Filmi Geek

Gumnaam (1965)

गुमनाम

Gumnaam ("unnamed, anonymous") is a slapdash, inadequately scripted, totally non-suspenseful mystery. It is nevertheless great fun to watch, thanks entirely to a passel of thoroughly entertaining songs and fun comic performances by the likes of Helen and Mehmood.  

A group of strangers at a masquerade party are delighted when they are chosen, apparently at random, as winners of an exciting foreign vacation.  The trip gets off to a rough start, however, when an emergency forces their plane to land in a remote wilderness.  And things take an even more sinister turn when the plane takes off, leaving them stranded.  Soon they find an isolated mansion, tended by a valet (Mehmood) who knows their name and seems to have been expecting them.  A mysterious diary in the mansion reveals the reason they are there:  It says they are each responsible for an unjust death, and will be forced to pay the ultimate price.  And sure enough, one by one the travelers begin to die violently ... and the murderer must be among them.  

Gumnaam takes Agatha Chrtistie's Ten Little Indians as its inspiration. It follows that classic story fairly faithfully, but Gumnaam is very light on the plot details that made the original tight and compelling.  There is no real payoff - the killer's motivation for assembling this particular group is stated, but with a few exceptions we are told neither whose deaths they caused, nor why the killer thinks justice is his responsibility.

One result of the slapdash plotting is an utter lack of suspense, which is compounded by the travelers for the most part not behaving as if they fear for their lives. The other filmi touches, like Mehmood's broad South Indian caricature and other roles (like Pran's and Madan Puri's) played for laughs, don't bolster the story.  But unlike Raat aur din, where filmi touches detract from what could have been a taut psychological drama, in Gumnaam they are the saving grace of what would otherwise be a dreadful film. 

The best thing about Gumnaam is the film's songs, most of which are upbeat, splendid fun.  Helen, as one of the doomed guests, gets three of these, including Mehmood's fantastic dream sequence, an adorable beachside romp, and the rare treat of a drunken buddy-song in which the revelers are both women (Helen and Nanda). And no discussion of the songs of Gumnaam is complete without mention of the wild, mod goodness of "Jaan pehechaan ho".

Gumnaam is a masala film, and so of course a romance thread is woven through as well.  This thread is wasted, though, on the film's milquetoast hero and heroine, Manoj Kumar and Nanda.  Greta (of Memsaab Story; thanks to her for the screencap) commented that Gumnaam would have been a totally different movie if Shammi Kapoor had been the hero, and I have to agree.  It could possibly have been an all-time classic on the level of Teesri Manzil or Kashmir ki kali - with Shammi as the hero and Asha Parekh, Sharmila Tagore, or really anyone else as the heroine.  Nanda and Manoj's songs are entertaining enough, but they pale in comparison to the other songs in the film; Manoj attempts Shammi-like moves, but even though he's younger and slightly less chubby, he lacks the energy and charisma that Shammi brought to his best movies.

In the end, though, even to critique a movie like Gumnaam is to ask too much of it. It is thoroughly amusing while it's happening - at its best moments, it shines - and that's all it sets out to do.    

Raat aur din (1967)

रात और दिन

The psychological drama is a genre I've not seen much in Hindi films.  Satyen Bose's Raat aur din ("night and day") is not the finest psychodrama ever, but as a rare Hindi example of the form it holds its own, thanks to a rangy and vibrant performance by Nargis.  

Varuna (Nargis) is a sweet, if melancholy, country girl, who meets Pratap (Pradeep Kumar) when his car breaks down near her mountain home.  Though Pratap is on his way to Shimla to meet his betrothed, he is taken with Varuna, and quickly breaks his engagement to marry her instead.  But Varuna has a dark double life; by night she transforms into a vivacious boozer who calls herself Peggy; she sneaks out of their Calcutta home to dance at swanky, Anglophone night clubs, and awakens with no knowledge of these escapades.  With the help of Dilip (Feroz Khan), a man who meets "Peggy" during one of her nights on the town, and a pair of tenacious psychiatrists (Anwar Hussain and Harindranath Chattopadhyay), Pratap and Varuna return to Shimla in hopes of uncovering the root of her mysterious split personality.

With its echoes of Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (as well as prescient shades of Sybil, which came somewhat later), Raat aur din is both chilling and compelling.  The inherent creepiness of the subject is enough to glue one's attention to the screen, and the film offers enough hints at the nature of the trauma that splintered Varuna's psyche that I found myself guessing at the analysis, eager to find out whether I was correct.  It suffers, though, under the burden of some filmi touches that detract from the tautness of the psychodrama.  For example, Anoop Kumar is somewhat fetching as a hapless doctor overwhelmed by the willful Peggy, but his broad physical comedy is out of place and distracting at points when psychological tension could have been building to great effect. 

Nargis's performance, though, stands out and makes the film worth watching.  Apart from one instance of classic movie-madness - wild cackling giving way to violent sobbing - she presents a chillingly engaging portrayal of her character's split personality.  Her Varuna is sad and troubled; though unaware, consciously, of her illness, she nevertheless appears melancholy and ill-at-ease, as though the demons that drive her nighttime excursions swirl precariously just below the surface.  And her "Peggy" is not a care-free party-girl; there is a desperation in her thirst for alcohol, music, and stimulation that is palpably pathological.  Raat aur din is Nargis's film, and it is a showpiece for her skill. 

Raat aur din also features a handful of very nice songs by Shanker-Jaikishen, like the lovely and plaintive title song and the jaunty "Awaara ae mere dil," which reminds you that it is the 1960s.

I watched this movie with Greta of Memsaab Story; you can read her comments about it here. Thanks to Greta also for the screencap.

Bombay to Goa (1972)

It is sometimes commented that if you took all the extraneous side-elements out of a masala movie and focused on the plot, you'd be left with a streamlined tale that would be done in an hour. The road movie Bombay to Goa goes the other way - it dispenses with a plot almost entirely, leaving little but gags and silliness, and it clocks in at less than two hours.  While it lasts, though, it's a pretty enjoyable ride.

Mala (Aruna Irani) is beside herself with excitement when a man called Sharma (Shatrughan Sinha) promises to make her a movie star.  Her parents are not quite as thrilled, though; her father (Nasir Hussain) pops a gasket when he sees her picture in a flashy magazine.  His concern is to lock up her marriage to the young man they have chosen for her, Ravi (Amitabh Bachchan).  In the dead of night, Mala steals all her parents' cash and runs away to Sharma, handing over the bulk of the money for his bogus "production".  She soon learns that Sharma is not what he appears to be, and after she witnesses his murder of a compatriot over the loot he swindled from her, she flees.  She finds herself on a bus to Goa, under the care of its conductor, Khanna (Mehmood), and surrounded by an outrageous and rag-tag bunch of fellow-travelers.  Much wacky hijinks ensue.

Unfettered as it is by the requirements of a well-developed story, Bombay to Goa is free to focus on its humor, which derives for the most part from broad comedy strokes - slapstick and stereotypes.  The mish-mash of ethnic and regional archetypes paints a bus-bound microcosm of a nation that feels a bit like Mr. and Mrs. Iyer on crack.  But they are an awful lot of fun, and diverse and cleverly-rendered enough that it doesn't feel like ticking off the boxes on an Indian stereotype bingo card. Very funny comic performances by Mehmood, his real-life brother Anwar Ali as Conductor Khanna's bus-driver brother Rajesh (get it - Rajesh?  Khanna?), and the likes of Manorama, Lalita Pawar, Yusuf Khan, and Keshto Mukherjee as passengers ensure that the laughs keep coming. 

I'm a big fan of Amitabh Bachchan too, of course, and his earlier films are a particular pleasure.  Here he is in fine form - though I wish there had been more of him - especially in the manic song "Dekho na hai".  (His chasing down the bus on his motorcycle to rescue his lady from peril is almost certainly referenced by Arjun Rampal's similar ride in Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd., another film that packs a busload of diverse Indian personae off to Goa for comedy fun.)  A delightful cameo by the adorable Kishore Kumar - with a song, of course - rounds out the fun.  It may be light on substance, but all in all, Bombay to Goa is a thoroughly entertaining way to kill a couple of hours.   

Chhupa Rustam (1973)

छुपा रस्तम

It's not quite as stylishly perfect as Jewel Thief, nor does it achieve the sublime mod-noir heights of Teesri manzil.  But if you are a fan of Vijay Anand's unique brand of caper film, Chhupa Rustam (perhaps most pithily translated here as "hep cat," but used to mean a person with a hidden or unexpected talent) is definitely one to look out for.

Greedy Vikram Singh and his hapless son Bahadur are searching for ancient treasures in the mountains of Himanchal Pradesh.  To leverage their position Vikram Singh and Bahadur have captured the wife and son of a millionaire who holds the digging rights to the valley where the ancient city is nestled - hoping to force the millionaire's daughter Ritu (Hema Malini) to marry Bahadur, giving them access to the gold.   Ritu capitulates to the cruel captors' demands, only to be spirited away from her own wedding by the qawwal hired to perform there, Natwar (Dev Anand).  Sparks fly between Natwar and Ritu despite her anger and mistrust of him - but soon it becomes clear that he is not what he appears to be, and her warm feelings for him are not misplaced.  Together with Natwar's sidekick Jimmy Fernandes (Vijay Anand), Natwar and Ritu plot to give Vikram Singh and Bahadur their just deserts. 

The plot is unmemorable, but it is of little import; style and fun are the raisons d'etre of Chhupa Rustam.  As the performers romp through their roles they seem a hair's breadth away from bursting into irreverant giggles.  Hema Malini is as adorable as ever, and Dev Anand once again somehow manages to be an engaging hero despite being old enough to be her father - and despite the air of dirty old man that lingers about him every time he unleashes his leering grin. Prem Chopra's Bahadur (the name means "brave" or "gallant") is anything but; he's a delightfully hateable mix of smarmy and stupid, tough-talking and weak.  

But the film's real treat is Vijay Anand himself, who not only lends his directorial vision to the film (see Greta's review for a generous look at the film's fantabulous style) but is also laugh-out-loud hysterical as Natwar's big-hearted pal Jimmy.  He falls in love with Bahadur's moll (the delectably curvaceous Bindu) and the pair's two scene-stealing songs are among the highlights of the movie.  Actually all the film's songs are delightful, including this one in which Natwar wins over a recalcitrant Ritu with his ode to the humble bedbug.

Pyar to hona hi tha (1998)

प्यार तो होना ही था

After some weighty discussions about feminism and Partition, it was definitely time to write about something with a bit more levity.  Fortunately Pyar to hona hi tha ("Love had to happen") was there to do the job.

Sanjana (Kajol), an orphaned Indian living in Paris, is engaged to her sweetheart Rahul (Bijay Anand).  Rahul's business takes him on a trip to India, where he is swept off his feet by a sexy modern vixen named Nisha (Kashmira Shah), and breaks his engagement to Sanjana.  Heartbroken, Sanjana heads to India to win him back.  On the way, she meets the roguish thief Shekhar (Ajay Devgan), on the run from his one-time friend, Police Inspector Khan (Om Puri).  Circumstances conspire to strand Shekhar and Sanjana in Shekhar's village, where she learns that inside scoundrel there beats a heart of pure gold.  Shekhar agrees to help her win back her lost love.  Sanjana and Shekhar pretend to be lovers to make Rahul jealous.  But as the film's title suggests, it's not long before the pretense becomes reality.

Pyar to hona hi tha is an innocuous and pleasant romance.  Like any romance, its charm depends upon the appeal of its principals, and they deliver well enough to make the movie engaging and sweet.  Kajol is talented at physical comedy, and that talent is put to good use in Sanjana's clumsy streak; her klutziness is cute and funny (though, unfortunately, it has no real bearing on the story).  And Ajay Devgan is better here than in some films where he broods and mopes incessantly; Shekhar is permitted moments of insecurity that show through his facade of cool.  The result is an endearing pairing that the viewer can really root for.  

I've been told that Pyar to hona hi tha is a remake of a Hollywood romance flick called French Kiss.  I've never seen the original, but most people seem to think the filmi touches are an improvement.  I guess that Bollywood really does have a way with romance.  Some of the better filmi elements in Pyar to hona hi tha are the songs, which are very cute; they are mostly innocuous pop, but surprisingly catchy.  There are entertaining picturizations too, especially the village engagement party and a trippy song that takes place on an airplane.  The latter includes segments having different musical styles, including a qawwali and a uniquely filmi adaptation of the Macarena.   The less felicitous additions from the filmi bag of tricks include a couple of lengthy car chases and a random, unnecessary shooting and hostage sequence in a shopping mall.  On balance, though, Pyar to hona hi tha offers a pleasant helping of everything one might require of a Hindi popcorn romance. 

Greta of Memsaab Story, with whom I watched Pyar to hona hi tha, considers the film a sentimental favorite; here's what she has to say about it. 

Koi ... mil gaya (2003)

कोई ... मिल गया

One of India's rare science fiction films, Koi ... mil gaya ("I've met ... someone") borrows elements from ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and mixes them with some more typical filmi conventions to create an innocuous and mostly forgettable drama. 

Rohit Mehra (Hrithik Roshan) is developmentally disabled; though a full-grown adult, he has the innocence and the intellect of a not-terribly-bright child.  He has a very sunny disposition, though, and a happy life, well cared for by his mother Sonia (Rekha) and loved by his friends, a group of young boys with whom he attends school.  When a young woman named Nisha (Preity Zinta) arrives in his town and strikes his fancy, Rohit's attempts to impress her raise the ire of the jealous bully Raj (Rajat Bedi).  Raj's taunting and harassment cast a cloud over Rohit's bright days.  One day, though, Rohit discovers and activates the apparatus his deceased father - a maverick scientist - had used to attempt to communicate with other worlds.  Rohit's transmission summons an expedition of aliens, one of whom befriends Rohit.  The alien's otherworldly power transforms Rohit from an awkward naif into a remarkable man of super-human strength and intelligence.  Rohit needs all that and more to put Raj in his place and protect his new alien friend from the destructive curiosity of the Earthly authorities who seek to capture and dissect him.   

Like its more action-oriented sequel Krrish, Koi ... mil gaya has something to say about the abuse of innocence at the hands of the hard, cruel world.  But the sentiment is an easy one, presented without the kind of sophistication that would challenge the audience to any kind of introspection.  There is nothing wrong with that - a film doesn't need to be hard-hitting and provocative to be entertaining.  And Koi ... mil gaya is endearing enough, though some would certainly find it unbearably cloying, and its unbeguiling tone makes it, at base, a film whose greatest appeal will be to children.  It's a fairy tale in which bullies are unrealistically mean, revenge is exacted in improbable ways, and fantasies are fulfilled without cost.

Even though the script doesn't give him much opportunity for nuance, Hrithik Roshan certainly earns high marks for the effort he puts into playing Rohit.  Hrithik's greatest strength as a performer is his outstanding physical skill; he is a superb dancer with masterful control of his body.  Here he uses that control to give Rohit an idiosyncratic physicality that is reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's performance in Rain Main.  Rohit child-like mind is driven by emotion, and Hrithik translates that emotion into body language, throwing his shoulders back and his chin high in the air when Rohit is happy, slouching with despair when something doesn't go his way, wearing his constant puzzlement at the complex world of grownups.  It would be a treat to see Hrithik Roshan apply all this skill in a subtler vehicle. 

In Koi ... mil gaya, though, the important thing is that the meanies get what's coming to them and the cute little alien gets home, and there's never any doubt that these things will happen.  First, though, the audience must wait patiently through an improbable basketball match (why on Earth would a gang of 20-something bullies think that beating a group of tiny children at basketball was necessary to prove themselves reigning champs of cool?) and a few unnecessarily violent fight scenes.  Eventually, innocence and purity wins out, and justice is done - with a little magical help - with a few sweet and colorful songs along the way, like Haila haila.  You can't ask much more of a simple, derivative fairy tale.

Shaque (1976)

शक़

A story of a marriage worn down by fear and suspicion, Shaque ("doubt") has a very strong start but takes a few unfortunate turns that leave the film overall with a very unsatisfying heft. 

Vinod Joshi (Vinod Khanna) is a witness to a murder in his workplace.  He cooperates with the police investigation; there is an arrest and a trial at which Vinod testifies; and Vinod's colleague Subramaniam is convicted of the crime.   Vinod  and his wife Meena (Shabana Azmi) do their best to forget the harrowing incident, thinking it is behind them.  Ten years later, Meena receives an ominous letter from a man called Maan Singh (Utpal Dutt), who claims that Vinod was more involved than he let on and allowed an innocent man to be convicted in order to cover his own crimes of embezzlement from the company.  Meena is troubled by the letter, but while Vinod assures that it's nothing but the baseless ravings of disturbed old man, Meena can't shake the dreadful feeling that Vinod hasn't told her the whole truth.  She launches an investigation of her own, behind Vinod's back - but their marriage bends under the strain of her suspicions.

Shaque is at its best when its focus sticks to the relationship between Vinod and Meena and the strains placed upon it by Meena's suspicions.  Vinod Khanna and Shabana Azmi are understated and sweet in the scenes establishing their relationship early in the film, and the realist style of their performance lets tensions grow between them without too much overwrought dramatizing.  The tension is delicately enhanced by some very nice camera work, framing shots like the one pictured above.  Their tenderness and passion is apparent too, illustrated in a handful of touching, intimate scenes.

Unfortunately, the film's masala elements - especially the supposedly suspenseful confrontations towards the film's end - contrast with the delicacy of its study of the marriage, in a distracting rather than an effective way.  And Meena makes some very questionable judgments that make it hard to identify with her.  Her poor judgment about Maan Singh when it's painfully obvious that he's blackmailing betrays her as naive, and her incomprehensible suicide attempt seems like drama-mongering.   Neither paints a sympathetic heroine.  The film would have done better to give us a sensible woman caving to the temptation of doubt, rather than Meena almost wrecking her own marriage through stupidity.   In the end, the weaknesses outweigh the strengths, and even though Shabana and Vinod give the best performances they can under the circumstances, Shaque isn't much more than a forgettable timepass, despite its well-crafted moments. 
 

Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)

जोधा-अकबर

Ashutosh Gowariker's take on the story of the ecumenical court of the great Mughal emperor Akbar owes a debt to Hindi classics like Mughal-e-azam as well as modern Hollywood epics in the vein of Gladiator or Troy.  Epic in scope as well as in length, Jodhaa-Akbar does not quite hit all the right notes, but at its best moments it's effective, painting a story with modern resonance on a lush historical canvas.

The young Mughal emperor Jalaluddin Mohammed (Hrithik Roshan) dreams of a united Hindustan, joining both his own Mughal territories with the tribal lands ruled by the valiant and proud - and Hindu - Rajput clan.  He attempts to annex the Rajput kingdoms with a combination of military might and honorable rule, doing away with his ancestors' practices of slaying conquered kings and making slaves of their people.  Meanwhile a succession struggle within one of the Rajput kingdoms, coupled with the ambitions of certain members of both the Mughal and Rajput houses, leads to a marriage between the young emperor and a Rajput princess, Jodhaa (Aishwarya Rai).  This alliance - and in particular the marriage of the Muslim emperor to a Hindu princess - sends shockwaves through both the Mughal courts and Rajput palaces alike, and tensions flare even within Jalaluddin's own household.  Jodhaa demands respect for her religious traditions, and the ecumenical Jalaluddin is happy to comply, to the outrage of his Muslim advisors - particularly his closest advisor, his wet-nurse and surrogate mother Maham Anga (Ila Arun).  She begins plotting against Jodhaa almost the moment the Rajput princess arrives.  In the midst of this grand-scale political battle and the politics of the royal court, Jalaluddin has clear goals that are easier to state than to achieve - to unite Hindustan without bloodshed; to rule a peaceful nation where Hindus and Muslims are each free to worship as they choose; and to win the heart of his stubborn Rajput bride. 

This is truly the stuff of which epics are made, but it's a whole lot to fit into a movie.  Gowariker attempts to graft a classic filmi love story - where partners in an arranged marriage gradually develop real tenderness - onto a grand historical tale with all the full complement of battle scenes, palace intrigue, and allegorical resonance.  The result is a film that is not always sure what it's trying to be. 

It is one part a paean to Jalaluddin, whom history remembers as Akbar - the Great - and the film's Jalaluddin is certainly flawless almost to the point of dullness, with his limitless capacity for compassion and forgiveness, and his vision of a united and tolerant Hindustan.  Jalaluddin is presented as the first Mughal emperor actually born in Hindustan - these roots are part of why he sees himself as an emperor of the people rather than a conqueror.  The parallel between Jalaluddin and the generation of Indian leaders born after Partition is certainly not lost on Gowariker.  And just as Mughal-e-azam made its subtextual plea for Hindu-Muslim unity to a post-Partition audience, Jalaluddin's impassioned speeches about tolerance are clearly directed to the modern audience even more than to Jalaluddin's ministers and subjects.  Indeed, the film portrays his great proclamation of religious equality - abolishing the Pilgrimage Tax against Hindus - as the act that earned him the title Akbar.

In another aspect Jodhaa-Akbar is a grand swords-and-horsemen drama, with interminable battle scenes in which Gowariker shows his technical skill at managing sophisticated shots stuffed with thousands of extras and adding little to the film except a Hollywood sense of spectacle.  The alliances and betrayals swirling through the Mughal and Rajput camps add more in the way of substance, but even the best of these episodes of palace intrigue - the betrayal engineered by the terrifying Maham Anga - is reduced to shorthand and resolved almost instantaneously after it unfolds, with no real lasting consequences for the story. 

Finally, and perhaps most indulgently, Jodhaa-Akbar is a romance, developing a love story between the emperor and the princess in occasional moments of erotic heat embedded, unfortunately, in a large base of rather ordinary filmi conventions.  In one of Gowariker's cleverer moves, he provides the requisite gratuitous bare-chested shots of Hrithik Roshan exercising in the sun - firmly anchoring the scene to the story's arc by showing Jodhaa (who has not yet allowed her husband to touch her) slack-jawed with lust, surreptitiously watching him.  The effect is that even if the beefcake show isn't your thing - it isn't mine - the scene is memorable and appealing.

On balance, despite Jodhaa-Akbar's directorial indulgences, it's a satisfying spectacle, a solid timepass with a few elevated moments.  While its stars are too pretty by half - their bearing is more like movie stars playing dress-up than like a young emperor and princess - their performances are adequate to the film's unsubtle presentation.  (In a nice detail, Jalaluddin speaks high Urdu while Jodhaa and the Rajputs choose a much more Sanskrit-derived vocabulary.)  It is a waste that neither Hrithik nor Aishwarya gets to dance in the film. Gowariker attempts to compensate by giving them swordplay but it isn't the same; Jodhaa's swordplay in particular is a gratuitous and silly plot device, if pretty to watch.  But there is some wonderful music all the same, including two very memorable song sequences - the grand, imperial celebration of "Azeem-o-shaan shehenshah" and the gorgeous hymn "Khwaja mere khwaja" (discussed further by Sanket here).  The latter ends with the swirling dance of a troupe of Sufi dervishes, and in another of the film's touching moments the sensitive Jalaluddin is moved to join them in the dance. 

Aaja nachle (2007)

आजा नचले

Madhuri Dixit is back, and as stunning as ever, in a vehicle whose very title, Aaja nachle ("Come and dance"), tells you that it's designed to play to her greatest strength.  That alone makes Aaja nachle worth seeing, and while the film otherwise doesn't quite meet its potential, it's still a good solid all-around entertainer.

As a young girl, Diya was the toast of her small town of Shamli - both the star dancer in the local troupe and the breaker of local hearts.  Impulsive and thirsty for adventure, Diya eloped with an American photographer, and Shamli was never the same.  Diya's parents were shamed right out of town, and Shamli's stage, Ajanta, where Diya once dazzled with her performances, fell into disuse.  Some ten years later, Diya, now divorced, returns to Shamli at the request of her dying mentor and decides to take on the establishment - in the form of a young MP named Raja (Akshaye Khanna) and a scheming businessman Farouq (Irfan Khan) - who would like to see Ajanta torn down and replaced by a shopping mall.  Diya sets out to woo the hearts of Shamli back to her, and back to dance as well, orchestrating a home-grown production of the classic romance of Laila Majnu.  She's operating against long odds though.  The town is arrayed against her, and her troupe, led by the recalcitrant Imran (Kunal Kapoor) and the unpolished Anokhi (Konkona Sen Sharma) is ragtag at best.  Diya's work is cut out for her.

Aaja nachle doesn't mess around.   There's no coy opening, no stalling the much-anticipated revelation of its heroine.  Instead, it gives you what you came for right in the very first frames - Madhuri smiling, Madhuri dancing.  But this delectable appetizer is not offered without a hint of reproach toward Bollywood's prodigal daughter.  Madhuri is dancing, all right, but she's dancing in New York, to a distinctly American-sounding R&B song with English lyrics, and surrounded by gora extras so pale that even fairer-than-fair Madhuri looks dusky in comparison.  The effect (clearly calculated, and perhaps enhanced by makeup) is both striking and confusing, as if the film is simultaneously chastising Madhuri for fleeing to the States while reminding the audience that she's still very much theirs.

Unfortunately that symbolically laden opening is the last opportunity Aaja nachle takes to tie its feel-good story to a deeper message.  There are numerous opportunities for allegory here, but none of them are clearly taken.  There is neither a clear nod to the modern NRI incarnation of Madhuri Dixit as the prodigal savior of Hindi film, or a sharp criticism of those who might see her such.  The groundwork is laid for a strong message on the tension between the benefits of progress and development on the one hand and the preservation of traditional art forms on the other, but nothing is built on that foundation either.  Every time Aaja nachle gets close to saying something about anything at all, it shies away, retreating into the bright, shiny, familiar clothes of an all-out entertainer.

If that's all you demand from Aaja nachle, though, it delivers amply.  After all, Madhuri is Madhuri, and she's as gorgeous and perfect as ever; there's nothing like watching her do her thing in a colorful production number, whether the resplendent title song in the film's first half or the intense 20-minute extravaganza that is the town's Laila Majnu production.  And she's given a supporting cast that enhances the fun.  Konkona Sen Sharma is particularly brilliant as the rough, gruff, tomboy Anokhi - she's an actor with seemingly limitless range and guts to match, and she inhabits this unglamorous character with delightful fearlessness. 

And so Aaja nachle takes its place among satisfyingly solid entertainers, films that look great and leave you tapping your toes and smiling but that don't stand up to much deep thought afterward. Though I know that Madhuri is good for more than that, I can't really complain -  I'll watch her come and dance any old time.   

(Thanks to David for some helpful discussions.)

Saawariya (2007)

साँवरिया

No one can say that Sanjay Leela Bhansali lacks vision - meticulous, elaborate, rich vision.  If he were apply that vision to a story with some depth and potential, the result could be astonishing, but Saawariya ("beloved") is not that film.  It's not as awful as his Devdas - but it's hard for me to find more than that faint praise for this film that manages to be dull despite all the sparkle.

Young loner Ranbir Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) appears one night in the red light district of some nameless fantasy town.  Late at night at the grand RK Bar he meets a melancholy prostitute Gulabji (Rani Mukherjee) and she is instantly taken with him.  Looking for a place to stay, he works his charm on Lillian (Zohra Sehgal), the elderly matron of a local flophouse.  He also wins over all of Gulabji's downtrodden colleagues.  The one person he has some trouble getting through to, though, is a young girl he meets in the street late on night, the dreamy Sakina, whom he falls for thoroughly.  Sakina is by turns amused and annoyed by Raj; her heart belongs to a mysterious stranger, Imaan (Salman Khan), whom she met and fell in love with a year before - now she anxiously awaits his promised return. 

The chain of longing and desire is taut - Gulabji is tenderly protective of Raj, Raj is manically in love with Sakina, Sakina waits breathlessly for Imaan.  And for all the fantasy of the settings, Raj and Sakina embody a fairly faithful portrayal of teenage obsession.  Raj spins an elaborate fantasy of the progress of his courtship of Sakina, and when it doesn't measure up to his expectations, he seems to think his world is coming to an abrupt end.  Saawariya captures the mood swings and manic intensity of adolescent longing.  The trouble for Saawariya is that these elements just aren't all that interesting.  The characters are distilled archetypes - Sakina the distracted romantic, Raj the happy go-lucky charmer harboring a lonely heart (his origins, and the reason for his wanderings, is left a complete mystery), Imaan the darkly sexual mystery man.  But since the characters are totems, rather than people, their loves and losses are unengaging.  The fantasy city of Bhansali's setting - an all-indoor construction that is part Moulin Rouge, part Devdas, part Singin' in the Rain, and part Dickens - is pretty, but doesn't make up for the dull stretches of the narrative.

Much of the hype surrounding Saawariya was the introduction of its two young stars, especially Ranbir Kapoor, the newest scion of the venerable filmi dynasty.  Bhansali has loaded his film with references to Ranbir's grandfather, the legendary showman Raj Kapoor: the sign adorning the RK Bar evokes the logo of Raj Kapoor's production house, and Ranbir's vagabond clothes evoke the man himself. While these homages are charming, they are also unnecessary and distracting.  Ranbir may have the talent to carry his family's mantle but constantly reminding the audience where he comes from doesn't make him any more appealing on screen.  At any rate, his performance in Saawariya needs toning down; in his character's most manic moments he resembles a crazed ferret on speed, substituting Snoopy dancing for real emotion.  There is a fine line between charming and annoying, and if the audience has to ask itself "is that charming, or annoying?" then chances are it is not charming.   Meanwhile, Saawariya's other debutante, Sonam Kapoor (a distant cousin to the Prithviraj-Raj line of Kapoors) is given precious little to do other than look pretty and run dramatically through the fairy-tale sets. 

Saawariya is the most engaging when Rani Mukherjee is on screen; her portrayal of Gulabji captures a melancholy resignation and a bittersweet air that makes her the least caricatured of all the characters in the film.  If Saawariya has one foot in reality, it is Gulabji's foot,  and the character says as much as the film opens.  A film about her mature suffering, instead of Raj and Sakina's growing pains, could have been a thing of beauty. 

One thing that Bhansali did beautifully even in the execrable Devdas was the songs, and there are some gems here as well, especially Gulabji's very cheeky turn in "Chhabeela," in which she praises Raj's sexy youthfulness, and the gorgeous "Yoon shabnami," a qawwali in which Raj compares his love to the new moon rising to signal the end of the Ramadan fast and the start of the Eid celebration.  There was one song that struck me as an utter failure, though others have liked it:  "Padi," in which Raj cheers all the neighborhood prostitutes with the promise that some day angels will come from the sky and save them from their degraded state.  I find this appalling, an absurdly patronizing sentiment.  It is a major wrong note struck very early in the film, and a missed opportunity to expand on the story of the compelling Gulabji  - the film would have done better to focus on Raj shining some light into her life, instead of making him a cheesy magician winning depressed hearts by spewing pablum all over them.