Another epic.Another adaptation.This time with a twist.Mani Ratnam's tryst with epics
lands him, this time (earlier being Karna's story from Mahabharata for Dalapati), in the world of Ravana, the antogonist of Ramayana. The fun part of the movie is that the story is from Ravan's perspective which in theory is definitely exciting and enticing.
Before writing any further on the movie, let me be clear that the post mortem report of the movie is hightly negative to say the least. This is actually a good sign as it eases the burden of expectations on the audience and can,therefore, enjoy the movie. And Enjoy i sure did!.
The film opens with the burning of the police van, police men and the most heinous being the abduction of Ragini, local SP Dev Pratap Sharma's Bharatnatyam dancer-cum-beautiful wife. Dev, with the help of Sanjeevini Kumar, the forest guard who also happens to be a softy for Beera's ideals, begins the search.
Clearly from the first reel, one thing we notice is that Raavan is not a leave-your-brains-behind movie. Though the epic is fairly linear in narration, the adaptation is entirely non-linear. Most of the actions carried out in the first half are justified post interval. One such example being the wound on Abhi's neck. So, it takes a bit of time to understand the events.
The best part of this whole enterprise is that Mani has followed two types of story telling. The first half is mainly visual and second half is mostly verbose although the cinematography of whole movie is just pure magic.
Symbolic references to Ramayana are spread across the movie; many are easy to notice and some requires a hard look like the tattoo of Lord Shiva's trishul on Beera's left hand (referring his devotion to the Lord). Honestly teasers like these make the viewing interesting where it is left to the viewer to join the bit and pieces of the puzzle and see the whole picture in a new perspective.
Again i must add that the movie is undoubtedly an epic painting by Santosh Sivan and Manikandan. A R Rahman's pulsating background score accentuates the scenes further. Samir Chanda lites up the set pieces brilliantly according to the film's mood. But the movie has insipid and dull dialogues throughout which lacks a punch. Technically the overall movie is simply terrific
The film boasts of great star cast but the ones with impact are as below.
Govinda as Hanuman is really good.
Ravi Kishan as Kumbakarna performs well.
Nikhil Dwivedi as Laxman is okay.
Priyamani as Soorpanakha, get to reprise her 'Paruthi Veeran' role in a different language.
Vikram as Ram is effective though his Ray-Ban gets more scope and focus.
Aishwarya, the damsel-in-distress, is Sita-personified. She has never looked this beautiful earlier, ever!.
Abhishek's Beera, in an attempt to portray Raavan's ten heads and their thinking,all at the same time, is most of the times confusing and ineffective. And there in lies Raavan's biggest flaw.
Ultimately, it is Mani Ratnam's vision and interpretation of the epic which makes the movie watchable. Unlike history, which is always the triumphant's version, it is dauntingly challenging re-tell the age old story from the loser's perspective. And that's where, Ratnam and Raavan score.
Watchable? Go...Now!!.
Rating : 4.5 stars
Wednesday 23 June, 2010
Tuesday 8 June, 2010
The Politics of Raajneeti
Prakash Jha's Raajneeti based on World's longest and most complex Indian epic, Mahabharata, tells the story of a rather one big family and their internal politics, most often ruthless, to attain maximum power come what may. The movie is as much based on epic as it does make mild references to mother of all power-centric movies, The GodFather.
The Prataps are a very influential political family in a fictitious state of India. When the eldest of the Prataps, who also happens to be the CM and state party president, falls for paralytic stroke, fate favours his younger brother and his sons (Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor) insanely irritating his own son (Manoj Bajpai). Now begins the story.
Soon, Manoj is joined by Ajay Devgn as Dalit Leader in family feud for power along with other minor but interesting characters played by Shruti Seth, Katrina Kaif,etc.
Amidst all these chess pawns, is one more central but often behind-the-scenes character played by Nana Patekar who happens to know all the tricks and tips of the power trade.
Please don't expect any story here as I honestly found none. All the events in the movie occurring either as part of revenge or to get upper hand against the rival group are most of the times interesting and glues us into the psyche of the movie which is really a good thing as movies these days are either bore-to-the-core or utterly insipid.
Katrina comes into prominence only in the second half and justifies her Indu character. Unlike the promos, her role is just supportive or rather a pawn in the big game.
With so many stars and characters along with their ego clashes, Prakash Jha has really done a great job in providing enough screen spaces to everybody as per their character needs.
Here are the ones who have maximum impact although the entire cast is deliciously terrific.
Arjun (as both Sonny Carleone and Yudhistir into one) plays his hot headed impulsive character Prithvi rather well but could have been better.
Ajay (Karna) as Dalit leader, Sooraj is okay. Great character but toothless role.
Shruti Seth as some manipulative women group leader is pure lust and juicy.
Naseeruddin Shah in a guest role in the beginning in the film is good who also indirectly happens to turn the events in the movie for good or for worse.
Sarah Thomson as Ranbir's Samar's girlfriend is the only positive character. Her outburst whilst Shruti's kidnapping incident and later on Samar is effective as is her death scene!
Katrina (Draupadi) as Indu is adequate with her chaste and difficult (to her) Hindi lines.
Ranbir (as Arjun) is one conniving but shrewd Samar who is the actual plotter to all the happenings in the movie. His is the most underrated acting in this Raajneeti enterprise.
Nana Patekar (as Krishna) is the main force behind Ranbir's Samar plots and handles all the other characters with absolute finesse. But i feel, Nana as an actor is utterly wasted. The role had great potential but no meat in his characterisation. Blame the director for this.
Finally, Manoj Bajpai(as Duryodhan) or the main antogonist, Veerendra of this huge canvas is, atleast for me, is the hero of the film. With Telugu star, Chiranjeevi's 90's moustache looks, he gets to showcase all kinds of negative emotions in an excellent way. He gets maximum 'productive'screen space, stylish costumes with cool sun glasses and best of chast Hindi uttered in a very powerful manner. Coz, may be, on his side, only Ajay and him are the main leads but on other side, there's Arjun, Ranbir and Nana fighting for screen time.
Last but not the least, the director, Prakash Jha, suffering from Bollywood's most common disease, 'Injustifiable and Improper Ending' syndrome, is fairly efficient. Adapting a mammoth epic with so many varied characters and limiting them to screen is not an easy job although GodFather references are hard to ignore in important scenes. One important character from the epic which i missed is Shakuni. But i think, he is present in all the other portrayed characters in one way or another with most visibility in Ranbir's Samar. One major minus point of the film is that most of the characters are, in the end, are plain caricatures.
Hidden Story? It has resemblances the current Indian politics especially the you-know-who family! :)
My pick? Manoj and Shruti.
Watchable? Definitely.
Rating: 3.5 stars
The Prataps are a very influential political family in a fictitious state of India. When the eldest of the Prataps, who also happens to be the CM and state party president, falls for paralytic stroke, fate favours his younger brother and his sons (Arjun Rampal and Ranbir Kapoor) insanely irritating his own son (Manoj Bajpai). Now begins the story.
Soon, Manoj is joined by Ajay Devgn as Dalit Leader in family feud for power along with other minor but interesting characters played by Shruti Seth, Katrina Kaif,etc.
Amidst all these chess pawns, is one more central but often behind-the-scenes character played by Nana Patekar who happens to know all the tricks and tips of the power trade.
Please don't expect any story here as I honestly found none. All the events in the movie occurring either as part of revenge or to get upper hand against the rival group are most of the times interesting and glues us into the psyche of the movie which is really a good thing as movies these days are either bore-to-the-core or utterly insipid.
Katrina comes into prominence only in the second half and justifies her Indu character. Unlike the promos, her role is just supportive or rather a pawn in the big game.
With so many stars and characters along with their ego clashes, Prakash Jha has really done a great job in providing enough screen spaces to everybody as per their character needs.
Here are the ones who have maximum impact although the entire cast is deliciously terrific.
Arjun (as both Sonny Carleone and Yudhistir into one) plays his hot headed impulsive character Prithvi rather well but could have been better.
Ajay (Karna) as Dalit leader, Sooraj is okay. Great character but toothless role.
Shruti Seth as some manipulative women group leader is pure lust and juicy.
Naseeruddin Shah in a guest role in the beginning in the film is good who also indirectly happens to turn the events in the movie for good or for worse.
Sarah Thomson as Ranbir's Samar's girlfriend is the only positive character. Her outburst whilst Shruti's kidnapping incident and later on Samar is effective as is her death scene!
Katrina (Draupadi) as Indu is adequate with her chaste and difficult (to her) Hindi lines.
Ranbir (as Arjun) is one conniving but shrewd Samar who is the actual plotter to all the happenings in the movie. His is the most underrated acting in this Raajneeti enterprise.
Nana Patekar (as Krishna) is the main force behind Ranbir's Samar plots and handles all the other characters with absolute finesse. But i feel, Nana as an actor is utterly wasted. The role had great potential but no meat in his characterisation. Blame the director for this.
Finally, Manoj Bajpai(as Duryodhan) or the main antogonist, Veerendra of this huge canvas is, atleast for me, is the hero of the film. With Telugu star, Chiranjeevi's 90's moustache looks, he gets to showcase all kinds of negative emotions in an excellent way. He gets maximum 'productive'screen space, stylish costumes with cool sun glasses and best of chast Hindi uttered in a very powerful manner. Coz, may be, on his side, only Ajay and him are the main leads but on other side, there's Arjun, Ranbir and Nana fighting for screen time.
Last but not the least, the director, Prakash Jha, suffering from Bollywood's most common disease, 'Injustifiable and Improper Ending' syndrome, is fairly efficient. Adapting a mammoth epic with so many varied characters and limiting them to screen is not an easy job although GodFather references are hard to ignore in important scenes. One important character from the epic which i missed is Shakuni. But i think, he is present in all the other portrayed characters in one way or another with most visibility in Ranbir's Samar. One major minus point of the film is that most of the characters are, in the end, are plain caricatures.
Hidden Story? It has resemblances the current Indian politics especially the you-know-who family! :)
My pick? Manoj and Shruti.
Watchable? Definitely.
Rating: 3.5 stars
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