Raavan (2010)

Bollywood’s giving us quite the fill of Sanskrit literature: first, it was modern-day Mahabharata with Rajneeti, and this Friday saw the Hindu version of Darth Vader/Joker from Dark Knight/Hannibal Lector/you get the drift, Raavan [from Ramayana] being immortalized in a celluloid saga. The result? Raavan emerges as a flawed piece of storytelling; but then, there’s always beauty to be found in imperfection.

The Plot, or Ramayana meets RGV’s Jungle meets Khalnayak: If you watch this film expecting a play-by-play of the original Sanskrit epic, or even the Ramanand Sagar television saga, you’re in for a rude awakening. Raavan turns [wait for it] Robin Hood in this modern-day interpretation, which sees the antihero Beera [Abhishek Bachchan] kidnap Ragini [Aishwarya Rai], classical dancer and wife of police-officer Dev Pratap Sharma [South sensation Vikram], seeking revenge for the dishonoring of his half-sister Surpanakha. Echoing the great Khalnayak, defiant Ragini develops Stockholm Syndrome after several cat-and-mouse chase sequences, much traipsing through cinematographer Santosh Sivan [remember Asoka?] approved lush jungle landscapes, and a tribal war-dance to boot. The lines between good and evil blur as Ragini sees the more humane side of Beera and his henchmen [his two brothers, countless admirers, and the token transvestite], and ‘virtuous’ Dev, in the concluding reels [after the obligatory ten-minute action sequence] stands exposed as heartless, calculating douchebag.

Wait. What? Hah – told you this wasn’t your ordinary virtue-versus-vice tale.

That being said, though Mani Ratnam tries his best to weave in elements of a modern rustic India, with its gangfare, violence and criminal-breeding, in this classic tale, he trades in myth for the mundane, stripping Ram of his pious deity status, demoting Raavan from Rakshasa to rabid criminal desperately in need of lozenges [Abhishek's raspy voice quickly became a deterrent], and giving a theatrical, schmaltzy flavor to almost every sequence in the film.

What Clicks: The nonlinear filmmaking style is used to great effect, with Beera’s motive revealed only in the second half. I could write a thesis about the cinematography; each frame was a pièce de résistance, lifting the rather thin storyline to operatic, epic heights. Filmfare should just hand out the award to Santosh Sivan right now. The Bachchans share incredible chemistry [their very first sequence by the waterfalls was riveting - a defiant war-of-words between the psychopath and the suicidal]. Abhishek Bachchan does his best Jack Nicholson-from-The Shining impression, marred only by some incoherent soliloquies. The pace of the film never falters, and the musical interludes are used to great effect. Particularly poignant is the relationship between Dev and Ragini shown through Kathak dance in ‘Khilli Re’ [in a flashback sequence. Oh, and moustache-twiddling is new Bollywood bedroom kink.] Priyamani, playing Beera’s sister, pitches in an exceptional performance; her entire storyline [featuring a craven fiancé, and the worst wedding crashers in the world], involving a startling revelation that kick-starts Beera’s war against Dev, is perhaps the strongest point of the film, and the most emotionally resonating. Aishwarya Rai is at her expressive best when asked by her husband to perform a modern-day version of agni pariksha [read: Burn, Sita, Burn!], a polygraph test, to prove her fidelity. Ravi Kishan as Beera’s equally-psychotic-but-with-heart-of-gold brother, and Nikhil Dwivedi as good cop/bad cop/who can tell, are strong supporting characters.

What Doesn’t: The capture-sequence right at the onset defies logic: If only Ragini’s boatman had changed course instead of blindly stating the obvious, Beera’s boat would never have crashed into theirs. Ragini would never have been kidnapped. There wouldn’t have been a movie. Oh. Rai wails like a Banshee-reject; no wonder Beera has a permanent twitch. Govinda’s character was introduced as Ziyi Zhang from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Seriously, what was with the gravity-defying stunts? Some of the dialogues are cringe-worthy: early on in the film, Rai waxes poetic on Beera, stating: ‘Ye aadmi Raavan hai ya Robin Hood?’ in Kangna Ranaut/Meera-or-similar dialect. Speaking of which, guess the filmmakers couldn’t figure that out either. I mean, I just spent two hours rooting for the villain and shouting ‘Go, Dev, Go!’ in manner of enraged political activist/Pakistani lawyer. Parts of the penultimate sequence seemed a direct copy-paste of Khalnayak [Madhuri - whoops, I meant Aishwarya - stands infront of Abhishek in furious attempt to ward off, say, ten thousand police-officers? Alright, I'm exaggerating just a little.] Oh, and one finds it implausible [Bollywood's favorite catchword] that Beera would have delivered a touching ode to the virtues of Ragini to a belligerent Dev, whilst playing Cliffhanger on a burning bridge. Speaking of: Dev, who? Vikram was reduced to grunting caveman; a one-dimensional character that serves only to ridicule the Indian police-force. And how the hell did Aishwariya Rai manage to find her way back to Beera in the last half; wasn’t she blindfolded when brought to his nest? The climax seemed rushed. That’s because I wanted to see douchebag Dev [our modern-day Ram] get his comeuppance by hell-hath-no-fury-like-Sita-scorned Ragini. Wait, is that blasphemous?

An angry viewer raged post-screening that Raavan is the cinematic equivalent of a dumb blonde: body beautiful, but lacking soul. Though there is no doubt that Mani Ratnam is let down by his own screenplay, I found the film engaging, spirited and fast-paced, backed by wonderful if sporadic performances by both leads, and featuring some exceptional sequences. It might not add up to the likes of predecessors Guru or Yuva, might not be the emotional epics Roja or Bombay were, but it offers viewers an unsettling, if larger-than-life, psychological drama, which is well worth the price of ticket admission. Hell, watch it for the cinematography, if nothing else. Can you say jaw-dropper? – Osman Khalid Butt

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Drama/Action, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Mani Ratnam, Director – Mani Ratnam, Music Director – A. R. Rahman, Cast - Abhishek Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Chiyaan Vikram, Govinda, Manisha Koirala, Nikhil Dwivedi, Ravi Kishan, Priyamani

Life Partner (2009)

Like all art forms, films have their own genres: thriller, suspense, romantic, comedy etc. Bollywood has all those and one genre that stands entirely on its own – the Govinda movie. Now how does one define a quintessential Govinda flick? Calling it mindless entertainment would be too simplistic, it is crass yet erudite, educating audiences in the most ludicrous manner about human nature. Take Life Partner, where Govinda understands he can no longer be a hero. Yet he maintains his Govinda-ness in that age-old role of a divorce lawyer and while marriage is a dead end for his friends it is a lucrative enterprise for him. Like the smash hit of the season Kambakkht Ishq, it starts off from the premise that marriage is anathema and Govinda – the saviour and Casanova extraordinaire – is in perpetual conflict with his friends Tusshaar Kapoor and Fardeen Khan (who else would pick a script like this? Even John Abraham left this league eons ago). In the female leads are the annoying Genelia D’Souza and a naik parveen Prachi Desai, with Prachi quite set in her character of the misunderstood parvati, sporting the sullen look of a brave bahu.

Life Partner boasts of a band of merry musketeers: Govinda, Tusshar and Fardeen. Fardeen is cast opposite a highly spoilt Genelia who turns out to be expensive excess luggage as the film proceeds. The two jump into unholy matrimony at the emblem of arranged marriage: Tusshar and Prachi’s mandap. The first half of the film therefore belongs to the director Rumi Jaffrey’s well balanced debate extolling both the virtues of love and arranged marriages via his cinematic lens. The film lulls on with timely jokes from Govinda, who one must give credit for not hogging all the screen space and appearing only where he makes an impact, and the typical shenanigans of boys having fun. Although some scenes and dialogues were quite hilarious and had the cinema’s audience roaring throughout. One in particular is when Fardeen, Genelia and Tusshar take a trip and Fardeen checks into a fabulously luxurious suite which the innocent and pappu Tusshar thinks is for the boys and gets a rude reality check when Genelia, unlike the doses of parampara that his father feeds him in their archaic Gujrati household, willingly jumps into.

The interval is perhaps the most exciting moment in this film leaving audiences speculating what happens next. The latter half then takes on the lessons to learn before getting married, and the differences between a relationship and a marriage, ala Fardeen emphatically telling Genelia, “Stop being my girlfriend and start being my wife”. Many a couple could be seen relating to the subject and enjoying the often painful transitions that they too had to make.

So although the film was blah, the audiences seemed to be in throes of laughter at this family drama cum slap stick cum marriage counsellor farce that proved to be a good respite after a long torturous battle with the spouse. The concluding scenes however are just too sickeningly over done and make the film (if it wasn’t already falling from grace) beyond saving. Nonetheless Govinda’s cheekiness proves to be a good buffer and even though at times it felt like he had lost his touch, he’s still enough of a legend to pull the scattered bits of the script together to render it relatively comical coherent. Ultimately, Life Partner is inanely idiotic yet frivolously fun – Hani Taha Salim (Rating – 2 OUT OF 5)

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2009, Genre – Comedy, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer – Abbas Burmawalla, Mustan Burmawalla, Director – Rumi Jaffrey, Music Director – Pritam, Sachin-Jigar, Cast – Govinda, Fardeen Khan, Tusshar Kapoor, Genelia D’Souza, Prachi Desai, Anupam Kher, Vikram Gokhale, Darshan Jariwala, Shoma Anand, Rajesh Jais, Sheetal Gori, Master Ali, Vivek Shauq, Jagdeep, Rana Jung Bahadur, Himani Shivpuri