I already put up my NO SPOILERS review, and my podcast, now it’s time for the SPOILER review. I recommend reading this before listening to the podcast, since the podcast assumes that you already know what happens in the movie.
I’m back! After I scribbled off my No Spoilers Review in the middle of the night, I am now awake (sort of) and am ready for my SPOILERS review! And in this case, I am going to say that you should read this whether or not you have seen the movie. There are already various think pieces going around that critique the film by taking elements in isolation, I want to critique it by taking everything in context.
Guide part 3! This is what happens when I write about Great Movies, I just go on and on and don’t know how to stop (16 parts into DDLJ, by the way, and not even to intermission). But I am going to be firm with myself this time and try to keep it down to just 3 parts. Especially because, unlike DDLJ, this isn’t a movie all my readers will necessarily have seen. (part 1 gives no plot details of the film, just background on the pre-production, part 2 starts with a general discussion of the style and techniques of the film before getting into plot. Read them both before you read this, because I will be referring back!)
This was not a good movie. And, to save you all from it, I am going to provide a summary here that you can read instead of sitting through the whole 3 hour mess like I had to. It is my gift to humanity! And if, for some reason, you feel the need to actually see it, you can always read my No Spoilers review instead.
Yesterday I did an in depth post on the whole behind the scenes process of making Guide and who all the personalities involved where and what their background was and so on and so on (not including the Murder and Sex Cult part of the Anand brothers’ story, because those hadn’t happened yet). I wanted to say aaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllll of that before I got into discussing the actual film. Which is what I will do now, only I will be referring back to stuff from the other post, so read this first!
As I mentioned in my non-SPOILER review, my Grandpa loooooooooves submarine movies. Well, really all boat movies, but sub movies are his favorites. And because of that, I have seen a fair number of submarine movies myself. And I have to say, this is a very very good example of the sub movie genre. I would have liked it even better if we’d gotten to the underwater warfare part sooner.
Part 5! I always forget how much faster it moves once I get into the second half. Because I’ve already done all my discussion of the underlying motivations and blah blah, and I can skip all that. I have great hopes of finishing entirely in one more part! (part 1 here and part 2 here and part 3 here and part 4 here)
I took a couple days off, because I had to go see Raees again which killed 5 hours (travel to the theater and back plus trailers), which was also my 5 hours when I could have been writing recaps. But now I am back! And hoping to get well into Shahrukh and Nawazuddin’s first mental duel. (part 1 here and part 2 here)
That statement is less impressive than it sounds, because I am counting a song and a “song” that comes right next to it. But I’m going to try to move even further past that as well, we’ll see how I do. (part 1 here)
Okay, I did a mini-spoiler review, a no spoiler review, and a full spoiler review. Now it’s time for the scene by scene shot by shot breakdown!
Really, this isn’t fair, it’s a tie between this movie and The Fog With Irfaan Khan. But I don’t remember The Fog With Irfaan Khan as well, so you have to be contented with just Bal Brahmachari.
In preparation for Raees, I am zipping through Humsafar, the show that made Mahira Khan famous. It was a bit of a slog at first, but now I am addicted and am rapidly making my way to the end. Along the way, I wanted to pause and give some summary and discussion of the episodes. I already did 1-8 here, now it’s time to move on to 8-14.
I put up my NO SPOILERS review last night after I got home, and then I slept for 5 hours, and now I am at work and all ready to write my SPOILERS review. And then right after work is family dinner tonight, and then I come home and do laundry and wrap 37 presents and empty my sink of dirty dishes and maybe think about finishing decorating my trees. Christmas week releases are not the easiest. So forgive me if this review sounds a little punchy.
I was trying sooooooooooo hard to finish in the last section. But I was also getting soooooooooo sleepy as it got later and later, so I finally gave up. However, I did manage to get all the way to the emotional peak and resolution of the film, so everything I have to cover here is just epilogue stuff. (part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here)
Ha! I originally had a typo of there, making it “the heat of Alia’s dysfunction”. Which sounds kind of sexy, but also kind of sci-fi-y. And, maybe, this scene is “sexy” in that caring and sensitive men are always “Sexy”, but it’s not sci-fi-y at all. So I went ahead and fixed the typo. (part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here)
The last section got a little extreme with the general thematic analysis. But this time, I am going to stay strictly focused on what happens in this actual section. Or at least, that’s the goal.
I have now seen this movie 4 times, which means in theory I should be able to remember in in exact detail and give a perfect summary. But in reality means I am going to mix up the order of a couple of scenes and forget an important line and stuff. Oh well, someday my brain-recorder technology will be perfected and I won’t have to worry about this any more. (SPOILER review here, non-spoiler here, and part 1 of the summary here)
I mentioned in my SPOILER review, how this is a very very female story, both in content and style. Sure, the narrative is all about one woman’s journey, based on emotions and relationships and all that “girly” stuff. But it is also told in a very female way, more about what is unsaid than what is said, through body language and intuition and so on. Which starts in the very first series of shots.
Woo! I’m gonna finish in time for Dear Zindagi week! Really, the end-end goes remarkably fast. Although it still has the patented “Karan Johar doesn’t know how to end a movie” touch.
Okay, I need to hurry through this to be finished by Shahrukh Week, starting on Wednesday (this time-posts on Shahrukh movies in which he mentors young women!). I am all the way past the Interval of ADHM, and my posts are slowly increasing in length, so I think I should be able to finish this thing off soon.
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