I had been pretty stoked about the fact that this year would see my favorite screen Goddess, Aishwarya, lighting up the silver screen four times! I had planned to watch all of these movies in a theatre, and today I almost fulfilled that vow, with Guzaarish. I had seen Raavan and Action Replayy both, and passed on Robot for obvious reasons. I dragged my mother for all the three ventures, and it was only the last and most recent one, for which she tagged along willingly. Though she did end up enjoying all of them, barring Raavan. Today, when we walked into Sangam, I got the shock of my life! You could count the number of people in both the Balcony and upper stall on your fingers!! I mean, there were more people for a 10 am show of Babel at PVR Priya in the dead of winters a few years back! People did start trickling in after a while, but still not challenging the count on fingers.
I won't go on for an elaborate elucidation of my thoughts on this movie, as I did for Raavan. All I can say is, it was truly, a great cinematic experience. I have always been a HUGE Sanjay Leela Bhansali fan (have even seen the much maligned Saawariya nearly 11 times), and there was no doubt in my mind that this movie would be anything less than spectacular. But I was wrong. It was not spectacular. It was a beautiful account of raw human emotions, expressed ever so subtly, making them all the more real.
There is no filmmaker as intelligent as SLB in contemporary Indian cinema. Every frame of the movie was enriched with metaphors, subtle sub texts. Dealing with a subject where it would have been very easy, and not even out of place, to indulge in melodrama, he preferred to let silences, stolen glances, expressions, cinematography do the talking, rather than words. The protagonist's immobility contrasted with constant motion around him, the curtains; the fly, every inanimate object around him seemed more alive than him. A person, who is looking to relieve himself of the misery of his existence, has no future to look forward to, is shown wearing rose-tinted glasses. Picking up on minute details like these enriched this cinematic experience.
The performances are definitely the finest you can see in Indian cinema, and I'm out of word to describe them. All I can say is, it is the first time that a movie pulled at my heart string so strongly to give me a lumpy throat. And this was during that one MAGICAL scene, where both the director and his actor show their mettle, when you see a hapless Ethan struggle at first valiantly, and then crushed, by the drops of water dripping on him constantly through the night from the ceiling. I was literally cringing in my seat, and thanking God (even though I confess to being an atheist), that I have my faculties working fine, and praying that I never become so helpless as he did. There are many such beautiful moments from this poet of pain (SLB), that you'll cherish long after you have left the theater. Aishwarya has once again given ample proof of her competence as an actress par excellence, and done things that I really don't think any other actress could have pulled off with half as much strength and dignity ( I wonder if they'd have done it at all!).
The music has taken a backseat again, not as much as in Black, but wherever it does come in, it lifts up the whole experience to a new level. The songs have been brilliantly woven into the screenplay. Sau gram zindagi, tera zikr, and Udi all have there appeal enhanced tremendously when experienced in context of the movie.
Of course, its not all hunky dory. The flow of the film is not smooth and does appear to jerk in parts. Occasionally the characters seem slightly under-developed.My biggest complaint is that most of the crucial gems of the movie were already shown in the numerous promos and trailers, and the surprise element was a bit lacking while watching the movie.
But all said and done, it was a mesmerizing, and unique cinematic experience. Just two hours long, I wish it had gone on for a bit more. But then, "Zindagi bahut khoobsurat hai, chahe woh saat, sava saat pound ki ho, ya fir sau gram ki"....
I won't go on for an elaborate elucidation of my thoughts on this movie, as I did for Raavan. All I can say is, it was truly, a great cinematic experience. I have always been a HUGE Sanjay Leela Bhansali fan (have even seen the much maligned Saawariya nearly 11 times), and there was no doubt in my mind that this movie would be anything less than spectacular. But I was wrong. It was not spectacular. It was a beautiful account of raw human emotions, expressed ever so subtly, making them all the more real.
There is no filmmaker as intelligent as SLB in contemporary Indian cinema. Every frame of the movie was enriched with metaphors, subtle sub texts. Dealing with a subject where it would have been very easy, and not even out of place, to indulge in melodrama, he preferred to let silences, stolen glances, expressions, cinematography do the talking, rather than words. The protagonist's immobility contrasted with constant motion around him, the curtains; the fly, every inanimate object around him seemed more alive than him. A person, who is looking to relieve himself of the misery of his existence, has no future to look forward to, is shown wearing rose-tinted glasses. Picking up on minute details like these enriched this cinematic experience.
The performances are definitely the finest you can see in Indian cinema, and I'm out of word to describe them. All I can say is, it is the first time that a movie pulled at my heart string so strongly to give me a lumpy throat. And this was during that one MAGICAL scene, where both the director and his actor show their mettle, when you see a hapless Ethan struggle at first valiantly, and then crushed, by the drops of water dripping on him constantly through the night from the ceiling. I was literally cringing in my seat, and thanking God (even though I confess to being an atheist), that I have my faculties working fine, and praying that I never become so helpless as he did. There are many such beautiful moments from this poet of pain (SLB), that you'll cherish long after you have left the theater. Aishwarya has once again given ample proof of her competence as an actress par excellence, and done things that I really don't think any other actress could have pulled off with half as much strength and dignity ( I wonder if they'd have done it at all!).
The music has taken a backseat again, not as much as in Black, but wherever it does come in, it lifts up the whole experience to a new level. The songs have been brilliantly woven into the screenplay. Sau gram zindagi, tera zikr, and Udi all have there appeal enhanced tremendously when experienced in context of the movie.
Of course, its not all hunky dory. The flow of the film is not smooth and does appear to jerk in parts. Occasionally the characters seem slightly under-developed.My biggest complaint is that most of the crucial gems of the movie were already shown in the numerous promos and trailers, and the surprise element was a bit lacking while watching the movie.
But all said and done, it was a mesmerizing, and unique cinematic experience. Just two hours long, I wish it had gone on for a bit more. But then, "Zindagi bahut khoobsurat hai, chahe woh saat, sava saat pound ki ho, ya fir sau gram ki"....