I had to come out as
BHANSALI die hard fan. I am one of those who follow the world of
'Bhansalisque' sense of cinema. Larger than life images, colours splashed across
frames where violence has a soothing background score and it all ends up in
tragedy. That is my view of Cinema in Bollywood movies and this is exactly why
I wait for his movies so patiently.
When Sawaariya came out, I was one of the few souls
who loved it. I still get rebuked for my
taste for Bhansali's movies, but how could someone not like Saawariya!
It was based on Dostoevsky's "White Nights" and in-spite of such horrible
acting by Sonam Kapoor it did justice to the tragic notion of love. Guzaarish
took the plot ‘love’ and elevated love to another level. That is Bhansali for
you. He would rather let the couples die than love getting united.
So when I went to watch Ram Leela, I was all prepared to get
tear jerked. I was looking forward to emotions, drama, and tragedy. The movie
indeed ended with death but it did not feel heart warming. But this time it was
not JUST about the tragic love. As one of my friend stated, death was pretty
boring compared to the rest of the movie.
Bhansali finally colours his hand with blood...
It started with violence, people shooting and throwing
bottles at each other. A man running behind a child to shoot him down with a
gun; this happening in a mainstream Bollywood movie was something that amazed
me. Nothing was politically correct and it was charged up with all the correct
regional abuses. There was no moral police to control the urges and no censor
board to decide for us what we wanted in the scenes. The movie had violent
scenes with perfectly choreographed action, colour combination was right and even got
mosquitoes flying on the blood! There were even some dirty lanes in the picture
and even some not so pretty looking sets. Bhansali was clearly getting out of
his comfort zones. This was too much for a man with a sense of very polished
beauty. Yet he maintained the canvas of beauty on screen.
Extreme hot bodies, dresses and language...
If I discuss the characters, it would begin with their looks
and bodies. Both the female and male characters were extremely hot looking
people. It gave a lot of people goosebumps, woman like me clapped everytime
Ranveer removed his shirt and men clapped for Priyanka and Dipika. However this
time it was more than just the bodies. The bodies were also given soul and
colours.
The bodies were wrapped with gorgeous looking clothes and
wonderful dialogue baazi. Nothing seemed politically, ethically or morally
correct when it came to the dialogues. It was raunchy at different levels and
sexual innuendos were the flavour of the day. The raunchiness was enjoyed by everyone
in their own secret world. Even the woman character mouthed the sexy so called
“ non veg” dialogues. The discomfort if felt by the audience was on both side
of the binary gender frame. If the guy spoke about her size, the girl retorted
back asking for his size right before their celebrated suicide. If the guy
talked about pornography, she talked about her sexual desires. If the guy
pretended not to be interested in her, she talked about seducing him. The
word-play between the two was simply amazing. Kudos to the wonderful
combination of the script-writers(Garima and Siddharth). I enjoyed the smart
dialogues that held the story together.
Shifting away from the good girl syndrome:
There were a clear shift from the 'good-girl' syndrome to just a girl who decided for herself. Instead of waiting for him to seduce her, she
went ahead and kissed him unabashedly. Not once but so many times she gave in
to her desires. My friend totally found it unethical when she decided to
elope with her lover instead of mourning her brother's death. I somehow never
connected it to the family honour or her duty. As dramatically said in
the film “ Badtamees, behasharam, buzdil hain yeah pyaar, par pyaar yahi hota
hain” ( It is shameless, uncouth and lacks courage, but this how love is), I
was very much in sync with her line of thinking.However, the issue of ethic was never
made an issue when the same girl's wedding was arranged within 10 days of her
brother's death to keep her brother's honour. Maybe selling her virginity
within the societal norms was fine as opposed to her choosing what to do with
her virginity.
The Women Characters :
I have always admired Bhansali for the portrayal of women in
his movies. Be it Nandini ( in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam) or Paro's mother in
Devdas. They were all very clear about what they wanted in their lives. And
this time Bhansali took it to another level. This time he made his female
characters assert their sexuality. He gave them agency. Be it Leela's sister in
law, who demanded to spent more time with her husband when her husband returned
, or Leela when she demanded a night with her husband before her death.
This agency was portrayed with violence in the backdrop to justify their
assertive nature, but these women clearly ruled the cinema and the screen for
me.
Even after the rape incident, when they accused try to
approach the survivor again she scowled back and walked out of the place.
The Rape incident
This was the only part of the movie which I hated. There was
no need to even hint that rape could be used as a tool in war. Rape as a tool
to destroy the honour of a family was something problematic that the director
could have avoided. I do understand that this was the reality that still
happens in India but was cinema not the medium to bring about that change in
our attitudes?
If the movie could
insist so much on love, it could have gone ahead and depicted violence in
different ways. I am fully aware of the fact that the way rape incident was
dealt later by the lead character, was more on the lines of peace, but the
reference to rape as a tool did upset me.
The madness:
A lot has been written about the lack of logic in the movie.
First of all, when did Bollywood ever cater to the realms of logic? And seriously
from the genre of Rajnikanth and Amitabh Bachchan, do we expect reasons? Was
there not a parallel cinema movement that was explicitly meant for real life
and reasoning (and because of the same things it has not been able to garner
enough audience!).
However madness is needed, not just in the case of thousand
people dancing on the roads without any context, but also for instances like
love. The movie tried discussing Romeo and Juliet and tried setting up this
tone in Indian context. It did feel like it was using love as the rational (
read madness) for most of the steps taken by the actors. There is no other
emotion in the generally accepted range of emotions that caters for madness in
the world. The scene where Leela repeats the messages sent by her husband 4
times while her sister in law is trying to reason out with her, can only be (understood/mis-understood) using the language of love.
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We are mostly taught to reason out our actions, most of us don’t
tend to spontaneously act on our desires. Well we have been taught that desires
need to be controlled, censored and now even under surveillance. We need to
follow rules and codes of our surroundings and in such a scenario there is no
space for madness of individuals. Ram Leela in its own spicy, bollywood style
try providing that space for madness. Maybe Bhansali did not intend to see it
in that sphere but I would like to read that into it.
Overall I enjoyed! BIG thank you to Bhansali.
