What's Love Got To Do With It?

Poster for What's Love Got To Do With It? (2022). Image source: IMDB.com

The marriage crisis

Marriage is in an ongoing state of crisis. People are choosing to wait longer before they marry—median age at first marriage is now in the 30s for both men and women in the UK—and more are choosing never to get married at all. Although in the U.S. the legal right to marry was extended in 2015 to gay and lesbian couples in all 50 states, the number of marriages per 1,000 people is entering its fifth decade of decline: in 1980, there were 10.6 marriages per 1,000 people, while in 2020 there were around 5 (a COVID low; the number has since rebounded to around 6, but the long-term trend is steady decline). The marriage rate has fallen even though the percentage of people of marriageable age has increased over the same span, from around two-thirds to almost three-quarters of the population.

U.S. marriages per 1,000 people, 1980-2022. Data source: Provisional number of marriages and marriage rate, United States 2000-2022, CDC/NCHS National Vital Statistics System; Sally C. Curtin and Paul D. Sutton, Marriage rates in the United States, 1900-2018, NCHS Health E-Stat, 2020.

One reason for more women choosing to remain unmarried may be that, as Clementina Ford writes,

Marriage is not now and never has been designed with women's happiness in mind — and yet we're told that without it, we will be miserable. As any sociologist can tell you, it's men who benefit from marriage: they live longer, they are generally healthier and happier, and their economic prospects improve [compared to single men]. On the other hand, studies have shown that married women die earlier. [1]

Ford is citing a study of 100,000 Europeans that found that marriage adds 1.7 years to the average husband's lifespan, and subtracts 1.4 years from the average wife's. [2]

As marriage rates have fallen, so have divorce rates, but they are still proportionately high: in the U.S., the divorce rate fell from 5.2 per 1,000 people in 1980 (49% of the 1980 marriage rate) to 2.3 in 2020 (45% of the 2020 marriage rate). In other words, roughly speaking, for every two marriages there's one divorce. Let me just say that I would not get on a plane if I had little better than a 50% chance of making it to my destination.

Share of marriages ending in divorce in the US, by year of marriage. Image source: Our World in Data

Given our spectacularly poor track record at picking people who will be good, fulfilling, and reliable partners in the long term, shouldn't we seek assistance in making that choice? Two recent phenomena reflect this idea:

• Marriage Pact: Begun at Stanford in 2017 as an undergraduate project, Marriage Pact is an algorithmic matchmaking service. According to a recent story in the San Jose Mercury News, each participant fills out a 50-question survey about their "core values," such as "communication styles and conflict resolution. Smoking and drug habits. And things like: 'If you do nothing for an entire day, how do you feel?' On a 1 to 7 scale, 'like a lard' is 1 and 'like royalty' is 7."
  
  
  
  No pictures or swiping are involved. Each participant receives one name, an email address, and a percentage: their highest-rated match among fellow participants. The marriage pact is a pledge to marry your algorithmic best match if you don't find someone better by a mutually-agreed date—a kind of marital backup plan. It has now spread to nearly 90 campuses around the country.
  
  According to the San Jose Mercury News story, of the nearly half-million participants to date, "a tiny fraction land in long-term relationships, even marriage." But the creators claim that 30% of the matches meet in person, and one-ninth of those wind up dating for a year or more. If those numbers are true, that's a 3.3% relationship success rate, or 33 out of 1,000 participants. With a current U.S. marriage rate of 6 per 1,000 people, on your own you could do a lot worse.

• Indian Matchmaking: A 2020–23 Netflix reality series created by the Indian-American documentary director Smriti Mundhra, Indian Matchmaking features Sima Taparia, a Mumbai-based "marriage consultant." Mundhra had featured Taparia in her 2017 documentary A Suitable Girl (co-directed with Sarita Khurana), which followed the efforts of three middle-class families to find husbands for their college-educated daughters.
  
  
  One of the families was Taparia's, and we watch her struggling to succeed as a matchmaker for her own daughter, Ritu (who would prefer to continue her career in financial services).
  
  The TV series follows Taparia's efforts to find acceptable matches for multiple clients each season. In a Guardian article a viewer criticized the first season as a "cesspool of casteism, colourism, sexism, classism." Women must come from a "good" (i.e., high-caste) family and be light-skinned, slim, and at least average in height; "the prospects for women who are dark-skinned, overweight, or under 1.6 metres (5ft 3ins) are presented as bleak, if not a lost cause entirely." Women are also subject to "moral policing": they must not have an extensive romantic history, or children from previous relationships. An NPR story reports that in Season 3 the series introduces "Priya, a pretty 35-year-old who is dating after a divorce and worries that men she encounters think she is 'broken.'"
  
  
  Mundhar has now created a spinoff, Jewish Matchmaking, which dropped on May 3 of this year. Can Poly Matchmaking be far behind?
  

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Many of us could clearly use some help in finding good romantic partners. Which brings us to What's Love Got To Do With It?, the 2022 feature film written by Jemima Khan and directed by Shekhar Kapur. [3]

The film starts promisingly. Zoe (Lily James), an "award-winning documentary filmmaker" (is there any other kind?) has grown up with her Anglo-Pakistani next-door neighbor Kazim (Shazad Latif). When Zoe finds Kaz at his brother's wedding, sneaking a cigarette in their childhood backyard treehouse, he confesses that he is ready to settle down and is willing to try to find a Pakistani bride through an arranged marriage: "Well, 'assisted marriage.' That's what we're calling it these days." Zoe is initially incredulous—"What, like assisted suicide?"—but then decides that Kaz's search for a wife will be the perfect subject for her next film.

Shazad Latif (Kazim Khan) and Zoe Stevenson (Lily James) in What's Love Got To Do With It?. Image source: Greg King's Film Reviews

Zoe herself is starting to feel that it would be nice to have a relationship that lasts longer than a weekend. But despite (or perhaps because) of these feelings, she continues bonking men she's just met in bars, waking up in strangers' beds, and shying away from a handsome, kind veterinarian (Oliver Chris) she meets through her mother's dog's misadventures. Her desire to be in a couple is more than cancelled out by her fear of commitment; while she's looking for Mr. Right, she seems only to be attracted to Mr. Wrongs.

Of course, unlike the characters we can see exactly where this story is heading, but there's a good deal of pleasure in getting there. In the initial part of the film the humor in Khan's script can be delightfully pointed, as in Zoe's clueless but well-meaning mother Cath (Emma Thompson) calling the wedding celebrations "exotic" ("'Exotic' meaning good foreign rather than threatening foreign?" asks Zoe. "Yeah, exactly," responds Cath).

Cath Stevenson (Emma Thompson) in What's Love Got To Do With It?. Image source: Cinema Clock

Or Zoe's white male producers (Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen) gradually becoming more interested in Zoe's proposed film about Kaz as they run through possible working titles ("My Big Fat Arranged Wedding"; "Meet the Parents—First"; "I Hope She's A Pretty Woman") and check off the funding boxes: "Eth? Tick. Female director? Double tick." (The white producers later critique her film as being shot through a "white lens"—evidently not "eth" enough.)

And although Zoe defends the practice of arranged marriage to the producers, in conversation with Kaz she's still skeptical. When he says of arranged marriages that "over time, you grow to love the person you're with," she responds, "What, like Stockholm Syndrome?" When, on the way to an appointment with the Muslim matchmaker (Asim Chaudry) hired by his parents (Jeff Mirza and E&I favorite Shabana Azmi), Zoe asks Kaz the difference between using a matchmaker and using a dating app, Kaz says "I suppose you could call it a bespoke, 3D, halal Tinder. Operated by your parents."

Kaz's parents Aisha Khan (Shabana Azmi) and Zahid Khan (Jeff Mirza) in What's Love Got To Do With It?. Image source: Firstpost

When the matchmaker Mo asks asks what they are looking for, Kaz's mother Aisha brings out the stereotypical criteria: "A girl from the same. . .background, soft-spoken, long hair. Not too dark." Kaz's father wants the bridal prospects to have complexions no darker than "wheatish." The film's portrayal of reflexive color prejudice is all too real.

Kaz soon begins to meet over Skype with Maymouna (Sajal Aly), a lovely young Pakistani woman. Of course, both sets of parents are hovering in the background the whole time, and can't help themselves from interjecting regularly. But perhaps Maymouna is not quite so chaste and demure as she appears, and has her own agenda. . .

Maymouna (Sajal Aly) and family in What's Love Got To Do With It?. Image source: Variety

The most treacherous moment in any romantic comedy, though, is the ending, and there's no way to talk about where the movie goes wrong without spoilers. So if you want to avoid them, please skip the next two paragraphs:

• Spoiler 1: There's a subplot featuring Kaz's sister Jamila (Mariam Haque), who has become estranged from her parents and the family matriarch Nani Jan (Pakiza Baig) because they have rejected her marriage a non-Muslim white man. Towards the end of the film Kaz invites Jamila to the family Eid celebration without telling his parents or Nani Jan. When Jamila arrives, she has her husband and new baby in tow. Of course, fulfilling her traditional role as mother instantly erases all discord, and Jamila, her husband and baby are welcomed back into the family. This feels like a reinforcement, rather than a critique, of motherhood as a woman's destiny.

• Spoiler 2: When it comes time for the main characters to figure out the pairing that has been obvious to the audience from the first scenes, there are a couple of problems. Since Zoe and Kaz have grown up together like sister and brother (although we do learn that as kids they shared their first kiss), when they finally start thinking about each other romantically it seems queasily semi-incestuous. And the big kiss they exchange just before fadeout is anything but electric. Since movies are shot out of sequence, my guess is that Kapur unwisely shot the kiss early in the filming schedule, before the actors had gotten to know and feel comfortable with each other. Perhaps the lack of spark is a deliberate directorial choice, signalling the difficulties and awkwardnesses that lie ahead for the couple. But a sense of difficulty and awkwardness is not the final impression that most romantic comedies want to leave with their audience.

—End of spoilers—

What's Love Got To Do With It? is worth seeing for the witty first 90 minutes or so of Khan's script, the performances of Lily James and Shazad Latif as people who only slowly come to realize that their best match may be right next to them, and the pleasures of watching veteran actors Thompson and Azmi as their mothers. As with many romantic comedies the ending doesn't quite fulfill the film's early promise. On the other hand, you could do a lot worse.

https://youtu.be/0LqOp2MNwao

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1. Christina Ford, "Marriage is an inherently misogynistic institution—so why do women agree to it?" The Guardian, 30 October 2023.
2. Roger Dobson, "The stress of marriage shortens your life by a year (if you're the wife)," The Independent, 26 February 2006. 
3. Screenwriter Jemima Goldsmith Khan is the British former wife of Pakistani cricket star, later Prime Minister, and current prisoner Imran Khan. Director Shekhar Kapur began his career in India, directing Masoom (The Innocent, 1983), with Naseeruddin Shah and Shabana Azmi; the indelible Mr. India (1987), with Anil Kapoor and Sridevi; and Bandit Queen (1994), with Seema Biswas. He then moved on to the UK for Elizabeth (1998), with Cate Blanchett, and then to Hollywood for The Four Feathers (2002), with Heath Ledger and Kate Hudson. Since the sequel Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2008), however, he's only contributed segments to anthology films, directed short films and some TV series episodes, as well as the 2016 documentary Science of Compassion.

Bollywood and Hindu nationalism

Poster for Ali Abbas Zafar's Tandav (2021). Image source: IMDB

Samanth Subramanian's recent New Yorker article "When the Hindu Right Came for Bollywood" (issue of 17 October 2022) uses the controversy over the Amazon Prime series Tandav (2021) as an illustration of the pressure the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its Hindu nationalist satellite organizations are bringing to bear on the commercial Hindi film and television industry. That pressure includes calls for boycotts and outright bans; both veiled and explicit threats of violence (which sometimes have erupted into actual violence); and filing FIRs (First Information Reports requesting police investigation of alleged criminal wrongdoing) against actors, directors and producers for offending the religious sentiments of Hindus.

The BJP-led government has also moved to assert pre-release control over content: in 2020, the government ordered that streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime fall under the censorship of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, which has long been involved in film censorship through its Central Board of Film Certification (CBFC). And in 2021, the government abolished the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal, where negative decisions by the CBFC could be appealed.

Tandav is about political betrayal, corruption, blackmail, and the cynical exploitation of social unrest to gain personal power. It includes a scene where a student leader named Shiva paints his skin blue and carries a trident (both elements of the iconography of the Hindu god). In response FIRs were registered in Bengalaru (Karnataka) against the actors Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub (Shiva) and Saif Ali Khan, writer/director/producer Ali Abbas Zafar, producer Farhan Akhtar, and head of Indian Originals for Amazon Prime Aparna Purohit. Accusations against each were made under Indian Penal Code sections 153A ("Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc."), 295A ("Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs"), 298 ("deliberate intent to wound religious feelings"), and 35 ("When a criminal act is done by several persons in furtherance of the common intention of all, each of such persons is liable for that act in the same manner as if it were done by him alone"). Similar cases were filed in Maharashtra (the state that includes Mumbai), Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh; in all, at least 10 FIRs were registered.

Ram Kadam, a BJP Member of the Legislative Assembly for Maharashtra who filed an FIR against the creators and stars of the show in Ghatkopar, a suburb of Mumbai, tweeted that the Shiva scene in Tandav "demean[s] Hindu gods" and called for a boycott. Under the hashtag #BanTandavNow, Dehli BJP leader Kapil Mishra tweeted to his 1.3 million followers that Tandav was "spreading massive hate against our dharma and our Gods making hero out of terrorists [i.e., Muslims] and making fun of our forces." [1]

On January 18, only three days after the series' release, Zafar tweeted an "Official Statement from the Cast & Crew of Tandav." Under the heading "Our sincere apologies," he posted:

We have been closely monitoring viewer reactions to the web series Tandav and today during a discussion, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting have informed us regarding a large number of grievances and petitions received on various facets of the web series with serious concerns and apprehensions regarding its content hurting the sentiments of the people.

The web series Tandav is a work of fiction and any resemblance to acts and persons and events is purely coincidental. The cast and crew did not have any intention to offend the sentiments of any individual, caste, community, race, religion or religious beliefs or insult or outrage any institution, political party or person, living or dead. The cast and crew of Tandav take cognizance of the concerns expressed by the people and unconditionally apologize if it has unintentionally hurt anybody’s sentiments.

Subramanian writes, "In Mumbai, people divide recent history into pre-'Tandav' and post-'Tandav' periods, reading the show’s fate—its bitter legal battles, its suspended second season—as a lesson in what can and cannot be said in Modi's India." While the manufactured outrage over Tandav is clearly intended to send a message to filmmakers, those who think it marks the beginning of an era have short memories. The tactics used against Tandav and its creators are well-established.

Poster for Deepa Mehta's Fire (1996). Image source: RogerEbert.com

• In 1998, screenings of Indo-Canadian writer/director Deepa Mehta's film Fire in India were violently attacked by members of the interrelated Hindu nationalist organizations Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, and the BJP; Mehta herself received death threats and required armed protection. Fire depicts two sisters-in-law (Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das), each trapped in a loveless marriage, whose growing emotional closeness develops into passionate erotic desire. Shiv Sena's founder and leader Bal Thackeray claimed absurdly in an interview that sexual relations between women "are not part of Indian culture.'' [2]
  
  
  
  Vishvanath Temple in Khajuraho, Madhya Pradesh, India. Photo credit: Aotearoa, CC BY-SA 3.0. Image source: Wikimedia Commons
  
  After theaters and audiences in Mumbai, Dehli, Surat and Calcutta (now Kolkata) were attacked—the audience in Calcutta fought back against the attackers and the screening continued—the film was withdrawn from theaters for recertification by the CBFC. Advocates for freedom of expression and gay and lesbian rights mobilized and Fire was recertified without changes. Theater showings resumed, although some theater owners feared renewed violence and were reluctant to book the film.

Poster for Karan Johar's Ae Dil Hai Mushkil (2016). Image source: dnaindia.com

• On 23 September 2016, as a response to an attack by Pakistan-based jihadists on an Indian army base in Uri, Kashmir, the Hindu nationalist group Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) ordered all Pakistani actors and film technicians to leave India within 48 hours or "we shall push them out." In a show of support for MNS, both the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association and the Film Producers Guild quickly followed this pronouncement with a call for a ban on the employment of Pakistani actors and technicians.
  
  Producer Karan Johar initially opposed the ban. However, after threats by the MNS to prevent screenings of his new film Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, which featured Pakistani actor Fawad Khan, Johar reluctantly joined the boycott, saying "For me, my country comes first. . .Going forward, I would like to say that of course I wouldn’t engage with talent from the neighbouring country given the circumstance."

Poster for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Padmaavat (2018). Image source: Allociné

• In his New Yorker article Subramanian mentions a January 2017 attack on the set of the film Padmaavat during a location shoot at the Jaigarh Fort in Jaipur, Rajasthan, by members of the organization Karni Sena. A crowd of men chanting slogans invaded the set, struck director Sanjay Leela Bhansali in the head and seized him by the hair, and vandalized the set and equipment; a video of the assault can be seen on YouTube. A few months later, after the production was moved to Maharashtra, the sets were burned in a late-night arson attack.
  
  Karni Sena falsely claimed that the film contained a dream-sequence love scene between the Hindu Queen Padmavati (Deepika Padukone) and the Muslim Sultan Alauddin Khalji (Ranveer Singh), as though this would justify its violence. Mahipal Singh Makrana, state president of Karni Sena, later threatened to facially disfigure Padukone. Surajpal Amu, media coordinator of the BJP in Haryana, offered a ₹ 10 crore reward for the beheading of Bhansali and Padukone (₹ 10 crore is 100 million rupees, or US$ 1.3 million). Haryana BJP leader Subhash Barala asked Amu to "show cause" for his comments (as if there could be any cause to call for beheadings), but later refused to accept Amu's resignation. In 2021 Amu was appointed the spokesperson of the Haryana BJP. [3]
  
  It's ironic that Padmaavat was the target of Hindu nationalist violence, because the film depicts the Muslim characters as stereotypical villains: lecherous, treacherous, and murderous. In the final scenes—spoiler alerts!—the black-clad, black-flag-waving Muslim horde stabs the upright Rajasthani hero Maharawal Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor) in the back, and yes, I do mean literally. Subramanian writes, "Padmavati and her handmaidens are besieged by Khilji’s army. Instead of submitting, they dress in red and stream through the palace, like blood through an artery, to leap into a pit of fire—a happy ending, in the moral universe of the Hindu right." Padmaavat quickly took its place among the all-time top ten highest-grossing Indian films worldwide, and went on to win a slew of awards; Karni Sena withdrew its condemnation and declared its support. Padmaavat was named Biggest Disappointment in my year-end survey Favorites of 2018: Movies and Television.

Film critic Fareeduddin Kazmi has written,

Conventional Hindi films. . .instead of challenging the ideological assumptions of their times, tend to reinforce and perpetuate them. In India, the mass media are primary technologies of ideology, with the Hindi conventional cinema standing in the forefront. [4]

Although no film industry is univocal, in the decades following independence the ideology expressed in mainstream Hindi films tended to be pluralistic. This followed the lead of the modernization policy of the Nehru-led government which criminalized caste and religious discrimination and attempted to give women legal parity with men.

The quintessential example of a film reflecting pluralistic values is Manmohan Desai's Amar Akbar Anthony (1977).

Amar (Vinod Khanna), Akbar (Rishi Kapoor), and Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) in Amar Akbar Anthony.

As I summarized the film in my Favorites of 2019: Movies and television, three little boys, inadvertently separated from their parents and apparently abandoned, are taken in by a Hindu police officer, a Muslim tailor, and a Catholic priest. Twenty-five years later, Amar (Vinod Khanna) has become a tough but honest cop, Akbar (Rishi Kapoor) has become a famous qawwali singer, and Anthony (Amitabh Bachchan) is a two-fisted, good-hearted bhai who rules his lane. When a blind old woman (guess who) is hit by a car and needs an emergency transfusion, the three men (who, of course, all share the woman's blood type) volunteer. As the blood of the three strangers who are her unsuspecting Hindu, Muslim and Christian sons mingles in Ma's veins to give her life—symbolism, anyone?—the credits begin to roll. The opening credits. This is just the pre-credit sequence.

Of course, the mid-1970s were also the period of the Emergency, during which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ruled by decree. Political opponents were jailed and their organizations banned, civil liberties (such as political protests and trade union strikes) were restricted, and a program of forced sterilization was instituted that targeted the poor and marginalized, especially Muslims. The sentimental pluralism of films like Amar Akbar Anthony was belied by the actions of the Congress Party-dominated government.

One reason for the pluralism of many Bollywood films between independence and the early 1990s was not only the (stated) non-sectarianism of government policy, but the pluralism of Bollywood itself. As Maidul Islam writes,

. . .for many decades, Bollywood has remained one of the strongest bastions of secularism and 'perhaps the least religiously segregated place in India today where Hindus and Muslims work together as well as intermarry.' It is one of the few sites in India where Muslims are not marginal, but actually enjoy some prominence and success, and has many famous stars, successful directors, screenwriters, choreographers, lyricists, and composers. [5]

"Some prominence and success" indeed (links are to mentions in E&I):

• Actors from Muslim families include the current global superstars Aamir Khan, Salman Khan, and Shah Rukh Khan, as well as Tandav's Saif Ali Khan. Other well-known actors from Muslim families include Shabana Azmi, Irrfan Khan, Naseeruddin Shah, and Tabu, and stars from the 50s and 60s including Farida Jalal, Dilip Kumar (born Yusuf Khan), Madhubala, Nargis, Waheeda Rehman, Shakila, and Johnny Walker. 
• Muslim playback singers include Mohd. Rafi, Talat Mahmood, and Noor Jehan.
• Muslim writers and lyricists include Javed Akhtar, Kaifi Azmi (Shabana's father), and Sahir Ludhianvi.
• Muslim directors include Mehboob Khan (Mother India, 1957), K. Asif (Mughal-e-Azam, 1960), Muzaffar Ali (Umrao Jaan, 1981), Imtiaz Ali (Jab We Met, 2007), Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai, 2001) and Zoya Akhtar (Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara, 2011). Farhan and Zoya are the children of Javed Akhtar, and step-children of Shabana Azmi; Farhan was one of the producers of Tandav.

As the BJP, aided by Congress Party corruption and incompetence, developed significant political power from the late 1980s onward, pluralistic films continued to be made. Films such as Lagaan (2001), Veer-Zaara (2004), Rang de Basanti (2006), Dor (2006), Chak De! India (2007), and My Name Is Khan (2010) were critical and box-office successes.

However, with the ascendency in the 2014 general elections of Modi and the BJP, and their consolidation of power in the 2019 general elections, Bollywood is bending with the prevailing political winds. We were dismayed to learn from Subramanian's article about recent films such as the Hindu-chauvinist Samrat Prithviraj (starring Akshay Kumar, 2022), and prominent actors who have embraced the BJP and its Hindutva ideology, including Anupam Kher and Kangana Ranaut.

Even many of those who aren't vocal BJP supporters are keeping their heads down, or up, as the case may be. A 2019 photo from Karan Johar's Instagram account:

Ranveer Singh, Sidharth Malhotra, Karan Johar, Varun Dhawan, Ranbir Kapoor, Vicky Kaushal (? identification uncertain), Rohit Shetty, Ekhta Kapoor, Ashwiny Iyer Tiwari, Rajkummar Rao, Bhumi Pednekar, Alia Bhatt, Ayushmann Khurrana, and others surrounding Narendra Modi. Image source: India Today

Actress Nafisa Ali posted in response, "Felt sad to see my Fraternity being part of PM’s planned PR. . .I will pray that the truth is exposed and the closed door planning of divide & rule is understood. I worry for the Constitutional rights of every Indian. I was in Gujarat soon after the riots and will never forget the reality of what I saw. I pray for the Unity of India."

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1. Mishra has been accused of fomenting the 2020 Dehli riots which started when a non-violent crowd blockading a road was attacked. The blockade was in protest of the discriminatory Citizenship Amendment Act, which provides a path to Indian citizenship only for non-Muslim immigrants from neighboring Muslim-majority countries. Over several days of violence and arson 53 people, more than two-thirds of them Muslims, were killed. ^ Return
2. Quoted in Barry Bearak, "New Dehli Journal; A Lesbian Idyll, and the Movie Theaters Surrender." New York Times, 24 December 1998, p. A4. https://www.nytimes.com/1998/12/24/world/new-delhi-journal-a-lesbian-idyll-and-the-movie-theaters-surrender.html. Bearak's smirking, flippant article betrays his own profound limitations of perspective as a cultural observer.
3. Throughout the anti-Padmaavat protests Hindu nationalists selectively conflated the characters depicted onscreen with the actors who portrayed them. Selectively, because while Padukone was threatened with death for what the perpetrators believed were the actions of her character in the dream of another (evil) character, apparently it didn't matter that offscreen Padukone and Singh were a real-life couple; they are now husband and wife.
4. Quoted in Maidul Islam, "Imag(in)ing Indian Muslims in Post-liberalization Hindi Cinema," in Indian Muslim(s) After Liberalization, Oxford University Press, 2019, p. 111. 
5. Maidul Islam, p. 93.
   

Farooq Shaikh, 1948-2013

I was saddened to learn this morning of the death of Farooq Shaikh, an actor equally at ease in comedy and drama. He appeared in films directed by Satyajit Ray (The Chess Players, 1977) and Hrishikesh Mukherjee (Rang Birangi and Kissi Se Na Kehna (1983)), among may others. If you are not familiar with Farooq Shaikh's work, I recommend the following films as places you might want to start:

Chashme Buddoor (Knock on Wood, 1981): Shaikh stars as university student Siddharth (perhaps an in-joke; Shaikh had been a student at Siddharth College of Law), who meets and falls in love with the lovely Neha (played by Deepti Naval). Siddharth's roommates, though, decide to interfere, in part because Siddharth's seriousness about Neha throws their own aimlessness (and lack of romantic success) into stark relief. Soon, though, they realize their mistake—only to discover that it's much harder to get the couple back together than it was to break them up. This charming comedy written and directed by Sai Paranjpye is pleasurable not only for its tongue-in-cheek take on filmi conventions, but especially for the warm and affectionate chemistry between Shaikh and Naval:

Katha (Story, 1983): Another Sai Paranjpye film featuring Farooq Shaikh and Deepti Naval. This time, though, Shaikh plays a heartless cad, Basu. Local beauty Sandhya (Naval) sees only Basu's charm, however, and falls in love—to the dismay of Rajaram (Naseeruddin Shah), Sandhya's shy, good-hearted neighbor who has loved her from afar for years. Basu isn't evil, but he is hugely self-centered and manipulative, basically seeing everyone he meets as a means to his own ends. Farooq Shaikh effectively portrays Basu's almost pathological narcissism, while at the same time suggesting why people might be drawn to him. Of course, Basu's lies can't go undiscovered forever, but when they are revealed will it be too late for Sandhya?

Umrao Jaan (Beloved Umrao, 1981): Based on Mirza Hadi Ruswa's novel, Muzaffar Ali's film about the impossible love of the courtesan Umrao Jaan (Rekha, in her greatest role) and the Nawab Sultan (Farooq Shaikh) has achieved classic status. In the scene below, long after their affair has ended, Umrao Jaan is unexpectedly reunited with the Nawab—and with his new bride, Umrao Jaan's childhood friend Ramdei (Rita Rani Kaul). The wistful sadness of "Justju Jis Ki Thi," composed by Khayyam and sung by Asha Bosle, perfectly expresses the emotions of all three characters in this moment:

Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani (These Young People Are Crazy, 2013): In one of his final roles, Farooq Shaikh plays Rishikant, the father of the main character Bunny (Ranbir Kapoor), who looks indulgently on his son's foibles and tries to help him realize his dreams. This warm, loving role is a fitting swan song for this deeply appealing actor. Our thoughts are with his family, friends and colleagues.

Favorites of 2013: Movies

Some years trying to think of movies to include on my favorites list is a bit of a struggle. Not this year; in fact, I'm leaving some excellent films off the list just to keep it a manageable length. Here are my favorite (non-Indian) movies first watched in 2013:

Classic Hollywood

If in our Classic Bollywood viewing 2013 was the year of Rajesh Khanna, in our Classic Hollywood viewing it was the year of Myrna Loy. We started with the brilliant Libeled Lady (1936). When they say "They don't make 'em like that anymore," this is the kind of movie they're talking about: a witty, sophisticated comedy delivered with sparkling timing by a quartet of glamorous stars (Jean Harlow, Spencer Tracy, William Powell and a radiant Loy). Tracy plays a newspaper editor who's being sued for libel by Loy; to trap her in a compromising situation, he asks Powell to romance her. But for there to be a scandal, Powell needs to be married—and Tracy suggests his own long-suffering fiancée Harlow for the job. But as in comic opera, the convoluted plot is almost beside the point.

Myrna Loy, Asta, and William Powell in After the Thin Man

After seeing Libeled Lady, we decided that we had to rewatch all of the Powell-Loy Thin Man films just so we could continue to enjoy their affectionate onscreen chemistry. (After the Thin Man (1936) is not only the most cleverly-titled sequel ever, it gets my vote as the best film in the series.) And even that wasn't enough: we also watched some of Loy's earlier and later films, including Vanity Fair (1932)—Becky Sharp was one of her last femme fatale roles—and the decades-ahead-of-its-time The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). That film follows three World War II veterans (played by Fredric March, Dana Andrews and actual veteran Harold Russell) returning to civilian life, and their struggles with post-traumatic stress, disability, self-medication, and societal indifference. And, yes, Myrna Loy is as radiant as ever.

Independent

A micro-budget independent film, Today's Special (2009) was far and away the best recent American movie we saw in 2013. The cast includes Naseeruddin Shah, Madhur Jaffrey, Harish Patel, and writer Aasif Mandvi, who is brilliant at portraying wide-eyed disbelief as catastrophe piles on catastrophe. Mandvi plays Samir, a chef who reluctantly agrees to give up his dreams of moving to France in order to take over his family's struggling Indian restaurant in Queens. But Samir has never cooked Indian food before, and quickly discovers that he's in way over his head—until a loquacious cab driver (Shah) comes to the rescue. As I wrote in my post on Today's Special, Mandvi's film "shows that it's not the budget of a movie that counts, but the imagination of its creators."

Foreign

We saw some wonderful films from outside the U.S. this year, but three stood out as favorites:

Valentin (2002), an Argentinian film, is set in 1969, just a few years before the country was plunged into social upheaval, a military coup and the Dirty War. Valentin (the wonderful Rodrigo Noya) is a precocious 8-year-old who tries to make sense of a confusing adult world. The extended scene where Valentin spends the day with his neglectful divorced dad's new girlfriend (Julieta Cardinali), and we see her dawning awareness that she faces a critical moment of decision, is heartbreaking. And the interview with writer-director Alejandro Agresti included as an extra on the DVD, shot in a poorly lit, noisy cafe in the middle of the night, is essential viewing as he reveals the elements of the film that were drawn from his own story.

No (2012), based on a play by Chilean writer Antonio Skármeta (of Il Postino fame) is about the 1988 plebiscite on dictator Augusto Pinochet's continued rule. Pinochet had declared himself President in 1973 after violently seizing power in the CIA-backed overthrow of the democratically-elected Salvador Allende. The film follows René (Gael García Bernal), a designer of slick ad campaigns, as he tries to convince the earnest, angry opponents of Pinochet to use humor, suggestion and symbolism to win the hearts and minds of voters. We want the "No" campaign to win, but at the same time we realize that René represents the triumph of image over substance in political discourse. With its urgency and immediacy, No gives at least a hint of what it must have been like as a democratic movement struggled to emerge in Chile after 16 years of brutal suppression.

My Mother's Castle (1990) is the sequel to My Father's Glory. Both movies are based on Marcel Pagnol's memoirs of growing up in the forbidding but beautiful landscape of Provence in the years before World War I. Every image is suffused with the glow of nostalgia and the warmth of remembered family closeness.

Documentaries

Perhaps because my partner worked in theater and dance for many years, we love performing arts documentaries. We saw several excellent ones in 2013:

Pina (2011) is Wim Wender's meditation on Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal. The choreographer herself, who died during the filming, is largely absent; instead, we watch her extraordinary, generation-spanning company of dancers performing her works, which unfold with the logic of dreams.

Two excellent films follow the complex process of staging opera. In Pelléas et Mélisande: Le Chant des Aveugles (Song of the Blind, 2008) we watch stage director Olivier Py and conductor Marc Minkowski working with a group of French and Russian performers on Debussy's mesmerizing score. This fluid documentary exemplifies director Philippe Béziat's axiom that "Film is the continuation of music by other means." Becoming Traviata (2012) follows rehearsals for Verdi's opera La Traviata at the Aix-en-Provence festival. The cast features the extraordinary Natalie Dessay as Violetta. At the end of the opera, Violetta collapses, and the final images of the film are of Dessay falling to the stage over and over, trying to find a physical expression of the emotional truth of the moment.

Every Little Step (2008) focusses on the 2006 Broadway revival of A Chorus Line. Just as in the musical, we meet the auditioning actors and learn about their lives, hopes and fears. Structuring the film as a reflection of the show that it's about is a clever device. To make it all even more meta, we also get interviews with the original cast in the present day, some grainy footage of their 1970s performances, and excerpts from tapes of the famous rap sessions held by Michael Bennett as he was developing the show. Before seeing the film I wasn't the biggest fan of A Chorus Line, but I found Every Little Step irresistible.

Finally, actress-filmmaker Sarah Polley's Stories We Tell (2012) is a compelling film about the solution to a longstanding family mystery. When Sarah reaches adolescence, her siblings tell her that there are rumors that Sarah's dad might not be her biological father. After a decade of uncertainty, Sarah sets out to find the truth—only to discover that there are as many stories about her parents' complicated marriage as there are witnesses.

Next time: Favorites of 2013: Books

Last time: Favorites of 2013: Contemporary Bollywood

Today's Special

Blockbuster films belong to everyone, which is another way of saying that they belong to no one. This isn't to say that it's impossible to ascribe personal meaning to films that are designed to be superhits, but it can be difficult. With big-budget films, you can choose to participate in the mass-cultural phenomenon (or not), but there can be little sense of personal discovery; the saturation promotional campaigns usually insure that you know exactly how you'll respond to a movie before you see it. In Umberto Eco's formulation, blockbuster movies tend to be closed works: that is, works that attempt to fix their own meanings and the terms of your engagement with them in advance.

That's why smaller-budget films can be so enjoyable. Not only can they offer a real sense of discovery, but there's more space for responses that haven't been completely predetermined. Aasif Mandvi's Today's Special (2009) offers the pleasures of openness in this sense, but also the rewards of a really well-written script (by Mandvi and Jonathan Bines) brought to life by the excellent performances of the cast.

One of those excellent performances is by Mandvi himself. He plays Samir, whom we see in action as a sous-chef in a fancy New York restaurant in the very authentic-looking opening scenes. (I'd guess that either Mandvi or director David Kaplan has spent some time in restaurant kitchens—either that, or they're good friends with people who have.) After an adrenaline-filled night in the kitchen, Samir learns from the owner-chef Steve (Dean Winters, who bears a striking resemblance to restaurateur Thomas Keller) that he's been passed over for a promotion to head chef at a new restaurant Steve's opening. When Steve tells Samir that he wasn't chosen because his cooking isn't surprising or unconventional enough (although Steve puts it more crudely), Samir quits on the spot.

Joblessness leaves Samir at loose ends. He has a vague idea about going to France to apprentice with a famous chef, but before he can make any concrete plans his father Hakim (veteran actor Harish Patel) suffers a heart attack. Samir promises his mother Farrida (the renowned actress and—nice metafictional touch!—famous writer on the gastronomy of India, Madhur Jaffrey) that he'll take over the family's failing Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights. There's only one catch: he has never cooked Indian food before and has no idea how to go about it. After a series of kitchen catastrophes, he's reduced to ordering take-out from other Indian restaurants to have something to serve to his customers.

In desperation Samir enlists the aid of Akbar Khambati (Naseeruddin Shah), a loquacious cab driver who "used to cook a little." Akbar introduces him not only to the spices and techniques of South Asian cooking, but also to its improvisational and personal character. Along with cooking lessons, Akbar also imparts a few life lessons as well: the importance of trusting yourself, embracing the unknown, expressing your passions, and acknowledging the legacies bequeathed to you (consciously or not) by your family.

The film is based on Mandvi's Obie Award winning one-man show, Sakina’s Restaurant, but the role of Akbar fits the brilliant Naseeruddin Shah so well it seems as though could have been written expressly for him. As an added bonus, the movie's soundtrack is filled with vintage Bollywood songs (including one of my six favorite songs from Yash Chopra films).

Today's Special shows that it's not the budget of a movie that counts, but the imagination of its creators.

Raajneeti

As I watched Prakash Jha's Raajneeti (Politics, 2010), I began to experience a strong sense of déjà vu.

Bhanu Pratap (Jahangir Khan), the stricken patriarch of a powerful political family, designates his younger brother Chandra (Chetan Pandit) as the party's new leader. Bhanu's decision to bypass his son Veerendra (Manoj Bajpai), who has his own ambitions for party leadership, sets off an intra-family war.

Shortly afterwards Chandra is shot in an assassination attempt. His sons Prithviraj (Arjun Rampal) and Samar (Ranbir Kapoor) rush to the hospital to discover that their father's bodyguards have all disappeared. When a corrupt police inspector belatedly shows up, it's clear that he has conspired with Chandra's enemies to give them the opportunity to finish him off. When Prithvi responds angrily, the inspector blusters and throws his weight around.

Sound familiar? It will if you've ever seen The Godfather (1972). Once I'd made that connection, it became clear that Raajneeti was consciously modelled on the earlier film. There's the youngest son (Samar/Michael Corleone (Al Pacino)), who has distanced himself from the family but finds himself being drawn back into the ruthless and violent struggle for power. There's his outsider girlfriend (Sarah (Sarah Thompson)/Kay (Diane Keaton)), who finds herself increasingly alienated as the son is drawn deeper into the family concerns. There's the rash, charismatic older brother (Prithvi/Sonny (James Caan)), who ultimately goes off the rails, and the wise consigliere (Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar)/Tom (Robert Duvall)), who strategizes behind the scenes.

Speaking of scenes, in addition to the one at the hospital there are several others that have parallels in The Godfather: there are very similar car-bombings, betrayals, and bloody revenge killings. There's even a version of the horse-head scene! Only, the Raajneeti versions have nowhere near the impact of the originals. The hospital scene is a case in point: in The Godfather, it's an incredibly suspenseful set piece, and also the moment when Michael makes his final, fateful choice to embrace his role in the family. In Jha's film the scene's suspense is thrown away, and Samar's choice is made later.

The pleasures of watching the all-star cast—which also features Ajay Devgn as Veerendra's ally (and unbeknownst to (almost) everyone, Prithvi's and Samar's half-brother) Sooraj, a wooden Katrina Kaif as Indu Pratap/Sonia Gandhi, and (too briefly) Naseeruddin Shah—don't compensate for Raajneeti's weaknesses of script and direction. Those weaknesses become glaringly apparent in the second half. Where The Godfather is brilliantly structured (it is framed by a wedding, a funeral and a baptism) and sustained, Raajneeti degenerates into violent chaos, with characters getting rubbed out right and left. No matter how brutal the actions Michael Corleone must take, he somehow never forfeits our interest or sympathy; the same can't be said for Prithvi or Samar. There are also signs of crude re-editing, probably because the movie was running long: two utterly gratuitous song numbers are abruptly truncated after a few seconds.

Anyway, I was feeling clever for recognizing the Raajneeti - Godfather connection, only to discover afterwards that it was being touted by Jha himself in the film's pre-release publicity, and has been mentioned in virtually every single Raajneeti article and review since (along with parallels to the Mahabharata and the Congress Party). So much for my unique insight.

Men against women: 7 Khoon Maaf, No One Killed Jessica, and Pardes

7 Khoon Maaf (Seven Forgiven Murders, 2011) is Vishal Bhardwaj's attempt at a modern film noir. According to a typology proposed by John Blaser in No Place for a Woman: The Family in Film Noir, there are three kinds of noir women: the supportive Good Woman, the suffocating Marrying Kind, and the seductive Femme Fatale. Typically, the femme fatale "refuses to play the role of devoted wife and loving mother that mainstream society prescribes for women."

But in 7 Khoon Maaf, being a devoted wife and loving mother is all that Susanna (Priyanka Chopra) wants. Unfortunately for her and for them, the men who are drawn to marry her all have fatal flaws: they are emotionally repressed and controlling (the wooden Neil Nitin Mukesh is perfectly cast in the role of a rigid army officer), needy and narcissistic (John Abraham as a heroin- and groupie-addicted rock star), brutal (Irrfan Khan as a sadistic poet), deceptive (Aleksandr Dyachenko as a Russian agent with a double life), exploitative (Annu Kapoor as a police inspector who coerces Susanna into sex), and murderous (Naseeruddin Shah as a doctor whose mushroom diet can cure or kill). Those flaws are literally fatal for each of the men in turn, for like Blaser's description of the classic femme fatale, Susanna must "resort to murder to free herself from an unbearable relationship with a man who would try to possess and control her, as if she were a piece of property or a pet."

I haven't read the Ruskin Bond short story "Susanna's Seven Husbands" on which writer/director Bhardwaj based his movie, but the main problem with the film version is one of tone. At times 7 Khoon Maaf seems to be straining for black comedy, and at others seems to take itself entirely seriously. There's also a distracting issue with chronology—characters seem to age at different rates—and an unmotivated ending. Although it's interesting to see Priyanka playing such an ambiguous role, it's not the best work of anyone involved.

No One Killed Jessica (2011) highlights a real-life incident in which, in front of horrified witnesses at a party, model Jessica Lall was shot and killed by Manu Sharma, the son of a high-ranking politician. When the case finally came to trial after seven years, a taped confession by the killer was ruled inadmissible, it was discovered that evidence had been tampered with, and several key eyewitnesses retracted their testimony and claimed that they hadn't seen the shooting after all. Sharma and his accomplices were acquitted.

Two reporters from the newsmagazine Tehelka, Harinder Baweja and Vineet Khare, went undercover to investigate witness tampering and police malfeasance in the case. Through dogged and courageous work the journalists exposed the bribes and intimidation employed by the Sharma family to turn the witnesses and contaminate the evidence.

It's a compelling story, well-presented by writer/director Raj Kumar Gupta. And it's a true pleasure to watch the interplay between Vidya Balan as Jessica's sister Sabrina and Rani Mukherji as fictionalized crusading journalist Meera Gaity. Meera isn't a cardboard heroine: she smokes, is far from demure, sleeps with her sometime boyfriend, and won't take no for an answer. It's great to see Rani—who sometimes seems to be cast for her ability to twinkle appealingly and cry convincingly—in the role of a tough, feisty and not entirely likeable woman. In the role of Sabrina, Vidya Balan convincingly portrays a woman slowly emerging from emotional shell-shock and beginning to acknowledge the possibility of hope. Note to Bollywood producers: can we please have more movies with substantive, complex roles for actresses of the caliber of Rani and Vidya?

In Pardes (Foreign, 1997), Ganga (Mahima Chaudhry in her film debut) is a beautiful, voluptuous but innocent girl brought up in an idyllic rural village. As her name and other attributes might suggest, Ganga is the embodiment of Traditional Indian Values. Which is precisely why NRI millionaire Kishorilal (Amrish Puri) approaches Ganga's father Suraj Dev (Alok Nath) to arrange Ganga's marriage to his son.

In a Yash-Chopra-esque song sequence for "I Love My India," Kishorilal, Ganga, Suraj Dev—and director Subhash Ghai in a brief cameo—celebrate the folkloric, mythical, unchanging India that for the men is represented by Ganga:

Yeh duniya ik dulhan
Dulhan ke maathe ki bindiya
Yeh mera India
I love my India
Vatan mera India
Sajan mera India
Karam mera India
Dharam mera India

The world is a bride,
and the jewel on her forehead
is my India.
I love my India.
India my homeland,
India my beloved,
India my fate,
India my religion:

Kishorilal's son Rajiv (Apurva Agnihotri) is thoroughly Westernized, meaning that he smokes, drinks, and sleeps with his (ex-?)girlfriend. Rajiv's foster brother Arjun (Shah Rukh Khan) is sent to India to act as a go-between. As Arjun's name suggests, he's loyal to a fault: he claims that a pack of cigarettes that Ganga finds in Rajiv's coat is his own, and when she pleads for the truth tells her that Rajiv will make her happy.

Of course, when Ganga travels to America to visit with Rajiv after their engagement, things don't go well. On a visit to Las Vegas, the city that epitomizes Western sinfulness, a drunken Rajiv tries to rape Ganga. Arjun promises to help Ganga and returns with her to India, immediately leading Rajiv, Kishorilal, and Suraj Dev to conclude that they are having an affair. Soon all three are trying to kill Arjun.

Perhaps the Subhash Ghai writing and directing credits should have given me fair warning me about Pardes. For me, Ghai's movies require having a finger ever ready to press the fast forward button on the DVD remote; see my brief review of Khal Nayak (The Anti-Hero, 1993), and Ajnabi's hilarious essay on the "shameful classic" Yaadein (Memories, 2001). When Alok Nath, Bollywood's quintessential Good Dad, is reduced to a screaming maniac wielding a sword and trying to kill his own daughter and her supposed lover, then we're too deep into Subhash Ghai Land for the likes of me.

If you can ignore the movie's simplistic dichotomies and a story that's both unoriginal and over-the-top, Pardes does have some redeeming features. The lovely Chaudhry is styled and dressed to look like Madhuri Dixit circa Khal Nayak, which is not a bad thing. And as the catchy "I love my India" suggests, the music is well done, especially the climactic qawwali "Nahin Hona Tha". Finally, as huge SRK fans my partner and I are willing to forgive much in order to watch our man in action. But I don't think we'll ever be tempted again to go Pardes.

Baroque Bollywood Part 2

A continuation of Baroque Bollywood Part 1, tracing the parallels between Baroque opera and Bollywood:

Love triangles: Love triangles in Baroque opera can get quite, er, baroque. In Vivaldi's Ottone in Villa (1713), for example, the Roman emperor Ottone loves Cleonilla, who has a crush on her male page "Ostilio," who is really a disguised woman named Tullia, who has come to court seeking her former lover Caio, who abandoned her and now loves Cleonilla. Got all that?

A similarly tangled love plot features in Handel's opera Serse (Xerxes, 1738): Atalanta is in love with Arsamene, who loves Atalanta's sister Romilda, who loves Arsamene in return, but finds herself also subject to the amorous attentions of Serse.

This double triangle—two sisters in love with the same man, two men in love with the same sister—is uncannily similar to the plot of the Bollywood movie Dil Hai Tumhaara (My Heart Is Yours, 2002). In that film, Mahima Chaudary loves Arjun Rampal, who loves Mahima's half-sister Preity Zinta, who loves Arjun in return; meanwhile, Preity's childhood friend Jimmy Shergill has secretly been in love with her for years. The complication in DHT is that Preity so desperately wants her sister to be happy that she asks Arjun to marry Mahima, and for Jimmy to pretend to love herself. To do so, of course, he has to pretend that he doesn't already love her. This sort of delirious perversity is what makes DHT one of my favorite love-triangle movies, but I'm hesitant to recommend it to anyone who values their sanity.

Among my other favorite love-triangle Bollywood movies are Baarsaat Ki Raat (One Rainy Night, 1960), where both Madhubala and Shyama love Bharat Bhusan; Katha (1983), where quiet, shy Naseeruddin Shah loves Deepti Naval, who is infatuated with the heartless cad Farooq Shaikh; Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (Something Is Happening, 1998), where Kajol falls in love with her college classmate Shah Rukh Khan just as he's falling in love with new girl at school Rani Mukherjee, then years later Shah Rukh discovers that he loves Kajol after all—but only after she's become engaged to Salman Khan; and Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Never Come, 2003), where Shah Rukh Khan teaches Saif Ali Khan how to woo Preity Zinta, the woman Shah Rukh himself has fallen in love with. (A man acting as a go-between for the woman he loves and another man is also a subplot Handel uses in Serse.)

Some other plots that are common in both Baroque opera and Bollywood:

Revenge: A son who must revenge his father's or mother's humiliation or death is central to Baiju Bawra (1952), Amar Akbar Anthony (1978), Rocky (1981), Khal Nayak (The Anti-Hero, 1993), Karan Arjun (1995), Trimurti (Trinity, 1995), Koyla (Coal, 1997), and countless other films. It's also a subplot in Handel's Giulio Cesare in Egitto (Julius Caesar in Egypt, 1724). Sesto, the son of the Roman general Pompey, must avenge the murder of his father and the imprisonment and attempted seduction of his mother at the hands of the treacherous Greek-Egyptian ruler Tolomeo (Ptolemy). Sometimes, as with Tolomeo, the evil done by the villain is so profound that justice can only be served by his death. This is also true of the bad guys in Koyla, Trimurti, Karan Arjun, Khal Nayak, and many other Bollywood films.

But in Baiju Bawra, when the moment of truth arrives for the son, he finds himself unable to carry out his revenge. And this is another common plot element in both Bollywood and Baroque opera:

Forgiveness: In Bollywood, tyrannical fathers and other authority figures who transgress against those under their power are often forgiven, no matter how outrageously they've overstepped the bounds of justice. In Ishq (Love, 1998), for example, the fathers of Ajay Devgn and Juhi Chawla will stop at nothing to get their children married to one another, even though Ajay loves Kajol and Juhi loves Amir Khan. The fathers force their children to unwittingly sign false marriage contracts, deceive them into thinking that Kajol and Amir are lovers, have both Kajol and Amir attacked by goons and Amir brutally tortured, and blackmail Kajol and Amir into leaving India entirely. But in the final five minutes, as Kajol and Amir are boarding a ship into exile, there is a tearful confrontation on the dock, the true lovers are reunited, and everyone forgives the two fathers.

Ishq may be way—way—over the top. But Baroque opera got there first. In Handel's Rodelinda (1724), the villain Grimoaldo invades and conquers the kingdom of his neighbor Bertarido, imprisons him and sentences him to death, attempts to seduce Bertarido's wife Rodelinda, threatens to kill her child if she doesn't marry him, and abandons his own former lover Eduige. However, Bertarido escapes, and in the last five minutes of the opera saves Grimoaldo's life, forgives him, reunites him with Eduige, and reinstates him as the ruler of the neighboring kingdom.

The emphasis on magnanimity, of course, is intended to legitimate a system in which the father/ruler wields all the power. We've just spent three hours watching that power being employed arbitrarily, selfishly, and unjustly, which might tend to make us question its very basis. But both Baroque opera and Bollywood want it both ways: they want to move us with the plight of characters who are experiencing unmerited suffering, and reassure us that the father/ruler will ultimately be reformed. Because the supreme value of both forms is the...

Happy ending. As Shah Rukh Khan's Om Prakash says so memorably in Om Shanti Om (2007), if the ending is not happy, then the movie is not over, my friend. There are a few exceptions: Devdas (1935, 1955, 2002, et seq.), Mughal-e-Azam (The Great Mughal, 1960), and Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak (From One Heartbreak to Another, 1988) are tragedies, and the later films of Guru Dutt, such as Khagaaz Ke Phool (Paper Flowers, 1959) and Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam (Master, Mistress and Servant, 1962), also have dark endings. In Baroque opera, too, there are the rare works that end unhappily, such as Blow's Venus and Adonis (1684), Purcell's Dido and Aeneas (1689), or Handel's Tamerlano (1724).

However, in both Bollywood and Baroque opera the imperative that the ending be a happy one, and that a happy ending necessarily means the union or reunion of the main couple, can lead to some pretty wild plot contortions. Baroque operas went so far as to rewrite myths to make them conform to the need for a happy ending. The original Orpheus myth, for example, ends with Orpheus' wife Eurydice imprisoned forever in Hades and Orpheus being torn apart by the Maenads; but Monteverdi's L'Orfeo (1607) ends with Apollo reuniting the couple in the heavens.

So in both Bollywood and Baroque opera there can be a mad scramble in the last five minutes to tie up all the loose threads of the plot, forgive all transgressions, and unite the correct couples. For Bollywood, Ishq is a particularly egregious example, but last-minute reversals are legion. The "wrong" groom or bride realizes in the middle of the wedding ceremony that their bride or groom loves someone else, and steps aside so that the true lovers can be married (hello, Hum Aapke Hain Koun...! (What Am I To You?, 1994), Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Mujhse Dosti Karoge! (Will You Be My Friend?, 2002), Dil Hai Tumhaara, and Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon (I'm Crazy About Prem, 2003)). Or the woman who has spent the entire film trying to unite with a distant, absent, or estranged lover realizes that she's fallen in love instead with the steadfast nice guy who's been helping her out the whole time (stand up, Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (My Heart Belongs To You, 1998), Kya Kehna (What Is There To Say, 2000), and Jab We Met (When We Met, 2007)). But a special prize has to be awarded to Lajja (2001), in which the happy ending is the loving reunion of a husband with his wife...the wife he has spent the previous three hours trying to kidnap and murder (!).

But again, Bollywood was simply following the well-worn path of Baroque opera. In Alessandro Scarlatti's Griselda (1721), Gualtiero tests his wife Griselda's fidelity by pretending to have killed their daughter, renouncing Griselda, forcing her to work as a slave in his household, promising her in marriage to one of his courtiers, and finally pretending that he is going to marry the young ward of a neighboring prince (really, his and Griselda's daughter). In the last five minutes of the opera Gualtiero reveals his deceptions, and restores the faithful (and still loving) Griselda as his wife.

Sometimes, perhaps, forgiveness can go too far, and the happy ending can seem instead like your worst nightmare.