I'm back from India at last, so I am trying to come up with blog posts while I simultaneously catch up on all the TV I've missed over the past 2 weeks. To kick things off, I thought it only fair to begin with a review of a Hindi movie I saw on my flight back to NYC. I had no real desire to watch Mausam when it came out in the fall of 2011, but considering I was trapped on a plane for 8 hours, I figured I might as well give it a shot.
Mausam revolves around a boy and girl in Punjab who fall in love (of course) but then face various obstacles (again, of course) that make it unlikely that they will ever be together. The film's leads are Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (no relation), who do a fine job. Shahid in particular is a strong presence, morphing from a fun-loving Punjabi villager named Harinder "Harry" Singh to a sophisticated Air Force pilot who can confidently attend Mozart concerts in Edinburgh without looking ridiculous. I have always been ambivalent about Sonam Kapoor, who often strikes me as an Indian version of Paris Hilton, but she is remarkably toned down in this film and gives a fairly earnest performance as Aayat, a displaced Kashmiri girl who is one minute wearing a burkha and the next minute studying ballet in Scotland. So, the acting is just fine, but the story gets progressively more illogical and laughable as you continue. Which really, is the hallmark of most Bollywood cinema.
After Harry and Aayat meet in Punjab, they quickly become star-crossed lovers who are continually thwarted by outside circumstances. Aayat is suddenly whisked off to Mumbai and then Edinburgh when her father's Kashmiri friends are targeted by terrorists. Meanwhile, Harry gets his papers to join the Air Force and becomes a pilot. The movie is set in the 1990s, so I don't quite understand why communication provides such a huge obstacle for this couple, but they keep forgetting to write each other letters and no one seems to have an answering machine so it is all very complicated. They reunite in Edinburgh, rekindle their romance, and then the very night that Harry is supposed to meet Aayat's family and discuss getting married, he is called by the Air Force to fight the war in Kashmir. Again we are faced with a ludicrous series of failed telephone calls, discarded letters, misunderstandings, and lack of voicemail that make one wonder how anyone ever spoke to anyone before the age of the Internet.
But even these improbable plot points pale in comparison to the film's eventual ending, 2 hours and 40 minutes later. What started out as a fairly romantic and ambitious movie that featured some solid acting, beautiful cinematography, and slightly absurd but still tolerable storylines, quickly devolves into the insanity one can expect from a Hindi film that has hurtled past the 2-hour mark. Our lovers are reunited in Ahmedabad, but not in any subtle or whimsical fashion. No, they find each other in the midst of a riot as the city burns around them and Harry rescues Aayat from a group of men intent on killing her. Did you see that coming? Because I certainly didn't. But I would have been willing to let even that go, if it wasn't for the fact that this is followed by a scene where they enter a burning fairground, see a child trapped on a Ferris wheel, and subsequently launch into a sequence where Harry climbs the wheel to rescue the child. Oh and did I mention that he only has one functioning arm since the other one got paralyzed during an Air Force mission?
Ordinarily I would be angry and disappointed that I spent almost 3 hours watching this movie only to be presented with an ending this crazy. But, a Hindi movie's secret is its ability to slowly ramp up the crazy, so that when you get to the utterly insane ending, you skip past feeling angry and only laugh at how absurdly everything has been wrapped up. The movie started out perfectly normally, but as it got progressively weirder, I was still locked in because I wanted to know if and how Harry and Aayat would get together. So although the ending was thoroughly ridiculous, I was still somewhat satisfied because I at least knew what happened to them, which was my only goal for the past 160 minutes.
Bollywood cinema is all about lowering your expectations. You can't expect anything earth-shattering every time you watch a Hindi movie. Sometimes you'll get lucky and see a movie that truly moves you and is perfect from beginning to end. But most often, you'll get something like Mausam, which sufficiently intrigues you at the beginning and then drags you to a pathetic conclusion at the end. When you finish, you'll wish you hadn't bothered to watch it in the first place, but then you'll remember that you didn't have anything better to do anyway. So here's my hearty recommendation: if you're stuck on a plane and need to while away a few hours, this is the movie for you. Otherwise, don't even think about it.
Mausam revolves around a boy and girl in Punjab who fall in love (of course) but then face various obstacles (again, of course) that make it unlikely that they will ever be together. The film's leads are Shahid Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor (no relation), who do a fine job. Shahid in particular is a strong presence, morphing from a fun-loving Punjabi villager named Harinder "Harry" Singh to a sophisticated Air Force pilot who can confidently attend Mozart concerts in Edinburgh without looking ridiculous. I have always been ambivalent about Sonam Kapoor, who often strikes me as an Indian version of Paris Hilton, but she is remarkably toned down in this film and gives a fairly earnest performance as Aayat, a displaced Kashmiri girl who is one minute wearing a burkha and the next minute studying ballet in Scotland. So, the acting is just fine, but the story gets progressively more illogical and laughable as you continue. Which really, is the hallmark of most Bollywood cinema.
After Harry and Aayat meet in Punjab, they quickly become star-crossed lovers who are continually thwarted by outside circumstances. Aayat is suddenly whisked off to Mumbai and then Edinburgh when her father's Kashmiri friends are targeted by terrorists. Meanwhile, Harry gets his papers to join the Air Force and becomes a pilot. The movie is set in the 1990s, so I don't quite understand why communication provides such a huge obstacle for this couple, but they keep forgetting to write each other letters and no one seems to have an answering machine so it is all very complicated. They reunite in Edinburgh, rekindle their romance, and then the very night that Harry is supposed to meet Aayat's family and discuss getting married, he is called by the Air Force to fight the war in Kashmir. Again we are faced with a ludicrous series of failed telephone calls, discarded letters, misunderstandings, and lack of voicemail that make one wonder how anyone ever spoke to anyone before the age of the Internet.
But even these improbable plot points pale in comparison to the film's eventual ending, 2 hours and 40 minutes later. What started out as a fairly romantic and ambitious movie that featured some solid acting, beautiful cinematography, and slightly absurd but still tolerable storylines, quickly devolves into the insanity one can expect from a Hindi film that has hurtled past the 2-hour mark. Our lovers are reunited in Ahmedabad, but not in any subtle or whimsical fashion. No, they find each other in the midst of a riot as the city burns around them and Harry rescues Aayat from a group of men intent on killing her. Did you see that coming? Because I certainly didn't. But I would have been willing to let even that go, if it wasn't for the fact that this is followed by a scene where they enter a burning fairground, see a child trapped on a Ferris wheel, and subsequently launch into a sequence where Harry climbs the wheel to rescue the child. Oh and did I mention that he only has one functioning arm since the other one got paralyzed during an Air Force mission?
Ordinarily I would be angry and disappointed that I spent almost 3 hours watching this movie only to be presented with an ending this crazy. But, a Hindi movie's secret is its ability to slowly ramp up the crazy, so that when you get to the utterly insane ending, you skip past feeling angry and only laugh at how absurdly everything has been wrapped up. The movie started out perfectly normally, but as it got progressively weirder, I was still locked in because I wanted to know if and how Harry and Aayat would get together. So although the ending was thoroughly ridiculous, I was still somewhat satisfied because I at least knew what happened to them, which was my only goal for the past 160 minutes.
Bollywood cinema is all about lowering your expectations. You can't expect anything earth-shattering every time you watch a Hindi movie. Sometimes you'll get lucky and see a movie that truly moves you and is perfect from beginning to end. But most often, you'll get something like Mausam, which sufficiently intrigues you at the beginning and then drags you to a pathetic conclusion at the end. When you finish, you'll wish you hadn't bothered to watch it in the first place, but then you'll remember that you didn't have anything better to do anyway. So here's my hearty recommendation: if you're stuck on a plane and need to while away a few hours, this is the movie for you. Otherwise, don't even think about it.
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| Shahid and Sonam Kapoor: trying to strut their stuff as the plot comes crashing down around them |
I've missed Shahid!!!
ReplyDeleteShloka .... I missed youuuuuuu
ReplyDeleteThis is a fine fine review of bollywood movies. I was cracking up while reading it. Did you watch any other movie while you were in India?
Will you do a review of that please?
<3, the bengali
Sadly I restricted myself to one god-awful Bollywood film on my trip (although reviews will be forthcoming of the preposterous English ones I saw). But I might be watching a Hindi movie next weekend, in which case I will be glad to entertain you once again!
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