So, just heard from my friend who was able to track down a suburban theater that is (possibly illegally) showing Dilwale a day early. She reports that the lobby was mobbed, but mostly with Star Wars people. And that the tickets were $20!!!
I don’t know if this is an effort to make crime pay, or if it is official policy from the filmmakers. If it is official policy, brilliant! I saw an article back when Jab Tak came out saying that any Khan release means an automatic increase of at least 30% on ticket prices. And I know that Southern films always have a rolling pricing system, $20 to $50 the first weekend and then slowly lowering as time goes on. Anyway, all those inflated prices lead to inflated box office figures which may lead to Shahrukh FINALLY knocking Aamir and Salman down a peg, which will lead to me, finally, being able to laugh in the faces of Aamir and Salman fans. And I will pretend not to know, in my heart, that it is just because of higher prices not more tickets sold.
I feel like with all the SRK coverage lately, I haven’t been paying enough attention to Salman. And terrible terrible things happen when Salman feels like he is being ignored. Plus, he did just escape from 15 years in prison, he needs to be celebrated! And he also just made the list of sexiest Asian men (that kid from One Direction is on top, Hrithik is second, SRK is 9, Aamir didn’t make it).
So, yesterday I posted about what a great business man SRK is. Salman just doesn’t seem that interested in business, but I think he probably has quite the natural knack for it, in his own totally nutso way.
I mean, there’s always a lot of SRK coverage. Supposedly, Neha Dhupia said in an interview “Only sex and SRK sell”, a quote which instantly became an aphorism. And with the way her career is going, she is probably going to be more famous for that quote than anything else. And thereby prove her point, because it’s the closest she’s ever come to being associated with SRK.
Anyway, on any random day if you turn to Times of India, they will have some kind of SRK slide-show or news story or something, because they know we will click on it. This habit reached it’s nadir/zenith when this article was briefly their top online headline. It works, of course, I not only clicked on that article but discussed it in depth with multiple people, and checked the site obsessively for any follow-up information they might have.
But with a movie coming out, there is this cycle (sycle?) where Shahrukh is giving greater access than usual, which means more to report, and because there is more reporting, people are thinking about him more and more, and are more likely to click on even old stories if they are posted on a homepage.
Which lead to this, an epic 37 page slide-show combining every single slide-show ToI has ever done on AbRam into one, leading off with the recent quotes about him courtesy of the Dilwale publicity express.
So, this article was posted on rediff yesterday, and I avoided it for fear of spoilers, but turns out it was just a bunch of charming quotes from people.
Highlights:
Varun, in the trailer, you are seen doing the Shah Rukh Khan pose. Did you practice?
Varun: Actually, a lot of work went into that pose because we checked a lot of videos. Kriti checked and even Rohit sir checked. He (Shah Rukh Khan) has a lot of fans and you don’t want to get it wrong because they may come and beat me up at home.
So we really practiced it. I still haven’t perfected it obviously. But now I’ve got it, and I’m going to perfect the pose — hopefully.
SRK: I have not perfected it yet. I’m also trying.
Shah Rukh, because of you, Raj Malhotra is an impossible character to replicate. It’s actually difficult for us to propose to a girl because of your characters. Do you think love from 20 years ago is different from what we see now?
SRK: First thing, I’m sorry you’re not getting through to people because of my Raj. But don’t worry, you’ll get there.
And finally,
SRK: …… I want to thank so many of you — in New York, Canada, London, and everywhere — for making sure that Bollywood is being spread all over the world. If it wasn’t for people like you, who are talking about it, holding onto it — good, bad, in a criticizing way or in an appreciative way — I don’t think Bollywood or Indian films would have reached where they’ve reached in the last 10 years. So thank you very much.
Notice how I put the really exciting picture at the top so we would remember why this really matters?
So, currently, the highest Shahrukh movie on the all time gross list for India is number 5. NUMBER 5!!! The shame of it! Ahead of him is PK, Bajrangi Bhaijaan, Bahubali, and Dhoom 3. The whole list is here on wikipedia.
Now, you know what all these films have in common? They are all from the past 5 years. And the film at the top is usually from within the past 2 years. In America, we are used to that, the top grossers are always fairly recent, but in India that wasn’t always the case. Mother India set a box office record in 1957 that stayed in place for 3 years until Mughal-E-Azam surpassed it in 1960. Mughal-E-Azam held the record until Sholay beat it in 1975. Sholay held the record until Hum Aapke Hain Koun came along in 1994. Hum Aapke Hain Koun was toppled quickly by DDLJ in 1995. Then DDLJ lost it’s crown to Kuch Kuch Hota Hai in 1998. That record held until 2001 when it was beaten by both Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and Gadar: Ek Prem Katha. Gadar held the record until 3 Idiots in 2009, at which point everyone breathed a sigh of release because they could start pretending Gadar never happened (very very problematic messages in that film). And then 3 Idiots held the record for a long time, by a big big margin, until it was finally beaten by Chennai Express in 2013. All Shahrukh fans cheered and celebrated and laughed in the faces of their Aamir-fan friends, or at least that’s what I did. Truly, it was a magical time!
(Shahrukh, take a bow! You earned it!)
And then about 2 months later, Dhoom 3 came out and Aamir was on top again. It stayed up there for a year, until PK came out, and then Aamir had the two top spots. PK is still up there, but Bajrangi Bhaijaan did really well this summer and came close to beating it. And Bahubali, of course, is a huge deal since it is the only non-Hindi film up there (although it was distributed by a Bombay based production house, Dharma, which is very important in terms of overseas awareness and national reach in India).
So, on the micro-level, this just means we all need to buy as many tickets for Dilwale as humanly possible in order to return Shahrukh to his rightful ranking. I don’t care if you are actually seeing Star Wars, you buy your ticket for Dilwale!!!
But on a macro-level, in terms of global trends, economics, and the future of the industry, what does all of this mean and where does it come from?
So, I finally watched, Magadheera, yay! It’s just as good as everyone said it would be, like Bahubali but only slightly less so. And the hero has beautiful hair and the heroine is spunky and the special effects are super, and it has one sequence that was just jaw-droppingly beautiful:
It starts out just “kill a 100 men so you can show off a lot!”. But then it turns into this sort of endurance effort to show the triumph of the human spirit and soul and nobility, because he is proving himself to his ancestors and his warrior spirit. And then it goes from being bravado to triumph of spirit, to just pure “I must do this for the person I love.” It didn’t even feel romantic to me, more in that “mother lifts a car off her child” kind of arena. Which is why it was so powerful, it turned into something completely selfless and loving and triumphal.
Anyway, I don’t want to talk about any of that. No, what I find interesting in the clip above is the how the Muslim enemy leader comes to respect our hero’s bravery and achievements. Which was a huge relief, because it meant the Muslim character in this movie was going to be an “Honorable Muslim” instead of a “Rapacious Muslim.”
So, I just put Zamaana-Deewana on my Christmas list. I already own it (of course, I own all Shahrukh movies. Yes, even Maya Memsaab), but I need another back-up copy for when my current copy wears out. To which the response I got from my family was “You wore out a copy of ZAMAANA-DEEWANA?!?!?”
See, most people don’t appreciate the brilliance of this film. If you look at it as a straight up 90s rom-com-action-family-gangster film, it’s got a super super sexy song:
But, if you look at in context of the director’s career, it is fascinating!
So, Zamaana-Deewana is the last film directed by Ramesh Sippy, director of Sholay. Poor Ramesh Sippy, at age 28 he made not just his greatest film, but the greatest film in the history of Indian film. Where do you go from there? Where he went was a long descent into irrelevance, fighting it every step of the way.
To back up a moment, let’s talk about Ramesh Sippy’s childhood (if I’ve learned anything from Indian movies, it’s that all the important motivations happen in the childhood flashback). Sippy’s Dad, G.P. Sippy was one of the first, and the few, businessman producers. Because of the legal difficulties with making films in India (censorship, lack of industrial status prior to 1999, constant threat of civil cases against you, the mob’s protection racket, etc. etc.), most producers are also directors (or actors or writers) who get into the business for the love of film rather than simply to make money.
GP Sippy not only got into film to make money, he was really good at it! He started funding films back in the 1950s, and by the 1960s was one of the leading producers in the industry. Eventually, he did get into directing, but it was more from a standpoint of saving a buck and doing it himself than a deep artistic calling.
Ramesh grew up on filmsets, acting where a bit player was needed, watching his father fight with writers and directors until he got the most profitable possible version, making nice with the stars and star composers, learning all that goes into a film.
And then when he was 23, his father gifted him a film, Andaz. It looked like the first financial miss-step of GP Sippy’s producing career-who would let their 23 year old kid direct the two biggest male stars of the day (Shammi Kapoor and Rajesh Khanna) with a recent arrival from the southern industries (Hema Malini), and a plot about widow re-marriage?
And then of course it turned into a huge hit. Shammi gave a totally out of character performance as a sad widower, Rajesh Khanna was riding high on a string of hits and even his glorified cameo appearance gave a boost to the box office, and Hemaji was Hemaji.
This first film was notable for several reasons; the way Ramesh juggled the star cast, the slightly radical societal message, the strong female characters. Ramesh doubled down (literally!) on the strong female characters with his next, Seeta Aur Geeta in which Hema Malini plays identical twins with very different personalities.
He also upped the star cast, having Hema be romanced by both Sanjeev Kumar and Dharmendra (side-note: this was also the beginning of Hema’s real life love triangle between the two men, although watching the film kind of spoils how it will end, as she has crazy chemistry with one of them and not so much with the other). The film was a huge hit, especially internationally. There is a good chance, if you grew up in the USSR during the 1980s, you saw this movie.
Most importantly, Seeta Aur Geeta confirmed the partnership between Sippy and the scriptwriters Salim-Javed. They had worked on Andaz as well, but it was with Seeta Aud Geeta that they proved their brilliance to the Sippy father and son.
The Sippy’s put their faith in Salim-Javed and paid them to start working on their magnum-opus, a film about two crooks who go to save a village from bandits. And thus was born Sholay.
We all know what happened when Sholay came out. Slow start, followed by massive success, ran for 5 years, defined the careers of all who worked in it, Hema Malini married Dharmendra, etc. etc.
But what happened to Ramesh afterwords? Well, eventually, he had to go back to work and try to make something that could compete with his own brilliance. His next film, Shaan, was basically Sholay, but bigger! Two more loafers with hearts of gold, another big bad villain, another noble cop. Only this time, the villain has a remote Island hide-out, and the end fight scene involves helicopters! And, explosions!
(I have no idea what language those subtitles are in) (Update: Romanian! Thank you Anna!)
Basically, he was attempting to imitate his own imitators, who had taken the success of Sholay and only seen in it an epic action film, not an action film with multiple strong social messages, brilliant characterizations, perfect casting, and really, perfect everything.
So, Shaan didn’t work the way he hoped, his next film, he leaned heavily into the social message side of Sholay. And the amazing acting/casting side, as he managed to get Amitabh Bachchan acting against Dilip Kumar (by the way, happy day after your birthday, Dilipsaab!). Great script concept, a noble cop who fights for justice inside the law must confront his own son who fights for justice outside of it, lots of nice twists, some clever call backs to the 1950s classic Awara, it all looks great.
And it is great! Shakti is an evergreen classic. But it was no Sholay. Failed to set the box office on fire, failed to truly win the hearts and minds of the Indian public.
So what’s left for Ramesh to try, as he fights his way down to the bottom? Well, there’s always sex! Saagar, his next, still has that Sippy touch with the casting. He got Dimple Kapadia in her comeback film, which reunited her with her Bobby caste-mate Rishi Kapoor. And southern genius Kamal Haasan in one of his few Hindi roles. But it is mostly remembered because Dimple has a brief topless scene. It was the mid-80s, after a decade of post-Sholay action movies, the audience was mostly made up of teenage boys, and that’s what they wanted.
And then there was Zameen, which hardly made a blip on the film scene (even wikipedia doesn’t have an entry for it), and marked one of the few entries of southern star Rajnikanth in Hindi cinema. The 80s were the era of southern films, as audience turned increasingly to their raunch and action and excess (similar to how they do now), and Sippy tried to live with that. His next film starred Mithun Chakroborty, another southern import.
And then he reached a turning point. Much like one of his own heroes, he shook his fist to the sky and swore he would stop living this life of lies! Or at least, that’s how I picture it. His next film, Akayla, not only starred Amitabh, it was written by Salim-Javed and revolved around twins. It even has a reference to Seeta Aur Geeta built into it! Anyway, this last desperate attempt to reclaim his destiny failed horribly, both critically and at the box office.
(yes, that is Amrita Singh, Saif Ali Khan’s first wife)
And then, finally, 4 years later, we have Zamaana-Deewana. Think of Thakur Sahib patiently watching Ramlaal pound the nails into his shoes. He is methodically and outwardly calm, but inside he is on fire! He wants to destroy, piece by piece, that which took his dreams from him. This is how I picture Ramesh approaching his first 1990s Rom-Com.
So, it opens with a meeting of the police department as they struggle to deal with the gang war going on in their city. A classic set-up for a 70s film exploring the connections between order and disorder, crime and criminals. But it is interrupted! By Anupum Kehr, wacky top-cop, who’s solution for this crime spree is simple: A Love Story!!!
Which leads directly into a 20 minute sequence of Shahrukh Khan and Raveena Tandon falling into picture perfect, saccharine sweet, love. If you watch it straight, it is kind of boring and by the numbers love song.
But it isn’t not straight at all. After it is over, Anupum Kehr admits that it was all his fantasy of how young people will behave and he is promptly shouted down by others, because of course that is a ridiculous fantasy.
That is some epic shade, right there! I mean, I love Maine Pyar Kiya and QSQT, but they really do have the most ridiculously sweet and innocent characters. I can see Ramesh Sippy, with his complex character with adult problems, like widow remarriage or violent criminals or the divide between law and justice, just spitting on these puppy-eyed twerps taking over his films.
His point just becomes clearer once we are actually introduced to our hero and heroine as they really are, not as they are imagined. The 90s directors saw Indian youth as pure and innocent, blank slates for emotions, or to put it another way, stupid. Sippy sees them as crazy conmen, full of energy, power, and no direction. Remember, this is our hero:
The film really peaks in the first half hour, with that awesome fantasy sequence take-down, but there are other delights in store for the viewer who watches it with an eye to the 90s tropes. The ending takes the “interrupted wedding” idea to the extreme, with fathers and other authority figures changing their tunes second by second depending on the perceived marital status of the heroine:
(I also like when she is going to commit suicide by using the ceremonial fire to burn her wedding sari. So the metaphors are just too rich to swallow!)
And of course, we have the extremely literal take on the “oh my goodness, now I know what love is!” moment. The super sexy song above comes about because the hero and heroine’s eyes meet, in the rain, and then they have to be force ably separated and locked in separate rooms, or else they will have sex, right there, and nothing can stop it! Even though, mere hours earlier, they were actually handcuffed together and locked in a bedroom, and nothing happened:
Anyway, if you watch this film as a straight up 90s Rom-com-gangster-action film, it ricochets wildly between being super boring (all the set-up for the gangster feud and evil plotting! Get to the point already!), and super strange (why does Anupum Kehr have a ten minute drag scene?). But if you watch it as bitter, angry Ramesh Sippy shouting to the world “See! See what you have reduced me too!”, then it is brilliant.
And I was thinking I was the only person who appreciated it, but based on the only youtube clips I was able to find, it is only India that doesn’t appreciate Sippy, the rest of the world loves him!
Okay, back in October sometime, Shahrukh told Times of India: “Jis film mein main aur Kajol hai, ek romantic gaana toh banta hi hai, jis film mein Varun Dhawan ho, ek dancing number toh banta hi hai, Jisme do bhai ho, ek bhaiyo ka gaana bhi banta hi hai, jisme ek khoobsurat heroine ho uska ek aur gaana bhi banta hi hai, aur jab poori family ho toh ek sad gaana bhi banta hi hai. Aur yeh sab ho jaaye toh ek item number bhi banta hi banta hai.”
Very loosely translated, I think he is saying there will be a romantic number for him and Kajol, a dancing number for Varun, a song about brothers, a song about what a pretty heroine there is, a sad number, and an item number.
So, I don’t actually know if I could line them up one by one at this point (is the romantic number “Janam Janam” or “Gerua”? Or is “Gerua” the beautiful one? Or “Janam Janam” the sad one?), but that means 6 songs, right? And so far we have seen only 4? Counting the new one out today?
The only one I am sure we haven’t seen yet is the item number. I haven’t even heard rumors as to who might be the item person! Although if that is why Ajay was visiting Kajol in Bulgaria, to be the item boy in her film, I will die of happiness!
Oh! No! Even better! That’s why her mom was visiting in Iceland! Tanuja, returning to her roots!
I did it! I got all the way through the first half of Quantico, watching just in case there is a moment that directly relates to or reveals something about Priyanka’s Indian career. And there is not! But I will be back in March (or whenever), just in case at some point she breaks character, faces the camera, and tells us all about what she really thinks about Kareena Kapoor, what the big fight with Karan Johar was about, and if Ranveer Singh actually hates her as much as he seems to in interviews (and vice versa).
So far, it’s just been a bunch of stuff that those who watch her Indian stuff already know: she is totally willing to do sexy scenes and kisses, her hair is great, she definitely has a new nose, and she has weird chemistry with powerful older men. Oh, and she can’t act (duh).
What I didn’t realize before was how much she is willing to sell out her identity in order to make it overseas. I know that she isn’t the one writing the show or producing it, but she claims she had her choice of scripts and concepts, and this is the one she chose? One that turns a Christmas episode into a New Years one because they didn’t want to deal in anyway with whether a Hindu and a Muslim would celebrate Christmas? One that, last week, dismissed her Om bracelet as a symbol of her personal identity, rather than a sign of her being a practitioner of the 3rd largest religion in the world? One that argues we should avoid violence against the Muslim community because it will turn them against us, not because it is wrong?
In his interview last month with Vogue India, Shahrukh Khan was once again asked why he has never taken a role in an American film, despite being the most popular international star:
“I hope everyone who ‘goes across’ does very well. We’re the biggest filmmaking country in the world and it’s time we were outbound. Yes, if there’s a film with the right role for me, I’ll do it. But I’ll be honest; I’ve never been offered such a film….They should be [afraid of me]. They have to offer me something that doesn’t disrespect my audience of 1.2 billion. I’d never disrespect that,”
Not just Shahrukh, but all of the major stars have given some version of this explanation. Aamir, Salman, Amitabh, they don’t want to work overseas unless it is something that respects them, and respects their audience.
So the biggest thing I learned about Priyanka from my death march through this show is that she doesn’t respect her audience, and she doesn’t seem to respect herself much either.
So, Salman’s appeal was approved! He has been cleared on manslaughter charges in the 2002 reckless driving case. A triumph for something, certainly, if not exactly justice.
Now, I could talk about the issues with the court system in India, the price of fame and the power of money, whether punishment or reform is the purpose of the criminal justice system, and so on and so on, but I don’t really care about all that.
No, much more important, is: will Salman now, finally, get married? He has claimed for years that he wants to get married, only he couldn’t think about it with this court case hanging over him. Now that it has been resolved, time to place your bets!
This isn’t to say that I actually believe Salman has been putting off marriage because of jail. After all, Sanjay got married twice while waiting for his charges to resolve! But it was certainly a convenient excuse for Salman to pull out for the past 12 years every time things started to get serious.
Lulia Ventur is where Times of India is putting its money. Eastern European, been seen with him for years, he said something in a interview a few months ago about a family tradition of marrying outside his culture, and supposedly he bought her a house.
However, on the downside, she may already have a husband. I am sure a lawyer who can get a manslaughter charge to go away could also disappear an inconvenient husband. Again, though, it worked for Sanjay (his current wife may have been only about 75% divorced at the time of their wedding).
But I say, why not think outside the box! For example, Sangeeta Bijlani, Salman’s very first documented girlfriend. A former Miss India and a movie star, they dated back in the early 90s when both their careers were on the upswing. They broke up for unclear reasons (possibly he was cheating, possibly she just wanted to be married and he wasn’t ready), and she went on to marry Mohammad Azharuddin, the Muslim Captain of the Indian Cricket team who was banned from playing thanks to a match-fixing scandal. Apparently, her type is Muslims-at-the-top-of-their-profession-who-become-targets-for-possibly-too-extreme-punishments. Also, Emraan Hashmi is playing her husband in the upcoming biopic Azhar (lucky him! Emraan will make him even hotter than he was in real life). She is being played by Nargis Fakhri (poor her).
Now, Sangeeta got divorced back in 2010, so she is on the market again. She has stayed friendly with Salman, even visited him just now to congratulate him on getting off the charges. Is this the beginning of a campaign? One of those reminders that all the reasons they broke up in the first place now longer matter? I like the idea of someone age appropriate, someone with history with him. It would be sweet, like those high school sweethearts that reunite decades later!
After Sangeeta, of course, came Aish. Can you imagine the scandal if they got back together? It would be the biggest thing since ever! Frankly, I don’t know if the industry could survive, the camps would become so hard drawn it would be impossible to actually put together enough of a crew to get a film made. But even if it led to the end of Indian film as we know it, the scandal would be so juicy, it would almost be worth it! It even almost makes sense, the Bachchan’s certainly keep Aish on a tight leash, whereas the Khans let their daughter-in-law’s do whatever they want!
Plus, while Abhishek has a better family, Salman is the better catch just for himself. And, as Aaradhya’s mother, she’s got a lifetime connection to the Bachchan’s whether or not the marriage lasts. I could see Aish taking a calculated risk, and she definitely seems like the one-that-got-away for Salman, who would take her back in a heartbeat! Especially if she managed to play into his savior complex!
Speaking of scandal, what about Kat? What if she still loves Salman and only moved on to Ranbir because she thought he would never be ready to be married? Plus, Salman’s family looooooooooves her and the Kapoors, apparently, do not. Ranbir actually moved out of his family home to live with her, which is a pretty big sign, considering no man in his family has moved out of that house in the past 60 years. But can you imagine the end of Kuch Kuch playing out in real life, but with Salman playing Shahrukh, Kat playing Kajol, and Ranbir playing Salman?
But then there is my dream relationship. What if Salman sincerely didn’t want to get married until the court case was settled? What if he has been secretly hiding emotions in his heart for a long-time friend and, now that the sword hanging over his head is lifted, he will rush to her side, finally confess his emotions, and the music will swirl and they will be on a mountaintop! So, stick with me on this:
What if he has been in love with Karisma Kapoor for the past two decades?
Picture it: they meet on the set of Nishchaiy (1992) for the first time as semi-adults. She is just barely 18, he is dating Sangeeta. They become friends, more than that, he becomes her protector and defender onset and off (all of this so far is more or less true). He breaks up with Sangeeta a few years later, but by then Karisma is old enough to date and has started a relationship with Ajay Devgn. She breaks up with him, he moves on to Kajol, and meanwhile Salman is sewing his wild oats. Right when he is ready to get serious again, Karisma starts dating and becomes engaged to Abhishek Bachchan. Salman, around the same time, starts a serious relationship with Aish. Abhishek dumps Karisma weeks before the wedding. Meanwhile, Salman and Aish’s relationship implodes. Karisma has already moved on and started dating Sanjay Kapur, heir to a wealthy Delhi family, known for his polo playing and his drug charges. Salman starts dating 19 year old Katrina Kaif. Karisma’s marriage quickly turns into disaster. After two children, she returns to Bombay, where she is quickly welcomed back by her old friend, Salman Khan, who breaks up with Katrina around the same time.
So, all of the above is actually true and accurate, but imagine this interpretation. What if Salman has been in love with her for years? What if, in my lovely fanfic, Sangeeta broke up with him because she could sense he was in love with someone else, but by then Karisma was already with someone. What if he started dating Aish in a desperate attempt to forget Karisma and Abhishek’s relationship? What if Aish figured it out and confronted him, thus leading to the massive nervous breakdown that caused the very manslaughter accusation of which he was just exonerated? What if, never having recovered from having been rejected for Karisma, Aish’s whole marriage to Abhishek is just some obscure form of revenge, by getting the one man Karisma couldn’t get in revenge for her taking the one man she wanted?
What if Salman has been quietly waiting for Karisma to work through the last tangles of her marriage, afraid to speak his mind while she was still technically another man’s and while the threat of jail hung over his head? What if the music swells and they look in each other’s eyes, and suddenly….
Okay, so I know this is mostly me being crazy and reading too many romance novels, but after surviving her parents’ very public separation, supporting her whole family as a teenager, then being dumped by her first boyfriend, jilted by her fiance, and destroyed by her husband, I just want Karisma to be happy! And what could be better than to marry the one man with the power, fame, and, frankly, terrifying insane temper, to make all of that go away?
So, I am a huge huge sucker for a good fanvid, have been for years. Going all the way back to when I was in college and I would take a break from studying to browse around and try to dig up a new SRKajol vid.
After over a decade of loving these things, I think I have figured out 3 categories of fanvids, specific to Indian fandom.
First, there is fanvid that expands on the themes of an existing artwork, for instance this fabulous one from Alina Yuvvraaj:
So, both of those kinds of videos, based on a particular movie or a particular star, you can find in any fandom. Where I think it starts to get unique, is in the next two categories.
First, there are the videos based on a particular mood. Since Indian film follows the Rasa theory, where the goal is to evoke a particular mood at a particular moment, rather than a cohesive mood through out one narrative, a wide variety of films might have particular scenes that flow seamlessly between the borders of their individual movies.
Like this, the moment when you are in love without realizing it yet and happy (from half a dozen different movies with the same moment). By Zizi K again:
Or this, which evokes the specific mood of “young and drunk at a club”, by MRSEMRAAN:
Or this, which has the very specific-to-Indian-film emotion described right there in the title. Women who are sad, and the men who love them from MRSEMRAAN again:
And then finally, there is my favorite category, the totally made up full narratives that go across multiple films and, occasionally, all the way into real life footage. This is really unique to Indian film, because Indian film is uniquely cohesive film to film. The same jodis play the same characters going through the same narrative beats over the over again. And even into real life, in interviews and publicity tours, they interact the same way. And who knows, maybe it is even related to the reincarnation in Hinduism! According to some versions, even Ram and Sita were reborn multiple times and lived out their story over and over.
Anyway, one of my favorites, which seamlessly moves between real life and film. Almost convinces me that Kajol really is eating her heart out, from MissCinemaObsessive:
and then I watch this from lalilly and feel better:
(see, they’re just friends after all!)
Or this one, where she actually does get him, even though he is himself and she is village-Kajol, from Zizi K:
Or this, where it’s not just SRKajol, but SRKajol vs Kajol/Salman and Kajol/Saif, from LUANSU (LUANSU was also the first fanvid maker I found, back in college):
It’s not just SRKajol, I literally screamed with delight when I found this one, hitting up the scandals old school! And using all film footage to tell a real life story, very impressive! From TheMelicrazyy:
And this leads into the bonus subcategory, fake storylines pulling together multiple films, but with stars who never actually acted together! Because actors and their characters are so consistent across films, and all films are so consistant with the kind of scenes they include, you can actually craft a narrative revolving around people who have never been onscreen together (my favorite of these is the Abhishek/Kajol/Rani “Teardrops on My Guitar” that was briefly posted like 6 years ago by Nouf89, and then pulled down. My white whale! If someone out there has it, please send me a copy!). But these are nice too. From rmskch:
(this is so impressive! Remember they have only been onscreen together for less than ten seconds in her friendly appearance in KANK)
And I had never even considered these options, from 3bit89:
(none of these three has ever costarred with each other in anything!)
So, did I do this right? Are there the same number of categories as promised in the post-title? I think so:
Fanvids expanding on one particular film
Fanvids expanding on one particular star
Fanvids combining multiple films with the same mood
Fanvids combining multiple films with the same moods/stars into a narrative
Fanvids combining multiple films with the same moods/stars into a narrative even if the stars never acted opposite each other
The love and violence and love-means-violence is all tied up together in this. My first thought was “so untraditional! What happened to SRKajol, the happpy-go-lucky NRI romance?” But then I remembered that their first movie together was Baazigar, which had this:
So really, Kajol shooting him through the heart is just a return to their roots! Or else, she is finally getting revenge on him for heartlessly killing her sister (always bothered me that she wasn’t more angry at him for that) (in Baazigar, not in real life. So far as I know, he has never done anything to Tanisha)
Bonus, it looks like they have almost the same meet-cute as SRK and Divya Bhatya in his very first movie, Deewana:
I found her! Just now! My favorite item girl! Her name is Mumait Khan, and I just learned that an hour ago after being her fan for a decade.
I first noticed her in a song in Hulchul:
That’s her in the more yellow-y sari, with the face piercings and the awesome attitude. Actually, they all have attitude in this song. Whenever I read a think piece about how sexy item numbers are bad for women, I want to make the author watch this! They are just freaking dominating that village square! And if men choose to watch them, they take it as their due, but they aren’t doing it for the men, they are doing it for themselves.
Anyway, shortly after that I noticed it was her in this song from Asambhav too, with a very poorly fitting blouse:
So uncomfortable looking! I just want to hoist that blue thing up! It’s way too tight, and way too low. But otherwise, this song is awesome again. She’s trapped on an island with a bunch of horny terrorists, and she is in complete control.
So far as I could tell, the only time she actually had a speaking part in a film, instead of just doing a fabulous dance in the background, is in Lucky: No Time for Love. Maybe to punish her for having lines, the dance number they give her is much less awesome than usual:
The only bits that are awesome are thanks to her. The other three girls are giving me more of a “innocent school girl about to be raped by a bunch of creepy guys” vibe (that is their school uniform, and they are 17). Whereas she is giving me more of a “not so innocent young woman about to happily flirt like crazy with everyone in sight and then leave them wanting more” kind of feeling.
Anyway, I’ve been seeing her pop-up here and there for years, but it was impossible to figure out her actual name. Even imdb doesn’t help, since it’s not like she has a named role in the film. I tried searching for “actors in common”, but Indian film is such a small world, every movie has multiple actors in common, and I couldn’t sort her out from the rest.
But tonight, thanks to a recommendation from a friend who knows more about the south than I do, I am watching Chatrapathi, a Telegu movie with the same director and star as Bahubali. And there she is! At first, I am just super happy to have a new song with her, and then I realize this is finally my chance to find out who she is! Sure enough, there is only one person in common between Hulchul and Chatrapathi, Mumait Khan. According to imdb, her father is from the south, her mother is from Pakistan, and she grew up just outside Bombay.
But I was able to find out even more than that! That name sounded familiar to me, so I dug through my books, and she was actually profiled by Anupama Chopra (love her!) back in January of 2005. Her life story is kind of old-fashioned, actually. Just like Helen or Nargis or Meena Kumari, she went to work at a young age to support her family and film work was all she could get. Her father was laid off, she had younger siblings, the family was struggling, so at age 14 she went to work at the best job she could get, dancing in films, in the chorus for $35 a day. After years of work, she finally got her big break, age 17, in Munna Bhai MBBS (love the movie, so-so on this particular song actually, but her attitude is fabulous):
Two years later, when Anupama interviewed her, she had made enough to move her family out of their house and into a modern apartment. She was also rumored to be about to break through to the west, possibly be featured in a music video. And, because of this, she said she was experimenting with piercings and tattoos. Which, no-no-no-no-no! She was already tattooed and pierced and awesome, right from the start. More likely, some manager had told her to say that it was for the West, so she could pretend that at heart she was still a good, traditional, Indian girl.
But the thing is, she is! At least, she is a traditional Item Girl. Helen, the greatest of all item girls, has an almost identical resume. She was sent out to support the family in puberty the best way she could, as a background dancer. As a teenager, she was finally given her big break and her star-power and personality was immediately recognized. It’s still recognizable, watch this song and tell me you don’t immediately fall in love with her:
She also never became an actress, never had more than a few lines in a film, but instead spent her career being the sexually confident and aggressive woman that the heroine could never be, but that the audience, both male and female, needed to see.
I don’t know if it is because of a childhood spent dancing their heart out, or the knowledge that they could support a family better than a man before they were 16, but I feel like these two women, Mumait (so happy to have a name for her!) and Helen, have a certain something when they attack the camera in these songs that is just missing from the new faux-item girls.
I’m talking about songs like this with Priyanka in Ram-Leela:
Or Katrina Kaif in Sheila:
Don’t get me wrong, those songs are great, but they are just missing something that you get when it is a whole-hearted item girl, someone who knows she will never be that girl the hero falls in love with, that this is her one moment in the sun. That we may never even know her name, but by she will make sure we never forget her!
Kat and Priyanka want me to love them, Helen and Mumait DEMAND that I worship them.
Warning: Despite what it says below, this is NOT A GOOD MOVIE. The dialogue is terrible, and so is Salman’s accent. But it is so so pretty! My love is purely superficial and based on appearances, do not follow my example!
I loooooove Jaan-E-Mann. Me, and no one else. Maybe my sister, maybe my parents (although that could be familial indulgence), and that’s it. It was such a huge flop when it came out, it actually ended careers. Poor Shirish Kundar.
I actually saw it in theaters opening weekend, it and Don. They opened the same weekend, and I was much more excited for Don! Farhan Akhtar collaborating with Shahrukh! Super hot Arjun Rampal! A remake of a classic film that actually came with the blessing of the original filmmakers! Turns out, everyone was more excited for Don, Jaan-E-Mann was a massive flop and Don was a massive hit. Thus beginning the tradition of Salman and Shahrukh going head to head, and Shahrukh winning by a thousand percent. Just something to think about when laying your bets for who will end up winning Eid next year.
Anyway, I did like Don. Especially the Aeneid scene. So, if you haven’t happened to have read the Aeneid, it opens with Aeneas fleeing Troy as it burns. He is struggling to get through the burning streets, carrying his young son in front of him and his elderly father on his back, with his wife’s hand in his. At some point, he lets go and loses her. So it’s this very literal metaphor, with the past generation being held behind him and the future in his arms, he flees from danger (to eventually found Rome. Which was the point of the Aeneid, according to my classics teacher in college, that Romans wanted to be a cool and connected to Troy somehow so they wrote this very elaborate justification for it).
Anyhoo, there’s this one moment in Don when Arjun Rampal, a cripple, has to laboriously walk over a treacherous walkway between two buildings with his son carried on his back in order to save both their lives. And something about how it is filmed just captures that Aeneid-esque quality of desperately traveling on not just for yourself, but because of those you carry with you.
So I liked that! And SRK was hot and the songs were catchy, but the ending was kind of a let-down. And on the whole, it just felt a little too glitzy and “oo, look at me! Aren’t I cool?” to be fully heartfelt. And then the next day I went to see Jaan-E-Mann and it Blew. My. Mind.
I distinctly remember standing on the corner afterwards waiting for the bus thinking “why didn’t anyone warn me! I’m not going to be the same after that!” Of course, now I know why, it was because no one else in the world had the same reaction I did! It’s not like reviews say at the bottom “by the way, everyone else will find this film tedious and fantastical, but you one person in Chicago (you know who you are) will be so emotionally overcome after viewing that you may need to bring a buddy with you to help you find your way home.”
I don’t even wish it was more successful, really, Shirish Kunder’s subsequent work (Tees Mehr Khan, horrid except for the “Sheila Ki Jiwani” number and Akshaye Khanna; Joker, just plain horrid), shows that he didn’t have the talent I gave him credit for. Apparently, it was just an odd alchemy of his strange strange script ideas, and Farah Khan’s genius with song sequences. And probably some budgeting issue that kept them less ambitious. And then post-Om Shanti Om, Farah’s production house had all the money and street-cred in the world to throw at her husband’s strange vanity projects, and it turns out that they were really not good. If the actual filmmakers proved incapable of recreating the artistic success (well, by my measure) of this film, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened if it had done super well and a bunch of young imitators had sprung up!
So, Jaan-E-Mann opens with a reference to 2001: A Space Odyssey. And then it goes on to reference the Indian FilmFare Awards ceremonies of the 1970s, Broadway Melody of 1936 (the best Broadway Melody, their quality declined over time. It goes ’36, then ’38, Born to Dance which should have been ’37, and then 1940, the worst. I should really re-watch those), Singin’ in the Rain, and a million others, some of which I got, and some I am sure I missed.
(The reference is a lot clearer if you know there is “Blue Danube” playing in the background in both)
(they digitally inserted Salman into a 1970s FilmFare ceremony for no real reason)
(It’s not as clear with still images, but the table and chairs rise up from the floor)
(It’s visible in still images, but if you watch the whole opening of “Gotta Dance” in Singin’, and the end bit of “Humko Maloom Hai” in Jaan-E-Mann, it is really clear)
And these aren’t sort of wink-wink, nudge-nudge, inside joke references. They are for a purpose (I believe, even if no one else does). Over the course of the first 20 minutes of the movie we are going through decreasingly surreal and movie-movie images so that the final moment when reality comes crashing down is all the more devastating. And when I say crashing, I mean literally crashing, as Salman’s character receives his divorce papers from Preity Zinta and destroys their marital apartment.
I should pause and actually address the plot for a second. It’s a pretty simple one. Preity Zinta is suing Salman for alimony that he can’t afford to pay. He decides to help her nerdy (or maybe geeky? I am never clear on these distinctions) best friend from college played by Akshay Kumar woo and marry her so Salman can get out of paying alimony. And Akshay doesn’t know Salman is her ex, he thinks he is just his new best friend who is trying to help him out. Also, Salman is a struggling actor and Akshay works for NASA. There, now I’ve spoiled the magical randomness of 2001 and 1970s FilmFare references by explaining how they actually relate to the characters.
Actually, all of the magically random visuals relate to the characters, and if you get that, the movie really really works. And if you don’t, it really really doesn’t. Akshay’s character is introduced by two songs in rapid succession. First, he flashes back to his first meeting with Preity in college. It’s presented from his perspective, and it is a total fantasy. She is sweet and beautiful and angelic. Her boyfriend (Salman, although Akshay doesn’t know that) is a lout. Akshay is sure they will end up together. It culminates in a rock concert they go to together when Akshay is so happy and secure in his in love that he literally flies around the room (the image is both cheesier and more realistic than it sounds). And then literally comes crashing down to the ground when he sees her with Salman.
This fantasy does two things. First, it establishes that Akshay, while sweet, is probably not the right man for this woman. He only sees what he wants to see and cannot handle her as a real person. Second, it throws into contrast the flashback fantasy song we already saw when Salman told his love story at the beginning of the film. In that, the version of Preity Salman sees, and the version we the audience see, is the same. More importantly, she is a participant in the fantasy. They dance together, they talk together, they make eye contact. The unreality of Akshay’s romance makes Salman’s more real.
Equally important with Akshay’s fantasy is the reality that it is intercut with as Salman remembers a different version of the events. In his version, Preity is different, wilder, more selfish, having fun. But as we see his version, we know he is realizing that Akshay’s memory of her “loutish boyfriend” is accurate. He was selfish and uncaring, he did ignore the damage their romance was leaving in its wake. And this all culminates in a beautiful moment when the present day reality and the past come face to face. As Akshay’s heart breaks in the past, as his fantasy ends and he comes to earth, present day Akshay, and present day Salman and Anupum Kehr (who is a Salman’s uncle and a dwarf for no reason. Don’t worry about it) to whom he is telling the tale enter into his vision and quietly witness his despair. It’s perhaps the clearest way I have ever seen shown onscreen of conveying how those painful moments of our past can feel like they happened to different people, but at the same time can feel like they are still happening in this moment as you tell of them.
The second song for Akshay’s introduction is when Salman and Anupum are trying to jolly him into believing in himself and his ability to win over Preity. To that end, they open a closet door and the 7 dwarves come out (don’t worry about it). And then they have a song in which Preity is played by both Anupum in a wig and a cardboard cutout of her character. So, the 7 dwarves may confuse the issue a little, but what this is really saying is that Akshay wants the Snow White and the 7 Dwarves version of Preity, the Princess, the cardboard cutout, the wig and the clothes. This comes up later in the film when Salman asks him point blank if he is in love with Preity herself or just her face, and he does not have a good answer (in context, they have just met dwarf Anupum’s non-dwarf doppleganger in New York and are wondering if there is an identical Preity somewhere in the world.) (I don’t know if the context helped much.)
The idea of image versus reality continues once they arrive in New York and rent the apartment across from Preity’s (remember, if it’s in an Indian movie, it is romantic, not stalking). Salman wants to watch her through the window, but Akshay has a better idea, he sets up a high quality telescope, links it to a projector, sets up a screen, and sits down to watch her. For the rest of the film, when they are in their apartment, there is an image of Preity’s place across the street on the screen. Akshay watches her face, her eyes, her smile. It really is captivating, just a long sustained close-up. Salman talks about what kinds of movies she is watching and how she is feeling and what she is thinking. One of these men knows her, and one only thinks that he does.
This is all stuff dealing with Preity’s image versus reality, but the same conflict is true of the other two leads as well. Akshay knows Preity will not fall in love with him as he is, and Salman knows that as well. It starts with a harmless suggestion of how to dress, how to approach her, what to say. But after their first interaction goes badly, Akshay begs Salman for another solution and they go full Cyrano. Akshay wears a wire and has Salman standing by to feed him every line. While Akshay is wearing a disguise on his soul, Salman is wearing several on his body. In order to stay in range and communicate, he buys a series of wacky costumes (actor, remember). Written out like that, it sounds kind of silly, but believe me, when you see it playing out in the song sequence below, it just breaks me, every time. For me, this and “Kwaja Mere Kwaja” from Jodha-Akbar are on the same level, amazing beautiful meditative pieces that take my soul to places it doesn’t even recognize. Again, just me.
This song sets the tone for all three characters. They feel uplifted, but what they are feeling does not match what they are seeing. That disconnect is what gives it it’s beauty. Akshay knows Preity is falling in love with him but feels that something is off and pushes Salman to keep helping him. Salman knows that he shouldn’t care for Preity anymore, that she ended their marriage heartlessly, but he can’t stop watching her. Preity is falling in love with Akshay but keeps feeling like she is with her ex-husband.
And then it all comes crashing in. Again. One by one, for the last half of the movie, the dominos fall. I’m not going to spoil the twist, but I am going to tell you it is beautifully done. Salman learns it first, and then has his heart broken. And the wall behind him shatters in a gorgeous use of CGI as his world ends.
In his heart break song, there are two shots that always get to me. First, when he is standing in the middle of time square, surrounded by people, and feeling completely empty inside (I know it is a cliche, but it really works here!). And second, when he goes back to the cafe where Anupum’s doppelganger works (don’t worry about it), and is taken in his arms and sobs. Such a beautiful scene of a stranger comforting a stranger.
When Akshay learns his devastating truth, he has what might be the best acting moment of his career as he furiously rips off the clothes Salman bought him, brushes out his hair, puts on his glasses, literally breaks himself down and builds himself up again before our eyes. Also, there’s a moment when he’s shirtless and I always get distracted by how much stubble he has on his chest. It must be so itchy! Just go back to the old way! That hair that makes people go “why is he taking a shower in a sweater vest?”
And then Preity has the subtlest moment of them all, Akshay tells her what he has discovered, he goes on about all the details of it and how it happened, and all she says is, “Please, keep talking about Salman. I never hear anything good about him. Please, keep talking.” It’s heartbreaking! On all sides! You have poor Akshay, once more reduced to a side-note in their epic romance, and you have Preity’s response that quietly fills in the blank of her past two years, apparently spent being forced to listen to her family denigrate the man she loves (and by implication, all the decisions she made for herself about her life), until she is desperate to hear just one kind word about him.
Just when the emotions get to be too much, we get to the final happy ending, which is so beautiful that I bawl every time. Again, just me. I mean literally beautiful, as in how it looks, not what happens. I mean, what happens is nice too. But the visuals are just perfect. The whole movie has been about fantasy giving way to reality. In a whole bunch of different ways. Fantasy love stories, Salman’s fantasy of his career, Preity’s fantasies which were apparently pretty comprehensively crushed by her awful relatives before we ever met her in the present day-but what the ending tells us is that the fantasy may be over, but sometimes the reality is even more beautiful.
Way back at the beginning, Salman’s fantasy version of their romance ended when he destroyed their apartment, in gorgeous slow-motion, pulling down the yellow curtains first so they fell in the background before the glass and wood were shattered. In her new apartment, they watched her through yellow curtains which hung on either side of the window, showing on their pervy screen display like the side curtains at an old movie palace, framing their view of her. At the very end, he is on a soundstage back in Bombay, filming a part in what appears to be a low-budget romance in which he is merely the hero’s best friend. In the background, yellow draperies cheaply define the set area. Filming ends, the crowd disperses, and he sees Preity. As their eyes meet and they smile, the yellow curtains behind them slowly start to fall, the cheap artifice of film, the comfort of fantasy, everything we use to keep ourselves safe from what is real, falls away. And you see that they are standing on a hillside on a cloudy but beautiful day, and there was nothing to hide from after all. I swear, I am tearing up just thinking about it and I don’t even really know why!
And then there is an epilogue with a cheap pun on Preity Zinta’s name. It is just such an odd movie, but it is also the one I watch whenever I feel bad or sad or glad, or worried about the world, or need a good cry, or need to stop crying, or just need something beautiful. The title means “Life of my Soul”, and that’s really what it is for me! Again, just me.
Named “Adira”, a combination of Aditya and Rani. I don’t know about this trend of made up names. Even “AbRam”, with that funky spelling, I am dubious.
Her birth was announced on twitter first by Rishi Kapoor, of all people, and then confirmed by Uday Chopra’s twitter soon after. However, a few hours earlier, SRK’s twitter had a random comment “…there really are places in the heart you don’t even know exist until you love a child….” This could just be one of those random things he says sometimes, or it could be his trip to the hospital pep message for Adi. I choose to believe the latter.
No word yet from Amitabh, who is usually ALL ABOUT the baby announcements and congratulations. On the other hand, this baby is so very special, it’s possible he isn’t tweeting because he is actually at the hospital.
Moving on to the more important issues, who could this baby marry when she grows up? AbRam is of course an option, good family, right age, will probably be super handsome when he grows up. Would look good on her arm.
Then there’s Aamir’s son Azad, another good family, with producing background from his grandfather and great-uncle as well as his father. Plus, heightwise, it might work. Adira’s mother is of course super short, so it might be nice for her to marry someone whose father is super short, so they would match and look well in pictures.
Yug, Kajol and Ajay’s son, is also in a reasonable age range, should be comfortable with a strong matriarchy, and well-connected. Of course, he is also Adira’s cousin, but it is a very distant relationship and I think they could get past that. And it would solidify her claim on the Mukherjee owned studio complex, and an official Yash Raj-Mukherjee business merger would be great for the industry.
The Chopra’s do have a history of May-December marriages, which opens up the field beyond the current batch of babies. In the slightly older range, there’s Aarav Kumar. He hasn’t done much yet (since he’s like 13), but he looks exactly like his grandfather, mega-star Rajesh Khanna, and he is getting the karate training so he can be like his father, action star Akshay Kumar. Plus, his Grandma is Dimple, and she is awesome. Definitely a respectable match who would be okay with strong women. And could serve as a bodyguard as well as arm-candy.
There’s also Agastya Nanda, Amitabh’s grandson. He’s not an industry kid, raised in Delhi by a businessman father, but genetically, he is the ultimate prize. Grandson of Amitabh, great-grandson of Raj Kapoor. And a supportive spouse for the new head of Yash Raj studios should maybe have a business background instead of a straight film one.
And then of course the ultimate hope, she turns out to be gay and gets together with Aaradhya and achieves domination of the entire world.
Well, barely on Modi. It’s like a fragment of a quote from an interview where he talked about how he wasn’t going to talk about serious things any more unless it is on a platform specifically for serious things (is he considering a run for office? Let’s start that rumor! Or does he just mean another in depth essay or interview?).
Anyway, here is his quote:
“I think the developmental clause of his governance is fantastic. I am all for modernness and development. And it will be fantastic if he takes it up and makes it for the whole country,”
I think this isn’t quite “damning by faint praise”, but it is pretty close! He likes the developmental clause, but not necessarily anything else. And he is waiting to see if Modi is successful in instituting it for the whole country.
God, I hate this show! So, there was a bunch of stupid this week. But what leaped out at me was a little blink and you miss it moment that casually underlined one of my biggest problems. While vetting Quantico applicants, there is a casual exchange about someone being a hot yoga teacher, but also twice accused of sexual harassment. To which the response is “hot yoga indeed!” Because, sexual harassment is hot? As in sexy? Ha-ha, let’s all have a good laugh?
And then later, in our big centerpiece scene, we find out that Simon was implicated in torture and, possibly, sexual assault of women when he was in the Israeli Defense League. His defense is that he didn’t know what he was doing, he thought he was just tricking innocent women who were married to terror suspects so they would be interrogated! Because that’s totally fine! Even worse, he defends the actions of his superior who actually carried out the attacks! After “what he had seen”, apparently he had an uncontrollable urge to attack women. Because anybody is capable of assault? It’s just a matter of the right situation? This seems a bit like an INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS ASSUMPTION.
Also, we find out that the Muslim twins are from Lebanon, because obviously they couldn’t have been American born and raised. And that the more conservative and traditional one was, of course, susceptible to extremist rhetoric.
I did like that one moment when everyone confronts Alex about how she uses people and then forgets them. I know it wasn’t meant that way, but I loved it as a meta-commentary on Priyanka’s career.
PS Why is Alex Parrish suddenly deciding who and who isn’t a suspect and who is under surveillance and who can be let go free? Is she running the FBI now, on the basis of her pretty hair and pouty lips?
I’m glad I wasn’t the only person whose reaction of the possibility of Alia and Shahrukh co-starring was “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”
I am interested in the implication that Karan is losing his pull with the star community, first Shudhi falling about half a dozen times, and now this. Of course, he’s also filming right now with Ranbir and Aish, so he couldn’t have lost all his connections.
So, “intolerance” is the new political hot potato among the filmi set. It started with a bunch of intellectual artists giving back their government awards, the “awards wapsi” movement, in protest of the recent spat of religious violence and Modi’s not very emphatic reactions against it. Some artists who had been involved in the film industry were included in this movement. And on the other hand, Anupum Kehr (so lovable onscreen! So hard to love off it!), decided to lead an anti-award wapsi movement, arguing that it was an insult to the Indian people to have these awards so cavalierly returned.
The big names were all successfully avoiding dealing with the micro-issue of Awards Wapsi, and the macro-issue of the Modi/BJP election and the changes it wrought, until Shahrukh decided to actually respond in his birthday interview. In response to a question, he said “there is intolerance, there is extreme intolerance… there is, I think… there is growing intolerance” and “It is stupid… It is stupid to be intolerant and this is our biggest issue, not just an issue… Religious intolerance and not being secular in this country is the worst kind of crime that you can do as a patriot.”
This got the usual responses, a bunch of hot-tempered politicians suggesting he “go back to Pakistan”, some other politicians apologizing-but-not-really-apologizing for their colleagues’ behavior. And the BJP lost the election in Bihar. A lot more went into the BJP losing there, but there is no way that SRK didn’t know that people were going to the polls in Bihar as he was talking, and that what he said could move a few thousand votes off the BJP ticket.
SRK having opened the floodgates, the next step of course was for the other two Khans to weigh in, as the most popular and powerful Muslims in India. Salman, hilariously, was cut off before he could give a full statement when Sonam Kapoor at their joint press conference literally leaned over and ripped the microphone out of his hands. He did manage to say something nice about how his family is so interreligious (Hindu born but Muslim convert mother, Christian stepmother, Muslim father, and Hindu sisters- and brother-in-law), but I doubt he will say anything more controversial than that until after his many many court cases are settled.
Aamir held off for a week or so, but when he did finally speak, he went hard. He opened by saying, “Kiran and I have lived all our lives in India. For the first time, she said, should we move out of India? That’s a disastrous and big statement for Kiran to make to me. She fears for her child. She fears about what the atmosphere around us will be. She feels scared to open the newspapers everyday.”
He then went on to discuss bigger issues in his typically passionate-yet-somehow-boring manner, but that opening! Man! That is something! Especially putting it in the mouth of his Hindu wife, pointing out that these issues affect not just the members of the Muslim community, but the many non-Muslims who care for them.
Anyway, many many people responded by saying this is not an intolerant country and if he thinks that, he should leave, because we can’t tolerate him (basically). And a few days ago, the first court case was officially filed.
“Advocate Sudhir Kumar Ojha lodged the FIR against Aamir and his wife at Town police station in Muzaffarpur district under sections 153 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc), 153B (Imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration) and 154 (Sedition) of IPC.”
I just, do these people not see what they are doing? In anger at being called intolerant, they are burning pictures, blackening posters, making death threats, and now, filing court cases. Now, does this sound more like tolerance, or like intolerance?
Whoever put together the clips for this interview was a genius! We go from silly to fun to nostalgic to just stop in your tracks emotional, and then back to something lighter to recover. Anyway, they way they look at each other in real life, and on the screen, somehow it just gets to me!
So, “Janam Janam” from Dilwale, song trailer released yesterday, is clearly referencing Raj-Nargis, not just in the images, but in the lyrics:
If you notice, when SRKajol meet again after years (which you can tell because SRK is hot-and-bearded instead of hot-and-youthful), their eyes meet, and it switches to fantasy-and then SRKajol switch to black and white tones, as does her car and their umbrella, while the rest of the background stays in color. It is a clear signal to the viewer, if the singing in the rain under an umbrella didn’t make it clear enough, that this is an homage to the black-and-white love song “Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua” from Shree 420 with Nargis and Raj Kapoor:
So, why this reference? Beyond just looking cool and making people go “Hey, it’s Shree 420! I love that movie!”
In real life, Shree 420 was made at the height of the Raj Kapoor and Nargis collaboration. While their earlier film, Awara, was more popular overseas, Shree 420 was more beloved at home. However, “Pyar Hua” foreshadows the ending of their personal and professional collaberation. No matter what promises they had made to each other, eventually, there was no where else for them to go.
Raj Kapoor was a genius, basically invented Hindi cinema, brilliant actor, brilliant director, brilliant producer, everything. But, terrible in his personal life! Oh my gosh! So bad!
Although, part of that could be because everything happened to him so young, he was oddly adult in some ways from the time he was very young, but never really adult in others to the end of his life. His father, Prithviraj Kapoor, was one of the first big stars of Indian film (see him and his nice legs in the photo below)
Although Prithviraj got fame and money from his film work, his heart was always with the stage. He founded Prithvi Theaters (still in operation today, run by his granddaughter) and poured his heart and soul into it. This meant his wife and children either stayed home and never saw him, or traveled with him on massive barnstorming tours of India, or worked backstage at the home theater in Bombay. By the time he was 21, Raj Kapoor had worked as a set designer, stage manager, director, and main actor. He had also basically raised his two younger brothers, serving as the disciplinarian and authority in their lives in the absence of their father. And then he rebelled against a life spent serving his father’s purposes by deciding to work in film, not the stage.
So, age 22, already a major film star, he decides he wants to produce and direct. Oh, and he also got married 3 months earlier to the sister of his friend and frequent co-star, Prem Nath. The families arranged the first meeting, but the two of them hit it off right away and rushed the marriage.
So, Raj is ready to make a film. And he has a script and he can star, but he knows he won’t get funding unless he find some big name to star opposite him. So he goes to see Nargis (one of the biggest female stars at the time, only 19, but acting since she was a child and acting as an adult female lead since she was 14). He knocks on the door of the apartment she shares with her mother, and she comes to answer it herself, with flour on her face since she was in the middle of cooking. He falls passionately in love at first sight, despite being newly married to a woman he claimed to have also fallen in love with at first sight, and who was also carrying his child by this point (Kapoor men-very fertile).
Nargis is not that interested in Raj Kapoor the man, find him young and a little chubby, but does like his script and agrees to do the role. By the end of filming, she is as in love as he. For the next ten years, they form a beautiful personal and professional partnership. His wife stays home, and gives birth to 5 children, in this same time. But Raj and Nargis go to all the industry events together, stay up until all hours discussing scripts and projects at RK studio (founded by the profits of their first film as co-stars, with a logo based on their iconic embrace from the same film), and make a series of all time film classics, along the way popularizing such Indian film staples as the rain song, the fantasy song, the father-son conflict, the childhood flashback, the underlying social message, and dozens of others. After ten years though, Nargis realized this was all she could ever have. Raj was never going to leave his wife, she would never have a place in respectable society, she could never have children, this was it, just being the work wife forever and ever.
This was foretold in Shree 420, made at the height of their love story. IT is the deeper meaning of “Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua”. “Pyar Hua” is a duet, and while Raj keeps repeating “Love is here, promises are made”, Nargis keeps repeating “Where do we go from here? Where can we go from here?”
So, she left him. Raj always tells the story as though it was something she had done to him, as though she broke some vow or promise. But from her side of things, what else was there to do? It had been ten years, she was nearing 30, her career and personal life were both stalled in the service of his dreams.
They never acted opposite each other again, or even interacted really. Nargis had her greatest role, playing “Mother India” in the film of the same name, and then retired and married rising actor and politician Sunil Dutt. She became a powerful political force in her own right, and had three children. Raj Kapoor went on to have a series of affairs with other actresses and to make more brilliant movies, but something was always missing after he lost Nargis. He never found an onscreen partner to match him as well as her, and his films never had quite the same depth and meaning as they did when she was helping him.
Onscreen and off, Nargis and Raj epitomized the New India couple of the post-independence era. She loved him and was completely devoted to him, but she also had her own career and her own goals (in their films, she played a teacher, a lawyer, an actress, a business woman). He loved her, and also wanted her to be his partner in all things, their romance was not just about passionate embraces, but also making him a better man, helping him succeed in his goals, helping him determine what those goals were.
And now we have Shahrukh and Kajol. A different kind of couple but, it is becoming increasingly clear, the couple that works for the modern India. They are equally devoted to each other, there is no longer any expectation that a woman loves a man more than a man could ever love a woman. She not only has her own goals, she can take the lead in them and force him to follow. In My Name is Khan, she was the main breadwinner for the household. In Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, she was the main lead of the film. And unlike Raj and Nargis-who eventually stagnated playing the same old couple falling in love-in each of their films, they have come together stronger than ever. SRKajol went from flirtatious college students to adults with children over the course of 6 films. And I have high hopes that now, in their 7th film, the pattern will continue. “Janam Janam” indicates that, I think. Rather than a song about “where do we go from here?” It is about “where ever we go, you are always with me and we will go there together.”
Okay, now they are just spoiling us, with a new trailer every day:
It is an interesting publicity strategy, especially in comparison with Bajirao Mastani which released a teaser months ago, but then nothing new for months after that. Instead, Dilwale is releasing everything at the last minute very close together.
I guess it makes sense, because just the fact of a new SRKajol film is enough to get people pumped and excited, any trailers or songs is just frosting on the cake, something to entice you to buy tickets for the opening weekend. But Bajirao had minimal name recognition going in and had to sort of train people to care about it at all, and therefore needed that spectacular teaser to get people talking for the past 5 months.
Yaaaaay! New Dilwale trailer, with a song I actually like!
We have all the classic Shahrukh faces, “I am stunned by your beauty”, “I am delighted by falling in love”, “I am feeling cocky because I know you like me”, and of course “you forgot I was sexy” (my favorite).
Plus, visually (even beyond the wet white shirt), there is all sorts of cool stuff! Did you catch the Shree 420 reference? Not only are they together under an umbrella in the rain, they actually turn into black and white as their eyes meet, which is just so cool and beautiful!
Like, as they fall in love again, they enter the magical other world of classic Indian film love stories. Plus, I love that this is the second time SRKajol has done “Pyar Hua Ikrar Hua”, which is a fairly strong acknowledgement that they are the new Raj Kapoor-Nargis.
The first time was in the homage to the history of Indian film song from Rab Ne Bana di Jodi, “Phir Milenge”. I saw Rab Ne in theaters, and in that whole cameo filled song, Kajol was the only who got cheers.
Anyway, homages to classic films are very tricky to pull off, you either do them as complete jokes and no one cares, or seriously, and then you get a lot of push back because people find it insulting to the original. Especially the children and grandchildren of the people who made the original, who may not be thrilled to see their legacy dragged through the mud (Ram Gopal Verma and your Sholay remake, I am looking at you!). If you recall, the other big Shree 420 homage in recent years was in the “Zoobi Doobi” song from 3 Idiots
But everyone was fine with that, because they actually cast Kareena Kapoor, Raj Kapoor’s granddaughter, in the Nargis part.
But SRKajol have now done Shree 420 twice, and gotten no blowback for it! So I think it is safe to say that they are the acknowledged spiritual heirs to the Raj and Nargis onscreen pairing. Even more than Raj and Nargis’ actual heirs. But hopefully with less offscreen drama.
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