Jab Harry Met Sejal

An appraisal of Harry and Sejal's meeting, many years after it actually happened.  

Image from Kathmandutribune.com

This is a leisurely, lazy, alright-why-not piece on this Imtiaz-Ali-meets-Bollywood-Stardom movie, Jab Harry Met Sejal.  I really love the original of all these Meeting movies, When Harry Met Sally. I also love the Imtiaz Ali version, Jab We Met.  So I waited breathlessly for Jab We Met 2 (Jab Harry Met Sejal).  But ended up catching my breath and actually watching it sometime this year only.  I read some of the not-so-favourable reviews and hadnt wanted to get disappointed because Imtiaz Ali is one of my favourite Tellers of modern Indian Love stories. Well, now what I am feeling is ambivalent.  Not so disappointed and yet a little disappointed. It has Ali's touch of love for sure. How he narrates the course of love and dances around and through those fine boundaries that romantic love unwittingly transgresses is definitely there. Watch the movie to get a taste of Imtiaz Ali's world of love and romance.  He usually remains within mainstream Bollywood lines and tries to stretch those lines from the inside by depicting complex nuances and shades of love between black and white. 

The film also has a taste of Bollywood stardom. Well, more like mouthfuls of it. In the bigger than life form of Shah Rukh Khan of course. If you have never been to Europe, then you must go on this proxy Europe tour with an aging but still handsome and charming SRK as your tour guide. I think he was actually meant to be a grumpy and insulting man who has been dragged to repeat a tour (grudgingly) in a futile search for a bauble, by a nauseatingly innocent woman in search of herself. He starts out well. But he loses the act very quickly and becomes his charming Shah Rukh Khan self soon. I mean, come on, this is SRK we are talking about. He cant surely be anything but "Raj, Naam to Suna hi Hoga"? But the sprightly Anushka Sharma carries her act through quite convincingly for most of the movie, with her Gujarati accent and calling Harry, Hairy. However, maybe falling in love changed her fundamental mannerisms and accent?  She loses it some time in the second half of the movie, and I was wondering if I was looking at a repeat performance of "Taaniji" from Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.  But, I remember that we are still in the frames of an Imtiaz Ali love story - and I realise the story is trying to as well.  

The characterisation is intact. One or both of the protagonists are usually in search of themselves or some part of themselves in Ali's movies and love helps them discover, and transforms them. Of course for the better. This is true blue Indian romantic love we are talking about, ne? Here, the woman trying to come to terms with her sexuality, coming in to her own, getting comfortable and gaining confidence in her own skin is a journey that we get to see, albeit in slightly immature, teenagerish ways. But hey, who am I to judge? To each her own, right?  A man losing his inner "womanising" self through falling in love and finding a home within himself as well as an actual returning home, is perhaps the other journey.  The man's journey could have been more compelling, more attentive, in its portrayal.  And yet, we do get to see the subtle inner conflicts that arise, the contrariness and the resonances that humans can display in the throes of romance. We are told quite upfront that Harry is a 'womaniser' and Sejal sees this truth, and has no value judgement about it. That is a refreshing difference in Bollywood cinema. She also sees the underlying truth of his loneliness. That is a subtle thread of relationship and understanding that was captured quite touchingly and yet without fanfare and raucousness.  Here is a Harry unmasking his flamboyant colours to discover a sensitive self within, and here is a Sejal who is coming out of her hitherto protected, cocooned existence to find her bold and flamboyant self.  

There is also the usual spiritual, psychological, Rumi undercurrent that is there in Ali's movies that sort of laughs along with life's ironies (or feels poignant, like in Highway). Think about it - in this film there is a gem, something priceless that they are searching for everywhere outside and this leads them on a merry dance, and ultimately she finds it with herself.  And by the time she finds it, we and possibly she as well, realise that the real treaure that she is searching for is something else, which is also with(in) her.  Call me whimsical, but that seems to me like a metaphor for life's search.  "The treasure is within" or some such!  (There is also the phrase from the movie itself and its song, Jeeve Soniya - "What you seek is seeking you")

The music pieces are good as stand-alones but do not really flow with the story.  Like I said, if you have a leisurely, lazy Sunday, and as an absolute fan of Imtiaz Ali you have watched every other movie of his, then Jab Harry Met Sejal is an alright-why-not, to complete the Ali collection. 

Kapoor and Sons - Understated, Yet Emotional

One of the wonderful things about this movie is that no character in it is perfect.  They all have interesting, even darker, shades to them, just as all of us do.  The family is far, far from perfect, just like any of our families.  And yet, we come to like each of the characters in the movie quite a bit.  Especially the grandfather, Dadu (Rishi Kapoor), although he is too flamboyant, a bit like a peacock among pigeons.  However, we take him in stride as part of the mess that family and relatives are and can be. Maybe, especially because he is raucous, contradictorily, quietly so.  Although towards the end, the sudden bit of teary-eyed noise that he makes over the internet asking his grandsons to come back, is a little unconvincing. Yes it is after a death, and deaths change people, but I still felt that he would have done better doing a semi-naked jig with a young thing, that would have jolted his grandsons and forced them to come back and find out for themselves whether he has gone (completely) cuckoo. Would have been more in line with the character.  However.

The pigeons turn out to be kingfishers and bee-eaters. They each carry shadows, which inadvertently come out in the open when they all get together after a long time and stay home for a while.  Thank god almighty that it is not yet another Bollywood wedding that we are attending.  It is rather a more macabre situation of Dadu having had a heart attack that we are called hurriedly to. Just like this instance, I find much of the movie built around ordinary, usual middle-class family happenings and things and sink into it like into a bean bag with a sigh - death and heart attack, bickering over bills and money at the breakfast table, a father screaming at his younger son about not keeping his job, the seemingly perfect and responsible first child, the faded romance of middle aged parents hinting at a once-alive togetherness and harmony, sibling rivalry... In the middle of all this, bursts and moments of love, affection and connection - the quick hug that the mother gives her son, a shared look of understanding between them, the brothers starting to fight over who has their parents' affection but then suddenly laughing about the obvious reality that they both perceive, the grandfather's mischief with his grandsons (smoking weed, no less!), apple pie(!) and more, scattered across the film's duration.

I loved it that there were not primary emotions or themes that categorised the first and second half of the movie.  Although yes, the plot moved quite effortlessly, smoothly into conflict by the end of the first half, and the little moments and hints into relationships and characters gradually build up to this publicly disastrous breakdown wherein every person in the immediate family is furious or hurt about every other.  By "smoothly into conflict" (which sounds oxymoronic) I mean there was a logical sequence to the events and the movement into conflict did not look artificial and contrived. And so, while this sequencing took its time and got our attention, it somehow felt like, the resolution of conflicts, re-building of bridges and relationships, and life returning to a new normal, was not given enough space and work.  It all seemed too pat towards the end and a little too understated perhaps.  Despite this, it works, and I shed some tears and laughed a lot and felt much.

As a soppy, sentimentalist who wants happy endings all around, what I cant wrap my heart around is Harsh's (Rajat Kapoor) death.  Should we necessarily have some part of the ending sad?  Like in Shamitabh. Why was death so necessary for the conclusion of the film? That too when here, Rathna Pathak and Rajat Kapoor carry the burdens, the heavies and the lightnesses of their relationship with such aplomb, such sincerity, I feel their ache, that wispy thread of hope when they connect, the sense of utter hopelessness when the morning-after explodes in their faces, and then again, a tentative reaching out - the phone call, and then WHAM! why do film makers do that?

I felt much more for the older couple than the younger one, which is the one thing I have not mentioned at all until now - Arjun (Siddharth Malhotra) and Tia's (Alia Bhatt) romance. I somehow didn't feel the explicit need for a man-woman romance in the midst of the family drama (it already had its own romance - the larger kind), except that, hey, this is India, and this is Bollywood - what will we do without a woman to catch the attention of one of the protagonists and vice versa.  However, what can be said about it is that it is, like other parts of the movie, understated yet poignant in its own way.  It could also be that a Tia was needed to hold Siddharth to the place, to bring him back home again and also to bring out his softer side. Love / romance can do that.  And Alia Bhatt does a great job, carrying Tia's shadows and manifesting her own style of light.

The elder son's character is totally inspired! Fawad Khan's character is Rahul. I mean, Rahul! A name like that, and you've got to watch the movie to know why this character is a subversion of Bollywood.  Although, Fawad Khan takes some time to warm up to Rahul. His punch was greater in Khubsoorat, and it struck me that the mother and son duo was the same in that movie as well.

Speaking of subversions, I feel that there is much in this movie that subtly subverts Bollywood cliches while still being established firmly as popular, mainstream cinema. Bravo, Shakun Batra.

It's all about the Essentials, Bhaaya!

Pk is a movie worth watching.  And giving some attention to.  As I sat watching it, there was initially a question: is the movie trivialising issues? Then, as I continued, I felt, "wow, brilliant!" What a plot and what characterisation.

Image from Indian Express.com

I do not know whether the movie intended this, however the character Pk is at the same time, both a caricaturisation and a questioning of that caricature. To hold both aspects in the same character, and in the same movie, and to be saying it within the usual 2 and 1/2 or 3 hours is something indeed. 

Pk's journey is that of a Hindu's, albeit a caricature. (It may or may not be that of individuals of other religions in India, I cannot comment on it. I am a Hindu and want to only speak of what I think I know of a Hindu's experience) - this journey of encountering the idea of God, trying to make sense of the drama around this idea, his passion and near fanaticism when he unquestioningly accepts the given and said, (sometimes) eventual disillusionment and swinging all the way to the other end - disbelief and questioning, and fewer times, resolution and clarity.  A journey of a lifetime, or many perhaps, has been fitted into about 3 hours.  It will obviously be intense and not a little, overwhelming.  It will obviously garner the heated reactions that it has.  And also because it has not stopped with the caricaturisation of popular status quo.  In Pk's radical shift towards the initial disbelief, and asking difficult questions, and then later arriving at understanding for himself, the movie has used the innate intelligence of the character.  This type of an intense shift, and an intelligent observation of all that is happening, as they are happening, and within the short duration shown, occurs rarely.  It is usually a much slower journey for the ordinary human being, and in such traumatic conditions (of having no way of returning to one's own familiar world and being lost in absolute alien surroundings without any way of fending for oneself), the said human would most probably freeze into the shock of the trauma.  And hence, it makes sense that the character is way, way beyond even a high intelligence quotient of an earthling, and has honed his mind to such sharpness, of being able to pierce through the cobwebs and see a clear picture, even as the picture unfolds or very soon thereafter.  

His journey has all the elements that an ordinary Hindu encounters in his / her tryst with the idea of God.  Many get to the point of questioning and examination as well.  And so cleverly, the movie has not left it at questioning.  The plot has been taken to its fruition - Pk's unique experience also resulted in resolutions of some sort, and action.  It is not necessary that each one's journey, even in the same ideas, has to have the same result.  Each one's would be different according to their questions, their actions and intentions.  Sarfaraz got his lady love, Jaggu found the damn good story that she wanted to tell, Pk got great raw material for research, discovered earthling-type romantic love and managed to reclaim his ticket to return home.

Image from indiatoday.intoday.in

And what of us, the audience? Pk offers his understanding on national (I am guessing) television, no less, while also managing to find a way to unite the lovers (come on guys, this is bollywood, we have to get the lovers together, even if the stereotypes of 'hero' and 'heroine' is getting blurred here) And their case is also intricately connected to the main plot, which we will get to a little later.  

Pk's offering is very clear.  Its about the essentials.  Nowhere does his narrative indicate that we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.  There is a culture that gets built around each religion, and which is constantly also changing, getting added to, getting reduced and whatnot. All that he is saying as I see it is that let us not allow this to become the reason for our division. A true religion (he talks of this as God, I am calling it true religion) is one that unites, harmonises, and not that which divides us.  What divides us is of our making.  Let us see this clearly.  That is the essential.  If we derive further from this essential, each of us would be true to our native religion while at the same time holding each other in respect and love.  There is no question here of talking of this religion or that.  This essential would be true of every individual, every entity.  Anything can be divisive in nature or otherwise, it is how we treat it.  So let us not give into the division.  Clearly, the matter of how vibrant and intricate culture is, and what goes into understanding this, is not within the scope of this movie. However I do not see anywhere, it deriding any culture per say.  

The other plot of the lovers finding each other is actually well connected to the main running theme. (In fact the plot is quite tightly and well put together).  Sarfaraz and Jaggu had to find each other and had to discover the case of the mistaken identity of the letter writer, for it to be proven that the god-man was a fraud pretending to talk to God.  And this part of the plot highlights so clearly that this kind of conditioning is so insidious and we don't even know that it is a part of us.  Jaggu is an educated, intelligent, rebellious journalist (student earlier), who has gone and done the unthinkable. And yet, it is the fear and conditioning that had her leaving the church in haste. She didnt even think for a moment to have faith in her love, and to question the letter and its contents as meant for her.  It is this subtle point in the plot that is important for each of us.  It is not as much the loud noises and the direct lures and conditioning that we need to question, but our own hidden fears and resulting assumptions.  It plays such a huge and significant role in the lives of the protagonists.  Just imagine, what if she had taken a breath, taken a step in, and thought of Sarfaraz for a moment.  Let us just for a moment, step into ourselves and take an honest look: how many such assumptions and fears do we carry within our selves all the time? And how they limit us and our actions. 

A collector's item, this one. 

Notes:
1. The "Bhaaya" in the title of the post, means "brother" in Bhojpuri dialect and this is the way in which the character of Sanjay Dutt addresses PK in the movie
2. I realise you need to have watched the movie to get some of the details mentioned in the post. Do watch it. :)

Cauliflower manchurian and Red Cherry Blossoms

We were out on the bike at 9:45 p.m. for a family chore. K, my husband, usually tries one strategy or another to keep my mind occupied elsewhere away from the road so that I don't ride the bike by proxy sitting pillion. As a result of one of these strategies, in this particular instance I was narrating the Zen story, Red Blossom Cherry. In the story, a man is being chased by a vicious snake and running from it he reaches the edge of a cliff. He jumps from the fear of the snake, and clings to a tree. There's a landing ground below, but before he can land, he hears a lion's roar from below. The branch he's clinging to starts dangling. In the midst of all this, he spots a Cherry. He plucks it and eats it. The snake is the past, the lion future and the present, the red blossom cherry! I was narrating this story because we were discussing the movie, Right Here Right Now (by the way, a must-watch, which tells a brilliant story of possibilities of living this moment and not living this moment, all in half hour and with no unnecessary dialogues).

After finishing the chore, we spotted a favourite restaurant on our way back home and impulsively stopped for a post-dinner snack (dinner had been an era back at 7:30 p.m.)! Both of us ordered the unhealthiest possible junk on the menu, deep fried, heavy stuff. I asked for the dry cauliflower manchurian. After inhaling almost all of it and ensuring deep satisfaction of the palate, I commented on the nature of my snack. That "yogically" speaking (I am a serious student of yoga), I have violated all rules given by my guru. And also that "ayurvedically" speaking (we follow the ayurveda system of medicine for health and wellbeing), I am probably going to suffer from an increase of vata the next day.

Pat came the answer: Your learning of yoga is the snake of the past; and the effect of the food on you is the lion of the future. The cauliflower manchurian is your red blossom cherry! (with a wicked smile, no less!)

Raavanan / Raavan - A Love Story

It is a brilliant and moving love story. As simple or as complex as a love story can get. A story of people who are not caricatures of the Good or the Evil, but real characters who have shades of both, who have both violence and love in them.

His story: True love always transforms and brings out the best. And this is the story of a man who discovers true love in himself and transforms, and ultimately dies for the love. Or we could also understand it to be that Veera / Beera had anyway the capacity for generous and unconditional love as is indicated by his relationship with his own people. And that his true love for a woman gives him empathy and softness. It is as much his love (later) as her purity (initially) that stops him from touching her even while she is completely at his mercy. And so we see the other characters as they relate to his love story.

Her story: The woman, who is the epitome of purity and conviction of heart. But that does not mean that she is blind to the compliment of being loved by such a man. Yet she is so free of guile or doubt in her heart that she could go back to him in all trust to find out the truth. And a character who shows that purity and fidelity does not necessarily mean a hardened heart but one that can be full of compassion and justice. The movie also reveals her husband through her eyes. She (and the audience) are shown gradually that even the good man can be blinded by authority and self-importance and become mindlessly violent for his perceived good intentions. That he could also be driven to dishonourable politics, as is seen by how he contrives to use her to kill the 'villain'. If someone says that this is not dishonourable politics but simply strategy, then they have already bought into it. A true master of martial arts would tell you so. However, her ties with him are non-negotiable as she shows straightaway and repeatedly.

And this purity of Sita of the original Ramayana is one of the few aspects that have been retained in the movie. Yes, the plot of the love story is embedded in that of the original Ramayana and so there are obvious resemblances in situations and characters. However, there it ends.

For me, the above is the central theme of the movie, keep aside all the usual critical reviews and the flaws that one sees. There are obvious flaws, however they are being given too much importance that we are unable to see the true worth of the story being told. That there are good and evil acts, but no good and evil men. All of us have seeds of both in each one of us.... and that true love has the power to burrow itself so deep and so manifest generosity, compassion, selfless anger, and forgiveness.

The inexorable storyteller leaves his audience to decide whether this Sita swallows her pride in her purity, (which she shows when questioned by her husband and says death is better than to be doubted on grounds of chastity) and goes back to her husband, or goes to her death. Now that would be a very poignant climax, the 'villain' who by now is no longer appearing to be a villain, dies in true love for the heroine, who dies in true love for her 'hero', who by now is no longer appearing to be the neatly slotted and labelled hero at all.

"Singam" - A short Review

The film is as any other Tamil masala formula for Tamizhnattu makkal, with dramatic dialogues and declarations meant for the Tamizh masses. True time-pass if one wants to spend time doing nothing much else.

However, there is one aspect in the movie which redeemed it for me. It dissented from the usual formula in modern tamil masalas, in showcasing the rural vs urban character. Usually in most movies (Take Gilli for instance), the hero is the guy from the metro (chennai of course!) who is intelligent, also knows all his martial arts and has the law on his side, ultimately. The villain is the goonda from the village, a country bumpkin who is all brawn and no brain.

Happily, in 'Singam' the hero is from the village; he is intelligent, smart, also knows to fight but tries always to avoid conflict, and of course has mass support. (You should watch the movie to see how this mass support is presented in the movie. Classic! and real). The villain is from chennai city with all the arrogance of coming from the capital. The juxtaposition was delightful for me.

A true-to-form scene is the dialogue between the police inspector hero and his corrupt superior, where the latter asks him, "do you think this (chennai) is a village for people to be illicitly brewing liquor?" And our hero lets loose a harangue that goes on and on about how we can think the village is inferior and chennai superior, and instances of all that is happening in chennai and so on. When the other guy can edge in to make his presence felt, he uses words like "remote tuticorin district potti kaadu", "small fry from dokku police station".

Response: I come from Potti Kaadu of Tuticorin district, from a dokku police station, bathing every day in Tamairaiparani river, and you come from this big city bathing in the stinking rotting smell of the coovum river. This is the difference between us.

Classic. No other word.

Bindaas!

A review of Taare Zameen Par

Movie, “bindaas!” as Ishaan Avasti (Darsheel Zafary), the character in the movie would say. Upfront, a simple film with a moving story about a child with a disorder – dyslexia. His disorder is not understood by anyone, and as a result he is labeled a lazy, rude and disinterested boy who remains behind in the race of everyday school competition. Enter, a different kind of a teacher, who has overcome the same condition in himself, to help the kid through it, gain acceptance in the eyes of his world by charting his own path to excellence.

But look again, the dyslexia is only the gateway; the movie does not attempt to get into the technicalities of the disorder, which may have interested only a part of the audience. Not using the term “education system” anywhere really, the movie shows glimpses of what is going wrong with our current schooling system and flashes of ideas for betterment here and there. But, neither has the movie started analysing deeply into schooling issues, nor tried to show The Way to correct the system. Yet, it has touched upon many problems with it, all connected, through a simple and inspiring story. Brilliant storytelling!

The three significant scenes which are heavy and dealing with overall questions of learning and schooling, flow in perfect timing and location in the movie. They come on suddenly without any building up to profound message-giving, forcing the audience to take the “bitter pill” so to say, and then swiftly we move on without wallowing.

One is the scene where the teacher, Nikumb (Aamir Khan), meets the child’s parents and pushes them to look at the purpose of educating their boy, the absurdity of their own expectations from him and the meaning of success, pointing to them as well as the audience the anomalies with the current societal approach to education and ideas of success and achievement.

The second is the powerful conversation between the father and the teacher which brings out the difference between true compassion and taking care of the (a) child, and the appearance of doing so. This scene very starkly places the child as the focal point in the entire gymnastics.

The third scene is the staff room, when the innovative teacher hits against a wall of lethargy, insensitivity and rigidity of the “system” in the other teachers.

Here the script stumbles, and this staff room scene is weaker than the other two in that, it only depicts the system’s arguments against a different learning-oriented values and schooling, but keeps the teacher who can see the problems, a passive listener.

Another problem in the film is that it does not stay true to its own punch line, “Every child is special”. In showing the one character and his trials in life, the other children are all clubbed into one uniformed mass laughing at him. The only exception is the one who becomes his friend.

A very good twist in the story is that the teacher himself is also dyslexic, because then there is empathy beyond anything else, and also an example of possibilities and opportunities for the child.

There are many little insights into children’s learning, human behaviour, and how relationships work, that are scattered in the movie and make it timeless – just a subtle awareness displayed without going too much into details and analysis – whether it is the suggestion of how to engage with the government, or it is the consciousness that there are other children without even the middle class comfort of our protagonist (without being didactic about it), or a simple understanding of how a child thinks, learns and responds.

One such subtle funniness in the movie is the play on the word, “drishtikon”, which means “perspective”. The boy is asked to explain a poem on Drishtikon, which he does so with a much deeper insight into the concept of perspective. To his utter chagrin, the Hindi teacher scolds him and appreciates another boy who re-quotes the poem in an explanatory way as he has been taught. One could almost miss the nuances of his fine explanation of perspective. Towards the end, the same teacher appreciates the boy to his parents, saying “What a different perspective your son has of things! Bravo!”

Technically, a sound production – music, visual and imagery brilliantly done (the title visual and music deserve special mention), and the performance of the actors is first-rate. The one aspect in which the editing gets unstable is when Aamir Khan is on screen. There are too many sudden cuts to close in on his face working up tears and getting highly emotional. It does not make sense that a person who is so passionately working with different kinds of children, and who has had a different childhood himself would burst into such emotion at the drop of a hat! And it is amateurish if the camera has to do a close-up every time he gets into emotion. I suppose this is to ward off the evil eye!

Conclusion however: this is a movie worth collecting for the library.