Somewhat Soporific Saawariya

Saawariya is a film by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, who also did one of my favorites, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Saawariya is a dream-like, fantasy film set in an entirely fabricated world, and it has Bhansali's stamp of visual artistry on it.

There is a lot of beauty in this movie. However, sometimes perhaps Bhansali forgot the difference between creating a painting, or a series of paintings, and making a movie. In places Saawariya was so slow it was like watching a painting dry, and in other places the threads of the story frayed until it entirely ceased to make sense.

Saawariya is set in a make-believe world, in a city that is not any real city, just a beautiful backdrop for the story. Ranbir Kapoor plays Raj, who falls in love with the beautiful Sakina (Sonam Kapoor) who is pining for her own heart's desire to return to her (her absent love is played by Salman Khan, in a bit of a cameo here). Raj meets Sakina walking through the city and grows obsessed with her. She first wants nothing to do with him, then befriends him, but tells him she is waiting for the man she loves to come back. But he is sure, because his feelings for her are so strong, that she belongs with him. All that remains is to convince her, right?

There is also a small role here for Rani Mukerji, who performs the best dance number in the movie. (Yay Rani!)

There are some similarities between this movie and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, but I much prefer HDDCS. Now, HDDCS is not a perfect movie by any means. It is filled with melodrama and suffers from some poor directing choices in places. But it is undeniably alive, and so heartfelt, whereas Saawariya feels distant and a little cold. I didn't feel I really knew any of the people in the movie by the time I got to the end of it. Nor did I really care about them or the choices they ultimately made. This is a sharp contrast to my reaction to HDDCS, which I was very invested in. Saawariya can also be, quite frankly, very dull in places. There is a lot of the young couple wandering slowly around the beautiful set, talking, but not getting anywhere with it.

But I did discover something interesting when I watched Saawariya. I discovered that I don't much care for Ranbir Kapoor, at least when he performs in an exuberant or quirky role (I did like him very much in Rocket Singh, Salesman of the Year, but that was a very low-key performance). Which goes a long way toward explaining why I couldn't get into Barfi, in addition to what I mentioned in my post about it. He is very talented and performs very well, which is why I didn't immediately think it was his performance putting me off at all, but now having seen both Barfi and Saawariya it clicked for me: he sells it, but I don't like what he's selling. When he tries to turn on the charm, it turns me right off. My working theory is that he's too technical. He is a Kapoor, after all, part of that powerful Bollywood dynasty, and has been steeped in it his entire life, no doubt. He knows exactly what he's doing. He is a fine-tuned Bollywood-performance instrument. But I don't feel any heart behind it.

Well, maybe I'll see something later that will change my mind!

The Girl With a Curl- Aiyyaa

After watching the song promos for Aiyyaa starring Rani Mukerji I just had to see it! Rani's dancing is so fabulous and fun, and she looked like she was having a blast. Well, Netflix has it on the dreaded "availability unknown" list, and it's not subtitled on YouTube, so I actually bought a copy.

 

Now, I knew this was a risk, because reviews for Aiyyaa have not been overwhelmingly positive, but I succumbed to the temptation. What came to mind after watching it was a little poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that my mother was fond of reciting:

There was a little girl, 

Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good,

She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid!

That's how I feel about Aiyyaa. The good is so very, very good. So engaging, so fresh! But the bad is squirm-in-your-seat cringe-worthy. Thankfully, I do think there is more of the "very good indeed" than the "horrid," but, yikes, the "horrid" is hard for me to ignore!

Rani's character, Meenaxi, is a delightfully spunky young woman who sometimes lapses into colorful daydreams, usually about being a film star.

Her real life is not so glamorous, however. Meenaxi's boisterously eccentric family is trying to marry her off, but meanwhile she has become enamored with a brooding hunk of an art student enrolled at the college where she works.

Her family succeeds in finding a match for her, and Meenaxi's never even been able to talk to her love interest, for whose benefit she has been studying Tamil. (I love that! I love languages, and I love people being enthusiastic about languages and wanting a language-enabled connection with other people.) So there is some angst over what she should do, since the guy she has been matched with is a decent, likable fellow. But mostly she just wants a chance to see if she and her dream guy are destined to be together!

What is there to love? First of all, RANI! She is fantastic! Her facial expressions are perfect, her screen presence is riveting, and she looks gorgeous yet like an ordinary girl. Her character is quirky, but still seems like a real person rather than a gimmick (unfortunately, the same cannot be said for every member of the cast).

There is an allusion to the book Alice in Wonderland in the film, and the film sometimes takes on a surreal, Wonderland-like feeling. My favorite is when Meenaxi is following her love-interest through the streets and ends up in a neighborhood unfamiliar to her. She seems flustered by sights and sounds and people she is unaccustomed to, but as the object of her affection calmly walks through everything she follows, almost like Alice down the rabbit hole.

There may have been some stalking.

I also loved Meenaxi's crazy family, particularly her goofy, soft-hearted brother, and the way they all related to one another.

And Rani's dancing! FABULOUS! I so wish I could move like she does.

But the storytelling is disjointed and the editing is choppy. Meenaxi's zany family is fun, but the way their zaniness is presented leads to all sorts of set-ups that are never paid off. Meenaxi's coworker is a caricature, and not a terribly funny one at that, although I have to say I was pleased to see the depiction of female friendship.

And the horrid... Rani's delicious dancing is ruined for me by incredible raunchiness. The dance numbers for "Dreamum Wakeupum" and "Aga Bai" in the movie are not the same as the promos. The promos had some suggestive elements, sure, but in the movie we go from playful hinting to spelling it out in spray paint on a ten-foot wall. I get that it is supposed to be humorous but it simply doesn't work. And there is another song near the end (not involving Rani) that is distasteful through-and-through. To give details would be to give spoilers, so all I will say is that, though I am usually of the opinion that the more songs the better, I would happily have foregone that one and wouldn't mind having the memory of it struck from my brain, either.

But Rani! I know nothing of her as a person, have never read or seen an interview, so I won't say that I have fallen into girl-crush territory. However, I do know this: when she makes another movie, I will see it.

Bunty Aur Babli

Bunty Aur Babli is a film I watched to about halfway through and then forgot about for a good long time. I finally watched the rest of it. It is fun but not fantastic, as evidenced by the fact that, well, I forgot to finish it for awhile.

Abhishek Bachchan and Rani Mukerji star as a two big dreamers (Abhishek's big dreams involve running his own business, while Rani dreams of winning the Miss World pageant) from small towns who fall in together and turn to a life of crime when their dreams are stymied. They pull increasingly high-stakes con jobs, relishing both the money and the adventurous excitement.

This man thinks his is making a big sale to a beautiful woman. Oh the disappointment awaiting him...

This movie was, apparently, quite a big hit but I can't get too excited about it. I think part of the problem is that, with films where you are on the side of the criminals, like heist films such as Ocean's Eleven, I'm used to having a definite reason or at least an excuse for siding with the criminals. For example, the guy they steal from in Ocean's Eleven is such a sleazeball that you don't really care that they rip him off, especially when they're so charming and clever about it. But here they seem mainly to be ripping off harmless business owners. If the victims had it coming, I completely missed why. (Except for the con involving the supposed "Richest Man in the World" who thought he could buy the Taj Mahal. That one was pretty funny. Ridiculous, but funny.) Also, Bunty and Babli didn't really seem to have a strong reason to fall into a life of crime. It wasn't as if they couldn't have just gotten jobs, it was just that they found that too boring and mundane in the face of remembering their exalted dreams. For me, however, a reason such as "I'm disappointed that I missed the deadline for the Miss World pageant so now I have no alternative but to steal my way to riches" just falls kind of flat. Abhishek's character was dealt a rude blow, and the scene where he gets even with the guy who did it (which was their first con) was one that, I thought, worked better because he had such understandable motivation and the victim was, clearly, a real jerk. But it still doesn't really explain why they did the next one, although as they kept going it was clear that Abhishek's character enjoyed the notoriety. Better a thief than a nobody, right people?

I don't want to spoil the ending, but I will say that, while it doesn't stay so morally ambiguous to the very end, it does seem to cling to the idea that a normal, decent life is extremely boring and sad. Which seems like a slightly rude thing to sell to an audience that will probably mostly comprise people with normal, fairly ordinary lives. Part of watching movies is an escape from the mundane, of course, but I don't necessarily want it hammered home to me, while I'm escaping, what a bore I am!

Amitabh Bachchan plays a policeman who vows to track Bunty and Babli down. He is over-the-top, but he carries it off. Loved him! He and his son clearly enjoy acting opposite each other, and the script took every chance that showed up to make a joke out of the fact that these two are famously father and son in real life. How many times can one character tell another not to act like his father? Watch to find out!

Some of the music was very enjoyable and some of it was ho-hum (but did involve impressively ugly costumes!). I loved the song in the middle, "Kajra Re", featuring Aishwarya Rai, and she was fantastic in it, but it had absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the film. I've heard other people complain before that some songs in some films are unnecessary or make the pace drag, but I've always enjoyed the music and dancing and never before found one to be completely out of place. There always seems to be some justification for it. There have been songs I haven't cared for as much as others, of course, but I've never thought that I couldn't see the filmmaker's reason for using a particular song-and-dance number. But here it really does come out of nowhere, and moreover adds nothing, develops nothing, and changes nothing. Rani isn't even in the scene, and why is Abhishek falling all over this dancer when he's now a married man? And why is this beautiful dancer making such a point of flirting with Amitabh Bachchan's character, who is old enough to be her father (and who, two years after this film came out, became her father-in-law in real life)? What on earth is going on? Weird. I guess the idea is that Aishwarya being gorgeous is reason enough?

I don't think that anything is executed poorly in this film. It is well done. It just doesn't seem to me to have much to offer. It's fun for one watch, as long as you're not expecting much, and if you're really hankering for a Hindi caper film.

Searching for Shahid, Part 2

So, I found Vivah through the "search for anything with Shahid Kapoor in it" technique, and it was maybe the fifth Bollywood I ever watched. As I look back on finding and watching Vivah, it occurs to me that it's a little odd that I like this film so much. It's a bit slow. OK, more than a bit slow. It is intensely saccharine. It doesn't have the exuberant dance numbers that I enjoy so much. The characters are all unbelievably upright and honorable and nice, except for a token angry character who comes around in the end. It's just very... sweet and slow.

 BUT Shahid Kapoor and Amrita Rao are so ridiculously beautiful that you CAN'T LOOK AWAY.

Also, I found it very intriguing to see such an idealized depiction of traditional arranged marriage. With the disapproving fascination Westerners have for the concept, we tend to think we understand a story about fighting against an undesired arranged marriage, but this is a movie about an arranged marriage that works just exactly the way it's supposed to, with everyone happy and no conflict.

The story is about how Prem and Pooja meet when their families decide they want to match them together. The fall in love in that brief first meeting, agree to the marriage, and the movie follows their engagement period as they get to know each other better. The night they are supposed to marry, there is a terrible accident that leaves Pooja's family worried that the marriage won't happen. But love triumphs, and I don't consider that a spoiler, because it is made obvious the entire way through that only a picture perfect happy ending would be allowed here!

Shahid is excellent, utterly charming and adorable. He fleshes out a pretty one-dimensional character with heart and soul. Amrita does pretty well with what she is given, as well, and she is just stunning. I thought their chemistry was wonderful, and they kept up a pretty sizzling sense that both were greatly anticipating their wedding night. 

I also loved getting to see the full wedding costumes and all of the pomp and preparations involved. Shahid looks fabulous all decked out in wedding clothes. Why do we dress our men so uninterestingly in the West? Dark suits for everything. Yawn.

I thoroughly enjoyed Vivah. But I would never have the husband watch with me, since the appeal would be completely lost on him, and he may well take to hiding whenever I suggest watching a Bollywood film. If you are disinclined to enjoy cloying sweetness, a lack of action, and/or a slow pace, the appeal may well be lost on you, too. However, if watching Bollywood for interesting cultural tidbits appeals to you, or if you could happily stare at Shahid Kapoor being adorable for three hours regardless, take a gander at Vivah.

Next up, one of my kids' favorites. Dil Bole Hadippa!

I searched for Shahid and found Rani Mukerji. This was my first exposure to Rani, and when I watched this, I had no idea what a big star she was. I was actually somewhat surprised that Shahid has relatively little to do, but this is really Rani's movie.

The story is that there is, in the Punjab, a young girl who is fantastic at cricket, and dreams of playing for India and winning the World Cup. (Or something... I think they said it was the World Cup, but I know next to nothing about cricket, and before watching this movie all I knew was that it was a game that people in Britain and India like.) But when she wants to try out for the team, they won't let her because she's female. So she disguises herself as a man and gets on the team, which is coached by Shahid, a big shot cricket player from London. Shahid has also met her as herself, and she claims her male persona is her brother, and romance becomes involved as they are gearing up for a big game against their rival team from Pakistan.

Rani gives an exuberant performance and I love her expressions, but I don't think she really fits her role here, in that it is hard to believe anyone buys her disguise. Even my kids asked, in genuine confusion, "Why can't they see that she's a girl?" To which I could only respond, "Well... she has that fake beard..."

And they gave me pitying looks that made it clear that they were sorry to think I could be taken in by such a thin disguise. And they have a point.

This movie is not going to change anyone's life, but it's a very fun watch. There were some elements that I have since heard others describe as overdone that I really enjoyed, although perhaps because I didn't have a lot of Bollywood experience when I watched it. The patriotic Indian girl defending her country in the face of snobby Londoners... the "we can be friends with Pakistan" message... the London-raised Indian character (Shahid) learning to appreciate his cultural roots... apparently these are recurring themes that some have grown quite tired of, but I was not too jaded to enjoy them! There was also a reference to the staggeringly popular Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, but, well, I hadn't even seen it yet, and so the reference went right over my head.

As for the music- I love it and the kids love it! For awhile is was the go-to when the toddler needed Bollywood Therapy. (Discowale Khisko is excellent for stopping a tantrum, if you're interested.)

Now, on to the very amusing (often unintentionally funny) Milenge Milenge...

I will tell you right from the beginning- this is not a good film. However, if you are the type who enjoys watching a bad movie because you can make fun of it, this may be a good candidate! It overflows with mock-able scenes.

Just a little taste: Shahid falls in love with Kareena when he and his friends dress in drag (!) so that they can go to a party in the girls' dorm.

He loses his way and stumbles into her dorm room, where he watches her sleep, entranced by her beauty. Not satisfied with that level of creepiness, he spies her diary and steals it, where he reads her account of how a fortune teller told her the signs that would reveal her true love to her, and naturally he decides to arrange for them to happen so as to indicate himself as her true love.

Of course she finds out. She never wants to see him again! He begs her to forgive him. She tells him she'll only take him back if it is decreed by fate, and devises a test whereby they can discover fate's opinion on the matter. WILL THEY END UP TOGETHER IN THE END?

Unfortunately, it is difficult to care. This movie is only recommended if one is on a quest to see every film Shahid Kapoor and/or Kareena Kapoor ever made. Not that anyone would do such a thing...

So far, a bit of a mixed bag for Shahid. Next time: Badmaash Company and Kaminey.