Spoilers ahead…
Kangana Ranaut looks different in Queen. The actress has always come across like a bundle of raw nerve endings, her hair seemingly frizzed by those naked electrical impulses, perpetually in angst, but here, as Rani, she looks relaxed, radiant. In the film’s celebratory opening scenes, we hear Rani’s thoughts about her impending marriage – to Vijay (Rajkummar Rao), whose name is linked with hers in a tacky heart that’s sure to be the centrepiece of the wedding decor – and she’s nervous. She’s the daughter of a Delhi sweetshop owner who drives a Maruti. The car probably says it all. Simple. Sturdy. Steady. It’s these small things that Rani wants – even her degree is simple, sturdy, steady; home science – and she’s devastated when Vijay calls her the next day and tells her he cannot marry her. He says that his life has changed, with more travel, and he feels she’ll be happier with “tumhare type ke ladke.” It’s breathtaking, the supreme condescension with which he elevates himself, but Rao doesn’t overdo it. Despite an overwhelming desire to slap him senseless, we see in Vijay not a creep but a middle-class boy who’s genuinely got his head twisted after a couple of trips abroad. He thinks he’s doing himself (and Rani) a favour by not settling.
We discover from flashbacks – used almost contrapuntally, to contrast Rani’s present without Vijay and her past with him – that Vijay was in love with Rani, and that he wooed her with a scooter festooned with red heart-shaped balloons. At first, she swears to a friend that “mummy-daddy ki kasam” there’s no chakkar going on with this fellow who’s practically stalking her, but she slowly falls for him. And now, when the mehndi’s barely dried on her hands, he’s breaking up with her. Ranaut plays the scene exquisitely. Her eyes pool with tears, but she doesn’t collapse. She makes us feel she’s grappling with the blow. She makes us feel her desperation, her panic, her confusion. She walks out. Then she walks back in and lets loose the hysteria that’s been building up inside. Instead of playing every emotion at once, she parcels each one out at an opportune moment.
It’s scenes like these that keep us watching. The scene where Rani lands up in Paris on her “honeymoon” (she’s determined to visit the city even if the wedding’s been called off) and a thief grabs at her purse and she clings to it with almost comical desperation – it’s like watching agony manufactured from slapstick. The scene where she sees her newfound Parisian friend, Vijayalakshmi (the seriously sexy Lisa Haydon, who’s just perfect as an Indian-French-Spanish cocktail), kiss someone on the mouth, and then smiles to herself with the thrill of having broken a million taboos. The scene where, after landing up in a hostel in Amsterdam with three male roommates, she slips on her bra while still under a blanket, making unbroken eye contact with a wall. The scene where Rani speaks Hindi and her Japanese roommate speaks Japanese and they seem to be having a perfectly normal conversation. And the scene where, like the boy at the end of Udaan, she breaks into a freedom run.
Like Udaan, Queen is a coming-of-age story, a breaking-of-shackles story, though one with far less grit. If Udaan was disturbingly realistic, with an ogre of a father to vanquish, Queen is a sun-dappled fairy tale, with a line of fairy godmothers cherishing and protecting Rani through her little journeys of self-discovery. This is a strange movie. It’s too long, too predictable, and too full of bits that needn’t have existed – that lizard bit? that sex shop bit? that casino bit? – but everything is pulled off with such panache (and with such good performances, especially from Ranaut) that you don’t feel like complaining. At least not too loudly.
Why did Vijay come back for Rani? Was it just because of that one picture she mistakenly sent him, of her in a “Western dress”? Why is the gag about Vijayalakshmi’s hotness – Rani’s father and young brother are captivated by her cleavage when they see her while chatting to Rani – so overused? How many more variations of the flimsy English Vinglish scenarios are we going to see? But just as I’d start fretting about one of these questions, the director Vikas Bahl would stage something miraculous and snap me out of it. Queen isn’t just about those big scenes, it’s also about tossed-off moments that linger, like a fragrance. The moment where Rani’s younger brother brings a stool for their grandmother as she begins to narrate a story about how her first choice of husband wasn’t to be either; and there’s always someone else. The moment where this grandmother speaks to Rani on the phone while clutching the Matrimonials section of the newspaper. (There’s always someone else.) The moment where Rani stuffs her face with a laddoo – from one of the dabbas packed for her wedding – after going without food for almost a day. The moment where Vijayalakshmi wonders why men make such a big deal about small penises. The moment with a killer line about Emraan Hashmi.
As find-yourself tales go, Queen doesn’t offer many surprises, except, perhaps, for a Muslim stripper who speaks chaste Urdu, one of the many signposts on Rani’s road to emancipation. And I was pleasantly surprised that she doesn’t fall in love with the sympathetic foreigner with whom she’s sharing a room. Otherwise, the film is essentially a series of before-and-after scenarios woven around Rani’s realisation that being with a man isn’t everything. She learns to be comfortable with herself. In Paris, her hotel room is booked under Vijay’s name, but in Amsterdam, she doesn’t need that name anymore. In a restaurant in Paris, she’s still so unsure, so lacking in confidence that when the maître d’hôtel shows her the intimidating menu, which is entirely in French, she just points at a dish. But later, in a restaurant in Amsterdam, she’s looser, surer about herself, more confident. She not only asks the Italian owner of the restaurant what this dish is and that one is, she also asks for additional condiments to spice up her meal. Later, befitting a fairy tale, he gives her a job, to make an Indian snack for an outdoor event, at the end of which she kisses him on the mouth – the kiss is framed so that we see the fading mehndi on her hand, one of the patterns of which bears Vijay’s name.
I thought the film would nudge Rani further in this direction. After all, we have heard her say that she’s been punished despite being a good girl all her life, doing the right things – but now that she has the opportunity to cut loose and do “bad things,” she doesn’t. She doesn’t sleep with the Italian. And she doesn’t need to. Kissing a foreigner is, to someone like Rani, practically like sleeping with him – she’s already broken a million taboos. At one point, we see Rani in an Alice in Wonderland T-shirt. It’s as if she’s fallen through a rabbit hole. Everything’s strange, surreal. There are no rules. She’s allowed to burp. She’s allowed to dance the way she wants, with no one to chide her about her abandon, the way Vijay did. Slowly, she sees that she, not Vijay, may be the one who came close to settling. The end comes along predictably. Vijay returns. He says he missed her and he loves her, and yet he chides her when she says she had champagne. We realise he’s being made into a complete heel so that it’s going to be easy for Rani to do to him what he once did to her, but we don’t grudge Rani (or Ranaut) this turn of events. The point of the film, after all, is that she doesn’t need him, or anyone else, to live happily ever after.
KEY:
* Queen = not this, unfortunately
* a bundle of raw nerve endings = see here
* slap him senseless = see here
* mummy-daddy ki kasam = swear on my parents
* chakkar = affair
* mehndi = see here.. oops, sorry, see here
* bra = see here
* Udaan = see here
* sex shop = see here
* flimsy English Vinglish scenarios = see here
* small penises = see here
* happily ever after = see here
Copyright ©2014 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Anu Warrier
March 9, 2014
I had begun to dread Kangna-in-a-movie, though I think she is a fantastic actress. Queen was so different, I had to remember it was Kangna.
ps: Don’t you think you are overdoing the keys? It’s becoming rather forced. No?
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Rani
March 9, 2014
And you write ever so beautifully, I just want to keep re-reading everything. I never care about the films so much, really. Come here just to read what you think!
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Rajesh
March 9, 2014
Watched it. Surprised that such films are happening in Bollywood. Wish such movies also happen in South.
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Kutty
March 10, 2014
If I may say so, this is a review which does not do complete justice to the movie. Your review is almost like the movie, where after a stretch of good thing, there is a bit about the negatives. 🙂
Personally, Queen is the kind of movie that I would go to the cinemas on any day. It gets so many things right. Every character oozes goodness but never comes across as being unnaturally so. When the marriage is called off, you can see that the parents are hurting but still they put on a brave face because they know that their daughter’s been hurt more. When Rani says that she would love to go on the Paris trip but will not if her father says no, you know it is not emotional blackmail but that she genuinely will not go if her father says no. The folks in the hostel are not too happy about having to sleep outside, but they do. Vijayalax(ksh)mi could have gone with Rani to Amsterdam, but she does not. So, even while everyone’s good at heart, they are not cloyingly sweet.
And Vikas’s eye for detail is just fantastic. When Rani announces she wants to go alone on her ‘honeymoon’, you can see her grandmother quietly chuckle. And even in that scene, while he could have cluttered the table with the uncles and aunts waiting around, he instead has only the parents and the grandmother. And when Rani gets into an uncomfortable hug/air-kiss with the foreigner, the look of amusement on Vijaya’s face is perfect!
When was the last time you saw a woman hugging a guy of a similar age in Indian cinema which did not look forced or filled with sexual energy (In Highway. it seemed a more cutesy moment)?
Agree with you on Vikas extending the gig on her dad and brother being captivated by Vijaya
But what about the brilliant use of the Eiffel tower? First, the wonderful juxtaposition of the Eiffel tower and Vijay, and about how she cannot seem to get them out of her sight/memory. (At this point, I was reminded about reading somewhere that while in Paris you can always see the Eiffel tower on the skyline. Brilliant use of that urban legend). And then, in what was the best ever spoof of how romantic moments are captured in the movies, the camera focuses on Rani & Vijayalakshmi (holding hands?) looking up at the Eiffel tower as a wind blows across their face. .This and Vijaya’s opening the door in Paris leading to the candle in Lajpat nagar being blown are genuinely trippy moments! (and with this third mention, I hope every time you look at Lisa Haydon, you will be reminded of K.R. Vijaya, and she loses all her hotness in your eyes).
And no word about the scene after she gets drunk the first time? Every actor in every movie always hams badly when asked to act drunk (think Deepika Padukone in Cocktail as the perfect example) but Kangana & Vikas manage to pull off the best drunk scene ever. She flits through her emotions. The drunkenness is not captured by her slurring (which is our directors’ idea of being drunk) but in the randomness of her dialogues and her thoughts. Even in this scene, even though the focus is on Kangana, Lisa Haydon does everything right about how a friend behaves with a drunk mate who is spilling his/her guts out.
One sore point is that Vikas employs quite a few cliches (the prostitute with a heart of gold/the Japanese making weird faces/cooking being a liberator for the Indian woman) but similar to what you said in the review, every time you feel a bit let down, he redeems himself. Post the ridiculously directed scenes about the cooking scene, is that wonderful kissing scene, where she lets herself loose. She is not thinking about marrying that guy, but just sharing a kiss with him. And then just when you think (and hope not), she is going to be romantically inclined towards Sikander ( lol.. 🙂 ) , Vikas displays better sense.
This is perhaps my longest comment on your site. Cannot help but write so much about a movie which still has me smiling a whole two days later. 🙂
Anyways, will stop here or else will be berated by an angry mob who will ask me to get my own blog. 🙂
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Amrita
March 10, 2014
BR: ‘It’s too long, too predictable, and too full of bits that needn’t have existed’
– oh I couldn’t disagree more. What happened to the ‘loose clothesline on which great moments are hung’? I thought the film was full of those. But anyway you seemed to like it more than the ‘flimsy English-Vinglish scenarios’, which was another film we didn’t see eye to eye on. I think it is about the different perspectives men & women have when it comes to movies like this, & the extent of identification is quite disparate.
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Orb
March 10, 2014
Loved reading the review. 🙂 I thought this movie and Udaan had one major difference: the kids in Udaan disappear to find themselves and you do not know what happened to them, this movie starts from disappearing and what happens after that.
Also, i thought Queen should have ended at the “youtube – london thumakada” moment, where Rani and Taka hug….that i thought was her coming to terms with the ugliness of her past and not feeling ashamed/scared/sad of it anymore. It would have cut the movie short by 15 minutes and also removed the necessity of drawing the borders that Indian filmmakers so dearly love.
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jussomebody
March 10, 2014
I thought the movie was scarily veering into English Vinglish territory in the second half, what with that motley group of people (one white, one black and one Asian) having trouble communicating and all that. Thankfully, it steered away from there. Cliched and predictable last hour, but no less heartwarming for that. I especially loved how she stays on to enjoy the rock show after her friends leave. She really needs no crutches anymore.
Dang I love this girl. I hope this movie finally catapults her into the A-list: talent-wise, she’s miles ahead of the rest, and now she’s proven her versatility too.
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brangan
March 10, 2014
Kutty: Of course you may say so. Do you think I only allow the “good” comments here? 🙂
The overall feeling I had with this film was that it was fairly well done, but it didn’t blow my mind consistently. That’s probably why the review comes off as “not doing justice.” And I can see that the film did blow YOUR mind 🙂
Amrita: Hmmm… Do you really think this is a men-versus-women thing, or maybe just the fact that the predictability etc. affected my viewing more than it did yours?
jussomebody: Yes, the staying on for the rock show was a great moment – among many great moments. I hope I didn’t come across like I did NOT like the film. I did. And quite a bit. probably the key line in the review is this: …everything is pulled off with such panache (and with such good performances, especially from Ranaut) that you don’t feel like complaining. At least not too loudly.
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Amrita
March 10, 2014
BR: Maybe I was too quick to judge. You explained yourself better in the response to jussomebody’s comment. Peace 🙂 ?
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Rahul
March 10, 2014
“her hair seemingly frizzed by those naked electrical impulses, perpetually in angst”
hahaha. Yes , indeed, she looked very comfortable in the first half, and I am wondering who deserves the credit.She seems to be more comfortable with a dorky look.My favorite moment was when while dancing she takes off her sweater, ostensibly to toss it in the crowd, and then , stuffs it into her purse. 😀
I think the weakness of the film was to have it come off as a Kangna vehicle.. If the motivations of Rajkumar Rao’s character were explored more it would have been better for the film, in my opinion.
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Afridi
March 10, 2014
Amsterdam seems like a very unlikely pick for a honeymoon destination. It’s really more a haven for singles than it is for a couple that would have wanted to spend a romantic time in marital bliss.
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Kutty
March 11, 2014
Of course it blew my mind! I came out of the movie hall loudly humming “Hungaaama, Hungama Ho gaya”. 🙂
Off late Bolllywood either seems to produce gritty realistic fare (Kai Po Che, Shahid, GoW) or avoided a fairy tale for whatever reason (Lunchbox, Highway, Rockstar). So, when a movie comes along with utterly believable characters with some sparkling dialogues & scenes and inspired acting which has the ending which you desperately wish for the lead actress it is a breath of fresh air. And Vikas Bahl never tries too hard to make this a movie for women’s liberation (the delay in release to the Women’s Day weekend may or may not have been intended). Instead it is just a character that you root for. At the end, even Vijay has a smile on his face, as if realizing that it is the best thing that could have happened to him and her and this movie is the best thing to have happened to Bollywood to remind them of the eternal charm of a feel good story.
On another note, as someone who took some pride in remarking how much better Tamil cinema was to Bollywood in the late part of last decade, the last couple of years have completely reversed my view. Bollywood seems to be producing a gem every month while the last truly riveting movie I saw from Kollywood was Aadhalal Kadhal Seiveer. To be honest, I have not caught up with Goli Soda or Thegidi, but the general feeling I am getting is that there has not been a movie which can match up to any of the movies I have listed in the first paragraph in the last two years. Your thoughts?
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fiteyaal
March 11, 2014
No special mention for the excellent score by amit trivedi ? , felt it was the backbone of the movie.
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palvib
March 11, 2014
Now, I knew you wouldn’t miss the “Alice in Wonderland” T-shirt and its impilcations. Or maybe in other words, one eventually can start to predict what could be featured in your review ? (wink :-))
“but now that she has the opportunity to cut loose and do “bad things,” she doesn’t. “
Funny thing, a friend of mine said the exact same thing, but without the quotes on — bad things. In her case, she considered drugs and sex to be taboo from the word go. Its not immediately understood that the problem actually lies in getting addicted. Ofcourse, in this case, it wouldn’t have been consistent with the character curve, for someone like Rani to now be comfortable having sex just a bit after she has travelled and accepted living with guys for the first time in her life.
Did you know that Kangana has also been credited for dialogue ?
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anon@isback.com
March 11, 2014
I shudder to think how you curate web content to finally stumble upon the small penises link 🙂
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Rahini David
March 11, 2014
Rangan: “Do you really think this is a men-versus-women thing, or maybe just the fact that the predictability etc. affected my viewing more than it did yours?”
Well I have often wondered if you really do appreciate a story that is mostly from a feminine POV. I remember you speaking favourably about “Sex and the City”. But other than that I have always thought that you’d not like Austen or Bronte stuff as much as most women do. It is not that I am accusing you of being sexist. I am not. It is just that I agree with Amrita in the “the extent of identification is quite disparate” part.
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TheKomentor
March 11, 2014
Isn’t Queen an unimaginative name for a movie?
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oneWithTheH
March 11, 2014
Kutty:
“a gem every month”
Too generous here. Really, every month?
“…movie which can match up to any of the movies I have listed…”
I think in the last 2 years Soodhu Kavvum, Naduvula Konjam Pakkatha Kaanum, Neram, KSY, Vazhakku Yen, Mouna Guru fit into the “non-regular” category very well, if that’s what you are looking for.
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MANK
March 12, 2014
I have always liked Kangana Ranaut as an actress and felt bad every time she was shortchanged by a bad film(Kites,Rajjo..uff).Even though her voice is slightly problematic,As an actress she is miles ahead of all those katrinas and kareenas who grab every big film or endorsement only due to their family or boyfriend connections.She has really achieved a lot without any backing of superstars or big banners .I wish this film pushes her into the top league and get her the films thats truly worthy of her.
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Ashutosh
March 12, 2014
Baradwaj. I am your senior from BITS and I have always loved your reviews. I must say that I noticed Kutty;s comments for the first time on your blog and to me he seems to be another Baradwaj in the making. Cheers Kutty!
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brangan
March 13, 2014
Amrita: Peace 🙂
Rahul: I too felt that the Vijay character needed to have been written better. How can a filmmaker who does so many things so well cheat us with a stick-figure character in Vijay? Then again, after all these years of well-defined heroes and stereotyped heroines, this was only to be expected 🙂
Kutty: The advantage Bollywood has is that the all-India market, plus huge overseas markets. This allows them to make a range of films — all the way from “Rowdy Rathore” to “Highway” to “Ship of Theseus” — that are impossible to make in cinemas that cater largely to regional audiences.
One thing has always puzzled me. How come even the worst Bollywood film (in terms of script) ends up filmed well? Why can’t we replicate that, with good technical people? So many Tamil films are content to look like TV serials, it’s depressing. At least now, the younger filmmakers (“Thegidi,” “Vidiyum Munn”) are realising that staging, blocking, framing etc. are part of a visual language that you cannot ignore. Otherwise even an “avant garde” film like “Naduvula Konjam…” looks like crap.
anon@isback.com: All for the readers, my friend 🙂
Rahini David: See this 🙂
Ashutosh: Good to e-meet you, and thanks.
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KayKay
March 13, 2014
“One thing has always puzzled me. How come even the worst Bollywood film (in terms of script) ends up filmed well? Why can’t we replicate that, with good technical people?”
A question that has always bugged me as well. I mean, outside of a Shankar or Mani film, I hardly get the sense that a Tamil movie at least looks good. That sense of “movie is so-so but damn is it slick and polished looking”?
I extend this to choreography of songs as well, although this is purely my take on it. The shittiest Bolly flick still features some kick-ass choreography in their songs whereas once again, barring a handful of Tamil films, I don’t come away from it thinking “God was that a crap-fest, but damn was that number exquisitely choreographed”.
The “kaasu-panam-thuttu” number from Soodhu Kavvum was one of the rare cases of a choreography being so deliriously good I chapter skip to that scene endlessly!
It can’t be lack of good technicians surely?
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ash
March 13, 2014
“But just as I’d start fretting about one of these questions, the director Vikas Bahl would stage something miraculous and snap me out of it.”
Do you really have the capacity to think about such things during watching a film? Is it really required to start judging a film even while watching it? doesn’t that interfere with the absorption of the rest of the movie?
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MANK
March 14, 2014
Brangan\Kaykay
Its more a case of lack of time perhaps compared with the hindi film technicians. there they get more time for prepping and shooting compared with their south indian counterparts.Now with bollywood being completely corporatised , they do it with the precision and finesse on par with hollywood. you know the scheduling, the technical equipments etc.Here we still seem to be caught up in a time warp were films are rushed through according to the availability of stars and funds. .This can be visible in the work of south indian cinematographers like Ravi k.chandran or Ravivarman.just compare their work in hindi and down south. you will find the difference.
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oneWithTheH
March 14, 2014
“staging, blocking, framing etc.”
I know not a thing about any of these and I thoroughly enjoyed “Naduvula Konjam..”
This reminds me of the discussion – If you know the ragam, you will enjoy the song more 🙂
I think you wrote a piece about it.
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Kutty
March 14, 2014
@theOnewithTheH :
I had mentioned this to.a friend a couple of months back and he displayed the same scepticism. So, we took out the list of movies and checked. Some of them may not be pathbreaking like a Soodhu Kavvum, NKPK or Neram but are credible entertainers like Naan or KSY. And thanks for highlighting Mouna Guru which is perhaps one of the most under appreciated movies in the last couple of years. Anyways, here is the list.
2013 –
Feb : Special 26, Kai Po Che
April – Nautanki Saala
May – Bombay Talkies/YJHD
June – Ranjhanaa (solely for Dhanush’s performance)
July – Lootera/Ship of Theseus (not really Bollywood but still)
September – The Lunchbox
October – Shahid
November (controversially) – Ram Leela
Special mentions : David/Shudh Desi Romance
And it does not include Mere Dad ki Maruti/Go Goa Gone/B.A. Pass which received uniformly good reviews but unfortunately I missed them during their run and did not catch up later. That’s a list of more than a dozen movies for the year (>1 / month 🙂 ) .
Will now await a similar Kollywood list. 🙂
Ashutosh : That is like comparing Sachin Baby with Sachin Tendulkar 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement!
BR : Completely agree with you on the look of the movie. It definitely adds a lot to the viewing experience but somewhere the problem appears to be deeper. Kollywood gave us Paruthiveeran and Kaakha Kaakha and Subramaniapuram when Bollywood kept coming up with thrash. The pity is that the same directors and actors (Karthi deserves a special spot in hell for this) haven’t reproduced anything like that after (barring GVM with VTV) . And none of the top stars (barring Dhanush) even look like taking a risk. There is a certain malaise pervading the industry which I personally am not able to put a finger on. The hope lies with our new age directors!
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brangan
March 15, 2014
KayKay / oneWithTheH: I’ll part ways on Shankar, who’s very inconsistent in this matter. His songs etc. are shot well, but not his general scenes. And while the former is important (for the visual experience), the latter is important too, in a way. I’m talking about the kind of skin tones in a Balu Mahendra or Ashok Kumar movie (which they achieved so consistently, SO MANY years ago). I’m taking about the “choreography” of scenes — eg, when two people are talking, don’t just have them talk and keep showing one face and then the other, but “stage” the scene, so that the talk is happening while something else is happening. Mani Ratnam does this consistently (the SRK-Manisha talk in the recording studio in “Dil Se” when people are coming and going, the fight in “Anjali” where they’re moving down the staircase, the conversation around the table in “Kannathil…” as Simran is serving breakfast). The average viewer may not note these things, but this what sets apart a FILMmaker from a SCRIPTmaker, i.e, one who spends all his efforts writing a script and does nothing else with it at the shooting stage. Any idiot with a camera can make a sunset look good — and that’s what passes for good cinematography here, sadly.
ash: When a film goes slack for you, don’t you get pulled out of it and begin wondering about other things, like why it’s not working?
MANK: I disagree about the time aspect. Refer Balu Mahendra example above. I’m not talking about the big productions. I’m talking about the small movies like the ones Balu M did. Whatever you think about his films, you cannot fault the photography (and to an extent the scene choreography).
Kutty: I still feel that our new-age directors are doing good work in this regard. “Thegidi” was well made, for instance.
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oneWithTheH
March 15, 2014
Kutty:
Good list.
Though I don’t see you eye-to-eye on Raanjhnaa, YJHD or Ramleela. IMO, they don’t necessarily qualify as transcending-the-usual movies . Some of the others in the list, I haven’t seen, so I will refrain from commenting on those. Overall, my list would have been a subset of yours but I take your point.
For tamil, here’s my list of movies that pushed atleast some boundary in the previous year. Again, I’m sticking to only the ones I have seen. As always, this list is highly subjective.
Feb: Viswaroopam
May: Soodhu Kavvum, Neram
Jul: Maryan
Aug: Aadhalal Kadhal Seiveer
Sep: Moodar Koodam, Onaayum Aattukkuttiyum
Oct: Sutta Kadhai
Nov: Pizza 2, Pandianadu
Dec: Kalyana Samayal Saadham
Some of them that were good but not totally effective for me were
Jan: Samar
Mar: Paradesi, Chennaiyil Oru Naal
It’s not all worse in tamil is my point 🙂
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Madan
March 16, 2014
“Was it just because of that one picture she mistakenly sent him, of her in a “Western dress”?”
– I actually do think that is the case. 😀 He spills the beans by referring to her new modern get up when they meet at the restaurant. He may have assumed she is prepared to cross the bridge to become his ‘type of woman’, as per his new London-based requirements.
Great review. There’s one other possible interpretation of the story of Queen. Is it just about a woman breaking free from her social shackles or is it also a subtle espousal of Western values of freedom and the conviction to stand by your choices as an individual? There are scenes where her Western friends push her to just dare dream, to show some guts and do what she feels is right. Could those passages really have been staged convincingly in an alternative scenario where she carried on alone for a honeymoon in INDIA? I have my doubts. Maybe the role of Paris or Amsterdam is not just that of suitable venues to play out the English-Vinglish scenarios but also to transport Rani to a culture where she can get rid of taboos, baggage and find herself (whereas English-Vinglish stops at, well, teaching her English and how to use it to get mildly assertive when she’s bullied too much). It is no coincidence then that the only scene with a lot of rhona-dhona in the entire ‘honeymoon’ is when she meets her Indian relatives. Incidentally, a few years back, one of my college pals (a girl by the way) expressed shock when I told her I now listened to rock music, even after I told her that Ronnie James Dio is (was) shorter than me. I was not, you see, the type who could possibly listen to that type of music. Thankfully, said conversation was on a social network and not face to face.
Two passages of many memorable ones were the standouts for me. One was the silent and cultured rejection she serves on him. No explanations but heartfelt embraces to leave an invitation of friendship. The other was when she bids him goodbye at the restaurant and simply bounces across the streets with uninhibited abandon. She had literally crossed the road from the Rani her parents and society wanted her to be to get to the Rani she really was. But it couldn’t have been staged without such brilliant acting as Kangana is able to depict the transformation through body language alone. I had barely begun to miss Vidya Balan (well, Vidya Balan in really meaty roles) when Kangana arrives to simply devour competition.
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abvblogger
March 16, 2014
It is difficult to believe that a person can break through an old mindset in a single honeymoon trip. The majority of Indians I’ve met abroad take a few years to get to the other side of the taboos they’ve inherited. But I guess that’s a reasonable violation of realism given that the trip is just a narrative device for the story of her personal change.
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MANK
March 16, 2014
@Abvblogger,:It is difficult to believe that a person can break through an old mindset in a single honeymoon trip
i felt the same too , but once the film was over , it dawned on me perhaps , it was more of a fairy tale\fantasy. you know the reason why she was named Rani , like a queen in an old fairy tale .The hero\heroine’s journey in self revelation.Perhaps nothing in it needs to be taken realistically.
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Madan
March 16, 2014
That way, there is a whole cornucopia of unusual experiences in the film that don’t happen to everyone who travels alone abroad. What if she hadn’t met that helpful Vijayalakshmi or the three Musketeers in Amsterdam? Having one happen on a trip is providence, two such experiences one after the other is a bit much. Still better than watching the same old short, frail guy beats up 10 gigantic baddies routine, I suppose.
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abvblogger
March 16, 2014
@Mank @Madan Yes, I agree with you. I felt like nitpicking so I did; in reality of course, I daresay that this is perfectly realistic given the conventions of the trip & finding yourself universe of movies. Good story-telling needn’t coincide with realism. And Madan, certainly better than watching one pot bellied guy beat em all up and win over the hottie 🙂
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Madan
March 17, 2014
abvblogger: Now that you bring up that angle, it’s kind of contradictory. Not that I noticed it while watching, so I don’t mean contradictory in a negative way. But the situations in the film are not particularly illogical or unrealistic individually, while, once we consider the timeline, it’s sort of jampacked with epiphanies, as you say. I think this film is for the heart, not the head so I won’t analyse that angle further but it’s one more among a few unresolved strands in the tale (as I pointed out earlier, what exactly made Vijay run to Paris and Amsterdam and why doesn’t he get disheartened when she refuses to take his calls, isn’t really explained). It’s as if these aspects necessarily have to take a backseat if the transformation of Rani is to be done justice.
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SK
March 18, 2014
@Madan I agree. I was left mulling over whether you really need a Paris. Can’t it be set in Kumbakonam, (someone mailed me about that place today, so I pick that one), for instance? Only if you have enough in your savings account to buy a ticket to ride, can you afford self-discovery, perhaps. Or is it a certain kind of self-discovery that blooms by kissing an Italian and being acquainted with a condom dispenser. Maybe the question is what’s an ‘Indian’ idea of woman’s sense of free self? There’s a vague sense of unease when it comes with notions of ‘sleeveless and low neck’ as her not-to-be mother-in-law says. But I think that daadi character is liberated, though she wears a chaste white, no? Maybe it doesn’t need to be defined. Maybe it is ok just to be able to do what feels ok and not feel guilty the next day, just hungover. Oh well. I was smitten when she shrugged off her naani sweater, swirled it, and thrust it promptly into her bag. 🙂
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oneWithTheH
March 18, 2014
kangana was so convincing in this role. dare i say, this is the strongest performance by a female lead in recent years. yeah, i know, i am overlooking vidya balan here but her roles in Kahaani or Dirty Picture were majorly content driven, the acting piggybacked on strong plots in those. here it was just the opposite.
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abvblogger
March 18, 2014
@Madan, “It’s as if these aspects necessarily have to take a backseat if the transformation of Rani is to be done justice.”
Agree.
@SK That’s an interesting idea – that one could be liberated by going to Kumbakonam 🙂 But on a more serious note, the gap between richer & poorer classes includes not just crass goods like cars & businss class airfare but also aesthetic benefits like exposure to other countries and so on.
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rothrocks
March 18, 2014
There’s a vague sense of unease when it comes with notions of ‘sleeveless and low neck’ as her not-to-be mother-in-law says. – Yeah, clearly, mom in law and fiancee judge modernity by the nature of the cleavage or something like that. 😛 Note also the cognitive dissonance between insisting that she should not work (almost presenting as an affront on his own abilities) or not let her hair down and dance and at the same time expecting her to look all mod and sophisticated so that she doesn’t appear to be beneath his ‘status’. Whereas all Rani wants is to be accepted for the person she is and not judged for her choices, something that her firangi friends seem to be more capable of doing. That is perhaps the freedom that is advocated by the film.
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Just Another Film Buff
March 20, 2014
If at all this movie is a complement of any other movie, it is GO GOA GONE. I’ll abstain from value judgments here.
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Utkal
March 20, 2014
So was I reminded of Shirley Valentine or English Vinglish while watching Queen. Not too often, and when I was, it did not detract wee bit from my thorough enjoyment if the films. For me it is always the telling rather than the tale.
And debutant Vikash Bahl has told the story so well helped in no small measure by his inspired choice of Kangana as Rani. Unless you live on Mars you have surely heard about her performance of a lifetime and she deserves every bit of the praise. The film is very funny throughout, but never by selling the soul of the story. Right from the first scene when she is soliloquizing through the London Thumkda song, we are in Rani’s world and can empathize with her sense of hurt when Vijay tells her he doesn’t want to go through with the wedding. All through the gags in Paris and Amsterdam, what comes through is the genuineness of her relationships with Vijayalkshmi, with her droll roomies of different nationalities and the Italian eatery owner who helps her put up the golgappa stall. Like in English Vinglish, here too, the foreign land and people of different nationalities help us confront our own prejudices and stereotyping.
The social portraiture of all characters, especially the Indians, be they Ranis family back home, her uncle and aunty in Paris or Vijay’s mother, is pitch perfect. The charming thing about Vikash Behl is that he does it with a lightness of touch and observation of details rather than didactic speech making. ( The Parisian aunty giving her a cheap Eiffel Tower as gift). And what makes warm up to Vikash Bahl so readily is that like Raju Hirani he too is not a prisoner of political correctness or prudery, just because he is making a film with social conscience. ( take the scene where Rani’s father and Chintu are drooling at the cleavage-revealing Vijayalakshmi on Skype.. “ Where is Vijyalajsmi didi today?”, Chintu asks when she fails to show up during a subsequent Skype session. )
But what makes the film a total blast is Vikash Bahl’s sense of humour , helped no doubt by the writers , Vikash himself, Pervez Shaikh, Chaitally Parmar and Anvita Dutt. The gags are written superbly and Vikash choreographs them like a master. Take the sequence at the sex-toys shop in Amsterdam. Rani picks up a vibrator innocently and says , “ Oh this is an electric massage device. Great fir joint pain. Granny will appreciate it a lot. Even as the audience is doubling up with laughter, she picks upa bondae belt, and says,’ This belrt, it can be worn around the was , over jeans or salawar kurta. But this is available in Lajpat Nagar’. Her male friends are laughing. ‘ Lajpat Nagar is in Delhi’ . The male friends are still laughing. She thinks it is Lajpat Nagar.’ Lajpat Nagar is in Delhi’ she repeats ad ad nauseum as she convulses with laughter herself, much like a drummer going on with his drum roll when the real song ahs ended. The gag about Indian women not allowed to burp was similarly staged.
Must mention Amit Trivedi’s music and the way it has been blended with the narrative seamlessly. I call this the Anurag Kashyap school of film song aesthetics, and first time he used it and ,so successfully, was in Dev D. ( He is one of the producers here along with Vikramaditya Motwane). The idea is not to have lip-sync songs and to have songs that emotionally resonate with the sequence, even if the words do not exactly articulate the c characters’ feelings. The beautiful Ranjha Ranjha song is a good example…it moved me to tears . ( To give credit where it is due, this one has been composed by not Amit but Rupesh Kumar Ram). The Hungama Ho Gaya remix was of course a lark , both aurally and visually, and it manages to deliver at so many levels, adding so much to the film.
In the end, looking back at the first three months of the year, I count the Bollywood films that I have seen: Dedh Isqiya, Hasee To Phasee , Highway, and now Queen, and I can’t believe it. All with women protagonists, each one different from the other, fleshed out by wonderful performances by Huma Khan, Parineeti Chopra, Alia Bhatt and now Kangana Renaut! Hollywood , hang your head in shame!
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Utkal
March 21, 2014
Just one correction: The Bengali adaptation of Shirley Valentine was presented by Nandikar and the play was called ‘ Shanu Roychowdhury’. Swatilekha ( of Ghare Baire fame) was fabulous in the solo act.
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SK
March 21, 2014
@abvblogger ‘Aesthetic’ is an interesting choice of word. The problem I think is that there’s then only one definition of aesthetic, one that you can have access to after a stamp on your passport. I think something similar was a miff in BR’s review of English Vinglish – couldn’t she have found herself selling ladoos? Did she HAVE to learn English? Some more nuance, perhaps, in the idea of emancipation than pat notions of sleeveless and a cleavage. The idea it stands for is a comfort with your own body, which is good, but can that comfort be demonstrated differently? Mm.. Maybe she kisses him on the mouth just after returning the ring. Damn it! Even that’s patented by the French. 😛 🙂
@rothrocks I agree. It is just that the framing of the synecdoche (or is it metonym – I am not quite sure and the evening is too nice to be spent Googling) is problematic. The idea of emancipation being equated to sleeveless and vice-versa. I am trying hard to come up with counters, where the idea of emancipation is painted in a more local colour – and I can’t. Any ideas?
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abvblogger
March 21, 2014
@SK: saying that travel is aesthetic doesn’t mean there’s only one definition of aesthetic. It only means that travel is one of many aesthetic pleasures. And I maintain that going somewhere altogether different to the view you’re born in is more emancipating in many ways, and usually that involves expense. You can find freedom & growth anywhere, but you can’t find the same freedoms and the same growth everywhere.
Not that more emancipation is always better. Human minds are not built for complete freedom. We need rules & values that we truly believe in, to make sure the chaos is held at bay. If you rip out that moralistic worldview completely, especially from the orthodox, it takes people a while to form a new framework that’s more liberal. Similarly, a liberal east coast new yorker would take a while to adjust to living in Kumbakonam.
Sometimes you can see the ’emancipation’ has gone awry. There are immigrant populations all over the world who don’t want to change, however incongruous their values might be with the ‘native’ culture. So they don’t assimilate and they’re stuck in self-imposed ghettos.
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Madan
March 22, 2014
The idea of emancipation being equated to sleeveless and vice-versa. – But it is only the suitor and his mother who make that connection in their mind; my reading was that the film itself argued it to be much more than that. In three conversations/confrontations after the breakup, Rani never attempts to actually articulate these things to Vijay. Probably because she realises he’s too self obsessed, too stuck in a particular way of looking at things and it would be a waste of time. She kind of sniffs (if that’s the right word) when he compliments her modern dress as to say, “Oh, how superficial you are!”. So I don’t think the film’s intent was to show Europe as a free for all paradise where Rani would have liked to be forever, rather as just a more liberating place where she was afforded the space to find herself. But the demolition of taboos she has herself held for so long would have to be depicted to effectively narrate the transformation within her.
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Madan
March 22, 2014
Another point is it is not like Rani plotted “the best places for female emancipation” on an excel sheet and scored them to make up her mind. She was supposed to be going to Paris for her honeymoon anyway (and she continues to refer to it as her honeymoon). When her sandcastle is washed away by a fiancee who is suddenly going all mod on her, she clutches at an opportunity to just get away. Everything she had wanted in life is crushed in that moment and she is really searching for answers to that. The sequence of events that lead to her becoming a stronger person must therefore be interpreted as (in true Indian filmi tradition) the result of serendipity. By the way, rothrocks is just my wordpress handle, galti se mistake ho gaya tha.
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Prasanna
March 24, 2014
Has the hero’s name been kept Vijay in a deliberate attempt to mock the ‘alpha male’ concept of hindi cinema which was kind of represented by heroes named Vijay for sometime. Vijay never lost, atleast in the end. But here Vijay ‘haar’ jaatha hai, if the climax is to be construed as ‘she ll gracefully forgive him’ vs ‘this is a liberated woman’ ideology fight.
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SK
March 27, 2014
@Madan/@Rothrocks 🙂 and @abvblogger – @brangan asks similar questions in his op-ed today – why did she HAVE to go via immigration to find herself: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/queens-of-the-box-office/article5835947.ece
(So many @s in a sentence is strangely bothersome. And the Hindu website’s magicbricks ad insisting on loading fullscreen before making way for the news is just disughsting.)
@abvblogger I see what you mean – that a new context gives a fresh perspective. But every context comes with its own perspective attached. I was wondering what is that fresh perspective Kumbakonam has to offer, and why no one wants to go there. Let me give you an example – there was a conference on women’s rights where women from Egypt (I think) protested that feminists from the west had taken over the whole genital mutilation issue and were jeopardizing it instead of helping, for they had approached it as ‘let’s condemn archaic practice’ whereas the Egyptian women had approached it from a health perspective, which the local population was more receptive toward. In the western context, liberation means being able to call a spade a spade. In the other context, calling a spade a big spoon eases the way. I think the east versus west is an easy binary, what’s more interesting is within this so-called east, what are the ways women negotiate their lives and loves. Things like ‘nudging’, which I think is a very Indian woman thing to do – they learn how to nudge rather than overtly exert power. Yes, I know, this is veering so far far away from Queen territory. Maybe it needs to be elsewhere, and so I’ll stop here. 🙂 Am sorry to respond so late – travel and whatnots – but saw the op-ed and got quite excited. 🙂
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abvblogger
March 27, 2014
@SK loved your comment. It opens the door to another fascinating discussion – what is the best way to ease society / culture into what you believe to be right? I think our media spends a lot of time pondering what is the right point of view to have, but less time pondering how it ought to be pitched. This example you gave of how a campaign against genital mutilation would have succeeded as a health campaign, rather than as a culture based campaign is a great one.
I think it also highlights the gulf between those who actually want the results of social reform, and those who like the fighting & arguing as much as social reform. They want that satisfaction of tearing down the old institutions & norms which they associate with the restrictions they hate. It’s natural, given the feeling of righteousness, but perhaps not the most effective way. You can see any number of comments & reactions all over the web which reflect this difference.
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