Spoilers ahead…
There are films with eye candy. And then there are the Dharma films that deposit the eye at the confectionary store. Katrina Kaif is only the third most beautiful thing in Baar Baar Dekho, after her lavish Delhi home, whose lawns appear manicured by Toni & Guy, and Sidharth Malhotra. If I looked like him, I wouldn’t have the time to bother with the emotional upheavals in my life. I’d be too busy beating off to my reflection in the bathroom mirror. Which is not to say that people who belong in the pages of Architectural Digest and Vogue shouldn’t have problems. Imitaz Ali’s dramas consistently employ the prettiest of actors, whose lives (and loves) turn increasingly ugly. That doesn’t happen here. The plot points sound drastic. A marriage you’re not prepared for! An extramarital affair! Divorce! Death! And most hideous of all, your wife leaving you for a far-less-attractive man! But the screenplay is the equivalent of a perfume saleswoman who waves a fragrance strip in front of your face for a few seconds before presenting the next one. Nothing lingers long enough to make you buy it.
For instance, the fact that the Sidharth Malhotra character, named Jai Varma, is a mathematics professor. We buy that the girls in his class can’t get enough of him. But we don’t buy the parabolas he’s drawing on the board. The mathematics is completely redundant to the time-travel storyline. It’s not as if Jai, when trapped in a sci-fi future filled with holographic gadgets, is chalking out equations to get back to the past. It’s just a thing, a character quirk that turns Diya (Kaif) on. Before their engagement, she asks him, “What is 56 multiplied by 93?” When he replies instantly, she begins to breathe heavily and eats up his lips. On their honeymoon, she asks, “3,40,000 ka square root kya hai?” Listen, I don’t grudge people their fetishes. Had Jai been an English teacher, we may have had a bedroom scene with Diya screaming for the spellings of “logorrhoea” and “xanthosis.” Whatever works for you, right? But it’s a cheat when you make the male lead a mathematician and don’t do much with it but get the female lead into the mood. It just makes your film look smarter than it really is.
I didn’t even buy that Jai and Diya would get married, which is where the story takes off – though it’s easy enough to see why the topic comes up. They’re friends from childhood. She says they’re like an old married couple. She says they should get married. He’s stunned. He gapes like a goldfish. But he gives in, despite the offer of a lifetime to do research in Cambridge (under a Professor Ramamurthy, because, of course, all math geniuses are Tam-Brahms). Talking doesn’t come naturally to Jai. He has to be pushed to the wall before he tells people things. He needs to feel suffocated by the happy crowds dancing around him (there are some good songs) on the day before the wedding. He needs to see that Diya expects them to move into the big, fat flat her Hanuman-worshipping father (Ram Kapoor) has bought them, with a big, fat Hanuman idol displayed prominently in the living room. We need to recall Jai’s earlier discomfort with the disparity in wealth. We see him walking up to her house on her birthday. She’s on the porch, squealing excitedly at the big, fat car her father has gifted her, with a big, fat red bow. Jai’s bought her a book. He hides it behind him and just mouths “Happy birthday!”
This is a tasteful scene, and Baar Baar Dekho is a tastefully made movie – if it were a person, you’d want it to do up your flat. Nothing is hammered home, not even the reason for the time travel. It could have something to do with the electrical malfunction at Diya’s home. It could have been the pandit’s (Rajit Kapoor) mischief. Or maybe it was just too much champagne. But restraint alone cannot make you buy into Jai’s acceptance of Diya’s proposal. It doesn’t look like love. It looks like one of those Hollywood contrivances where a boy and girl say let’s get married if we’re thirty and still single. So let’s say she’s bullied him into this. (He calls her bossy. We get the sense that she wears the hot pants in this relationship.) But when Diya learns about the Cambridge offer, on the eve of their wedding, wouldn’t she want him to go? Or at least, wouldn’t she understand why it’s so important to him, more important at this point in his life than settling down? And is he really going to be happy living in that flat?
But then, Baar Baar Dekho isn’t really about falling in love. It’s about falling into responsibility. It’s about making the man understand – through his many, many jumps in time – that being head of the mathematics department at Harvard (this offer comes later) isn’t as important as being with your wife and children. The film’s most telling scene comes when Jai performs a mock-striptease for Diya, and you think she’s already thinking up quadratic equations for him to solve in bed, but they end up on the couch, on either side of their sleeping children. The film makes a big deal about the notion of balance – and indeed everything is balanced in a sense. Jai and Diya have a girl, a boy. Her work involves modern art and traditional imagery. His work involves Vedic mathematics and space travel. The film says work and life need to be balanced too, but it never tells us why Jai can’t move his family to Harvard, why it’s an either-or.
When Salaam Namaste came out, I wondered about its Taming of the Roué scenario. A man who just wants a casual relationship is made to realise that fatherhood isn’t all that bad, and indeed, may make life complete. Now, a decade later, Baar Baar Dekho gives us the scene where Jai has the option to escape after his son is born, but changes his mind the second the infant is placed in his hands. I’m not questioning what are undoubtedly very personal choices. But I’m surprised that these films – for all the surface hipness, for all the sense we get of watching a brave new generation up there on screen, and with the knowledge that these stories aren’t going to find takers in the markets that prefer Bhai films to boy-meet-girl films – consistently end up espousing traditional Indian values. Why doesn’t the couple talk things out, the way normal people do? “So I want X. You want Y. How do we balance this equation?” But no. Jai has to give up Harvard if he’s to be truly happy. The only truly subversive mainstream romance of the last decade may be Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, which said that the heart wants what it wants, even if it means screwing over perfectly decent people.
Then again, maybe these traditional Indian values are due to the fact that these films are essentially reworkings of the traditional Hindi film. These filmmakers (the director, here, is Nitya Mehra, but I also include the Akhtar siblings, among others) want to be like the twentieth-century writers who recast the nineteenth-century novel. They want to be like Godard, who left his auteurist signature over Hollywood genre product. But unlike, say, Anurag Kashyap (I’m thinking of his Gangs of Wasseypur sagas), they don’t have a feel for masala tropes and their films end up looking like a high-minded thesis proposal: “Sagaai, Judaai and Everything In-between – A Postmodern Perspective.” Baar Baar Dekho gives us a scene with saat pheras (and the meaning behind the ritual), the declaration that a couple is destined to spend saat janams together, a scene around the mother’s funeral pyre, a “Congratulations, beta hua hai” scene, and even the plotline about a neglected wife ending up with a more understanding and supportive husband, which is at least four decades old, if we recall Aap Ki Kasam. These films end up chasing a unicorn named Tasteful Melodrama. They’re Bollywood films for those embarrassed to watch Bollywood films. Even the violins walk around on tiptoe. It’s Indian cuisine for those who don’t want to sit down for aloo parathas at a dhaba and lick the ghee off their fingers, preferring, instead, to book a table at a Michelin-starred restaurant that serves potato pancakes infused with artisanal butter. The form raises a middle finger to the content. The content sniggers right back.
Diya doesn’t get her fingers dirty either. She may be the only artist whose paintings emerge fully formed – there’s not a scene where we see her in front of an easel, her printed halter neck tunic from Zara (thank you, Elle) smudged with oils. But even with a paintbrush tattooed on her forehead, Katrina would not have been any more convincing. Cinematographer Ravi K Chandran, as always, infuses the frames with air and light – he dissolves the distance between actors and audience. (When the blue seas of Thailand rippled on screen, I felt I could reach out and touch the water.) But his greatest achievement may be that he did not end up ROFL-ing, clutching his stomach, while watching his heroine shed tears and issue this ultimatum: “Main yahaan se gayi to kabhi vapas nahin aaoongi.” Sidharth Malhotra fares slightly better. In most scenes, his brief is: “Look dazed.” It’s a cinch. He’s had about four years of practice looking dazed now. The film’s best relationship moment occurs between Jai’s friends, played by Rohan Joshi and Sayani Gupta. We see what actors with rhythm, comic timing and the ability to laugh through tears can do with a scene that lasts barely a minute. Still, Baar Baar Dekho isn’t bad. Just bland. And pretty. Very, very pretty.
KEY:
- Salaam Namaste = see here
- Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna = see here
- sagaai = engagement
- judaai = estrangement
- saat pheras = see here
- saat janams = seven births
- beta hua hai = It’s a boy.
- Aap Ki Kasam = see here
- Gangs of Wasseypur sagas = see here and here
- “Main yahaan se gayi to kabhi vapas nahin aaoongi.” = If I leave, I’m never coming back.
- Elle = see here
Copyright ©2016 Baradwaj Rangan. This article may not be reproduced in its entirety without permission. A link to this URL, instead, would be appreciated.
Sharmila rao
September 11, 2016
Main yahaan se gayi to kabhi vapas nahin aaoongi…..
What does this line mean…
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Sharmila rao
September 11, 2016
Oooopppss sorry….the keys appeared late…
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sanjana
September 11, 2016
What a review! I want to read this review baar baar!
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sanjana
September 11, 2016
Delicious, humourous, witty, sarcastic, serious and a very pretty review!
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Vishak Bharadwaj S
September 11, 2016
Baradwaj Rangan should promise all of us to come out with a fiction novel.
Just do it for God’s sake! Can’t wait to see you write a story!
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Vanya
September 11, 2016
Thank you Baar Baar Dekho, for inspiring this wonderful piece from BR! I especially liked the perfume saleswoman comparison. Nice.
Let me say first that I had no problem buying anything you said about this movie specifically, but I don’t understand your point about Tasteful Melodramas in general; what makes these unicorns? Lootera, Kapoor and Sons, and, the one that spawned these, Dil Chahta Hai — I think they all meet the criteria for TMs. Some Kashyap films do, Dev.D for example. Also, you’re implying that there’s something more authentically Indian about masala films, and I can’t buy that premise. If we must go with a culinary analogy, these multiplex movies have something to offer for those of us who can’t digest the excesses of shaadi ka khaana, and sometimes the offering happens to take the shape of Indo-western fusion and sometimes it’s a small thaali. It’s the all-outness of the typical masala movie that some of us can’t take, and when that’s reigned in along any one dimension (intensity of plot happenings, hammingness, opulence, realism of song picturization), we’re suddenly all in again.
Btw, you brought up the incredible Gangs of Wasseypur as a successful counterexample, which suggests to me there’s an orthogonal issue of urban vs. rural running through here. Is melodrama more palatable if it’s set in the hinterlands? Again, is this a matter of perceived authenticity?
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bhharsh
September 11, 2016
Thank you for mentioning the “Taming of the Roué scenario”.. no other reviewer bothered to do so..
having said that, you too keep coming back to your persistent impatience for the “Farhan Akhtar legacy”, so to speak – the ones wanting to make Bollywood films for those embarrassed to watch Bollywood films.
I always try to understand your point, but fail to do so. This time, I came the closest to getting the point – but I think thats because, morality-wise, Baar Baar Dekho is genuinely traditional at heart, unlike, say Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara or Talaash.
But even otherwise, this provides a certain freshness to the ‘been there,done that’ themes that Hindi film-makers have been dealing with for ages now – that restrained penchant for melodrama. 🙂
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Madan
September 11, 2016
“Lootera, Kapoor and Sons, and, the one that spawned these, Dil Chahta Hai — I think they all meet the criteria for TMs.” – I would distinguish Kapoor & Sons from DCH. Kapoor & Sons nicely exposes the dysfunction in a well off family (but not DCH well off) by, ironically, bringing them together for a family photo. Everybody other than Siddharth Malhotra (and the granddad) has skeletons in the closet and something to hide and yet he is the only one honest enough to admit he didn’t or rather hasn’t yet made it. These pretensions exist in many families but to the public they present a facade of being both successful and happy. It is in a sense a depressing film and my wife didn’t like it at all (I loved it, so help me God!). So I don’t think of it as the yuppie version of masala (or to use the culinary analogy, aloo tiki burger or paneer pizza). DCH on the other hand did pioneer that genre and for all its freshness it no longer entices me to subsequent watches because, as BR points out in the context of Baar Baar Dekho’s review, it tiptoes too much around the issues for too long and the confrontations when they do happen are too conveniently resolved for my liking. But I agree with you that there isn’t necessarily something inauthentic about DCH-genre films. I have met SoBo types who speak Hindi only falteringly at best and live seemingly in a different planet within Mumbai. Now one may personally find such types impossible to get along with but who are we to say movies that cater to them shouldn’t be made.
Anyhow, this is an old debate – western imported fast food v/s yela saapaadu – which is more of a burning issue in the context of Tamil cinema than Hindi (referenced in the lyrics of Iniya Gaanam from Paatu Paadavaa). Bharatiraja has also made analogies comparing yellaneer to coke, etc. It is easy to unequivocally celebrate masala when you can choose which ones to watch but having lived through the days when masala was the only thing Bollywood had to offer, I am happy to not to have to live through it again. For every good masala film in the 90s, there were um 49 terrible, screechy wastes of time? Even the directors who now get singled out for praise from that decade were actually the ones who were different by 90s standards – Abbas Mustan, Kundan Shah, Aziz Mirza, RGV, etc. In other words, not as out and out masala as 90s masala.
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brangan
September 11, 2016
Vanya: I see this as two separate… “genres,” if you will. (And also, it all comes comes down to how something is handled. So the very things we pick on in one film may work in another.) So that said, the two “genres” I’m talking about are:
(1) the Lootera type of movie, in which the STORY itself is melodrama, and it’s handled tastefully. There’s no “inauthenticity” here because it’s all one of a piece. Like all melodramas, the story is fairly ridiculous, but because it’s told with conviction, we buy into it.
(2) The posh film where the STORY isn’t melodramatic but which thrusts melodramatic TROPES on people who don’t look terribly convincing under the burden of these tropes. Dil Dhadakne Do comes to mind. It’s a superbly directed film, but I couldn’t buy a lot of it because I just did not see some of these people in these situations and the lines were howlarious (“usne mujhe mandap pe chhod diya” being a direct translation of “he left me at the altar,” etc.)
So for me, Baar Baar falls in category (2), and when this type of movie tries to tone down the melodrama and make it “tasteful,” it comes across as unconvincing.
One of the great functions of melodrama (as a tone, if not as a genre) is that it helps you jump over things like gaps in character-writing. When you tone everything down to a discreet level, you have to write the hell out of the characters to make them convincing in those same situations.
So I’m saying that the generic situations that a higher-pitched melodrama can get away with, these posh films struggle with.
Here’s a bit I wrote about Kapoor & Sons (review here):
“I kept wishing Batra had found a middle path, somewhere between full-blown melodrama and the poised emotional pitch he strives to maintain. (We feel this with Zoya Akhtar’s cinema too, which tries so hard not to succumb to melodrama that many scenes lose their bite.) Recall the James Dean character from East of Eden, a younger brother seething beside a “perfect bachcha” of an older brother, and you’ll see why Arjun’s plight doesn’t affect us as much. I was especially unhappy with a twist that makes Sunita look like one of those monster-mothers from the Tennessee Williams canon – the horrible thing she did (to a son who dreams of becoming a writer, no less, which usually points to lifelong neuroses) is too-quickly brushed under the carpet. As for Rahul, does he feel no guilt about his success when he looks at the failure that is Arjun? In the scene where Arjun and Rahul discuss books, Arjun reveals a preference for “realistic” – that is, sad – endings, something that doesn’t find favour with publishers. But Rahul says, “Isi liye hum khushi kahaaniyon mein dhoondhte hain.” You could turn that line around and get to the core of my problem with this film. We go to dysfunctional family dramas to be reminded of the fact that there are other families like ours, that we aren’t alone in our suffering. It’s a kind of catharsis, and it’s denied when a happy ending is rather painlessly arrived at (or at least, in a manner that doesn’t allow us to feel too much of this pain).”
Melodrama isn’t necessarily the Bhansali pitch. It’s also just an intense emotional (rather than cerebral) commitment to the situation at hand, and I feel some of these new-age filmmakers are either afraid to make this commitment, or are unable to (because it’s just not in their DNA), or don’t want to (because they look down on it).
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SR
September 11, 2016
“……aloo parathas at a dhaba and lick the ghee off their fingers, preferring, instead, to book a table at a Michelin-starred restaurant that serves potato pancakes infused with artisanal butter” – your writing is delicious headf_ck (your offerings of late haven’t always been such savory dishes – welcome back, Monsieur).
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Anu Warrier
September 11, 2016
The form raises a middle finger to the content. The content sniggers right back.
What a line! 🙂
I haven’t watched Baar Baar Dekho yet, so my comment is with reference to what you wrote in the review about why Siddharth has to choose between getting married/going to Cambridge, or going to Harvard later. It seems to me that I have seen this in a slew of films – ambition is something to be mocked; most often, it is considered pejorative. Wanting to advance in your chosen career seems to be a value that is dismissed quite easily. In films.
In real life, quite without irony, the same people who made/acted in this film, and I wager quite a few of the audience, will root for career advancement. Yet, in some idealistic parallel universe, ‘Indian’ values means you sacrifice all that you have worked for, dreamed of, because… (cue violins, muted or otherwise) “Family”!
Someday, I would like to see a film where the lead characters actually talk to each other, and find a middle way to resolve whatever issues face them. If that were to happen, however, I assume the film would a) be about 30 minutes long, and b) flop. How can you have a film without conflict?
Loved the review, BR. To continue the cooking analogy, it was a very satisfying meal (read).
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KadaKumar
September 12, 2016
Let me not even get started on the depiction of mathematicians as human calculators. Shakuntala Devi is to blame for that. After all in our collective imagination, Shakuntala Devi is conidered a mathematician and Abdul Kalam is considered a nuclear scientist!
I was thinking why movies always depict the so-called “geeks” as awkward people who just need a special someone to pull them out of their self-imposed hermithood and make them realize the meaning of true happiness in relationships and family and all that tripe.
But I guess thats only because movies, at least in India, are made by non-geeks for non-geeks. People who have not an inkling of the worldview of math/science people, their priorities, and the passion they have for their work.
Why can’t they understand that the geeks are not waiting to be saved by the power of love? Maybe, just maybe, they have different priorities and are quite happy in their world of equations and aren’t that interested in sacrificing all that for true love or some such crap? Really, they might not need any sympathy or rescue by people who have no conception of how their minds work.
If you believe our cinema, there is only one formula for true happiness: love-marriage-parenthood. Okay maybe also fighting for the country against bakistan theeviravadhi or naalu-perukku-nalladhu-senjufying.
Wealth, success, personal achievements, all count for nothing if you haven’t found true love.
Fuck that.
Then again that wouldn’t make for a great story on screen.
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P
September 12, 2016
@Anu Warrier: Tamasha showed the lead putting career above family and even letting love wait until he’s “found” himself.
It was as you said not a) but certainly was a b)
Many people I spoke to (including Ranbir fans) felt it was “unrealistic” and that a “safe” job was a better option. Some thought that it is impossible to be “so passionate” about a career. Yet others felt he was a man-child(?) and it didn’t give him the right to “hurt” his parents.
Indians like rebellion, but only safe rebellion. That’s an oxymoron but it’s true.
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sanjana
September 12, 2016
For a change, it is the man who sacrifices his ambition and career. Otherwise it is the woman who has to.
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Vanya
September 12, 2016
@BR: “Dil Dhadakne Do comes to mind…” — Say no more. Message received!
Re: Kapoor and Sons, we’ve already discussed that one and it was evident that our emotional responses to the movie were very different, but I get your overall point.
@Madan: Agree completely about DCH. Rewatched it a couple of years ago, and that flick has not aged well. Having said that, the “Aaj, abhi, isi waqt. Just turn around” + swelling of background music still got me.
[There’s so much more I want to say in response to both your comments, but the toddler’s teething or developing a new skill or something and it’s been that kind of day. I should sleep.]
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SILADITYA SEN
September 12, 2016
Watched and enjoyed the movie. The theme was quite inspiring and unique. Techniques used are very good!
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
September 12, 2016
Kadakumar :”Okay maybe also fighting for the country against bakistan theeviravadhi or naalu-perukku-nalladhu-senjufying.”
Awesome post !
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
September 12, 2016
BR : “Katrina Kaif is only the third most beautiful thing in Baar Baar Dekho, after her lavish Delhi home, whose lawns appear manicured by Toni & Guy, and Sidharth Malhotra”
ROFL
You must have licking your lips to use this salvo like a batsman presented with a half volley.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 12, 2016
56*93 in a matter of few seconds?
If only I’d come across such girls earlier – I would’ve gotten married long back (not sure about the sqrt of 3,40,000 though). 😀
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Madan
September 12, 2016
“Wealth, success, personal achievements, all count for nothing if you haven’t found true love.” – At least in Bollywood, I haven’t seen this true love thingy in a film since Jab We Met. It’s usually love backed by wealth and success. More like a yahi hai right choice baby paradigm. So what P said about reactions to Tamasha applies equally to true love. It is now seen as totally reckless to go with your gut, whether that entails falling in love or aspiring to make a career in economics or maths. You could say in this limited aspect Bollywood has begun to mirror the thinking of the middle class itself. Or, as Pritish Nandy summed it up in an eloquent article, we have all become banias now.
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Madan
September 12, 2016
OK, there was this true love concept in Bajirao Mastani too but the fact that it is a period film only seems to make the point rather than disprove it.
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Sifter
September 13, 2016
The form raises a middle finger to the content. The content sniggers right back. Absolute delight that line!! Thieving it 🙂 🙂
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chhotesaab
September 13, 2016
Great great review, Badesaab. There was magic in the writing ……. which had been hiding for some time (IMO). Was fun to read.
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Deepak R
September 13, 2016
But he gives in, despite the offer of a lifetime to do research in Cambridge (under a Professor Ramamurthy, because, of course, all math geniuses are Tam-Brahms).
I have been following this blog for years but this is my first comment here. I would not have written this too, but just could not resist. I cannot understand what Mr Rangan’s fascination is with calling out any Tamil sounding intellectuals to be Tamil Brahmins. This is when he’s not tom-tomming about how the rich white-skinned hip youngsters in Tamil films are Brahmins even when no direct mention of their background is made in the film’s narrative. Case in point his take on cahracters from Mani Ratnam films Alaipayuthey and OK Kanmani. It’s like Tamil Brahmins have copy right on white skin, intelligence, superior genes and general awesomeness, if Rangan is anything to go by. His racism is appalling and getting worse with each passing day.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 13, 2016
Deepak R: Been wondering, ever since yesterday, why nobody has pointed this out so far. 😛
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sanjana
September 13, 2016
Here a bolllywood writer is using the name Ramamurthy. He can be even a telugu or Kannada person. But that bollywood writer must be having a tamil brahmin eating curd rice, a vegetarian in mind. So he is Tambrahm. Otherwise the writer could have used the name Murugan or Ayyappan or some such distinct name.
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lowlylaureate
September 13, 2016
Ramamurthy is common name only no?
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Madan
September 13, 2016
I am inclined to take it as BR’s sarcastic reference to lazily naming the mathematics prof in a manner that resembles the name of Ramanujam. I mean was it so hard to give him some other name (especially when you consider that say the scientist Hargobind Khurana was Punjabi) that wouldn’t sound like Ramanujam?
This is different from the OKK case where he used caste to say that the film intended to cater to a more upper class audience (something that I had vehemently disagreed with); this just sounds like a harmless and obviously humorous observation.
Again, this is why earlier too I said I am opposed to this kind of reading into a writer’s ‘agenda’. After reading Dateless Diary, I told my father that while I enjoyed the book, the writer would probably be called all sorts of vile things were he to embark on his innocent endeavour today. We should seriously think about why we have become so prone to reacting in shrill indignation to something we read in a book or on the net or watch on a TV set. And no, I am not raising the question to silence the debate. It is just an observation based on what I see more and more often on the internet and social media…and the intolerance is exponentially higher than what it was even a few years back.
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Apu
September 13, 2016
Deepak R: I thought BR was being sarcastic at the stereotyping. (I am not Tamil, so not sure if I understood that correctly).
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brangan
September 13, 2016
Madan / Apu: Yes, that’s what I had in mind while writing the sentence. As in, why not Prof Singh or Prof Rau?
Of course, this is not to say that the reader has to read it the same way 🙂
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venkatesh
September 15, 2016
All i have to add to this is that – Katrina is most definitely not the third most beautiful “thing” in the movie , she in a bikini is worth the price of admission alone.
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
September 15, 2016
BR : (“usne mujhe mandap pe chhod diya” being a direct translation of “he left me at the altar,” etc.)
Truly Howlarious (as you put it)
Venkatesh : Superb ! Takes me back to my college days when we saw that awful Rajni flick Manidhan and my friend made a comment ” For Roobini five rupees – out of a ticket which cost an exorbitant eleven rupees.
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MANK
September 15, 2016
Venkatesh,whatever rocks your boat man 😂
But just want to say this, I don’t find Katrina very attractive on screen at all. She is a classic beauty and looks very good in photographs , but on screen she comes across bland and sexless.
I think it’s her whole package – her lack of acting chops topped of by a clumsy graceless body language that turns me off
she just doesn’t know how to move for the camera. As opposed to someone like Deepika or more importantly Priyanka Chopra – who is not exactly a classic beauty – but knows exactly how to turn on the heat for the camera. I always find her irresistible – in or out of a bikini😃
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hari ohm
September 16, 2016
Venkatesh what a day for you – Katrina Kaif Bags The Smita Patil Award. All hail the queen.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 16, 2016
hari ohm: Next year’s winner will be Sonam Kapoor!
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Srinivas R
September 16, 2016
“Katrina Kaif Bags The Smita Patil Award’ – what has the world come to?
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brangan
September 16, 2016
MANK: I agree. She’s a beautiful still-camera subject. But the movie camera shows her little love unless… she’s posing. Every move of hers looks so awkward and studied.
Here’s what I wrote about her so-called sex appeal in ‘Agneepath’ (review here):
“Katrina Kaif, in the roof-raising Chikni chameli song sequence, may well be a metaphor for the movie. She makes all the right moves, giving every part of her creamy anatomy a vigorous workout. She throws herself into this invigoratingly vulgar song – but the vulgarity never reaches her eyes. She’s designer-chic, a convent-educated actress simply playing a part, unlike a fleshy and robustly rustic Jayshree T, whose hips would have told an entirely different story. “
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Aadhy
September 16, 2016
The whole movie is a PR for her killer abs, and Siddarth is aware of it. Poor dudeś whole expression in Kaala Chashma, no, in the whole movie, is ¨Mujhe dekhnewala kaun hai be¨. And yeah, rightly so.
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MANK
September 16, 2016
Guys, let it go. After her breakup with Ranbir and back to back flops, Katrina needs something to cheer her up. I suppose the Smita patil foundation also know that 😂
But things could be so much worse you know, like Aiswarya rai on the Cannes film jury 😉
Brangan, totally agreed about Chikni chameli or for that matter any of her dances. Her hip shake is such a well sculpted and timed work of art on its own. You can very well hear the dance master going 1,2,3, now, 123 now from behind the camera. 😉
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 16, 2016
But things could be so much worse you know, like Aiswarya rai on the Cannes film jury
MANK: Add the Officier title too. 🙂
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Amit Joki
September 16, 2016
Katrina looks best in the slice ad. Period. The way she eats it up.
Who’d have thought eating a mango could be this sensuous?
And she’s good in item dances where comes out well emoting than the rest of the movie.
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praneshp
September 16, 2016
@Amit: story time. When I was 16, I was walking on South Mada street in Mylapore. A lady comes out of nowhere, and offered a free wallet in return for watching an ad and filling in a survey. It was the first iteration of the slice with Katrina, and I gave them “interesting” feedback. Eventually the boss-woman came in and saw that I was <18, and started yelling at the people who brought me in 🙂 I grabbed my free wallet and ran out, but me-from-long-ago agrees with your view, I think very few people could make eating mango that sensuous.
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brangan
September 16, 2016
So apparently, maambazham is this generation’s murungakka 😛
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sachita
September 17, 2016
@kadakumar – the same problem exist in the western world too – look at the way all the sitcoms/movies stereotype and dismiss geeks.
@brangan: I had this same problem with OK Kanmani, Not aloo paratha to potato pancake problem but why should marriage be the only destination for a couple ( and the way they brushed aside long distance issues)
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Madan
September 17, 2016
Count me in the group underwhelmed by Kat. Frankly, when she does those vigorous jhatkas in Chikni Chameli, she looks like Govinda dressed up as a woman…except the face, that is. It felt too muscular.
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Amit Joki
September 17, 2016
Madan: I strongly disagree. It was nothing but muscular. See BR’s wordings, creamy anatomy . I often use the same expression in Tamil with my friends to describe. Menmaya iruppanga, but they kinda are taken aback. Rasikka therla.
Praneshp: See, they knew that it was 18+ haha.
BR: Since you have started the topic, from where did this notion came that drumstick turns one on? I have viewed it in all angles and found nothing interesting. I have eaten it and waited for long to note down the time taken for it to turn me on, you know for academic purpose.. Didn’t work.
Murungakka saapta epdinga mood varum? Does it rise the blood pressure scientifically? I suggest we set up funds to prove or disprove this myth.
If we prove it scientifically, we would be making generic viagra. That would be the next big thing.
MANK: I wish Samantha rethinks her marraige plans. She definitely needs something to cheer up like Kat.
Also the title is a metaphor if you think. If you carefully note, Baar Baar Dekho, kise? You can see Kat asserting herself upon you, Mujhe.
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brangan
September 17, 2016
sachita: Yeah, I agree. But the thing that bothered me more about OKK — on subsequent viewings — wasn’t the getting married part but the too-light treatment of the living together part. I mean, it’s still cute and fun and all that, but with Mani Ratnam you expect a little more. But I guess he wanted a movie that would play with all audiences, and hence downplayed the sexual/marital edges that could have been there.
For my money, the best romantic track in his films is the one in Dil Se. From the beginning at the railway station (“duniya ki sabse chhoti love story”) to the Leh portions to losing her to her return… This is a film I never tire of watching.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 17, 2016
from where did this notion came that drumstick turns one on?
Amit Joki: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/k.-bhagyaraj-the-reigning-king-in-the-world-of-madras-film-hollywood/1/360453.html
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Madan
September 17, 2016
“It was nothing but muscular” – In that case you agree with me? 😛 Anyway, pedantry aside, surely this is a question of perceptions so nothing much to agree or disagree here? At the time, it reminded me of Govinda and a couple of Bolly buffs I know also felt the same way. I could get into the details of why exactly it felt muscular to me but in short, didn’t find enough flex in the hips as there would have been if say Madhuri had done the same move. And her (relatively) huge frame with strong looking legs accentuated the similarity to Govinda for me. Didn’t feel very feminine, is what I wanted to say.
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Amit Joki
September 17, 2016
Madan: haha. I meant to say anything but. I didn’t mean it when I said I strongly disagree. It was just to emphasise my astonishment of you having called her muscular. Epdi avala apdi koopdalam, kind of thing, in a comical tone.
Honest Raj: ah okay. So this is where it stems from. My entrepreneurial dreams are dashed. But its okay 😁
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MANK
September 17, 2016
Amit , Samantha is alright. She just had a couple of big hits in Telugu .she’s also considered a good luck charm and pops up in every big star film there
Honest Raj, that was some story about superstar Bhagyaraj😂
I can’t believe that, not a long time ago, in our very own Tamil film Galaxy, Bharatiraja and Bhagyaraj were considered George Lucas and Steven Spielberg😂
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Madan
September 17, 2016
It was just to emphasise my astonishment of you having called her muscular. – I didn’t call her muscular. I called the way she danced to that song too muscular. Pl read it again.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 17, 2016
MANK: Bonus links. 🙂
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/150625/entertainment-kollywood/article/i-am-not-hero-good-actor-manoj
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MANK
September 17, 2016
Honest Raj:man , this just keep getting better and better😂
What is with these guys and their Spielberg – Lucas obsession
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Amit Joki
September 17, 2016
Madan: Fine. Like you are saying that she’s doing a Malhaari instead of a Pinga re Pinga? Moves too mechanical?
Fair enough.
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Rohit Sathish Nair
September 18, 2016
Whatever ‘Malhari’ was, it was NOT mechanical.
I’ve always felt this about Katrina: she’d throw herself into the proceedings, yet she’d never completely convince us that she’s having fun.
Somehow for me, she fared better, did show a little more verve in ‘Kaala Chashma’ here, than in say, ‘Sheila ki Jawaani’ or ‘Chikni Chameli’ (where she could even swing above stuff ). Perhaps ‘coz She was placed with Mr. Laidback-meets-Lazy
Even his line readings sound like ‘Don’t bother me with these dialogues. Just let me give another look at the camera’
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Madan
September 18, 2016
Moves too mechanical? – Yeah, I want to see the curves flow in a song like that. Felt like she is really not used to dancing like that.
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
September 22, 2016
Honest Raj : Re: Comparison of Bhagyaraj withSpielberg / Lucas, thanks for showing us the truth (pun intended “Honest”).
If changing movie making is the yardstick then yes the comparison is fair but really I have a major issue with this. Spielberg and Lucas changed pretty much everything apart from the way movies were made. They also changed the Sound system, the theatres, the way movies are distributed, the toy industry, and God knows what else.
I dont think Bharatiraja or Bhagyaraj did THAT for Chrissake.
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Honest Raj (formerly 'V'enkatesh)
September 23, 2016
sravishanker1401: We don’t really care much about the Spielbergs and Lucas’, because for us: Bhagyaraj = India’s best screenwriter and Bharathiraaja = India’s best director. 😛
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sravishanker1401gmailcom
September 23, 2016
Honest Raj : Aaii LLaaikk dhizz veerrryyy Muchzzz
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Jai
July 20, 2017
Very late comment on this thread—but just saw the film day before 🙂 I liked the film rather more than I thought I would, its an ek baar watch for sure, even if not a baar baar one! 😉 The concept of having the benefit of hindsight in the real-time present, and having the opportunity to correct one’s path to avoid the mess one has foreseen in the future, was explored quite well, I thought. Interesting in a time pass way at least, if not exactly very compelling.
The “Main yahaan se gayi to kabhi vapas nahin aaoongi” ultimatum of Katrina’s was tear inducingly funny. I wondered if there is a bloopers video of the film shooting, showing Siddharth ROFL’ing at that line. 🙂 As someone else has commented above, it was interesting that the film depicted a growing urban reality that’s only fair, really—-where the man states that a long term career choice which affects his family, needs to be made in consultation with his wife. Most movies traditionally have shown the equation the other way—where its the woman who has to “balance the equation”, make the tough choice to prioritize career or family. Good to see a film that reflects the growing trend of give-and-take on both sides!
Couple of points which I felt were unexplored/unresolved, though. For one, I don’t know if I missed this—but does the film ever state if Jai decides to stay on in Delhi in the end after marrying Diya, living in that flat which he absolutely hated? (Since she had not wanted them to move to Cambridge). Or do they talk it over as level headed couples do, and move to Cambridge after all, with Jai ensuring he is actively present as a husband and father while pursuing his cherished career in mathematics, and supporting Diya’s artistic career as well? Basically, was just curious if the film ultimately treats ambition as something quite pejorative, or if it just shows that other things (family) are equally important.
Secondly, at the very end of the film, Jai prompts Diya if she won’t ask him, why he loves her. His answer floors her, of course—he’s had time travel to perfect his response after all. 🙂 He already knew how immensely moved she was with his response in 2023! Curiously though, he never seems to find it necessary to ask her why she loves him—despite the fact that till then, it was always her putting more effort and emotion into their relationship.
This line in your review was pure gold, BTW. 😉 “It’s Indian cuisine for those who don’t want to sit down for aloo parathas at a dhaba and lick the ghee off their fingers, preferring, instead, to book a table at a Michelin-starred restaurant that serves potato pancakes infused with artisanal butter.” Too good!
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