Saawariya

A film that purports to be a love story is in deep trouble if its lead characters do not connect and are not believable. And that is biggest flaw of Saawariya. For a love story, the movie is terribly boring. There is no chemistry between Bhansali's lead actors -- Ranbir and Sonam. And in any case, Sonam's character never fully acknowledges the love of the young man. Instead for some odd reason (which is never explained in the film), she is haunted by the memory of her first love -- who had left her on a bridge in the middle of the night. And so every night she stands on this bridge, waiting for her love to return.

Bhansali is a man of details. One could see that in his past productions -- the flawed and over-the-top Devdas and Black -- the very unreal and hysterical melodrama. And so one wonders how he missed one crucial detail in Saawariya? The film has no soul and nearly pointless to watch, even as a vehicle for entertainment.

There are a couple of details that stand out in Saawariya -- the sets, the costumes -- all washed in the colour blue and the challenging, yet very creative cinematography of Ravi K. Chandran. The film is shot entirely on sets. There is not a single outdoor shot, not the slight bit of natural light. And yet the film looks stunning.

Towards the end of the film, there is a moment, when the young Sonam is running through the dark alleys of the artificial city -- with a touch of blue and green lights. At that brief moment, I nearly felt that I was watching a piece of art -- a work of substance.

But very soon after that moment I woke up from my dream-like state as I was subjected to more meaningless drivel of will she or will she not love the young man. And by then I did not give a damn.

Instead, the director hams.

Sanjay Leela Bhansali needs to be thwacked with a subtlety stick, much like Sakina messily beats carpets hanging around her. Everything is overblown and hyper-real in the director's head, and there is no room for soft reality. The characters populating his movie, therefore, cannot *** without hysteria or laugh without sliding off a chair. A glare is held for ten minutes, a coy glance for five. And the dialogue is immeasurably grating, making the film's sub-130 minute length seem twice as long.

It is a testament to the star-kids, then, that they've gamely gone through these dizzying motions without afflicting career hara-kiri. Ranbir, playing a character labeled over-lovable from start to scratch, is often painfully exaggerated and moronic, but he does salvage a few moments of charm where you feel for him -- even if only sympathy at his debuting in this production. There might be hope, sure. But then there's that towel song, the most homoerotic picturisation in Hindi cinema, which could likely take a few years to live down.

A still from SaawariyaIt's hard to fathom what Bhansali expects anybody to like in this film. With close to a dozen songs assaulting us once every seven minutes, on average, there is no room for the narrative to flow. The background score is deafening, and the writing is so emotionally manipulative -- wait for the way Ranbir convinces Zohra Sehgal to let him bunk with her -- it makes you want to pen down an alternate script in immediate protest. And, despite conjuring up moments with legends like Sehgal and Begum Para -- irresistible when devoutly mouthing Mughal-E-Azam dialogues -- these are too few and far between. Are we actually supposed to enjoy Ranbir doing dad Rishi's rabblerousing lines from Karz, or laugh at Rani's pathetic half-malapropisms? Please.

What's the deal, Mr Bhansali? This isn't a Luchino Visconti remake, as many had feared, but a bizarre reworking, an overbaked version of a very simple romance. Dozens of dancing prostitutes do not a Federico Fellini make, sir.

This film opens with Ranbir, off-screen, persuading a whore to listen to two lines of song. She deigns to listen and he picks up his blue six-string. And instead of an eager-to-please youth fumbling with a scratchy guitar, we get -- after a sudden title screen with the star-kids' name, a la Rajnikanth [Images] -- a mega song-and-dance production, a full-blown intro. No wonder the heartbeat is muted.

As Gulabjee, lady of the night, would say, I don't likes.

ust as Ranbir Kapoor was to drop the white sheet wrapped around his waist, a man in the row in front of me woke up his companion, saying almost breathlessly, 'Dekh, dekh, bilkul nanga hai' (Look, look, he's completely naked).

The woman who was woken up told her companion soon after the brief nude scene was over: "I am going to sleep. You can wake me up tomorrow." The way the movie was limping, she felt it would never end. As the lights came on, she was asking: "What did he show this time?"

The film, which inaugurated the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival in New York on Wednesday, received mild applause at the end, with some viewers saying they clapped more to acknowledge the beginning of the film festival. But many viewers thought it was an inauspicious co-venture for Sony.

At least 20 people, out of some 600 at the screening, walked out half way through the film which is about two hours and thirty minutes long.

"What possessed Bhansali to make this film!" said a man to a friend. "I think the success of Black went to his head. That film had no songs but here we have nearly a dozen songs. But I can hardly hum any number but for the title track."

"Santa Claus has arrived early this year and he definitely loves Shah Rukh Khan [Images]," said a man who has not seen Om Shanti Om. "But I have the gut feeling that it is going to knock Saawariya flat. At least it won't be pretentious."

But some felt even if Saawariya had been released with no competition, it would have had a tough time wooing audiences.

A young woman who was going through the festival brochure discovered that many awards would be given on November 11, the last day of the film event.

"Is there any award for the most boring film," she wondered loudly. "I would love to nominate this film. I would even suggest its title be changed to SaaBOREiya.'

"It is a colossal blunder," said a filmmaker whose work is being shown at the MIAAC Film Festival and who did not want to be named. 'It is radioactive. But, hey, who knows? Audiences may come to love it because they like Sonam and Ranbir."