Saawariya or Om Shanti Om???

Friday the 9th was one of the most Important Fridays in the recent Bollywood history. Two Big movies released following much talked about hype all over India. It was an important Friday where audience witnessed a maverick director and a superstar battling for a top spot in the well known argument of superiority between a director and an actor.

Much has been talked about in a week’s time after the release about these two movies. The verdict by newspaper and other media being - Saawariya a major disappointment and Om Shanti Om the biggest hit. This talk and few of the critic reviews led me to start this blog and this personal take on it. The biggest effecting factor, was the negative and one sided review of Saawariya published in popular bollywood website “indiafm.com” by its owner Mr. Taran Adarsh. Now Taran Adarsh has his own opinion just like everybody else, but its highly disappointing to see a person having been associated with Hindi Cinema for number of years can not understand what cinema is all about and comes up with a review that has no base. At the same time his next review on Om Shanti Om was even more shocking and one cannot ignore the fact that IndiaFm was a publicity partner for the production. What this all leads to is creating a wrong picture to the average moviegoer and may somewhere affect the business. It also misleads common people from understanding the beautiful art and magic of true cinema. I believe that, as a popular website, it is their responsibility to give a honest reviews to the readers. It is the fact that there are lot of people read such reviews before watching the movie and make their opinion about what is a good cinema and what is bad cinema. A good review not only provides good information what to watch and what not to watch, but it also somewhere educate a common person about what a good film is all about. But looking at these two reviews on the films, it is evident that the website is biased towards one compared to the other. Also a public statement by the director of Om Shanti Om about she not believing in remake sounds false as it is, but obvious to anyone who watched Om Shanti Om which borrowed heavily from the classic Rishi Kapoor starrer, Karz. Nowadays media has already degraded its reliability with more of such business oriented and biased coverage and this one adds one more case to the same.

All this lead to coming up with this blog and this personal review of both these movies. To start with I would like to make myself clear that its my personal and honest take on these two movies based on what I understand of Indian Cinema. So, let me do my take on Saawariya first. As we all know its based on a famous short story by Dostoevsky. It’s a poetic tale of four nights, where two strangers meet for the first time and share part of their lives for those few nights. It’s a simplest of a story line amazingly narrated by Dostoevsky about human emotion and pure love. It is equally challenging to depict this on celluloid. This is exactly where SLB’s excellence in this craft proving his metal. In the entire 2hrs and 30mins one understands and gets engaged with the lives of characters. The most striking and unique aspect of this movie is the location, the entire movie takes place in a town which is basically a set that art director has brilliantly put together, the audience comes to know this fact from the very beginning as soon the movie starts but at no point they object to it. This is where movie excels in its expectation; the original poetic soul of the story gets painted perfectly through this set and marvelous camera frames and cinematography. Throughout the Indian Cinema history there are movies to none that’s been shot in artificial sets for the entire length and still holds audiences attention, one that comes to mind is Ek Ruka Hua Faisla and few old black and white classics. This is a very difficult task to take on when nowadays audience is accustomed to the realistic locations. It’s a poetry that Director creates through this movie. Every frame of this movie is a learning experience of camera movement, lights and character's movements. It’s refreshing to see a director taking a different task all together which is not what a conventional Indian Cinema is all about.

Also one thing this movie succeeds to generate is the nostalgia of Raj Kapoor cinema and the magic he created on screen with Nargis. It becomes very evident when Raj holds Sakina tightly pulling her hair and the entire scene that follows, reminds you of Raj Nargi’s romance in Awaara, or the relationship that Raj shares with his landlady, brings you back Raj-Lalita Pawars love hate relationship. The famous pose in snow with the umbrella with suggestive RK in the background once again takes you back to the immortal Raj Kapoor-Nargis pose, Ranbir doing Shashi Kapoor steps, all this makes you nostalgic about the golden era of Hindi Cinema. One does not really have to notice all this in order to enjoy its magic and the movie simply does that.

Now saying that, the movie does lack intensity and opportunity to create more interesting plot in the whole narrative. Few characters looks like they are not explored to its strength, like the one of Iman or Gulabji. The whole movie revolves around Raj and Sakina. If more touch would have been given to the intense relationship between Iman and Sakina or the devotional love that Gulabji possesses for Raj, it would have taken the film to a whole new height. This is the only point I feel the movie fails in achieving. May be one song less would have created that space. The intensity of love that we witnessed in HDDS, looks lost a bit in this project. But overall it proves a mighty challenge well taken and gives audience a nice movie to watch.

Saawariya is not one of the greatest movie ever or the best that comes from this director, but no one can deny the fact that this is a good cinema for its honest attempt to create a magic on celluloid. Lets not look at how much business this makes, but just evaluate it from a cinematic experience and this is where Saawariya scores high points.

Now Om Shanti Om on the other hand comes as a big disappointment, I watched Om Shanti Om for it to be a typical masala film. A typical Manmohan Desai or 70’s films type movie. There were no big expectations in terms of artistic quality from this movie and not necessarily there should be one, an entertainment for 2hrs and 40mins is what one would expect and is perfectly acceptable. Film is most of the times a creation that a director dreams of and talks about, Farah always talked about this movie like a 70’s magical era recreated and that makes one interested to see if she has succeeded in that or not. Apparently she has not been that successful this time around. The movie starts on a very promising note where Subhash Ghai was shown directing Rishi Kapoor in Karz, very creative start but it becomes very monotonous from that point on, it looks like the director got carried away by this and tried to imitate the 70’s film industry at every step. Most of the times it disengages audience from the movie plot and feeds them with few slapstick humor here and there. The attempt is funny enough but it does hurt the cinema, it reminds one of the Hollywood flicks like Scary Movies or similar films where tongue and chick take on the other films and movie character being used. If the subject of the movie is like that, then it becomes acceptable but here it kills the valuable time in the first half which could have been used to create more engaging drama. There are no artistic expectations here, just a simple masala movie fun was required that we loved from 70's films. Now lets talk about the reincarnation concept, one thing that makes reincarnation plot more dramatic and exciting is when the experiences from the past life start haunting the character. This takes a grip on the viewers and makes the movie a enjoyable experience. This movie looks like it has fallen in love with the actors from 70's and taking on the films from that era. It’s the fact that the director has taken lots of inspirations from the 70’s films but where those movies were successful and excelled, Om Shanti Om failed. For example the way Karz was directed, audience easily except the fact of reincarnation even though the people do not look the same. Apart from this very interesting plot the movie also entertain you with laughter, romance, song and drama throughout. This was a soul of movies from that era. Om Shanti Om just have funny moments throughout the film and lacks the punch or Romance or Drama.

It does not brings you to the edge of your seat though it has the potential of doing so. Only time it holds your interest is when Shanti is killed. You keep hoping to see such sequences more and more but even in second half the film continues on the similar lines as it deed in the first half. In terms of Songs, they are well executed as Farah is a very good choreographer and she has an eye to create something new, though the Moon Set in Ajab Si song reminds you of Jaaneman’s title track choreographed by herself. The much talked about Deewangi has a huge starcast but the extended music piece in between the lyrics is repetitive, also the way the stars are introduced, looks the same. Again where John Johny Janardan exceled Deewangi failed. If the stars were not introduced in the dancing mode throughout but instead in the combination of dance and hanging out in a party mode, it would have been more authentic. Dard e Disco appears to be lacking energy, the beats are catchy and with Farah as a choreographer, definitely the expectations were high.

The entire film is carried on by SRK, the other characters except Kiron Kher, look artificial, Shreyas does not convince you in the second half. All this makes Om Shanti Om an "alright" movie but not as much as expected and talked about. The movie does not bore you for sure and makes you laugh but I am not sure if this is exactly what the director expected. The attempt to create the films of 70’s is lost somewhere on the way in making fun of things from 70’s films industry.

Farah is a good director and with all the resources and project of this scale audience would have loved to see more engaging masala flick, like the one we used to watch back in those days. I can make a better film than this with available resources that she had.

Now coming back to Mr. Taran Adarsh, if we look at his reviews on these two films, its evident how he favors one film to another without applying same rules of evaluation. On one side he accuses SLB for not understanding during what time period this movie takes place. At the same time he completely ignores to pin point, what time frame OSO is about? If you say its 1980 when Karz was still being shot, the wardrobe shown throughout the movie was more from early 70’s. Also one major factor is when the movie begins it says “30 years Earlier” so it sets the present time to be 2010, Is it like a futuristic movie? And when you start the movie by saying “30 Years Earlier”, after the first half you come to "present time", not to “30 Years Later” the way it is displayed in the movie. This is a simple technical fact any director should understand while making a movie. And if you show it "30 years later", you are spanning the movie with 60 years in between. I don’t think, Om’s mother will be still surviving with such high spirit then. But our friend Taran conveniently ignores such basics. Even all those actors shown in deewangi song should have been with gray hair if its "30 years later". Now I do let the director to take the liberty in such cases as I understand its her take on movies from back in days and present time period. What I don’t understand about Taran is, he lets one director to take such liberty but not other who may not want to put any time frame for the movie, its happening in the dreamworld, what is wrong with it?

Overall both the movies do not live up to the expectations the pre-movie hype had created, but at least Saawariya makes an honest attempt in depicting the belief of the director in a unique way. Om Shanti Om is an average attempt with glossy packaging, it had a potential to be a great masala flick, but somehow it has been lost somewhere. It is disappointing and frustrating to see how the so called film critic and movie guru like Taran Adarsh ignores these facts and judge one movie on a totally different scale.

It may happen that Om Shanti Om would make more business than Saawariya and grab more awards but when it comes to a good cinema, Saawariya will always score and will be remembered.