it don’t fit in our scheme of things, and no we dont think that’s the end of the world and dont lose our sanity over it. You would call us a bad girl now won’t you, Mr.Bhandarkar.
Phew, Bhandarkar makes me so angry
BR, I am so glad you didn’t let MB get away with his hypocrisy.
I have a very interesting Feminist take on Fashion and other Bhandarkar films. This self promotion is very cheap but it’s one of the best things I have written ever, I really think it deserve to be read. Here it is… http://sanjukta.wordpress.com/2008/11/02/fashion-movie-review/
But Kangana Ranaut was mindblowing, she stole my heart, I mean for a min there in her first appearance on the ramp I wanted to turn lesbian… 😛
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sreeja
November 3, 2008
I’m pretty sure I know less than Madhur Bhandarkar about the fashion industry, but are all the men gay?? I’m totally pro gay rights but where are all the straight men? I went a guy friend of mine and half way through he was beginning to think he was a minority!
And you are totally right about wanting to shake Priyanka Chopra’s character and give her a nice scold. And in all the scenes that she was with Mugdha Godse, the newcomer appeared to be a stronger actress. i love her story line though I wish Samir Soni’s boyfriend had a few more appearances in the end. In the final fashion show for example.
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Tejas
November 3, 2008
There is this one scene in the movie when a model looks at Madhur Bhandarkar at a party and rolls her eyes, “That’s Madhur Bhandarkar, ‘reality’ filmmaker!!” Unfortunately, by the end of the movie, that model is us.
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Anil
November 3, 2008
Doesn’t Mr. Bhandarkar make the same film over and over again. The content, the structure of the film, the female victim etc are all the same – just the industry in the background changes! Chandni Bar was saved by [the always brilliant] Tabu, but his films since then are progressively becoming preachy and unnecessarily sensational.
He is, easily, the most over-rated director in films today with 3 National awards.
Acting was inconsistent – while I like Kangana she is made to shriek too often. He body language in the ramp scenes was amazing. Priyanka was barely adequate – with a meaty role like this a good actor would have soared and taken the movie to the next level as well. Mugda was average. The others barely registered – with the exception of Harsh Chayya – he was plain awful…the worst performance I have seen in a long time even with the low performance standards of Hindi commercial films.
Overall, disappointing film even with my low expectations.
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s
November 4, 2008
since the verdict is clear, who the hell is giving this guy national awards or any awards!
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hariohm
November 4, 2008
Sanjuktha, oh really!!!
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Revathi
November 5, 2008
Atleast he let her live. In an older bollywood film, such a girl would have died a tragic death- generally coming in between a bullet and the hero thus cleansing her of her sins. The audience would be totally unmoved with a feeling of “that is what happens to such girls”.
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V
November 7, 2008
I suppose the problem with “Fashion” is that it is being sold as “realistic” movie by the great-realistic-movie-director-of-our-times MB. If instead you look at it as “Story of a girl called Meghna” who just happens to be in the Fashion industry, it makes for good cinema.
Having read this review before walking in , I was prepared to be disappointed, however I found the film to be good and enjoyable.
Was totally blown away by kangana ranuat. Her ramp walks were stunning to say the least.
Was much impressed by her acting that priyanka chopra’s
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V
November 7, 2008
Did anyone not feels the film to be a bit racist? Meghna is horrified to discover that she has had a one-night-stand with a black man? BLACK man?
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Tejas
November 7, 2008
V – Racism is a very easily taken for granted in our country. Two days ago the headline of ToI was, ‘US goes color-blind.’ in a follow-up to Obama’s victory. They could turn and say they meant colors blue and red – for democrats and republicans – but such excuses are hollow.
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Sanjukta
November 8, 2008
@V
I agree it was racist. In fact its not totally clear why was she so shattered, because she had sex with a random stranger or because the stranger was a weird black guy… I guess MB wanted to leave it to our interpretation..
And even as a simple film minus the realistic tag…it was too slow and too long.. I felt like couple of years older when I came out of the theater
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raj
November 8, 2008
sanjukta, no offence, I agree with your views on Bhandarkar and all but yours is a pretty badly written piece. One wonders why you thought it is your best – or is it?
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s
November 8, 2008
sometimes one is glad that raj writes this is one such instance. but question is, if these are the filtered out comments that get published what was exactly there in his comments that got moderated?
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raj
November 8, 2008
s, so I shouldnt call bad writing, bad writing?
Sorry, I can’t.
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Jabberwock
November 9, 2008
This self promotion is very cheap but it’s one of the best things I have written ever, I really think it deserve to be read…
Self-promotion isn’t necessarily cheap, but there’s something hugely comic about a writer proclaiming that his/her work “really deserves to be read”. Most of the really good writers I know (Baradwaj included) would rather chew off their own typing fingers than make such a statement.
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the sane schizophrenic
November 9, 2008
but it’s one of the best things I have written ever, I really think it deserve to be read…
You know, it is in very bad taste to say that, there are even grammatical errors there, and the content is juvenile.
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Footydoc
November 11, 2008
While Fashion left a lot to be desired as a movie, and Madhur Bhandarkar can be an extremely pretentious director, I am surprised at the elitist tone that BRangan and other commentators here have adopted. Yes, we all read newspapers and are aware of most of the issues that Madhur has portrayed in the film, lifting real life events and displaying them on celluloid whilst passing it all off as research. However, Fashion is a hindi Bollywood film, and will be watched by millions who do not live in cities nor read the English language press, leave alone the page 3 of the papers. For this audience Fashion will come as a revelation and will certainly inform. And it is these masses, who greatly outnumber us English educated elite reading this review and commenting upon it,who will perhaps appreciate the message of this movie – however flawed and cliched it is – best.
A similar city-centric view seems to pervade BR’s review of Vivaah – Aisa Bhi, since BR cannot fathom that there indeed might exist such appaent stereotypes of self-sacrificing women in India’s smaller towns and villages. Am sorry to read such a urban-centric viewpoint being championed by a reviewer I have really admired over the past year or so and never fail to read every week, despite never having commented here before.
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raj
November 11, 2008
FootyDoc, thats not a fair comment.
The point baradwaj rangan makes is that Bhandarkar force-feeds the audience with his version of moral-science. There is no attempt to understand the milieu he is purporting to portray.
If what you say is true – that millions in the hindi heartland are waiting for Bhandarkar to educate them on these issues – then he must be sued for dereliction of duty becaue he is not providing an accurate picture. He is simply trying to utilise a milieu – coating it shallowly – to further his movie’s box-office prospects, and perhaps to feed his own pseudo-serious-intellectual-image.
So, you see, by your own parameters, Bhandarkar has failed, if you can see that.
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Footydoc
November 12, 2008
Raj, if you read my comment above again, you will see that it does not in anyway praise Bhandarkar, and instead I am quite critical of Bhandarkar and Fashion. Fashion does not IMO educate, it informs – big difference. I taken care to choose my words carefully.
By utilising snippets of sensationalist incidents that were well-publicised in the English Press, Bhandarkar demonstrates lazy research at best, particularly the cliched manner in which he weaves it into his formulaic storyline, as BR and others here have commented before. But in this regard, and if a majority of his target audience is public in the hindi heartland, how different is it from the Yash Chopras, Karan Johars and others who would zip abroad at any excuse for a song sequence or a roadtrip/holiday scene as an excuse to bring to the Indian screen pretty shots of foreign locales and sights that the lesser informed might have heard of but never seen? They were props for the movie to attract eyeballs, just as much as the sensational bits that Madhur includes in his movies, be it in Fashion or Page 3 or Chandni Bar. Both kinds of movies are examples of trying to fulfill an infotainment role, and if such scenes were entertaining then all the better.
My criticism of this review and opinions expressed here is not about the critiquing or panning of the cinematic merits of the movie. But the assumption that because we city-bred and English speaking bloggers have known and seen it all – be it in real life, media or in hollywood films – portrayal of such scenes/episodes is superfluous or puerile to the hindi heartland public. It is for this reason also that I do not oppose hollywood films and plotlines being adapted and presented in Bollywood or Tamil films (which I also watch and enjoy) as long as they are suitably Indianised and remain authentic to the Indian setting, since they expose a huge proportion of the viewing public to plot lines that they might otherwise never get a chance to see. And ofcourse I would have hoped that there would be copyright approval.
Sadly, most Hollywood adaptaions/inspirations are terribly poor copies and straight lifts, copyright be damned.
I can respect BR’s individual opinion of a movie, but would also appreciate if such an opinion is not generalised to try and reflect what the public might or might not like about a movie. Because then BR’s review degenerates into resembling a Taran Adarsh review, where Adarsh pompously seems to forsee and authoritatively decide what the public should or should not like about a movie.
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raj
November 12, 2008
Doc, some points u make resonate.
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raj
November 13, 2008
BR, you might as well have withheld the comment :-).
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brangan
November 13, 2008
raj: I know. But I didn’t want to completely dismiss your efforts 🙂
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santhosh kottayi
November 24, 2008
I think it was a very biased review..you were too much focused on Bhandarkar and forgot that any movie is not only a director’s baby, but a team work. So, even if you find fault with Bhandarkar, there were enough and more to compliment in the overall 3 hrs about the characters/story/and the superior performances. I never felt it as a Bhanharkar movie – but a Priyanka Chopra’s movie!! What an amazing performance! How could you just mention that in one line and down play such an outstanding performance! I have never seen such a strong character and equally powerful performance by a female lead in recent times in Hindi cinema!
I felt the movie really covered the technical side of Fashion industry, which made the basic structure very strong and convincing. And it ended with a very positive message – by showing how family and good friends can play an important role in helping the upcoming models to stay focussed and not to get involved with the dirty side of the industry.
The entire crew has done an amazing job – Kangana/Mugdha Godse/Samir Soni/Chitrashi Rawat/Arjan Bajwa/Arbaaz Khan.
Cheers,
Santhosh
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