Okay, there is no connection between Sultan and Ghajini except in my mind.  But it suddenly hit me that the thing I like best about Ghajini might be similar to what Sultan will do.

This isn’t just Ghajini, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai does a variation on the same idea, just less well.  But I’m not sure if Salman has ever been in a movie before with this structure?

Anyway, what I am talking about is when half the film is filmed in a very “filmi” kind of way, with bright colors and happy songs and punchy dialogue and magical coincidences.  And the other have is distinctly “realler”.  Like I said, Kuch Kuch does this, but not as well.  The college scenes are so bright and happy with hip clothes and spontaneous songs and crazy coincidences.  And then the second half is just a little bit calmer, quieter, more grounded.

It’s not a very dramatic difference, but if you look at Anupum Kehr’s character alone, it becomes obvious.  In the first half, he is mostly a joke, hysterically in love with Miss Briganza unable to control any of his students, dancing around all the time.  But then in the second half, he is dignified and wise and kind of sad.  What you would expect from an older man who has lost his daughter.

(This)

(versus this)

As I see it, the idea is that the first half is based on the letters Rani left for little Anjali, so everything is viewed, first, through the kind of story that Rani wanted to leave for her daughter and secondly through an 8 year old’s perspective on that story.  Anjali sees the college as a place of bright colors and dancing and silliness, because that’s how an 8 year old would imagine it.  And then the second half, when we are back to the “real” world without her filter, that goes away a little bit.

Ghajini takes this idea and does way way more with it.  First, there is the same double vision thing going on.  The flashback parts are both how Aamir saw the events as they occurred.  He was in love, so he saw everything as rosey and bright and beautiful and perfect.  And secondly, they are filtered through Jiah Khan and her friends’ imagination of what it must have been like.  So there is their tinge of fantasy and dreamy romance to it all.  We hear it in their conversations about the diary, where they stand in for the audience who is similarly caught up in this romance.  Which also explains why they keep having these conversations even after Aamir has tried to attack Jiah in the present day.  It doesn’t make sense for the characters, but it is a necessity of the film structure to have them still be sympathetic to him.

The end result is that the flashback romance parts feel like the most fantastical magical filmi film ever.  They have love at first sight, magical coincidences, a heroine who the audience can’t help loving just as the hero does, and big song sequences.  And, most importantly, all of this is in place to give us the deep feelings that Indian film is structured to create.  Through the flashbacks, we are able to really feel what Aamir’s character has lost in the modern day sections.  Because just as the world seems less magical and less good and safe and happy to him, so it feels to us.

You could also say that this structure is a shameless attempt to make an art film that is also a commercial success.  An excuse to throw in big songs and dances even though the subject is so dark.  But I don’t believe that was the main point.  I think the main point was what I said above, to show in the best way possible what it feels like to be in love and how it feels when you lose it in the worst way possible.

There is another part of it, for Ghajini.  The series of flashbacks aren’t all in a row, they way they are in Kuch Kuch.  They are scattered through out.  So, just like Aamir’s character is constantly being reminded of what happened to him, living his life in 15 minute sections, so does the audience only get short bits of his past, broken up by present day sections.

There is another advantage to this kind of short section by short section structure.  Actually, the same advantage I noticed with this structure in Udta Punjab.  You can get away with not much happening in both sections, because the way they are edited together can create the illusion of movement even when there isn’t any.  In a standard film, you would want to have twists and surprises and suspense as you wait for the next thing to happen.  But in a film that has multiple storylines, whether they are past and future or multiple segregated main characters or some other tactic, you can just show the most interesting and exciting parts of each story and then cut to the next section right away.  No need to put in boring stuff or set up stuff or anything like that.

But the biggest thing that I love about Ghajini, and that I hope is the same in Sultan, is that the difference between past and present beautifully shows how the tragedies of his past have forever changed the main character.  It’s not just that he lost the woman he loved, he lost everything that was happy about the whole world.

In Sultan, I am hoping for/expecting the same structure.  That we will start in the “present” where everything is grey and sad, and only slowly reach back to the happy happy past.  That the two will be constantly woven together, so that the “reveal” of what brought him to this state, of what he lost, will come right before the culmination of the present day storyline.

More than that, it will come right before the culmination of the past storyline.  In Ghajini, if you remember, Asin doesn’t die after they have confessed their love and are planning their wedding.  She dies right before that.  When the silly rom-com misunderstanding is still in place, when Aamir is enjoying the lovely and leisurely courtship period.  It doesn’t just feel like a life cut short, it feels like a story cut short.

That’s what is still so shocking in Ghajini, every time I watch it, the moment it all changes.  We have a world where everything always works out like magic, nothing really bad can ever happen.  So when Asin is attacked, we know Aamir is on the way, and even knowing the result in the “present”, we can’t help thinking “it will all work out!  He’ll get there in time and beat up all the bad guys because he is the hero!”  But, of course, he doesn’t.  And that shock, of something for once not working out as expected, is almost worse than the shock of watching Asin die.

I’m not really looking forward to feeling that again, but on the other hand, I would much rather Sultan is a good movie than one that is ruined by shifts in tone.  Based on the trailer, the “past” bits when he is falling in love with Anushka and it is all bright and happy are strongly different from the present day, when he barely cracks a smile.  So I would much rather that there is a distinct heartbreaking point at which he loses the color in his life, than that they try to mix it together in some odd way that doesn’t quite work.