Part 9!  I’ve gotten all the way to the barn scene!  Let’s see if I can make it to “Zara Se Jhoom” today, or if I’m going to end up breaking this into two parts.

(part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here, part 9 here, part 10 here, part 11 here, part 12 here, part 13 here, part 14 here, part 15 here, part 16 here)

When I left off, after reaching a tentative truce, involving Kajol’s new ability to see Shahrukh as a protector and provider rather than a threat, everything had fallen apart again.  Shahrukh has successfully provided them with shelter for the night, but Kajol rejects it because it is only one room with one bed, and she suddenly loses her ability to trust him.  Shahrukh reacts by giving in to his worst instincts and treating her fears as a joke, instead of actually dealing with them.  Of course, some of this could be because her fears are an insult to him, a reversion to her previous attitude that all men are a danger and not to be trusted, and he responds to the insult by being as hurtful as he can, without abusing his manly power over her, by teasing and minimizing her fears.

Which leads us here!  To the opening shot of the next sequence, Kajol’s hands as she struggles to light a match.  It’s an interesting shot to start with.  Hands have such deep metaphorical meaning in terms of agency.  For instance, the Hindu gods are depicted with multiple hands/arms to show their powers (yes?  I think that’s how it has been explained to me).  In Mother India, it was the loss of his hands that made Rajkumar leave Nargis, because he felt he had been unmanned and turned into a liability.  In the same way, Thakur Sahib in Sholay had to hire Jai and Veeru to act as his hands.  I don’t think this is an “ooo, Indian culture!” thing necessarily, I think it is just a fact of human life, we use our hands to do everything, and without our hands, we become powerless, passive.  So here we see Kajol trying to use her hands for something, to do something for herself, and she is unable.

The lighting/colors are also interesting in this sequence.  The whole time they were together, whether in the car, walking, or even in the previous scene in the rejected room, the colors were light and bright and clear.  More importantly, the colors tied them together.  We could see the red of their clothes peeking out through their coats as they walked, the red of the car framing them, indicating that they were in synch not just physically but spiritually.  But look at that first scene in the room.  Kajol has closed her coat, or turned away so that her skirt is not visible, and she is now clothed in earth tones, light brown and tan.  Meanwhile, Shahrukh is still in vibrant red and black.  He kneels on the bed and stands out against its pure whiteness, while Kajol stands in the background with her arms crossed, fading into the white and wood tones of the room.  They are retreating to their worst selves, Kajol is making herself fade into the home, into the rules, what is expected of her, while he is standing out against them even more, trying to shock her with the contrast.

And now here we are in the barn.  It is dark and oppressive, dark brown wood everywhere.  Kajol’s hands fade into the match and the matchbox, as well as her tan coat (I’m going to try to stop wondering where that coat came from).  She can’t even light a match, finally throwing away the box, then grabbing at the straw she is sitting on, similarly being unable to grasp hold of it and make it work, finally throwing that away also in despair.  She is mad and frustrated, not just by how Shahrukh has (in her mind) failed her, but by how she has failed herself, unable to even do something as simple as start a fire.

When Shahrukh bursts in, there is a sudden glow of light behind him, which is immediately extinguished as he comes into the room and fades into the shadows and darkness with her.  The same idea has been reflected on her face.  She hears him arrive, and momentarily lights up, then forces her expression back to neutral.  In the same way, his face when he first comes through the door has a little smile to it.  At this point, it’s not exactly a test any more, it is a commitment they both feel and they both are satisfied by playing it out.  Kajol is happy by more evidence that he takes responsibility and care for her.  And Shahrukh is, against his will, beginning to enjoy constantly living up to her expectations.

And then we are back to the hands, as while they may both be angry and stubborn (shown by the dark setting that surrounds them), Shahrukh has the ability to grab hold of things and change them.  And in case you missed it, we get a direct contrast with Kajol’s entry into the previous room.  Shahrukh says, imitating her “Wow!  What a beautiful room!” But while Kajol followed that observation by kneeling in front of the fire and warming her hands in front of it, Shahrukh follows it by walking around the barn, grabbing hold of objects, pulling and moving them while he continues his charade “What beautiful curtains!  What a great view!”  Finally, he kneels directly in front of her, pretending to warm his hands at the fire.  This whole time, while he is enacting his male privilege by his ability to do things, anything, she is enacting her female limitations, by being forced to just sit there and wait for him to finish his little act.

Act over, he drops the pretense, and says matter of factly “I had a nice room for us, but no, you would rather we spend the night in the barn” then opens his bag, pulls out dinner, and tries to hand her a hamburger, ordering her, “Eat.”

This is one of the few scenes where I used to really dislike Kajol, but on this close watch, I think I understand her.  It is so frustrating that she rejects their nice room, that she rejects the food he provides her, that she makes herself suffer over and over again.  But that is kind of the point, she is making HERSELF suffer, not anyone else.  I don’t think this is really a test.  At least, not that he actually follows her into the barn.  I think earlier, when she told him she couldn’t walk any further and challenged him to solve that problem, I think then she would have sat down on the ground and refused to move any further until he fixed it, to see if he actually would fix it.  Even when they were in the car and she was asking about his plans and how long the drive would take, I think she was waiting for a miss-step, and would have enjoyed correcting him.

But here, I think the initial declaration that she wouldn’t share a room was a test, that she was waiting for him to take her concerns seriously and resolve them.  But when he didn’t, she gave up.  She really was prepared to spend the night in the barn, even without being able to so match as light a match for herself.  She had resigned herself to not just being unable to rely on a man (which is where she was initially, when they missed the train), but being unable to even rely on herself.  She now knows and accepts her own limitations, and is willing to suffer for them and blame no one but herself.  That’s why she is extra happy when Shahrukh arrives this time, she isn’t just in a childish snit, she was actually ready to freeze in the barn and is thrilled to be rescued from that.

And this time, it is Shahrukh who is childish.  If he had started by building a fire, offering her food, simply solving her problems, I think she would have been grateful and apologized.  But he couldn’t resist teasing her, thinking this was simply another test, another challenge between them, and ultimately lording his male authority over her for the first time.  I mean, look at that screenshot!  She is pulled into herself, her face still, not firing up in anger, but in resignation, and his hand is forcing himself on her, just as his order is forcing his will on her.  No wonder she rebels in the only way left to her, refusing the food he offers.  Heck, it’s almost Gandhi-like!  Going on a hunger strike when the only thing she has left to control is her own body.

And Shahrukh seems to realize from her response how down she is, and how wrong he is being.  If you look at his face in the following screen shot, there is concern and sorrow there.  And he switches his technique, simply throwing the food on the ground instead of forcing it on her, and saying that she can eat or not, he doesn’t care.  Giving her back some agency through his rudeness, just as he has done all along.  It’s kinder to be the mean seemingly uncaring guy, then the “nice guy” who makes her do things “for her own good.”

And then we have a cut to a new shot which tells the whole story of his changing tactics.  We see the fire burning, we pan across the empty food wrappers since he has clearly eaten, and we go over to find him lounging on the other side of the barn sitting in an old sleigh, playing his ukulele, and sneaking covert glances to where she is still sitting, hands on lap, staring at the ground.

Clearly, in the intervening time, he has left her alone while he ate and made a fire and amused himself.  He is still taking care of her (notice the fire is burning close to where she is sitting, not where he is), but he is not forcing it on her.  He is letting her make her peace with her own insecurities and need, letting her finally acknowledge her own helplessness and his willingness to care for her.  It’s actually the exact same arch they went through 20 years later in Dilwale!  Shahrukh just wants to take care of her, and Kajol has a really hard time letting him do that.

Finally, seeing that she is still not moving, he jumps down off his perch and walks over to her, picking up the package again, but this time not forcing it on her, instead popping it open and holding it out in the palm of his hand like an offering, not a demand.  He is also saying words of apology, but his posture says it more clearly than words can.  And so does the shift of angle in the frame.  Before, he was coming from the side, only his hand visible as it shoved its way into Kajol’s territory.  Now, he is angled slightly around, closer to her front, we see his back and head as well as his hand.  More importantly, instead of forcing her to turn her head completely to his direction, they are now lined up, both equally angled in order to face each other.

He also admits to being wrong.  On every other viewing, I thought he was admitting to being wrong about the room in the first place, which is ridiculous and made me really not like Kajol, that she was waiting for his apology for something that he really didn’t have to apologize for.  But on this time, I finally got that he wasn’t apologizing for the room, but for how he acted just now, lording his power over her while she is sitting there, not even able to start a fire on her own.  It was the same kind of misunderstanding of their respective roles that Kajol was forcing on him earlier, when she wouldn’t let him use his power to help her, lording her power as a woman that he HAD to protect, to force him to demean himself over and over again. And the script draws this parallel as well, when Kajol responds with the same phrase he had used to brush past her constant misunderstandings of his intentions.

Shahrukh gives us a great dimpled smile in acknowledgement of her agreement, and then the angle switches as their postures change to indicate that all is right with the world.  By the way, I didn’t notice until this viewing, but the angle change here breaks the 180 rule.  The 180 rule is something that’s really big in American film, not so much in India.  It just means that there should always be an invisible line down the middle of a scene that the camera should cross.  Basically, that what is on the left side of the frame should always stay on the left and what is on the right should stay on the right.  It’s supposed to be spatially confusing to viewers if the camera goes all the way to the other side of the space to show a mirror image.  Plus, it makes it hard if you are filming on a set and don’t want to show the open wall.  But Indian viewers are a hardy lot and can handle that spatial confusion.  And Indian set-designers are more imaginative than that and can figure out a way around it.

But Adi breaks the rule here for a reason.  The whole scene, the camera has been facing the wall of the barn with the door, Kajol has been on the right and Shahrukh on the left.  Now, suddenly, we see the other side, with Kajol on the left and Shahukh on the right.  This isn’t just to show that they have shifted to a different orientation to each other than before in this scene, it is to show that they have shifted back to the “correct” orientation.  If you look back at all my other screenshots of the two of them, they are usually Kajol to the left, Shahrukh to the right.  All the way back in the original scene with them trapped in the compartment, that’s how they are framed.  That’s how they were on the train platform, in the car, even walking down the road.  Heck, even their original argument in the room was set up with her on the left and him on the right!  I remembered from my other viewings how “off” this scene felt, how upsetting, but I didn’t put it together until just now that it was set up that way!  That Adi had trained us to see them in a certain orientation and to feel better when it was restored.

And it’s not just their spatial relationship that is restored, the tentative trust they had built is restored as well.  Kajol is back to asking him what to do next, putting the responsibility on his shoulders.  And rather than feeling weighed down by it, he expands and grows under while supporting her, standing up and walking around, instead of hunching over begging forgiveness.  And, of course, he actually does have a plan.  Just like he had food for her, he was able to get a hotel room, he could start a fire.  All along, despite his boyish attitude, he has shown an ability to care for her, teaching both Kajol and audience to trust his actions more than his attitude

Oh, and then the stupidest part of the movie happens.  No, not the song and all.  Just the snow bit.  Shahrukh sits down, says again “Now nothing can go wrong!”, and it starts to snow, putting out the fire.  There is a nice shot of the two of them on either side of the fire and the snow coming down in three exact lines, one on each of them and one on the fire.  But then Kajol is way over-doing the “shivering!” , and Shahrukh pulls out a flask and offers it to her to stay warm.

Setting aside the whole fallacy that alcohol warms you, why wouldn’t they just go inside at this point?  Or at least Kajol?  I can make it make sense, but I have to try really really hard.  First, if you accept the basic premise that Shahrukh feels it his responsibility not to leave Kajol alone.  So if she is in the barn, he has to be in the barn, and if she is in the room, he has to be in the room.  So a whole “him in the barn-her in the room” solution would not work.  Okay, I can kind of see that.  They are just renting space from a random stranger, it is probably best to stay together.  But then, why not suggest they go back inside as soon as it starts to snow?  I mean, I just assume that’s what his ultimate goal has been, because spending the night in the barn really makes no sense.  I thought he was softening her up with food and fire until he could work around to suggesting they go back inside.

But now it is snowing and his solution is to offer alcohol instead of a logical argument for returning inside?  Maybe, MAYBE, I could see this as him trying to shock her so that she will agree that returning inside is the lesser of two evils.  But mostly, it feels like Adi wanted a reason for her to get drunk, and this was the best he could come up with.

I will forgive him, however, because I really love this movie.  And also because, after this close watch, I can appreciate even more how important it is that he came up with a reason to get Kajol drunk.  It wasn’t just your normal “how can we excuse the good heroine being sexy?” kind of thing, it was an actual need of the character to somehow break free of all her restrictions and rules, and for Shahrukh to see her like that and still love her.