Raavan

In a religious country like India, where people have ended up fighting over Rama and Allah, it needs some courage to take up one of the two greatest epics written and show our worshipped Lord Rama having a grey side to him. It takes even more courage to start telling the story from the villain Raavan’s point of view and justify his actions. Mani Ratnam is his latest film does exactly that when he gives the mythological story a realistic setting in today’s world and twists the story a bit to make people sympathize for the villain of the epic.

Abhishek Bachchan plays an outlaw called Beera(Raavan) in the film. Though he goes against the law, the villagers believe in him, his actions, and his ideology which makes him a character like Don Vito Corleone or the Sarkar. The only difference is he is wilder than those. The wildness, ofcourse is to draw parallelism to Raavan’s character in Ramayana. He kidnaps Raagini(Sita) played by Aishwarya Rai Bachchan to kill her for reasons told later in the film. But instead of killing her, he starts falling for her beauty, her bravery. This is where we see the film getting similar to RGV’s Jungle where the lead bandit started falling for Urmilla Matondkar and starts taking wrong decisions.

Mani Ratnam goes back to what he is most known for and does the best, depicting violence and terrorism on screen. Though Raavan isn’t exactly a film about terrorism, its style is very similar to those. He might not have come back to his real best, but it seems like he is on his right way now after Guru where I thought he completely lost his way and like other directors got pulled and attracted by commercial brand of cinema. With Raavan, he seems to be coming back to his own.

The most pleasing thing in this film is the visuals, the cinematography. Santosh Sivan is really a master of camerawork. He has never disappointed me with his camera work. While Terrorist is his best piece of work for me, Raavan isn’t very far behind. Though shooting infront of the waterfalls, and naturally beautiful scenes makes it easier for him to make the picture look beautiful, he is equally good in indoor scenes and close-up shots. He and Manikandan make the film a visual treat and worth watching just for the visuals alone.

The acting is the most disappointing thing in the film. Both our leads look like they didn’t go into the skin of the character. While Aishwarya was busy screeching, Abhishek was overacting in most of the part. He was supposed to go over-the-top but he ended up overacting in most of the scenes.  It was really tough to play that monster-ous character which Abhishek Bachchan was portraying and only two people come in my mind who could have done justice to that role – Toshiro Mifune – he would have made the perfect Raavan IMO and the other is Min-sik Choi (after seeing his performance in Oldboy). Vikram played his role very well but his role was simpler than the other two. Govinda was miscast in this film. He was doing comedy in this film, jumping like a monkey form one tree to another (OFC, as a reference to the character of Hanuman in Ramayana) but it did not suit the film at all. I would have preferred a more serious character. Ratnam for once looked like he was compromising with the film just to give some comic relief to an otherwise dark thriller kind of a film. Even Ravi Kissen was there to provide some comic relief in the film. Priyamani was impressive in a very short but yet very important role.

A.R. Rahman gives a very different, aggressive and dark, wild music to this film. It suited the film’s atmosphere very well. Beera obviously was a bit like the title track of Omkara. Thok De Killi was wild. The soft songs, Behne De and Khlli Re, too were good. But I liked Ranjha Ranjha the most.

I think people won’t be able to accept this film for it challenges their religious beliefs and seeing Rama having a grey shade while justifying Raavan’s action will be hard to get the nod of general public of India. Ratnam indeed took a big challenge with this film. But I for one enjoyed watching the film and I bow to Ratnam for taking up the challenege and giving the story his own interpretation.

7/10

Ishqiya – A fun watch.

Cast – Naseeruddin Shah, Arshad Warsi, Vidya Balan

Direction – Abhishek Chaubey

Like other Vishal Bhardwaj films, Ishqiya too is a very bold film. No surprise, as it is directed by Abhishek Chaubey who used to assist Vishal Bhardwaj in his earlier films. Set in the rural areas of UP, near the border of UP- Nepal, it hardly shows any good thing about UP. Instead UP is shown as a state where most of the criminal and terrorist activities take place like manufacturing guns and selling them.

The narrative of the film is based on multiple story lines coming together in the end. We see two thieves played by Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi trying to escape their boss after stealing money. They take asylum in Vidya Balan’s home, she is a widow after her husband died in a fire explosion in their house. Both Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi fall in love with Vidya Balan. But their boss finds them and to add to their problems, the money too is stolen. Vidya Balan then proposes a plan where they can steal money from a rich person by kidnapping him. And both of them are left with no option but to accept the plan because of their problem and love for Vidya Balan. Once they agree to the plan, the entire thing showed prior to it becomes a MacGuffin. What is a MacGuffin? –

A MacGuffin (sometimes McGuffin) is “a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction.”
Sometimes, the specific nature of the MacGuffin is not important to the plot such that anything that serves as a motivation serves its purpose. The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation.
The MacGuffin is common in films, especially thrillers. Commonly, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and later declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. Sometimes the MacGuffin is even forgotten by the end of the film.

It is very much similar to Psycho directed by Alfred Hitchcock where a girl steals money and tries to run away from the boss, but that is hardly something to do with the basic plot of the film. Similarly in Ishqiya, the two thieves running with the money has hardly anything to do with basic plot.

The problem in Ishqiya is that the plot of the film was very paper thin and is based on one word – ‘TWIST’. The entire film is constructed around that very word. Of course, I can’t reveal the twist here as it would spoil the film for those who haven’t seen it yet. Although a few smart things, like the old woman with a fire torch and every room having a cylinder, that are very significant in the end were added in the film, but overall the plot wasn’t very well handled and I felt the director should have made more effort in developing the plot if twist was the word Abhishek Chaubey had in his mind.

Set in a rural background like Omkara, Ishqiya is yet another very bold film from Vishal Bharadwaj’s camp. Though it isn’t directed by Vishal Bharadwaj, Abhishek Chaubey ensures that just like Vishal Bharadwaj, even Ishqiya doesn’t make any compromise in the language or the scenes to make it a family watch commercial film. However, this time unlike Omkara, the cusswords are added to the film for the purpose of comedy rather than them actually suiting the film and the situations. In Omkara, the abusive words sounded apt according to the situations, but here in Ishqiya, we see them just to add the shock value to the film. It was slightly disappointing to see that happen. But the film had some genuinely good funny moments apart from the abusive humor which they relied on a lot.

One good metaphor in the film was a nude statue of a girl hanging in the car and swinging to the beats of Ibn-e-Batuta while Naseeruddin Shah and Arshad Warsi were driving the car, which probably meant that these two are going to fall in the trap laid by a girl.

The characters of Ishqiya are the biggest positive point of the film. Infact Ishqiya is a character driven film rather than a plot driven one. The characters are very well written and every actor did justice to their characters. Arshad Warsi was providing some good comic reliefs while Naseeruddin Shah was mesmerizing to say the least. It was great to see him showing his romantic side even in this age. Vidya Balan like Kareena Kapoor played the role of a fair looking girl in a village, only this time she wasn’t ‘MASOOM’ like Kareena Kapoor. For why I said ‘Masoom’ in capital letters, watch the film.  Aprt from the lead three, the other actors like Jijaji of Naseeruddin Shah, Kakkad and the boy (don’t remember the name of his character) were very good.

The music and the songs of the film are the finest I have heard in a long long time. Dil to Baccha Hai is the best of all of them and very aptly placed in the film. The lyrics of that song are awesome. Ibn-e-Batuta, failed to create the same level of excitement in the film as it creates when seen without any video. “Badi dheere Jali Raina” is awesome and melodious. “Ab mujhe Intezaar Kahaan” is one of the finest ghazals I have heard. Rekha Bharadwaj has a great voice and should sing more often.

Overall, Ishqiya is a fun film to watch, but I would have enjoyed it a lot more had the plot was more strong and the cusswords were used in a better way and not just to add humor. Still, I must say Ishqiya is an exciting film and a must watch.

MACGUFFIN INFO SOURCE – Wikipedia.