Don’t Call It Bollywood

Manam – A Comfort Movie as delicious as a mug of hot chocolate

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Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood raved to me before she posted her review that I had to watch Manam [Us], especially when I told her the other movie I was taking on my flights was Aligarh.   I’m so glad I did.  It was so wonderful!  The perfect cozy family film – like drinking a big mug of hot chocolate.

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I didn’t realize until I looked up the movie when I got home from my trip that the actors in this film are all in the same family.  And the family company, Anapurma Studios, produced the film.  This was the final film of ANR, who died of colon cancer during post-production.  His son Nagarjuna wanted to work together on one last film, and it’s a worthy tribute to his father.  Nagarjuna’s son Chaitanya is one of the leads, and there’s a cameo with his other son Akhil == and a special appearance by Amitabh Bachchan!

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The only other film I’ve seen with Nagarjuna is King.  I liked him, but the action comedy movie wasn’t the best.  I loved him in Manam.  Manam is a reincarnation movie.  Nagarjuna loses his parents the day after his 6th birthday, and in their honor has become one of the wealthiest businessmen in India.  He happens to sit next to the reincarnation of his father on an airplane.  His father is played by Nagarjuna’s son Chaitanya (who is adorable!).

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Nagarjuna then searches out his mother, and finds her reincarnation, too, played by Samantha Ruth Prabhu.  He has an instant connection to his mother, but has to work a little harder to connect with his father.   He plots how to get his parents reunited again.  They had been about to divorce when they died, and there are unresolved issues.

 

But my favorite part of the film is when we discover that Nagarjuna has been reincarnated, too!  His son is played by Nagarjuna’s father, ANR.  The flashback scenes of the romance back in the past with Nagarjuna and Shriya Saran are just magical.  Nagarjuna is wealthy in the past, too, and chooses a poor woman to marry because he likes her picture.  He is puzzled why she wants to wait 6 months to marry and seeks her out.  He discovers that she needs 6 months to earn enough money to purchase his traditional groom gift of clothes.  She doesn’t know who he is and lets him stay and be her worker on her farm to earn the money faster.

The reveal scene at the wedding when she the curtain drops and she just leaps on him because of course she had fallen in love — the best!  Oh, my goodness, how I loved this scene:

None of the issues and problems in the film are horrible, and even though people die — they come back and work it out in the next life.

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This movie is like a big ole family group hug.  I loved every minute.  Highly recommend!

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Margaret was right.  This was the perfect feel good movie to follow the darkness in Aligarh.

When I realized Naga Chaitanya has the Nivin Pauly role in the Telugu Premam, I went out to see that film next.  Review coming soon!

 

 

Dil Aashna Hai – Lace remake only for the biggest SRK fans

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Dil Aashna Hai (The Heart Knows the Truth) is my 50th Shahrukh Khan film.  This film is Camp with a capital “C”.  Dil Aashna Hai came out in 1992, and is one of SRK’s earliest films.  The DVD is hard to track down, and Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood let me borrow it.  I’m on a quest to watch every one of Shahrukh Khan’s films, from the sublime to the not-so-great.  Fully a quarter of all the Hindi films I’ve seen have been Shahrukh Khan movies.

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Dil Aashna Hai is a Hindi adaptation of Shirley Conran’s 1982 novel Lace, which was also a huge TV mini-series in 1984.   “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” TV Guide listed as one of the best lines in TV history.  I don’t remember much about the Phoebe Cates starring mini-series, but Lace the book was one of the first romance novels I ever read.  It was scandalous and racy, a book passed around from high school girl to high school girl, sex scenes marked and dog-eared.

The book was reissued on its 30th anniversary in 2012, and Sarah Hughes wrote in The Guardian that the book wasn’t just a bonkfest, it had a strong feminist message.   The flashbacks in the book as Lily tries to find which of three women is her real mother show the three women each pursuing their own career paths:

Along the way Conran tackles everything from teenage abortion and the iniquities of the porn industry to double standards around one-night stands. We remember the vividly described sex scenes, but in reality the book is filled with pages of argument about a woman’s right to work, the need for equal pay and the juggling of children and career.

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Major details of the original plot have been changed for the Bollywood remake, but at its core it’s still the tale of four women, and that alone is something to be celebrated.  That’s I’m sure what attracted director Hema Malini to the story.  Shahrukh Khan, no matter the size of his picture on the poster, is not the star of this film.  He’s a helpmate and support to Laila (Divya Bharti), a courtesan singer he falls in love with, who works at his father’s hotel.

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Kabir Bedi plays SRK’s evil father, who is not thrilled that SRK wants to marry a girl who grew up in a brothel!  (Side note, Kabir was pretty hot back in the day!)

When the woman Laila has known as her mother on her death bed confesses that she was not her biological mother, Laila and Shahrukh go on a quest to find her true mother.  In the book, Lily is a famous film star, and has the money and power to go on her revenge quest on her own.  Here, Shahrukh proves his love for Laila by finding the orphanage she was stolen from by the brothel pimp.

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Through flashbacks we see three young college girls played by Dimple Kapadia, Amrita Singh  and Sonu Walia fall in love and one of them becomes pregnant.  That is the same as Lace, but the blackmail of the headmaster of the college is cut from the Hindi movie.   The great thing about this movie is seeing these three actresses act together as young girls, and then mature women.   They rent a house together and enjoy all being mothers together of the young baby, but plan that the first to marry will adopt the little girl.

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The movie just doesn’t have the same bite as the original, and it’s all saccharin sweet.  The romance between Laila and Shahrukh only gets one nice love song, but not so much screen time.  While it’s great that for once the women are center stage in a Bollywood film, if you’re looking for a great SRK romantic film, this is not the movie for you.  He’s adorable, and great playing the supportive boyfriend, but there’s not much here for him.

 

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Divya Bharti overacts her way through the melodrama, brandishing the locket left with her at the orphanage in her confrontation with the three women.  It’s  all very campy, but not “Which one of you bitches is my mother?” deliciously campy.  It’s been watered down.

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Now I can say I saw one of SRK’s earliest films, but it’s certainly not going down as one of my favorites.  Margaret loves it, but I’m not as fond.  She discusses and compares it to the original mini-series in her review.

Two stars out of five.  Only for the biggest SRK fans who need to see every one of his films.

Sultan – It lives up to the hype

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If it’s Eid, it must be time for the big Salman Khan movie!  There has been so much hype around Sultan, for months and months, and one can’t help but worry that the movie won’t meet the raised expectations.  But thankfully, it does!  Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood and I saw the movie together at the Indian MovieMax theater about 45 minutes from me.  It was quite the experience to see it opening night with a big crowd all dressed to the nines for Eid festivities they were going to after the film.

For me, Dabanng and Bajrangi Bhaijaan are two of my favorite Salman Khan movies, and some of his best work.  Sultan is good.  It’s very good, but for me, it’s not quite at the same level as those two movies.  Salman’s acting has moments of greatness in Sultan, and Anushka Sharma is simply amazing.  But the musical numbers in Sultan, while good, are not jaw droppingly great like in Dabanng and Bajrangi Bhaijaan.  Selfie Le Le Re and Tere Mast Mast Do Nain are extremely high bars to beat, however.  The songs in Sultan are pretty catchy, but I’m not running out to download the soundtrack, to be honest.

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Also, as I mentioned in my review of 1983, sports movies are not really my thing.  So a wrestling movie on top of a Mixed Martial Arts movie is not really my go to genre.  But it’s a measure of the strength of the movie, that I was completely sucked in.  My friend Margaret of Don’t Call It Bollywood have been wondering about the clues of the plot that we could see in the trailer.  Obviously there was some sort of tragedy in Sultan’s life, and we dreaded that he might be a widower in the second comeback half of the film.  I won’t spoiler what that tragedy is, but I can tell you that there is a happy ending and Anushka’s character does not die.

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I also wondered why Anushka Sharma agreed to be in a Salman Khan movie.  Her character is fantastic — a super strong wrestler, tough as nails, dominant even in a room of guys including Salman, and a fully formed character with her own flaws, firm to the point of being rigid at times.  I’m so glad she took on the challenge of this film.  She just keeps getting better and better with her acting in each film.

Salman meets her by knocking her off her bike and then hitting her helmeted head, not knowing she’s a woman.  Then she takes off her helmet and wallops Salman, as he stands there love struck.  He pursues her, but she rejects him as a suitor, telling him that he quite simply doesn’t measure up.  She is driven and has her goal to get to the Olympics, and he is just aimless.  Let me just say, watching Anushka verbally destroy Salman was really something to see.

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Their romance is what spurs Sultan to be a better man to win her.  To become a championship wrestler.  I loved their romance storyline, and Salman being sweet loving Sultan is fantastic.  What tears them apart is the key to him giving up wrestling.  Again, I won’t spoiler it, but those moments I really teared up, and were some of the most powerful in the film for me.

The framing of the comeback is that Amit Sadh is trying to get MMA off the ground in India, and needs an Indian fighter.  (Why haven’t we seen Amit Sadh more? – glad to look up and see he’s in the upcoming Akira.)  Randeep Hooda is the coach that trains Sultan in MMA.  Cue Rocky training montage.  (Seriously, there are so many Rocky homages in this film.)

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You’ve seen the scene in the trailer where Salman stares at his overweight belly in a mirror and breaks down.  What the trailer doesn’t show is that he then struggles to get his shirt back on, fighting with the sleeve as he cries hard.  It may have been the single best acting scene I’ve ever seen Salman do.

While the movie is pretty wonderful, there were some off moments.  Two of the MMA fighters are black, and at a press event the announcers refer in English (not just bad subtitles) to their owners, and not sponsors.  WTF??  Also, Salman refers to a the lightning quick style of one black fighter this way – “Is he more gorilla or chimpanzee?”  Again. W. T. ever-living F.??

That nonsense aside, the last fight is riveting, and I didn’t know what was going to happen which is uncommon in a sports film, believe me.  Much better MMA fights (like I would really know?) than last year’s Brothers.  It’s solid entertainment, and you’ll leave satisfied.

Four stars out of five.  Eid Mubarak!

Read Margaret’s spoiler free review of Sultan here.  And her full analysis with spoilers here on Don’t Call It Bollywood.

 

 

Socha Na Tha – An Absolutely Delightful Romance – I wish Imtiaz Ali Would Make Another Romance Like This His First

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Dharmendra chose well for his nephew Abhay Deol’s debut film, Socha Na Tha [I Never Imagined].  He picked the talented director Imtiaz Ali who gave the falling-in-love-with-the girl-your-parents-picked-for-you Indian romance a fresh modern feel.  This was Imtiaz Ali’s first film,  after directing in television.  Socha Na Tha was not a commercial success, but it gained critical praise at the time, and he followed it with Jab We Met, one of the all time favorite Hindi romance films.

Abhay plays Viren, a young man who has returned to India from University in the US, but has not started work yet.  His family despairs of him growing up, and his father puts his foot down.  He’s 24, and it’s time he was married.  He agrees to meet a girl his family chooses, but he has a secret romance with a Christian girl, Karen.  He’s on the verge of proposing to Karen.

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Viren and Aditi (Ayesha Takia) first meet at her family home.  Ayesha is absolutely adorable.  She explains to him that she doesn’t want to get married either, but he has to be the one to refuse her, as she can’t.  Once they get that out of the way, they have a wonderful easy conversation.  From the little we’ve seen of Viren’s interactions with Karen, he has a rapport with Aditi immediately and an ease that he doesn’t with his years long girlfriend Karen.

When Viren refuses Aditi as a potential bride, the families grow hostile to one another, as Aditi’s family feels Viren led her on.  They meet by chance in a mall, and he explains asks for her help in convincing his girlfriend’s parents to let her go on a holiday trip to Goa.  Aditi tells her parents that Karen is attending her wedding, and Karen tells hers the opposite.  But Karen joins the party a few days late.  Viren and Aditi spend lots of time together and grow closer and friendlier.  When Karen arrives, she senses what’s happening.  Aditi and Viren spend one whole night talking and fall asleep together on the beach.

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Once they return, Viren does propose to Karen but his family is opposed to him marrying a Christian.  He’s convinced it will never be resolved and meanwhile is obsessing over video he took of Aditi in Goa.  He goes to see Aditi, and almost Romeo like sneaks up her balcony into her room.  What comes next is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen in Hindi film.  It’s not that Abhay is such a great actor at this early point in his career.  It’s all Imtiaz Ali’s skill in directing this scene.  It’s become one of my all time favorites.

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Viren says to Aditi, “I thought I was in love with Karen.  But if that was love—what is this?”

 

Things become a tangled mess for Abhay, as his parents suddenly agree to his marriage with Karen and now he’s stuck.

The last part of the film is hard to watch because Viren is so indecisive and takes a long time to tell people what he wants to do with his life.  He doesn’t want to disappoint his family, and can’t figure a way out.  He needs to grow up, and so does Aditi.

Margaret at Don’t Call It Bollywood gives a great analysis of Socha Na Tha and how it reaffirms arranged marriage.  Because in the end, this film is showing that the best partner is the one your family chose for you.  That they know you best.  It was her post that led me to buying this film and watching it.  I’m so glad I did.  I loved it and how natural and modern Imtiaz Ali made this story feel.  Abhay Deol was fantastic in this even if I wanted to wring his neck at several points.  Ayesha Takia was wonderful, and I liked how Karen (Apoorva Jha) wasn’t a stereotypical evil ex.  She is actually instrumental in getting Viren and Aditi back together.  Even the stern father, we see really loves Viren, and has good reason for wanting his son to grow up already.  (Since I have a son about the same age who is finding himself, I can relate, much more than I want to.)

Four and a half stars out of five.  Imtiaz, please give us more great romances like Socha Na Tha and Jab We Met with these great real characters!