Before I Forget…

Khalid Mohamed, Hindustan Times
Mumbai, February 15, 2008
And the rest isn’t history - Jodhaa Akbar
Cast: Hrithik Roshan, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Sonu Sood, Poonam Sinha
Direction: Ashutosh Gowariker
Rating: **

…..Please, what is Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar trying to serve anyway ?  A romance dopiaza ?  Mughlai history biryani ?  Secularism sushi ?  Chandeliers-e-Azam ?  Battle Stroganoff ?  Absolutely no answers to that, except that you’re as disappointed as a guest who came away without a morsel from a wedding banquet.  Sad.  As you know, the romance is between Shahenshah Akbar (from the look of things here, a bachelor at 30) and Jodhaaji (not exactly in the prime of her youth either).  She is coerced into a marriage with the Mughal but won’t allow him his conjugal rights till she feels up to it from her ‘dil’.  Frowns she like Kill Bill.  Till that belated Dil-Day occurs, they sword fence, she a crouching dragonette, he a patient tiger.  Never mind, if her swashbuckling skills aren’t ever re-employed by the script.  Misunderstandings and a patch-up later, the regal couple at last share common pillows-`n’-quilt.  Takliya really.  Vis-à-vis history, you learn about Rajputana kings who either acceded to Mughal supremacy or hatched plots culminating in battles starring scabbards, cannon balls, bows-arrows and helmets.  Sorry but you’re not sure which soldier is fighting whom and why.  The body count rises to Ramboesque proportions; the displeased emperor banishes a mulla and good ‘ole lieutenant Bairam Khan to Mecca forthwith.  Surprisingly, the mulla looks as if he were being sent to Siberia.  Is this history?  Secularism is conveyed through such gestures as Akbar allowing Jodhaa her own temple space and approval of  A R Rahman-composed bhajans.  No mention of the emperor’s foundation of the all-religion-embracing Din-e-Ilahi faith.  Moreover, how relevant is it to address the issue of Hindu tolerance of the minority today, instead of vice versa?  Sufism is touched upon by a clap-a-hand-here-clap-a-hand-there qawwali in the course of which the emperor is zapped by a sky light, causing him to break into a jolly jig with the qawwals.  Unintentionally funny.  Did Akbar ever boogie woogie?

For a tribute to Mughal-e-Azam, a fluttering palace eunuch is recalled and durbar cliches abound like “Hukam ki taamil ho.”  Inevitably, flighty handmaidens clasp secrets to their bosom, eavesdroppers lounge around at jharokas.  And the venomous Nigar Sultana is supplanted by a diabolical daai, or Ila Arun, playing the role as if she were a harridan from Harry Potter.  The Shahenshah’s mum, Poonam Sinha, is so benign that it hurts.  So does one of her Eiffel Tower-tall hats.  What a balancing act!  In fact, the headgear displayed here – from Aladdin Cave turbans to those qawwals’ upturned ice-cream cones — are a gas.  The action set pieces – involving a rather senior citizen elephant and the Troy-like one-to-one combat finale  — are sound and fury amounting to nothing.  Amitabh Bachchan’s voice-over commentary is stale.  Kiran Deohan’s cinematography is conventional and Ballu Saluja’s editing is rather old-fashioned, what with the 1950s-style wipes.  The length of three hours-20 minutes is a punishment.  On the plus side, Nitin Desai’s sets and plush pageantry are eye filling.  So is the elaborate picturisation of the Marhaba song in the style of the drum-stacked Chandralekha of yore.  Still, like it or not Gowariker – normally a fine, conscientious director – has miscalculated the technical logistics and emotional content of a period piece.  Crucial detailing isn’t the virtue here.  The child actors playing the eponymous pair have coal black eyes which magically turn cat light on adulthood.  Of the cast, Sonu Sood in a strongly written part fits the bill.  But Hrithik Roshan is a major let down.  His Urdu diction is laboured, his physical presence unequal to the role, and far too frequently he blinks his eyes like a neon sign gone out of order.  The imperial gaze and carriage are conspicuous by their absence.  Relatively, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan is more convincing.  She carries off difficult scenes with unexpected fluidity, her eyes conveying the pleasure as well as the pain of a woman oscillating between love and rancour. 

Bottomline: Toss a coin, whether you want to buy a ticket for Jodhaa AkBORE.. or not.

…ayvay duniya davay duhaaee jhootha paundee shor
apnay dil to(n) puchch kay vaykho kaun nahin hai chor…
this world is full of hypocrisy, false are their complaints
look inside your own hearts - we are all thieves…
haq doojai daa maar maar kay banday lok ameer
main aynoo kaindaa chori, duniyaa kaindee taqdeer…
laying claim to the rights of others, people enrich themselves
I call it looted wealth, people call it hard earned and well deserved…
sachay phaansee chad-day vaykhay jhootha mauj udaavey
lokee kainday rab dee maaya main kaindaa ani-aay…
the high-honored I have seen being hung, the cheaters run around cheating
people call it the will of God, I call it injustice…

Jerry Seinfeld talks about the Bee movie.  Felt like I was meeting an old friend - laughed out loud on numerous occasions.  This guy is simply extraordinary -

The Charlie Rose Show (Nov 6th 2007)

This is the only guy I know who can make even an obituary funny.  As only Woody Allen can put it…

Got the news in Oviedo, a lovely little town in the north of Spain where I am shooting a movie, that Bergman had died.  A phone message from a mutual friend was relayed to me on the set.  Bergman once told me he didn’t want to die on a sunny day, and not having been there, I can only hope he got the flat weather all directors thrive on.  I’ve said it before to people who have a romanticized view of the artist and hold creation sacred: In the end, your art doesn’t save you.  No matter what sublime works you fabricate (and Bergman gave us a menu of amazing movie masterpieces) they don’t shield you from the fateful knocking at the door that interrupted the knight and his friends at the end of “The Seventh Seal.”  And so on a summer’s day, Bergman, the great cinematic poet of mortality, couldn’t prolong his own inevitable checkmate, and the finest filmmaker of my lifetime was gone.

I have joked about art being the intellectual’s Catholicism, that is, a wishful belief in an afterlife.  Better than to live on in the hearts and minds of the public is to live on in one’s apartment, is how I put it.  And certainly Bergman’s movies will live on and will be viewed at museums and on TV and sold on DVDs, but knowing him this was meager compensation, and I am sure he would have been only too glad to barter each one of his films for an additional year of life.  This would have given him roughly 60 more birthdays to go on making movies; a remarkable creative output.  And there’s no doubt in my mind that’s how he would have used the extra time, doing the one thing he loved above all else, turning out films. 

Bergman enjoyed the process.  He cared little about the responses to his films.  It pleased him when he was appreciated, but as he told me once, “If they don’t like a movie I made, it bothers me - for about 30 seconds.”  He wasn’t interested in box office results, even though producers and distributors called him with the opening weekend figures, which went in one ear and out the other.  He said, “By midweek, their wildly optimistic prognosticating would come down to nothing.”  He enjoyed critical acclaim but didn’t for a second need it, and while he wanted the audience to enjoy his work, he didn’t always make his films easy on them.  Still, those that took some figuring out were well worth the effort.  For example, when you grasp that both women in “The Silence” are really only two warring aspects of one woman, the otherwise enigmatic film opens up spellbindingly.  Or if you are up on your Danish philosophy before you see “The Seventh Seal” or “The Magician,” it certainly helps, but so amazing were his gifts as a storyteller that he could hold an audience riveted and enthralled with difficult material.  I’ve heard people walk out after certain films of his saying, “I didn’t get exactly what I just saw but I was gripped on the edge of my seat every frame.”

Reference : http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/08/arts/woody.php

It is my honest belief that only Bollywood can deliver “fall off your chair more than half a dozen times during a movie” comedy anymore.  Partner is the latest David Dhawan (amazed to find a Wikipedia entry for him !!) flick to rock the box-office.  As connoisseurs of Indian cinema will know, the Dhawan brand stands for silly comedy often catering to the tastes of the “non-sophisticated”.  Well guess what we found out Friday night ?  It’s fun being non-sophisticated after a long week at work.  And from the sounds of it, everyone in the hall was having a BALL.  It’s like mental mud wrestling.  Liberating stuff.    Group therapy.  Awesome. 

The movie was so good that I wanted to see the first half again at the interval itself.  It started off with some flat lines and I was looking around wondering what the hell we were in for.  But then it picked up - and HOW !  In the scene when Govinda cries with joy (the first time), I was laughing loudly and when he said “yaar main gareeb-type hoon” (dude, I am the poor-type), I almost hurt AM by my violent tugging to make sure she hadn’t missed the line.  I repeated it to her several times immediately following the scene.  She assured me she had “got it”.  The music was a real pleasant surprise and I’m going to get the CD just for that one crazy sounding bhangra/remix number.  Govinda is an awesome actor and he carries the film.  Salman, of whom I am not too big a fan, was very good as well.  Out of the ladies, I’d say if Katrina had Lara’s nose, she’d have gotten my vote.  Since I don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, I’d say neither looked too good actually.  Come to think of it, that might be a scary combination.  I take that back, Lara overall scores just a little bit higher.  She had carryover charm from Jhoom Baraabar Jhoom where I thought she absolutely stole the show.

OVERALL RATING : Super Hit, boss - paisaa vasool !!