What is up today?  I was all set to do a couple of video posts for Eid and Salman, and then a Sultan review at midnight when I finally got home.  And then pop pop pop, all these news stories come up!  Ranveer, and now a new Mohenjo Daro video!

Actually, 2 new Mohenjo Daro videos.  But one of them is really just “new”.  It’s packaged as the “action trailer”, but it’s just the same bits we already saw in the full length trailer, but all put together into one 30 second clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzF2TE-jlow

But there is also a really really new one, the first song trailer.  And I am conflicted about it.

Pros: The music is is just drop dead gorgeous.  Oh my gosh.  If all the songs are this good, I am not only going to be buying the soundtrack, I am going to be buying it and listening to it on a loop for the next 6 months.  I love how this song is so light, but not empty, you know?  It’s like light, but also deep.  Simple, but beautifully simple.  Very much a sort of “less is more” kind of thing.

Hirthik’s dancing is really interesting, it’s almost balletic in a way I don’t think I have seen from him before.  Balletic in that there is a lot of posing, and focus on clean lines and upright bodies.

And, the set up made me laugh because it reminded me of “Bumbro”.  I mean, they must have known they were ripping it off, right?  Hrithik sneaking in somewhere as a back-up dancer for the girl he has a crush on?

Cons: The costuming.  I just cannot get past those hats!  Hers, which looks like something one of my kids would have made in Sunday School (they follow a strong “glue things on until you can’t see the paper any more” philosophy), and his, which looks like the costume designer wanted to take a half day so he just stuck a horn into a turban and called it done.

The setting.  Maybe it will work better in context, but seeing the song in isolation, it feels really odd to have this sweet simple declaration of love be played out in front of a crowd at a religious ceremony.  But like I said, maybe it will work in context, maybe they were having a private conversation that got interrupted and that’s why he has to say all this in public.  Maybe there is some kind of “Bole Chudiyan” like dare in place for them to confess their feelings at the ceremony.  Or maybe it’s all a fantasy scene or something?

The filming.  The edits, the camera angles, all of that is just dull dull dull.  Hrithik sells the dance moves, because he can’t not, but if anyone else was doing them, they would be kind of dull too.  But, obviously, this isn’t the whole song, just the trailer, and again I have hope it will work better within the film.  Maybe the coolest dance bits aren’t included yet, maybe the editing will feel more dynamic when we see the whole thing.

So, 3 pros and 3 cons.  But 2 of the cons could possibly be fixed.  So, on the whole, there is a slight “pro” advantage.