Jab Harry met Sejal

Helpless Shah Rukh Khan fans that we are, we'll watch him in anything—even an Imtiaz Ali movie. The title of Jab Harry Met Sejal (When Harry met Sejal, 2017) tries to evoke both When Harry Met Sally (1989) and Jab We Met (When we met, 2007), Imtiaz's first hit. And indeed JHMS draws on the central story of both films: we follow a couple who initially irritate each other, gradually become friends and ultimately realize that they are meant for each other.

Another point of similarity with the previous films is that the friendship slowly grows over the course of a road trip. In JHMS, the trip is occasioned by a search for an engagement ring lost on a European tour. While her fiancé returns to India, Sejal (Anushka Sharma) stays behind to find the ring, and demands the help of her tour guide, Harry (SRK). Sejal will return to India and her fiancé only after the ring is found; retracing the stops on the tour, Sejal and Harry's quest takes them from Amsterdam to Prague, Budapest and Lisbon. (No prizes for guessing where the ring finally turns up—we predicted it 10 minutes into the movie.) It's the thinnest possible pretext for a European travelogue.

A fiancé is waiting at the end of the journey as well in Jab We Met, which itself liberally borrowed from other "falling in love on the road" films. In JHMS there are also echoes of such films as Chalte Chalte (Journeying, 2003) and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The brave heart wins the bride, 1995), not to mention It Happened One Night (1934), Remember the Night (1940) and Sullivan's Travels (1941).

On the road, Harry and Sejal spend the night together (fully clothed) in Jab Harry Met Sejal. 

On the road, The Girl (Veronica Lake) and John Sullivan (Joel McCrea) spend the night together (fully clothed) in Sullivan's Travels.

I would mind Imtiaz's blatant borrowings from himself and others much less if those borrowings were clever, knowing, or added an unexpected twist or two. Instead they simply underline the film's utter predictability. Imtiaz isn't being playful; he's relying on formula.  And the elements that Imtiaz doesn't borrow from romantic comedies contemporary or classic are ones his films could desperately use: witty repartee and credible women characters.

In film after film Imtiaz's heroines have been fantasy Manic Pixie Dream Girls (see Jab We Met, Love Aaj Kal (2009), Cocktail (2012), and Tamasha (2015) for starters). Sejal is a Manic Pixie Nightmare Girl: overbearing, self-involved and self-dramatizing, alternately flirty and rejecting, she's just a (slightly) different stereotype. And Sejal is given lines that no real person would ever utter, I hope.

In another example, in a Prague club Sejal throws her drink in a thug's face. The thug and his henchman chase Sejal and Harry through the streets. As they hide from the men, Sejal has a question for Harry:

Practically speaking? By asking his actors to deliver a "joke" involving a potential rape victim's anxiety about her sexual inexperience, Imtiaz is willfully making light of the horrors of real-world violence against women.

Sure, when they're not being asked to utter offensive inanities the actors are appealing, and the locations are picturesque. But JHMS is so contrived, inept and objectionable I think it marks the point where I part ways with Imtiaz Ali, forever.

Favorites of 2015: Bollywood song picturizations

In this coda to my "Favorites of 2015" series I'm going to count down my five favorite Bollywood song picturizations from films released in 2015. This is a little bit different from a list of my favorite songs, although of course a good picturization needs to start with a good song. It's also definitely not a list of songs from my favorite films. I've only seen two of the films on this list: one (Tanu Weds Manu Returns) was distinctly lacking and the other (Dilwale) was almost wholly misconceived. But these are the picturizations that best combined inventive or spectacular settings, appealing actors, and, yes, good tunes:

5. "Ghani Bawri," Tanu Weds Manu Returns (starring Kangana Ranaut, R. Madhavan, and Kangana Ranaut, directed by Anand Rai, music by Krsna Solo, lyrics by Raj Shekhar, sung by Jyoti Nooran)

In "Favorites of 2015: Bollywood" I named TWMR as "the sequel most in need of a sequel." But "Ghani Bawri," powered by Jyoti Nooran's vocals and Kangana Ranaut's compelling performance(s), is a song I never tire of watching. To set the scene, Tanu (Ranaut) is crashing the wedding of her ex-husband Manu (Madhavan) and his new bride Kusum (a much younger woman who looks suspiciously similar to Tanu—does this seem like a good idea?):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN__eM6p6js

4. "Gulaabo," Shaandaar (Fabulous, starring Alia Bhatt, Sanah Kapoor, and Shahid Kapoor, directed by Vikas Bahl, music and lyrics by Amit Trivedi, sung by Vishal Dadlani and Anusha Mani)

I have no idea how or whether the carnival/smugglers setting and Alia Bhatt's very cute drag king act fit into the plot of Shaandaar, but of course, it doesn't matter—"Gulaabo" is offbeat and lots of fun:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYNNgGBVtTo

3. "Prem Ratan Dhan Payo," Prem Ratan Dhan Payo (A treasure called Prem (Love), starring Salman Khan and Sonam Kapoor, directed by Sooraj Barjatya, music by Himesh Reshammiya, lyrics by Irshad Kamil, sung by Palak Muchhal)

On Namaste America's survey of most-requested songs from 2015 this morning (the program which inspired this post), host Obaid Kadwani could barely contain his sneer at this "throwback to the 90's." Sorry, but if "throwback" means beautiful settings and costumes, spectacular dancing (surprisingly well executed by Sonam Kapoor, who is not known for her grace on the dance floor), and the traditionally-flavored music by Reshammiya (with vocalist Palak Muchhal uncannily channeling Shreya Ghoshal), then I say bring on more throwbacks:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPk9bSvQQoc

2. "Pinga," Bajirao Mastani (starring Priyanka Chopra, Deepika Padukone, and Ranveer Singh, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali, music by Bhansali, lyrics by Siddharth–Garima, sung by Shreya Ghoshal and Vaishali Made)

Okay, this song really is a throwback—to the astonishing "Dola Re Dola" from Devdas (2002). But who cares? While neither Chopra nor Padukone may quite be at the level of Madhuri Dixit or Aishwarya Rai in Bhansali's earlier film, they are two of the best dancing actresses in Bollywood, filmed in the sweeping style that Bhansali has made his trademark. A song as gorgeous as this one is all the justification needed for self-borrowing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xz-Vac75to4

1. "Gerua," Dilwale (Brave Heart, starring Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan, directed by Rohit Shetty, music by Pritam Chakraborty, lyrics by Amitabh Bhattacharya, sung by Antara Mitra and Arijit Singh)

The movie is a loud, violent, incoherent mess. DIrector Rohit Shetty and writer Yunus Sajawal should be ashamed for providing a such a weak platform for the reunion of SRK and Kajol (the movie could easily lose every scene in which they don't appear together). But this song offers breathtaking—and scary, because there's little or no bluescreen CGI involved (as you can see in the "making of" video linked below)—natural settings, lush music, and the legendary chemistry between the two stars:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEIVhBS6baE

This song also has the best "making of" video ever; too bad the gentle humor and emotional warmth so evident in this short were not used as a model for the rest of the film.

Bollywood: A History

A monsoon-drenched Rekha in Utsav (The Festival, 1984)

The development of Hindi cinema offers an abundance of fascinating material to any writer. Studios such as the Hindustan Film Company, Bombay Talkies and RK Films were built on their founders' visions of possibility, willingness to take risks, tireless labor, and sometimes ruthless business practices. One of the biggest stars of the 1930s was a big-boned blonde woman named Mary Evans who did her own acrobatic fighting and horseback-riding stunts as "Fearless Nadia." Heroes such as Ashok Kumar, Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand came to Bombay without connections or experience, and within a few years became screen idols worshipped by millions. Amitabh Bachchan, a gangly outsider who had once failed a voice test to become an announcer for All-India Radio, was cast as the lead in Zanjeer (Chains, 1973) after four better-known actors turned down the role; his searing performance made him a superstar.

So while the still of Amitabh's frequent co-star Rekha on the cover of Mihir Bose's Bollywood: A History (Tempus, 2006) was certainly arresting, I picked up the book because of its back-cover claim to be "the first comprehensive history of India's film industry." Unfortunately, the hopes raised by that description were dashed almost immediately. Bose's book is superficial, partial, and reads as though an unedited first draft was mistakenly sent to the printer.

An early warning sign was the repetitive writing. At the beginning of the first chapter, we are told the story of a woman at a screening of the Lumière Brothers' film "'Condeliers' Square'" leaping to her feet because it appears that a "hansom cab" is about to burst through the screen (pp. 38-39). Then, on the very next page, we hear about a Lumière showing in which audience members seeing "L'Arrivée d'un gare de la Ciotat…vacated their seats in a hurry" in fear that an arriving train will crash through the screen. Was it the hansom cab, the train, or both?

Repetition is only one problem; the book is also filled with errors, typographical and otherwise. In the stories about the Lumière Brothers, for example, the titles of both films are misstated (the second one nonsensically), and there is no hansom cab in "La Place des Cordeliers" (not "Condeliers"): there is a horse-drawn streetcar and a delivery van, but no hansom cab, as you can see for yourself. Neither story is given a source, so there is no way to judge the credibility of the reported audience reactions. Repetition, errors, and vague sourcing remain issues throughout the book.

Names are frequently misspelled: the Hollywood actors were Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon, not "Mathau" and "Lemon" (p. 256); the Hollywood producer of Algiers (1938) was Walter Wanger, not "Wagner" (p. 138); Shashi Kapoor's wife Jennifer's actor father was Geoffrey Kendal, and the drama award named after him is the Kendal Cup—neither is spelled "Kendall" (p. 270).

Worse than careless spelling, though, is Bose's carelessness with facts: actor Hrithik Roshan did not appear in Karan Arjun (1995), but instead served as an assistant to his director father Rakesh, so the film can hardly be "notched up" among Hrithik's "blockbusters" (p. 347). The name of Rekha's great 1981 courtesan film is Umrao Jaan, not Umrao Jaan Adda—the latter is the title of Mirza Hadi Ruswa's 1899 novel on which the film was based—and it does not quite tell "the story of a thirty-year-old abducted and sold to a brothel" (p. 235). Bose writes that "Karan Johar's Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was shot largely in Scotland," a claim that is true only of its title song (p. 349).

Writing of playback singing, Bose states,

In the 1930s and 40s, it was the norm for actors and actresses to both sing and act…But within a decade this breed completely vanished, so totally that cinemagoers of today's Bollywood would struggle to believe they ever existed…Bollywood had created a divide between singing and acting which has never been bridged. (pp. 93-94)

That this practice had "completely vanished" by the 1950s would come as a surprise to actor-singers Talat Mahmood and Kishore Kumar. Major contemporary stars Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, and Aamir Khan have all on occasion done their own playback singing. Further examples abound; while playback singing remains the standard practice, this is hardly "a divide…which has never been bridged." Here is Amitabh singing the Holi song "Rang Barse Bheege Chunarwali" from Silsila (1981):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf92MOkrbEw

For a description of the film, including the significance of this scene, please see my post on Silsila.

Bose claims that an early Indian filmmaker, Dundiraj Govind Phalke, was "far ahead of his time" (p. 53) when in the credits of his 1919 film Kaliya Mardan he showed the faces of his actors dissolving into those of their characters in full makeup and costume. However, this practice was widespread in the silent film era: for example, it occurs in Louis Feuillade's Fantômas serial of 1911-1913.

Bose is not a film historian or critic—his background is in sports and business journalism, two fields that are prone to hyperbole—and it shows when he commits errors of overstatement like these. But Bollywood: A History is also filled with non sequiturs and garbled grammar. Here are some examples, chosen pretty much at random:

Page 132: "Like Ashok Kumar, but perhaps even more so, he [Dilip Kumar] taught himself acting…" So Dilip Kumar is even more like Ashok Kumar than…Ashok Kumar?

Page 266: "It may be a coincidence that 1969, the year of Bachchan's debut in films, was also the year Indira Gandhi made her decisive turn in Indian politics, a few months after Bachchan's arrival in Bombay but, nevertheless, it is of some significance." Or not.

Page 299: "Yet, if the Indian media was easily cowed down during the Emergency, one of the most fascinating aspects of that time was that it came just as many things were bubbling away, which was to determine the course of Indian life for the decades ahead." Was it?

Page 344: "If Aamir Khan is the modern-day Raj Kapoor, although very different in many ways, then Shah Rukh Khan, a Muslim born in New Dehli on November 2, 1965, and, like Aamir, married to a Hindu, Gauri Khan." Lucky Gauri!

Of course, occasional misspellings, grammatical awkwardnesses and factual errors are inevitable in any book-length project (this blog certainly has its share), but the sheer frequency of these problems in Bose's book is unacceptably high. And while omissions are perhaps inevitable, missing entirely from Bose's history or receiving only glancing mentions are such major heroines as Helen, Sharmila Tagore, Mumtaz, Sridevi, Mala Sinha, Shyama, Neetu Singh, Madhuri Dixit, Kajol, and Rani Mukerji, among many others. Also, Bose's discussion of dance—a highly significant element of Indian musical films—is very brief and wholly inadequate.

So Bollywood: A History is poorly written, sloppily edited, and narrowly conceived. Surely there's a recent one-volume history of Hindi cinema that's written in a lively style, is well-sourced and credible, and which gives appropriate emphasis to both the men and the women who have created and sustained this film industry. Isn't there?

Attunement: Conversion experiences

In her New Yorker essay "Some Notes on Attunement" (December 17, 2012), Zadie Smith writes about her intense dislike of Joni Mitchell. She describes hearing Blue at a party in college: "a piercing sound, a sort of wailing—a white woman, wailing, picking out notes in a non-sequence. Out of tune—or out of anything I understood at the time as 'tune.'" Her friends are astonished: "You don't like Joni?"

Years later, riding in a car with her husband, she hears something on the stereo: ". . .it was that bloody piping again, ranging over octaves, ignoring the natural divisions between musical bars, and generally annoying the hell out of me. . ."

This is the sort of thing she was hearing, or not hearing: Joni Mitchell singing "California":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lm39YkGrHp8

And then, suddenly, something happened: "This is the effect that listening to Joni Mitchell has on me these days: uncontrollable tears. An emotional overcoming, disconcertingly distant from happiness, more like joy—if joy is the recognition of an almost intolerable beauty…I hated Joni Mitchell—and then I loved her. Her voice did nothing for me—until the day it undid me completely." The album that evokes these powerful responses? Blue.

She describes this change as "a sudden, unexpected attunement." "Attunement" is an unusual word, but it can mean becoming responsive or receptive to something; its suggestion of harmonizing seems particularly appropriate for a musical epiphany.

Smith uses the word "attunement" to make a connection to the opening "Exordium" of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.* The Exordium is a sort of parable in which an ordinary man retells the Bible story of Abraham and Isaac in four different ways in order to try to understand it. But no matter how he approaches the story, he can never fully grasp its meaning. Kierkegaard's point is that sometimes there has to be a breakthrough, not so much in understanding, but in acceptance. As Smith puts it, "you need to lower your defenses."

Books, opera, and Bollywood

The subject of today's post is conversion experiences, an indifference or an outright aversion turning into a need, a craving. As longtime readers will know, I've had such experiences with individual works: the very first post on this blog was about my conversion experience with Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo. This time I'm going to discuss how encounters with particular works opened me up to three different artistic forms: Victorian literature, opera, and Bollywood films.

Victorian literature: Like many of us, I suppose, I first encountered Victorian novels in college. And while Great Expectations gave me a welcome break from my science textbooks, I wasn't compelled during college or in the years afterwards to further explore the world of the Victorian novel. So I managed to make it to early middle age without reading Jane Eyre, Vanity Fair, or Middlemarch.

And then I read Zadie Smith's essay on Middlemarch in Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays (Penguin Press, 2009), and, to paraphrase that essay, the scales fell from my eyes. It inspired me to immediately start reading Eliot's great novel; you can read my responses in "Three love problems: George Eliot's Middlemarch." Eliot led me to the amazingly rich novels of Anthony Trollope, a writer I had previously (and ignorantly) disdained for his overwhelming productivity, and then on to Thackeray, Wilkie Collins, the Brontës, and Elizabeth Gaskell. I've also since delved into the 18th-century precursors of Jane Austen such as Fanny Burney, Charlotte Lennox, Eliza Haywood, Elizabeth Inchbald, and Samuel Richardson. In short, almost all the novel-reading I've done over the past five years has grown from the seed of Middlemarch, for which I will always be grateful to Changing My Mind.

Opera: I've written before about being intrigued by a PBS broadcast of Jean-Pierre Ponelle's film of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro (The Marriage of Figaro) when I was a teenager. But for more than a decade afterwards I felt that opera was a form that had nothing to do with me. First, there was the sound of operatic singing, aptly described by soprano Renée Fleming as "a 'cultivated scream'"**—it just didn't appeal to me. Then there were the characters: druid priestesses, mad Scottish brides, sleepwalking village maidens, and incestuous demigoddesses with spears and horned helmets. And finally there was all of opera's cultural baggage: it was, and ever had been, an art form produced by and for the rich; these were most definitely Not My People.

But then we saw the Mark Morris Dance Group's production of Henry Purcell's Dido and Aeneas. The opera tells the story of Queen Dido's reckless love for the marooned Trojan warrior Aeneas, and her subsequent abandonment, despair and death. This opera was an oddity: it was by a composer we'd never heard of; it was composed in the 17th century, almost a hundred years before Le Nozze di Figaro; it was only an hour long; and it was sung in English. And—it was ravishing. 

After attending the opera—twice—we bought a recording of the work by the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, the group that had been the pit band for Morris's company. The role of Dido, sung by Judith Malafronte in the production we had seen, was sung on the recording by a singer then unknown to us, Lorraine Hunt. From that recording, here is Lorraine Hunt singing Dido's first aria, in which she tells her sister Belinda of the agitation she's felt since the arrival of the Trojan stranger:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX2avHeJpHE

The words (by librettist Nahum Tate) are, "Ah! Belinda, I am press'd / With torment not to be confess'd. / Peace and I are strangers grown; / I languish 'til my grief is known / Yet would not have it guess'd."

From that moment on, we sought out, almost obsessively, recordings and live performances of Baroque opera, starting with the wonderful Handel recordings by Lorraine Hunt and the Philharmonia Baroque. We moved backwards in time to Monteverdi's operas (Hunt gave a searing performance as Ottavia in L'incoronazione di Poppea at SF Opera), and then forwards to late 19th- and early 20th-century operas. If we  still haven't yet come to a full appreciation of the sort of operas that feature druid priestesses and mad Scottish brides, perhaps it's just a matter of time.

Bollywood movies: For many years I worked at a used bookstore. One of the great pleasures of the job was that while we were buying and selling books, we could play our favorite music in the background. A co-worker began bringing in compilations of songs from classic Bollywood soundtracks that he was picking up at the local flea market for two or three bucks apiece. The music was strange: the sound combined influences from both Indian and Western classical music, but also fifties and sixties pop, reggae, bossa nova. It was kind of cool, but also kind of grating, particularly the high-pitched women's voices. To my untutored ears they sounded piercing and shrill (I didn't know yet that the vocals on most of the tracks were supplied by only two women, Lata Mangeshkar or her younger sister Asha Bhosle), and, of course, I had no clue what they were singing about. As the weeks went by, "grating" began winning out over "cool."

But one Saturday morning I was flipping through TV channels looking for a sports event. Instead I happened across a clip of two lovers serenading one another in Hindi against a backdrop of snowy mountain peaks. We had stumbled across India Waves, a locally produced, super low-budget Bollywood clip show. We were bemused—the clips were rarely subtitled, so we could usually only guess at what was being sung, and were often shown incomplete or in the wrong aspect ratio—but we were also intrigued. We soon discovered other, similar shows such as Namaste America and Showbiz India, and found ourselves occasionally tuning in to one or another of these programs to pass the time on sleepy Saturday mornings.

Perhaps a year after we starting watching, clips from a new Bollywood movie set in New York City started to be shown. Bollywood songs filmed in Switzerland or New Zealand were strange enough, but seeing New York City in this context was somehow even stranger. But we liked the tunes—the high voices had ceased to bother us so much—and seeing the Brooklyn Bridge and Central Park used as the backdrop for Bollywood songs gave us a new perspective on familiar landmarks.

At the time my partner worked in downtown San Francisco, and once a week or so as she was exiting her usual BART station would stop to have her shoes shined at a stand owned by a guy named Dwayne. Dwayne always had music playing on his boombox, and one day my partner heard something strange but familiar: a song from that Bollywood movie set in New York. When my partner recognized the song, Dwayne asked her if she wanted to see the movie—he had a DVD that he would be happy to lend her. So a few nights later my partner came home from work and pulled out Kal Ho Naa Ho. Somehow the idea of actually watching a full-length Bollywood film had never occurred to me; without any idea of what to expect, and having no points of comparison, we slipped the disc into the DVD player.

It quickly became clear that the songs we thought we knew from our clip shows had different meanings in the context of the film. An example is "Kuch To Hua Hai" (Something has happened). By itself it seems to be a light, pleasant song about the joys of falling in love ("pyar" in Hindi). Both Naina (Preity Zinta, voiced by Alka Yagnik) and Rohit (Saif Ali Khan, voiced by Shaan) are singing about the way their new love has transformed them. But we learn in the film that while Rohit is singing about his love for Naina, she is singing about her love for someone else. And neither is aware of the other's feelings; when they discover their mutual misapprehension, emotional devastation will follow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWDiVU38lKg

At the end of the movie we were stunned, emotionally drained. Over the course of three hours, what had begun as a fast-paced urban romantic comedy had veered into pathos and tragedy and then back to comedy multiple times. And while there was a wedding, if the ending was happy why were our eyes filled with tears?

After Kal Ho Naa Ho (the title translates as "Tomorrow May Never Come"), we were completely hooked. Not only on the charismatic actors—particularly Shah Rukh Khan—but on a style of storytelling that was so unafraid of naked emotion. That was more than 10 years and 300 films ago; our appreciation of Indian films has since broadened into other regions, languages and time periods. But Kal Ho Naa Ho remains a touchstone for us—we still quote its dialogue to one another—and is often the movie we show curious friends to introduce them to Bollywood.

Coda: Joni Mitchell

To bring this post full circle, I have my own Joni Mitchell conversion experience to relate. I first encountered her songs during preteen summer camp sing-alongs: "Big Yellow Taxi," "Both Sides Now," "The Circle Game." But in high school and college, although I had friends who were big Joni fans, I thought her music was precious and hermetic. The lyrics of her most popular songs seemed to be about how bored she was while partying with other privileged people on Mykonos or in Spain, or about mean old daddies who somehow retained her affection, or about record company executives who wished they still lived in Paris. It was a world that didn't include me, or seem to want to. And so for several decades I stopped listening to, or caring about, her music.

And then about five years ago we rented a movie called Love Actually (2003, written and directed by Richard Curtis). The movie had a great cast—Colin Firth, Bill Nighy, Alan Rickman, Emma Thompson—and was entertaining enough, but possessed an artificiality bordering on the meretricious. There was nothing "actual" about the relationships it portrayed; they were entirely contrived and (to borrow a Bollywood term) filmi.

But there was one moment that rang emotionally true. During a Christmas Eve gift exchange with her husband, Thompson's character receives as his "special and personal" gift...a Joni Mitchell CD. Having earlier found an expensive necklace in his coat pocket, she faces the sudden realization that the necklace was not intended for her, but for another woman. She excuses herself for a moment, and as she fights to keep her composure, a Joni Mitchell song comes on the soundtrack: "Both Sides Now." Only this isn't Mitchell's folky version from 1969. Instead, it's orchestrated, much slower and more somber, and the world-weary vocalist sounds like Ann Peebles or Sharon Jones. The raw vocals floating over the strings perfectly heighten the emotion of the scene in the film. As it turned out, the vocalist was indeed Joni Mitchell; the version was from her 2000 album Both Sides Now, the very album that Emma Thompson's character has just received as a gift.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cBf0olE9Yc

Both Sides Now, with its lush arrangements of standards like "You're My Thrill" and "At Last," and its reworkings of the title song (from Clouds) and "A Case of You" (from Blue) has become a favorite album in our household. Decades after deciding that I no longer needed to listen to Joni Mitchell, a few moments in an otherwise forgettable film made me realize the importance of re-evaluating my judgments, revisiting my conclusions, and trying always to remain open to changing my mind.

---

* "Attunement" comes from the translation of Alastair Hannay, Penguin, 2005.

** Renee Fleming, The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer, Penguin, 2004, p. 40.

Why Chennai Express is disappointing

We're diehard Shah Rukh Khan fans, and think Deepika Padukone is often the best thing about the movies she's in (Exhibit A: Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (2013)). And we've been wondering how long it was going to take before a producer figured out that the charming jodi of Om Shanti Om (2007) should be reunited.

So why did we find Rohit Shetty's Chennai Express (2013) to be so disappointing? Let me count the ways:

1. It starts out as a parody of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, and ends up as a remake: The woman-running-for-the-train scene from DDLJ has been appropriated by many filmmakers, often with parodic intent. (For my money it was most effectively used in Dor (2006), where Ayesha Takia's character reaches out for the hand of Gul Panang.) Chennai Express offers the parody with a bit extra—four extra, in fact—and as Rahul (Shah Rukh) hauls person after person onto the train we have a growing (and well-founded) sense of foreboding:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-sSeyqyZvQ

This scene is also a quick introduction to Rohit Shetty's directorial style: present a joke, repeat it until it's no longer funny, and then keep repeating it in the hope that it starts to become funny again—which, amazingly enough, it often does.

The woman racing for the train is Meena (Deepika), and the DDLJ echoes should tell you how the rest of the film unfolds. Yes, there's a stern, unbending father, and yes, there's a violent and completely unsuitable guy to whom (against her will) Meena has been promised in marriage. Will Rahul and Meena fall in love, and will Rahul attempt to convince her stern, unbending father to agree to their marriage? If you don't know the answer to those questions, you're sentenced to a remedial viewing of DDLJ.

But just as DDLJ ends with a scene of violence that almost ruins the movie for me, so does Chennai Express. Only the scene in Chennai Express is far more violent and goes on far longer. While dishoom-dishoom has a long and unavoidable history in masala movies, the hyper-realism (spraying blood, thudding soundtrack) of the scene in Chennai Express kept my finger firmly on the fast-forward button. And why, apart from the DDLJ parallelism, is the heroine left to stand and helplessly watch the hero getting beaten up by a gang of thugs? Hema Malini's Geeta (from Seeta aur Geeta (1972)) or Fearless Nadia might have something to say to the filmmakers about that.

2. The lack of songs: "Great songs" is one of Beth Loves Bollywood's criteria for masala films, but Chennai Express felt song-poor to me. Of the film's seven songs, one is essentially background music and one (the Rajinikanth tribute "Lunghi Dance / Thalaiva") happens over the closing credits, leaving only five for the movie itself. 

Perhaps I'm mis-remembering, but I think only one dance number happens before the intermission, and it's an item. On a first listen, I didn't find Vishal-Shekar's efforts to be particularly memorable—at least, in a good way. Learning to say "hichaka-michaka" (from "1-2-3-4 Get On the Dance Floor") was fun, though.

And given that Chennai Express features two stars who can actually dance, if not perhaps quite at a Hrithik Roshan-Aishwarya Rai level, it felt like some opportunities were missed. Deepika has a few seconds of long-limbed gracefulness towards the end of "Titli," (at 3:25, to be precise), but it's not nearly enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8zXLMIjlcw

3. Where is the dil? In Veer-Zaara (2004), Shah Rukh's Veer impulsively decides to help Preity Zinta's Zaara on her road trip through India to immerse the ashes of her Hindu ayah. Since Zaara is a Pakistani Muslim, this tells us something about her loyalty, courage, and sense of familial obligation. And since Veer is an Indian Air Force officer, this tells us something about his humanity and sense of duty. And when Zaara asks Veer to participate in the immersion ritual, we know that a deep emotional bond has been formed between them.

In Chennai Express, Shah Rukh's Rahul (a joking reference to previous characters he's played in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1998) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001), among others) must immerse the ashes of his demanding, crotchety grandfather. Of course, Rahul learns that he must do the right thing and honor the wishes of the dead despite their shortcomings in life and his own inclinations to take the easy way out. But somehow, despite the significant looks exchanged by Rahul and Meena during the immersion, it just doesn't have the same resonance.

4. Throwing away the best bits, lingering on the worst: In the middle of the film one of its best scenes is thrown away. While they're staying together in Meena's father's crowded house, Rahul wants to see Meena alone for a few minutes to plan their escape. He scrawls "Meet me in the storeroom" on a piece of paper and throws it at her. She reads it, signals to him with her eyes, then crumples up the message and throws it away. Only, it hits someone else, who thinks that it's a message that Meena intends for him. Then he throws it away, and it hits someone else...Later, ten people arrive in the darkened storeroom, each seeking someone who is looking for someone else. It's a brilliant moment. I understand that it's an homage to a scene from Muthu, a 1995 Tamil film starring Rajinikanth and Meena, but it also echoes the garden scene in Act IV of Mozart's Marriage of Figaro. Alas, the scene is far too short and most of its comic potential is unrealized. And then Shetty moves on to another lengthy car chase, another confrontation with thugs, or another bit of slapstick.

So despite SRK's charm and Deepika's grace and beauty, Chennai Express sinks under the weight of a rehashed scenario, mediocre songs and picturizations, and way too much dishoom-dishoom. I recommend instead taking the local, and lingering over the better SRK films to which this one pays both too much and too little homage.

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani

The name Karan Johar in the credits of a film signals immediately that it will be glossy, formulaic and manipulative. I know this full well going in, and yet more often than not his movies still manage to sneak under my critical defenses.

It doesn't much matter whether he's listed as writer, director, or producer. The look, tone and content of most of the films he's involved with immediately announce them as a Karan Johar product, even if someone else is credited with the screenplay or direction.

That's certainly the case with the Johar-written Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Never Come, 2003), which was the first Bollywood film I ever saw, and which to this day remains one of my favorite movies. Nikil Advani directed KHNH, but as his post-KHNH career has demonstrated either he had an incredible case of beginner's luck or he was getting constant input and advice from Johar. (Advani was Johar's assistant director on Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something's Happening, 1998) and Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Sometimes Joy, Sometimes Sorrow, 2001).)

One reason I mention KHNH is because it established or continued tropes that Johar's films have frequently returned to since. Dostana (Friendship, 2008) and Student of the Year (2012) center on love triangles (as does his first film, KKHH), while Wake Up Sid (2009), I Hate Luv Storys (2010), and Ek Main aur Ek Tu (One Me and One You, 2012) feature opposites-attract main couples. All of the films focus on the struggles of their characters to find their paths in adult life in the decade following their graduation from college.

To this list of KHNH descendants add Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (These Young People Are Crazy, 2013). Naina—Deepika Padukone in one of her best performances—is a shy, bespectacled medical student. On impulse she joins a Himalayan trek with a group of her former college friends including the free-spirited Aditi (Kalki Koehlin) and the troubled Avi (Aditya Roy Kapur).

Also along on the trip is the popular, extroverted Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor). He seems to possess everything that Naina feels she lacks: confidence, social ease, spontaneity, fearlessness, good looks. Of course, Naina falls hopelessly in love with him, although Bunny is unaware of her feelings, or perhaps dismisses them as just another crush. Fate intervenes, and the two are separated, seemingly forever.

Naina and Bunny are very reminiscent of KHNH's shy, bespectacled MBA student Naina (Preity Zinta) and the object of her secret love, the popular, extroverted Aman (Shah Rukh Khan). The two Nainas are even given the same nickname by their crushes, "chashmish" (please forgive any spelling error; it's translated as "specsy" in the subtitles of KHNH):

Naina (Deepika Padukone, YJHD)

Naina (Preity Zinta, KHNH)

Eight years later, at Aditi's ultra-lavish wedding, Naina and Bunny are unexpectedly reunited. And at this point there are strong echoes of another Karan Johar film. Like the heroine of KKHH, Anjali, Naina has apparently carried a smoldering torch for her clueless crush for eight years. But this time Bunny begins to see her with new eyes, and has a familiar question for her:

Bunny and Naina reunite after 8 years (YJHD)

Anjali (Kajol) and Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) reunite after 8 years (KKHH)

But despite all the parallels, which writer/director Ayan Mukerji underscores with all the subtlety of hot pink highlighter, YJHD isn't a remake of either KKHH or KHNH—quite. Unilke KKHH's Anjali, the smart, accomplished and gorgeous Naina somehow doesn't have another man in her life. And unlike KHNH's Aman, Bunny doesn't have a life-threatening disease, he's got a relationship-threatening aversion to commitment.

There are many good things in YJHD. Deepika, cast against type, gives an utterly believable and highly affecting performance as Naina, and her chemistry with Ranbir seems very real. Ranbir, although his role plays more to type than cutting against it, also convinces as Bunny, a guy who is single-mindedly focused on his dreams of travel and adventure. And when Mukerji's script isn't cribbing from other movies (and sometimes when it is), it gives Deepika and Ranbir several heartbreaking scenes together.

It's also great to see some veterans given screen time, and making the most of it. Farooq Shaikh (of the classics Umrao Jaan (1981), Chashme Buddoor (1981) and Katha (1983), among many other films) plays Bunny's father, who, despite their conflicts, helps him realize his dreams. And although her "surprise" item number was highly publicized before the film's release, watching Madhuri Dixit dance is always a pleasure:

However, I want to talk a bit about the ending of the film, so If you haven't yet seen YJHD, be aware that spoilers follow.

Deepika gives such a moving performance as Naina that we want above all else at the end of the film to see her happy. And the film supplies us with what is intended to be a happy ending. But when Bunny gives up the dream job he's been working towards for eight years to be with Naina, my logical centers started to kick in. This seems like a surefire recipe for resentment and recriminations once the honeymoon has worn off. As Bunny himself realizes,

While it's unusual (and partly redresses an immense imbalance) to see the man making sacrifices for the couple, rather than (as is so often the case) the woman, I think Naina and Bunny will be facing some major issues in the not-too-distant future. Just to be perfectly clear, I would think the same thing if being with Bunny required Naina to give up her medical practice. I'm just not sure I see a way for this couple to be together and for both partners to be fulfilled.

Unless Bunny can somehow learn to take Naina's wisdom to heart. If Bunny ever goes looking for his heart's desire, he probably doesn't need to look any further than sharing a gorgeous sunset over Udaipur with Deepika Padukone:

Don 2

Don 2 (2011) has a built-in problem. In writer/director Farhan Akhtar's Don: The Chase Begins Again (2006), the remake-with-a-twist of the original Don (1978), good-hearted street performer Vijay (Shah Rukh Khan) is coerced into impersonating the criminal mastermind Don (also Shah Rukh Khan). It's a clever story (devised for Amitabh Bachchan in the original film by Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar, father of Farhan) that allows us to have it both ways: we can vicariously revel in the transgressive criminal actions of Don, while at the same time rooting for the good guy Vijay. It's not only the audience that experiences some cognitive dissonance: the beautiful Roma (Priyanka Chopra), who wants to kill Don in revenge for her brother Ramesh's death, finds herself instead falling in love with Vijay-Don.

There's no way for me to discuss this without a spoiler, so be forewarned, but at the end of Don: TCBA

—spoiler alert!—

we discover that Vijay was murdered by Don before he could take his place. So throughout the second half of the film, we think we're rooting for Vijay, but in the final shots of the film we discover that all along we've been pulling for Don, who was impersonating Vijay impersonating Don. With Vijay dead,

—end of spoiler—

Don 2 leaves us only with Don himself, which is the problem. Don is a pretty nasty customer—Shah Rukh's fabled charm is not much in evidence. The only thing that gives us any interest in the outcome of Don's elaborate heist at the Deutsche Zentralbank is that every other criminal in the film is even nastier. Along with a sympathetic main character, gone are the clever Infernal Affairs-like plot twists from Don: TCBA. Instead, Farhan Akhtar gives us an efficient recounting of the planning and execution of the theft. It's almost disappointingly straightforward. It also leaves very little room for songs, unlike Don: TCBA, whose remixed/remodelled soundtrack borrowed liberally from the 1978 film.

It was nice to see the underused Kunal Kapoor as Sameer, a reformed hacker who agrees to one last job for his wife and unborn son. But that's about it for subplots. The unfinished business between Don and Roma (who apparently still has residual feelings for Don despite Ramesh, who is barely alluded to) and between Don and criminal rival Vardaan (Boman Irani, who is given very little to do other than glower), isn't allowed to distract from the car chases, gun battles, explosions, and other standard action-movie sequences. But despite the high-tech slickness of the filmmaking, the object of the heist—currency printing plates—seems almost quaint. And (mild spoiler alert) the way Don eludes arrest at the end is simply lame.

Of course, the filmmakers have to leave their options open for another sequel. I found Don 2 to be an entertaining enough watch on a summer evening, but perhaps the point of diminishing returns has been reached for this franchise.

Bollywood Heroes: Ram vs. Krishna Part 2

A continuation of Bollywood heroes: Ram vs. Krishna Part 1.

I had thought that it would be be easy to find examples of boyish, ardent Krishna-heroes. But it's surprisingly hard to come up with pure Krishnas; as I mentioned in Part 1, mischievous Krishna-heroes often transform into steadfast Ram-heroes by the end of the movie. When they don't undergo this transformation (and sometimes when they do), the happy ending generally eludes them. Krishna and Radha may be invoked at Indian weddings as a model of passionate love, but in Bollywood it is Ram who usually gets the girl.

Krishnas and Krishna-Rams include:  

Akash (Salman Khan) in Saajan (Beloved, 1990): Akash is a love-'em-and-leave-'em type who falls for Pooja (Madhuri Dixit), a poetry-loving woman who thinks he is the pseudonymous bard Sagar (Ram-hero Sanjay Dutt). Really, he's Sagar's playboy stepbrother—but from complicated motives of his own, Sagar decides to continue the deception. The parallels to Cyrano de Bergerac are entirely intentional.  

Prem (Salman Khan) in Hum Aapke Hain Koun...! (Who am I to you?, 1994): Both Prem and Nisha (the Radha-heroine played by Madhuri Dixit) abundantly demonstrate their mischievous, fun-loving natures in the gender-bending "Didi Tera Devar Deewana" (Sister, your brother-in-law is crazy), sung by Nisha to her sister Pooja (Renuka Shahane) during Pooja's engagement festivities. No subtitles—if you're curious, begin watching the full movie at the 1:40:15 mark and click the CC button—but the action shouldn't require too much explanation, even without them:

(By the way, I believe the woman who mockingly dresses as Salman in the clip is Sahila Chadda.) 


Sameer (Salman Khan) in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (My heart belongs to you, 1999): Was Salman getting typecast? Here he plays a prankish musician (Krishna is, of course, associated with the flute) who falls in love with Radha-heroine Nandini (Aishwarya Rai), the daughter of his music teacher. Her father has other plans for her, though. In "Aankhon ki Masti" (The impertinence of my eyes), Sameer and Nandini flirt, tease, and fantasize to the prominent accompaniment of a flute:

Raja (Aamir Khan) in Dil (Heart, 1990) is a callow college boy who spends his time partying and playing pranks on Madhu (Madhuri Dixit). Can a true love and a Ram-transformation be far behind?  

Akash (Aamir Khan) in Dil Chahta Hai (What the heart wants, 2001): Another Akash, another love-'em-and-leave-'em type. Akash thinks it's funny to make Shalini (Preity Zinta) think that he's proposing to her in earnest. Later, though, after a chance encounter with the now really engaged Shalini, Akash's inner Ram begins to awaken...  

Rahul (Saif Ali Khan) in Kya Kehna (What is there to say?, 1998/2000): Ah, college. Where students pass their time in dance competitions, motorcycle jumping, and pre-marital sex. Priya (Preity Zinta) unwisely yields to her powerful attraction to daredevil Rahul, whose hair distressingly changes length from scene to scene. When she discovers that she's pregnant, Rahul cruelly rejects her. After Priya gives birth to their child, though, Rahul realizes that he truly loves her after all. Priya must then choose between her best friend Ajay (Chandrachur Singh), a steadfast Ram, and the repentant Krishna Rahul. If only Rahul had watched Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam first...  

Rahul (Shah Rukh Khan) in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something is happening, 1998): Krishna is usually associated with music, and indeed Rahul, his best friend Anjali (Kajol) and his main squeeze Tina (Rani Mukherjee) whip up on the spot the tightly choreographed dance competition number "Koi Mil Gaya" (I found someone). Only, Anjali makes the painful discovery that she's the odd girl out in this triangle. Eight years later Rahul, now a widower, discovers his Ram-itude when his daughter reunites him with Anjali. Only, his inner Krishna keeps bubbling to the surface...  

Raj (Shah Rukh Khan) in Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The brave heart wins the bride, 1995): Raj starts out as a fun-loving prankster, and in an early version of the script (according to Anupama Chopra's book on the film) a lover as well: in his first encounter with the baleful Baldev (Amrish Puri), Raj was looking for condoms, not beer. But after a series of teasing encounters with Baldev's daughter Simran (Kajol) on a Eurail vacation, he realizes that he's found true love. He follows her to India, but after the interval becomes more and more of a Ram. He's got to win the bride, doesn't he?

Aman (Shah Rukh Khan) in Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow may never come, 2003): Aman is a ringer, because while on the surface he's a classic Krishna (musical, teasing, mischievous), underneath he's really solid Ram—so devoted to Naina (Preity Zinta) that he tries to engineer her marriage to her friend Rohit (Saif Ali Khan, in one of his best performances). Why would he do such a thing? Because a Ram is nothing if not self-sacrificing, even if he's convincingly disguised as a Krishna.  

Devdas (Shah Rukh Khan) in Devdas (2002): This film is super-saturated with Krishna-Radha imagery: childhood sweethearts Devdas and Paro (Aishwarya Rai) reunite as young adults, but it doesn't end well. The Krishna-Radha parallels are perhaps most glaringly apparent in "More piya": as Paro's mother Sumitra performs a song about "Krishna and Radha in the Dance of Love" on the banks of the River Yamuna, Devdas accosts Paro on the banks of their local stream.

As I wrote in In Defense of Devdas, "The invocations of Krishna and Radha in Sumitra's song and the prominence of the flute (Krishna's instrument) in the Devdas-Paro sequences, plus the the explicit symbolism (the river bank, the water jugs, and the way Devdas removes Paro's jewelry and veil as a husband removes his bride's on their wedding night) leave no doubt about what takes place between Devdas and Paro." Alas, Devdas' mischievous nature and inconstancy bring tragedy to both of them.

SRK deserves a special award for portraying Suri and Raj in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (A match made in Heaven, 2009): While many actors have portrayed characters with diametrically opposed personalities, usually the conceit is that they are twins separated at birth (see Ram aur Shyam (1967) or Seeta aur Geeta (1972)). But in RNBDJ, both roles are really the same person. Suri is the quiet, devoted and dutiful Ram-hero who lives like brother and sister with his wife Taani (Anushka Sharma). Raj is the brash, loud, flirtatious and flashy Krishna-hero that Taani encounters when she enters a Bollywood dance class. What Taani doesn't realize is that Raj is Suri in disguise, determined to win her love: in an inversion of the usual pattern, Ram has become Krishna. Only he succeeds all too well, and Taani must make a Radha- vs. Sita-like choice to follow her heart or fulfill her duty to a husband she doesn't think she loves...  

The new generation

Of newer heroes, it seems like Imran Khan is (like his uncle Aamir) often primarily Ram (as in Jaane Tu...Ya Jaane Na (Whether you know...or not, 2008), Break Ke Baad (After the break, 2010) and Mere Brother Ki Dulhan (My brother's bride, 2011), while Ranbir Kapoor is generally Krishna (as in Bachna Ae Haseeno (Beware beauties, 2008), Wake Up Sid (2009), and Anjaana Anjaani (Strangers, 2010)), and Ranveer Singh seems Krishna-like in both his roles so far (Band Baaja Baaraat (Bands, horns, revelry, 2010), Ladies vs. Ricky Bahl (2011)).

Classic heroes

The subject of a book-length study, probably, for which I am spectacularly unqualified.

Bollywood Heroes: Ram vs. Krishna Part 1

I'm sure this observation isn't original, but I've noticed that Bollywood heroes can often be categorized as either Krishna or Ram. Krishna, of course, is the playful, flirtatious, mischievous, teasing god of love, and Ram is the righteous, virtuous, steadfast, upright god of duty and devotion.

Of course, like every dichotomy, this one is a bit false, since Ram and Krishna are both avatars of Vishnu (Ram the seventh, and Krishna the eighth or ninth). And not every hero belongs unambiguously to one category or the other: some heroes move from one category to the other over the course of a film (usually from Krishna to Ram), and some exhibit elements of both at the same time. But this rough division seems to hold true pretty often. Latter-day Rams include:

Major Ram (Shah Rukh Khan) in Main Hoon Na (I'm Here Now, 2004): Yes, just in case we missed the point, this Ram-hero is actually named Ram. And if that isn't enough to clue us in, he has a brother named Lakshman (Zayed Khan). SRK has also frequently played Krishna-heroes, as we'll see in Part 2.

Veer (Shah Rukh Khan) in Veer-Zaara (2004): So noble that he agrees to spend his life in prison rather than elope with Zaara (Preity Zinta) against her parents' will. Or as Ajnabi has it, "I Lived Twenty Years on a Week of Love".

Veer (Salman Khan) in Veer (2010): Like Ram, Veer goes into exile and leads a battle against a demon king—in this case, British collaborator Gyanendra Singh (Jackie Shroff).

Veer (Saif Ali Khan) in Love Aaj Kal (2009): So Ram-like that he decides to marry Harleen (Giselli Monteiro) before he even speaks to her, and remains steadfast in his desire despite being beaten up by her relatives.

Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) in Lagaan (Land Tax, 2001): Bhuvan organizes a group of villagers to play a cricket match against a crack team of British oppressors. Even though the villagers have never played the game, have no equipment and don't know the rules, the British are no match for Bhuvan's Ram-ity. Along the way the sister of one of the British occupiers (Rachel Shelley) falls in love with him, but she should have realized that Bhuvan-Ram could only remain true to his simple village girl Gauri (Gracy Singh).

Sriram (Sumanth) in Godavari (2006): Another hero named after Ram; to add to the symbolism, his heroine (Kamalinee Mukherjee) is named Seeta and they are travelling together down the Godavari River to the Sri Rama temple at Bhadrachalam. This Ram winds up committing a blunder that threatens his union with Seeta, but I seem to recall that Lord Ram makes a few questionable decisions too.

Vanraj (Ajay Devgan) in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (My Heart Belongs to You, 1999): Vanraj discovers the unwelcome news that his new wife Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) married him against her will; she loves Sameer (Salman Khan as the Krishna-hero) instead. Vanraj then takes Nandini to Italy to try to reunite her with Sameer—now that's devotion! Along the way, Nandini discovers new feelings beginning to stir. In many films the Krishna-hero undergoes a transformation over the course of the movie into a Ram-hero; in this case, a Radha-heroine begins to transform into Sita...

Aditya (Shahid Kapoor) in Jab We Met (When We Met, 2007): Like Vanraj, Aditya also falls in love with a woman (Geet, played by Kareena Kapoor) who loves another man. And also like Vanraj, he does everything in his power to bring them together. Fortunately for Aditya, the man Geet loves is more Raavan than Krishna.

Prem (Shahid Kapoor) in Vivah (Marriage, 2006): On the eve of her marriage to Prem, the lovely Poonam (the lovely Amrita Rao) is terribly burned while rescuing her sister from a raging house fire. Prem, hearing of the disaster, rushes to the hospital. In an inversion of the Sita-Ram story, the trial by fire becomes a test of Prem's worthiness of Poonam:

That it is Prem, and not Poonam, who is tested is another reason I love this movie; see my commentary on it at Bollywood Rewatch 2: Vivah and India's Missing Daughters.

Thanks to Rajshri Films, you can watch Vivah on YouTube, with English subtitles (but at low resolution) for free.

Next time: Krishna-heroes.

The Top 10 Shah Rukh Khan movies

This morning Geet TV presented the Top 10 Shah Rukh Khan movies as voted by visitors to the Namaste America website.

Shah Rukh is the reason we began watching Bollywood films. Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Never Come, 2003) and Devdas (2002) were the first and second Bollywood movies we saw, and we were immediately hooked. We have since seen more than 40 of SRK's films; the Internet Movie Database lists 77 movies in which he has appeared as an actor, but that list includes special appearances, voiceovers, and movies that haven't yet been released. So we've probably seen at least two-thirds of the movies in which he has a major role (though we haven't yet seen either of his movies from last year, Ra.One and Don 2).

The results of the vote by the viewers of Namaste America were eyebrow-raising; here they are, in ascending order, with my comments:

10. Main Hoon Na (I'm Here Now, 2004): While for my taste this movie is a bit heavy on the masala—it's a college comedy crossed with a terrorist thriller, with a couple love stories and a father-daughter reconciliation thrown in for good measure—it belongs on this list for the wonderful musical numbers choreographed by writer/director Farah Khan. As bonuses it has the adorable Amrita Rao and, as SRK's love interest, Sushmita Sen (a pity that she and SRK don't work together more often). As a taste, here is "Tumse Milke" (if after clicking play the English subtitles don't appear automatically after 45 seconds, click on the CC button on the bottom bar):

9. Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi (A Match Made In Heaven, 2008): On my list of favorite SRK films, this one is now in the top five. It took a while to grow on me, but I think it has one of SRK's strongest performances. He plays Suri, a shy, plain office worker who, with the aid of his hairstylist buddy Bobby (Vinay Pathak), secretly transforms himself into the brash filmi-style hero "Raj" in order to win the love of his estranged young wife Taani (the delightful Anushka Sharma in her first film). Of course, the plan backfires in a big way; the scene where Tani confesses her awakening feelings to Raj is devastating.

In "Phir Milenge Chalte Chalte" SRK pays homage to Golden and Silver Age Bollywood heroes and heroines; SRK's partners are Kajol, Bipasha Basu, Lara Dutta, Preity Zinta, and Rani Mukherjee:

I have also written a full-length post on RNBDJ.

8. Mohabbatein (Love Stories, 2000): A teacher (SRK) carrying a secret returns to the boarding school where he was once a student and confronts its strict headmaster (Amitabh Bachchan). We rewatched Mohabbatein recently, and found it more enjoyable the second time; still, I think I might put the tender supernatural fable Paheli (Confusion, 2005) in this slot. Here is Paheli's "Khali Hai Tere Bina," with SRK and Rani Mukherjee:

7. Don (2006): Farhan Akhtar's slick remake-with-a-twist of the classic Amitabh Bachchan movie from 1978 is entertaining enough, but it wouldn't come close to making my SRK Top 10. Instead I think this slot should belong to Om Shanti Om (2007), which is inexplicably missing from the viewers' list.

OSO features SRK in a dual role as a struggling junior artiste in 1970s Bollywood and as his reincarnation as a modern Bollywood superstar. Along the way we get hilarious parodies of both Silver Age and contemporary Bollywood. As an example, here's "Dhoom Taana," which features the lovely Deepika Padukone in her first major role (no subtitles, alas: clicking the CC button will only get you an English phonetic "translation" of the lyrics):

6. Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Never Come, 2003): This would be Number 1 on my list. As I wrote in my earlier post "Bollywood for the Curious": "The clever script, appealing stars and razor-sharp editing make KHNH an excellent candidate for a Bollywood conversion experience. It's a film that gets better with multiple viewings, as more of its Bollywood in-jokes become comprehensible. But while it's fun to get the references, we can attest that the movie is also highly enjoyable without any previous experience of Bollywood." Here is the title song, with SRK, Saif Ali Khan, and Preity Zinta:

5. My Name Is Khan (2010): I don't quite know what to make of this choice. I thought this Karan Johar-directed film was well-meaning, and that SRK did an amazing job in the role of Rizwan Khan, a man with Asperger's Syndrome whose stepson is the victim of a hate attack after 9/11. The movie also stars Kajol, whose onscreen chemistry with SRK is justly famous.

Still, I thought My Name Is Khan took on too many issues too superficially (if Asperger's, 9/11 and anti-Muslim prejudice aren't enough, there's an extended Hurricane Katrina sequence and a nod to the 2008 presidential election). Despite its positive qualities, this movie wouldn't make my SRK Top 10.

Instead, I'd put Veer-Zaara (2004) here. It's the impossibly romantic story of Veer, an Indian man (SRK) and Zaara, a Pakistani woman (Preity Zinta), who are separated by the political divisions between their countries. Yash Chopra's lush, sweeping direction is especially apparent in "Aise Des Hai Mere" (if after clicking play the English subtitles don't automatically appear, click the CC button on the bottom bar):

4. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (Sometimes Joy, Sometimes Sorrow, 2001): This has to be on this list somewhere, if only for the songs, but Number 4? For me this would just squeak on at Number 9 or 10. Director Karan Johar pulled out all the stops on this multi-starrer, but the final result leaves me less moved than I suspect I'm intended to be. We do get to see SRK and Kajol, along with Amitabh Bachchan (reprising his Stern Dad role from Mohabbatein) and Jaya Bachchan, and the young Hrithik Roshan and Kareena Kapoor. For me, though, it adds up to less than the sum of its parts. Still, the big-budget treatment of the songs is highly effective, as in "Yeh Ladka Hai Allah":

3. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (The Brave Heart Will Win The Bride, 1995): As with its placement in Namaste America's list of the Top Ten Bollywood Love Stories since 1990, I'm only amazed that this didn't come in higher. The movie that made SRK a superstar, it remains a classic. It's marred for me, though, by the violent final scenes. Still, the Jatin-Lalit songs are excellent and SRK and Kajol are unforgettable together, as in "Mehndi Laga Ke Rakhna" (apologies for the lack of subtitles on this latest version from Yash Raj Films):

As I wrote in my post "Having it both ways: Bollywood contradictions", "I also love how, when Raj sings 'Keep your eyes downcast,' Simran looks straight into his eyes."

2. Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Is Happening, 1998): Another great SRK-Kajol pairing; there's a good reason why four of the top five films on this list feature this famous jodi. Probably the third or fourth Bollywood film we saw, it remains among my favorite SRK films; my partner and I still quote the gazebo scene to one another. Here's the title song, with SRK, Rani, and Kajol:

1. Devdas (2002): And I thought I was the only one who appreciated this amazing film; see "In defense of Devdas, the movie everyone loves to hate". It wouldn't be my Number 1—that honor belongs to Kal Ho Naa Ho—but it's definitely in my top three or four. Here is "Kahe Chhed Mohe," my Platonic ideal of a Bollywood dance number, which features the exquisite Madhuri Dixit as the courtesan Chandramukhi:

Missing from the list: Apart from the films mentioned above, I was a bit surprised that Dil Se (From the Heart, 1998) didn't make it onto the list, as it has the famous SRK-dancing-on-top-of-the-train number "Chaiyya Chaiyya"; it's the fourth entry on "Why I Love Bollywood: The Playlist". SRK gave an excellent performance as coach Kabir Khan in Chak De! India (Come on, India! 2009), the thinly fictionalized story of the Indian women's field hockey team at the 2002 Commonwealth Games. Given the patriotic, uplifting story, I wonder why more viewers didn't vote for it—perhaps the lack of songs hurt its chances. Also, a good argument for inclusion could be made for Swades (2004), and I think the forthright Kabhie Alvida Naa Kehna (Never Say Goodbye, 2005) is underrated.