FINALLY!!!! The thing we have been hoping for all along, ever since Madhuri was cast as a courtesan, an actual new Madhuri dance number. And, it’s not the best. But also, not the worst!
It also took advantage of Madhuri’s athletic ability. Dance training, true dance training, is like running a marathon every day. Your body gains a lot of endurance. Look at, for instance, the section from 2:24 to 3:00. Madhuri and Prabhudeva race through a dozen different complicated movements without pause for breath, and do it perfectly. It would be like putting on make-up while running on a treadmill, a combination of physical and mental challenge.
Or look at this song. Very simple moves, I wouldn’t be surprised of Madhuri more or less choreographed it herself. But because it is Madhuri, she does these simple moves with more grace and ease than anyone else would. More impressively, no cuts! 3 and a half minutes, and she is moving the whole time. Even at the moment when she is out of frame, she pops back in from the other side, meaning she must have run over behind the camera. And she is lipsynching too!
And then let’s look at her speed in actual Kathak dancing. Kathak has a lot of spins, and a lot of a footwork, combined with hand gestures. In classical dance, the dancer is like another musician, the drummer gives her a beat and she builds on it with her “ghungroo” (the dance bells around her ankles). When a dancer builds up speed, their hands and face and spins are as fast as the jingle of the bells on their feet, it’s like tap in that way, it sounds better and is more effective at a faster pace. Because of Madhuri’s training, she had crazy speed when she needed it.
So, those are the three things to look for, complexity and variety of movement, endurance (length of each set of moves) and speed of the moves. And this new song just isn’t what it used to be. Extremely short edits, the same moves repeated over and over again, and a slow pace.
But it’s still way better than any other Hindi actress can do! The sequence in the middle when she hits the floor for a complicated series of moves, and the ending, that takes real skill and training to pull off. Makes sense that it would use Madhuri so well, it was choreographed by Saroj Khan, Madhuri’s first choreographer back when she was 20 and Soraj wasn’t much older.
Okay, that’s all my big thoughts. You ready for the small thing that is distracting me like crazy? WHAT IS UP WITH THAT CHANDELIER????? Why is it SO BIG, and why does it look like it is on the ground in some shots (which makes no sense, you would only lower something like that to light it, and then raise it again) and up by the ceiling in others? And does it even seem to be a source of light? No, right? The room is kind of weirdly dark except for this glowing ineffective chandelier. Oh well, maybe it will be a plot point, the big stupid chandelier one of Madhuri’s admirers gave her, a symbol of empty useless wealth.
dontcallitbollywood 
Or there will be “death by chandelier”.
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YES! Chekhov’s chandelier!!!!! We see the cord slowly fraying as the music goes “dun dun DUN!” for the whole movie, and then finally at the most dramatic possible moment, it snaps!
On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 8:20 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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Still convinced Madhuri has a back injury. Maybe a herniated disc? Her back doesn’t bend when she dances. She’s a goddess and knows how to compensate but I bet she had to take a lot of ibuprofen for days after that was shot.
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That would explain the many cuts, if she had to kind of position herself in between takes instead of just quickly moving from place to place.
On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 9:29 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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There are news reports about Madhuri having a shoulder injury:
https://www.spotboye.com/bollywood/news/madhuri-dixit-flies-off-to-the-us-for-urgent-medical-treatment/57cc0d34f9c54f1b5449aeee
I wonder why keep it a secret? If she is injured and still dancing she will get even more adulation and praise…
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Agree! It’s odd.
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`
I was surprised at how . . . “mature” (?) Madhuri looks. Maybe a fully face? But if she’s moving with an old-person’s back, maybe that’s what I’m picking up.
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The song is terrible! I feel Pritam has been a complete disappointment in Kalank. Ghar More Pardesiya seems lifted off from his own Mere Dholna and this one is just so peppy to be a mujra. And Shreya’s voice does not suit Madhuri. They should’ve gone with a more mature voice like Alka Yagnik.
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Looks like Pritam has Good News, Brahmasutra, and this film all in 2019, all Dharma films too. Maybe he is just overworked?
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I feel the director doesn’t have a sense of the time the movie is set in. He’s just going by what he thinks will be jaw dropping visuals. Except for ARK and Sonakshi strangely, others don’t look like they fit in ( very little of Madhuri/Sanjay in the trailer). And ARK might disappoint too.
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Sometimes that can be a strength. If the film is presented as a total ahistorical fairy tale, it can be kind of fun. The best would be something that actually has a sense for the time, but the worst would be something that seems like it is accurate but really isn’t.
On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 4:01 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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I think that would be something like Baahubali which is totally fictional. But this isn’t right? It’s the 1940s, there’s enough that’s documented. Beghum Bahaar is apparently from Heera Mandi. But Alia looks like she walked in from Badrinath ki Dulhania. I appreciate SLB a little more now.
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I still haven’t recovered from SLB having 200 women/warriors travel a great distance in hand carry carts. It will take a long time for anything to challenge that for ridiculous illogical historical inaccuracy.
On Tue, Apr 9, 2019 at 4:13 PM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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You mentioned the chandelier and I couldn’t stop looking at it.
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It’s so big! And ugly!
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the main reason I’m going to watch the movie-THE JEWELLERY THE CLOTHES
THE JEWELLERY THE JEWELLERY is the best I’ve seen since Jodha Akbar. I’ve not wanted to run out an buy copies since Jodha Akbar, but the jewellery in these trailers made me look at my bank balance.
Absolutely stunning and delicate
Madhuri’s clothes are also to die forys
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You know whose outfits I am most impressed by? Aditya! We don’t usually get that kind of crazy opulence on the men in historicals, but I want all his fancy jackets and turbans and stuff.
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I don’t know anything about dancing so I’ll stay out of that. However, the sets look cheap as if they’re made of cardboard. They tried to make it look epic but it looks low budget.
Another thing I’ve been noticing is how old Madhuri looks now. She looks like a contemporary of Hema Malini who is almost 20 years older. I hope she’s okay.
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The set is just odd! It’s got this CGI dark wood and candles look, but then the chandelier in the middle that seemed to cast no light. I pick on the chandelier a lot, but that sort of mess up with the lighting source is the kind of subconscious thing the audience notices and makes the set feel “not real”. Bhansali is ridiculous, but at least he builds actual sets and uses real lighting, and it shows.
Madhuri looked lovely in Bucket List, I thought. But I agree that she doesn’t look right here. Maybe her shoulder is paining her and aging her, or maybe it is just bad make-up and costuming and hair. Or worst of all, maybe they tried to fix her face in CGI and it just ended up looking weird.
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Madhuri is an excellent dancer,but the choreography didn’t work in this tabahi.What was wrong with those ridiculous camera angles?I felt like a cockroach watching her from weird angles.And it would have made more sense for her character to just sing for her dancing girls(who pays them,by the way?),be completely overwhelmed by her pain,leave the gathering,go to the terrace(but hey,how do you get a chandelier on a terrace?)and dance her heart out,while a panoramic shot shows the dancing girls in other kothas dancing for their clients,unaware of each other’s misery,and reiterating how every tawaif is just a puppet in the hands of lecherous patriarchy,a broken dream that is forgotten by history.Madhuri’s inexistent relationship with other tawaifs makes the entire tawaif subplot impactless.
Madhuri is a really good kathak dancer though.In the 50’s,there was Roshan Kumari,a trained kathak dancer of Jaipur gharana.Her movements were so good,impeccable footwork and those near acrobatic spins looked so elegant when performed by her.In “Jalsaghar”there is a long uncut shot of her dance,where she spins so fast that her braid ornament and earring literally falls from her,which seems unimprovised because how long that shot actually is.And yes she twirls faster than her skirt.For a moment I thought it was an editing problem because her skirt didn’t seem to follow her motions.And when she performs the slower movements,it seemed like her bones were fluid.Of course she lacked Madhuri’s expressions,but I found her kathak on completely another level altogether.
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There is this great moment at the end when Madhuri declares she is staying to take care of her Hindu “girls”. I want way more of that Madhuri, the one who sees the dancing girls under her protection as a responsibility and a family. But instead we just got odd songs and scenes with alia.
On Sun, May 24, 2020 at 2:09 AM dontcallitbollywood wrote:
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