Happy Saturday! I’m not even going to apologize for posting less yesterday, I’m on vacation! I deserve a break!
It was an interesting exhibit and I got a little distracted by the meta-quality of it as a timeline of museums. It had the usual “our first people” section with boring bead necklaces and old baskets and hand typed little labels. And then it had the slightly more interesting sections like the Hollywood one that let you draw your own costume, or make your own sound effects in a Foley room.
And then it had the highly technical areas like the new Black Power history section (Black Panthers were founded in California! I always through they were from Chicago for some reason) that had kind of zones of sound so you were always hearing songs or oral histories or poetry from the people who lived through it, plus these powerful blown up photos and quotes on the wall.
Looks like they never really gutted the whole thing, just found a new corner to stick in new exhibits as they went from the boring 1970s idea of a museum as a place for old things, to the 1990s idea of a museum as interactive and exciting, to the 2000s idea of a museum as a place to have an emotional catharsis as you discover the power of the past.
But forget all that! New Kalank song is out! That’s what we really want to talk about. Varun dances, woo-hoo. And Kiara Advani shows up for her cameo and I honestly thought it was Esha Deol for a second. My goodness does she look like a young Hema Malini! Most interesting, Madhuri shows up at the very end and smiles, which makes me suddenly think maybe she is Varun’s mother?????
Also, Alia is getting married? Or some ceremony, while this is happening? I assumed she and Varun were star crossed lovers who met before her marriage, but maybe they meet after? Or after her engagement at least, if that is the ceremony that is happening. He certainly seems way too cheerful and carefree for someone who is losing their true love. Especially since Alia is crying. So either Alia is already sad even without meeting Varun, or they have met each other but Varun doesn’t know she is engaged and is just happy to be in love, or Varun’s character is such a crazy confident guy that he doesn’t care she is getting engaged, he still thinks they can be together.
Also, I froze it to be sure, and the woman standing in the background at 1:09 is Sonakshi. What the heck??? Is she like Alia’s servant/friend? Or Aditya’s sister? I just assumed the second heroine would have her own story line, not just be standing in the background for Alia’s.
And finally, why the heck is this a “Hinglish” song? There haven’t been any British people in any of the previous trailers, right? I thought it was set pre-colonial, or at least in an area that was never colonized. It’s just weird, right?
Lot’s to talk about! Begin!
dontcallitbollywood 
I feel like this song was using editing to imply that certain things were happening at the same time. I think that this will be Varun’s entry into the film song, and the Alia wedding is at a different point in the film and they wanted to add some drama to the song video by editing it together.
Also I’m getting the feeling that Sonaskshi is either dead and is a hallucination that Aditya Roy Kapoor character has (of his wife) or has to be his first wife that is either sick or can’t have kids, so enter younger wife Alia. There is the shot in the trailer that looked like ARK and Sonaskshi in bed together? and it wasn’t feeling very sibling like; could be wrong though (they were fully clothed). I got in love vibes from that shot of them in the trailer. Or maybe you’re right and I’ve been trained by bollywood to only see male/female relationships as romantic. But… Sonaskshi is wearing sindoor on her head. Also, could be wrong about this, but it seems like Sonaskshi’s character is wearing the same clothes in all the shots we’ve seen her in the songs and trailers.
Ohh this is the description of the movie from the coming soon page of our theatre chain in Canada, “Set in 1945, in Pre-Independent India, ‘Kalank’ is a tale of eternal love.” So it is pre-partition apparently.
I love this song, it’s a total earbug, and Varun looks great!
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I like the idea of Sonakshi as his first wife. It could explain why Alia doesn’t want this marriage even before she meets Varun (if this song is edited correctly). I feel bad for Sonakshi’s career that she is being stuck in the “first wife” role, but then Aditya is also playing young, so it’s not as bad as it could be.
If Sonakshi is the first wife, what do you think about the possibility of a double role, like in Doctor Zhivago, perhaps she is Sonakshi’s daughter as well in the future hearing this story? I remember a shot from the trailer of her in an office sitting across a desk from an old man.
On Sat, Mar 23, 2019 at 10:17 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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The daughter hearing the story of her family is really interesting, I can totally see that. I wonder if the shot of the girl with the kite is supposed to daughter Sonaskshi then? Young, carefree girl living her life not knowing the story of her parents.
Or could be that is when the old guy, Sanjay Dutt?, tells her that his son will be marrying again cause she can’t fulfill her duty to the family?
I’m actually very curious of the plot here, can’t quite figure out what is going on, which is great because now I actually want to go see a Hindi movie in the theater.
Andadhun was the previous one I saw in the theatre because it was really intriguing to me, the one before that was Yeh Jawani Hai Dewani! My theatre consumption of Hindi movies is way way down these past years. For some reason I only see Hollywood movies in theatres and wait for Hindi movies to come on Netflix.
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Good on Karan then! He figured out this marketing perfectly, giving us a taste of the grandeur and the images but giving us nothing on the plot. It could still be a terrible film, but we will all flock to theaters to see it anyway.
On Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 3:40 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Where is this supposed to be? A glamorized Chandi Chowk? Where are all those canals and lake things? I think Madhuri might be in the same local as the wedding NOT as this dance. It looks too fancy there. Also, at this “wedding” Alia seems to have no one there for her. Its some kind of small, clandestine wedding. Maybe it is a second wife thing. It does work as a teaser though; I am curious.
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Very interesting point about how small the wedding is! If it is a second wife thing, Alia could have been a younger daughter of a family fallen on hard times, someone who couldn’t afford dowry and pomp and was happy to get her married into this wealthy household even if it was as a second wife.
On Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 8:50 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Also, that picture of Alia running with a kite speaks to a rural, simpler girl. Maybe she is sent to learn the art of dance from Madhuri and ends up married to Madhuri’s son for reasons we do not know….anyway, its all working since we want to see it now. But doesn’t all the music sound like stuff from SLB’s last 3 films???
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And it’s Pritam! I am so disappointed in him! After JHMS and Jagga Jasoos (hated the movie, his soundtrack was a masterwork) and ADHM, this is very disappointing. I know he can miss sometimes, but I’ve gotten used to him hitting.
On Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 9:36 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Also, it does look like both Alia and Adidya are unhappy about this wedding. I think your “second wife” thought makes sense. Needs an heir? But aren’t they Hindu? They don’t take second wives….this has a Devdas feel to it.
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Hindus take second wives. Especially wealthy and/or royal families. It’s not legal in the Hindu marriage laws now, but it can still happen illegally, just doing the ceremony and not filing the legal paperwork. It’s a myth invented by Hindutvas that Hindus didn’t have multiple wives and I hate it. Of course, practices varied place to place, but then the same is true of Muslims. The first director of Devdas himself had 4 or 5 wives and was a member of a Bengali Hindu royal family. His first wife was a few years older than him and they married at 14, that was fairly common, it was thought that the first wife would “steady” the boy and would have so much responsibility that she should be older. And a young marriage meant an heir ASAP. He got her pregnant then went off to school in the city, fell in love with another woman and married her, the family didn’t approve of her, and she died. He married at least twice more, once to an actress he worked with frequently who was his public wife, traveled with him and understood his world. Meanwhile his first wife remained back on the family estate running everything while he was in the city making movies.
It’s a not uncommon pattern, the first wife is arranged and older and has all the power and respect in the household. The second wife is a love marriage and closer to the man, but with less respect in the household and family. Same thing in the Ramayana, Ram’s mother was the First Wife, but Bharat’s mother was the second wife who was more loved. If this movie flips the pattern and makes the first wife actually the most loved one and the younger prettier second wife the resented one, that might be really interesting!
On Sun, Mar 24, 2019 at 9:02 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Hmmm. I didn’t not realize that. This could turn out to be a very interesting movie!!
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I also had to think about the fact that ARK is playing a Hindu character and thought that would negate second wives. But I remembered a book I read back in high school, What the Body Remembers, which was about a young Sikh girl becoming a second wife because the first wife could not have kids; I’m a Sikh, and never think of Sikhs having multiple wives either. But it seems to be a thing back in the day.
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I find the trailer and the songs fascinating and while I am an Alia fan, I could forgo seeing a film of hers in the theater. This one has me intrigued though. I’ve come up with so many possible story lines!!
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