Sunday 9 November 2008

Sindoor (1987)

[PPCC Service Announcement: Some of you may have noticed that all our other images have fallen off the site. Yes. Yet again, we have exceeded our Photobucket bandwidth for the month. Worry not, they'll come back in a couple days. And we're working on making the site more sustainable for your viewing pleasure. Many apologies from the PPCC management team.]

Sindoor was, for the PPCC, a movie of strong feelings. Half of the time, we were yelling like The Dark Knight's Two Face when his face is doused in gasoline: "No! No! NO!!" The other half of the time, we were exclaiming, "Ooh, keeeee-UTE!" Often, both at the same time. And always - always - because of our beloved Shashi Kapoor.

We beloved Shashi Kapoor. We love him so much we printed out his IMDb filmography and have been crossing out the movies we've seen. Our goal: to enter the Guinness Book of World Records as having been the only person to have seen every single Shashi Kapoor film ever made (we reckon even the man himself hasn't seen all of them). We still have, like, 120 to go. Yay!

So anyway, we're devotional. We'll watch anything with him it. Like Memsaab to Shammi Kapoor, like Filmi Geek to Shabana Azmi, the PPCC is to Shashi Kapoor. Hence Sindoor, that late 80s aging romance fest, was something that was coming up fast on our radar.

Why the Two Face-esque NO! NO! NO!? Well, because Shashi is fat.


Please don't look at us like that, Shashi love.


Okay, okay, we're superficial and cruel. But hey, it was a shock. In five years, the man went from the (relatively) slim father in Vijeta to someone much heavier. Naturally, it changed not only his looks but his way of moving, his physical rhythm.

And why the squealish keee-UTE? Well, because Shashi is Shashi.


Awwwww, kee-UTE! And we think he looks so fly with the gray sideburns.


And the more his temples grayed and his waistline expanded, the more he went from funky masala stud to comforting teddy bear. Plus, he started to resemble one of our favorite high school teachers. The fact that he's playing a high school English teacher just made the resemblence even more freaky. What's that, Mr. Kapoor? Homework on Friday? Whatever you say, your adorableness!

The plot: Well, we gotta say, up front, that we fell in love with Sindoor. Most Hindi movies get really ingrown, incestuous, other in-words: everyone's related, no one realizes it, and the same things keep happening again and again to the same people. So it was refreshing to see something as expansive as Sindoor, where apparently no one is related - even the people you thought were, like the initial mother-daughter pair - and subplots follow random characters into tangential lands of interestingness. Here is a movie where you end up sympathizing and commiserating with the main characters' former work colleagues. It's that generous! Everyone gets a chance to say their bit!


This is Jeetendra, kickin' you in the face.


Who was manning the camera here? WHO?! A lover of wooden cabinets?!


Which makes it a bit hard to summarize neatly. But we'll try. Mom (Jaya Pradha) and Daughter (Neelam) love each other. Daughter meets Boy (Govinda), who is a total a-hole but then gets a bit nicer. They fall in love. Daughter and Boy adore their English Professor (Shashi Kapoor). Boy's Crazy Uncle (Kader Khan) makes Boy promise to graduate from high school before Boy and Daughter can get married. They invite Prof to the house, and Prof and Mom have a whole break-down, Stereotypically Shashi-esque shock of recognition moment. Cue flashback #1: Mom used to be Mrs. Prof, until Prof was all like, "I don't like you hanging out with that Rishi Kapoor person." Understandable. Mom walked out, and, cue flashback #2, saved a little girl (Daughter) from getting hit by a truck. Daughter's dad, recently widowered Dad (Jeetendra!), was all like, "OMG thanks for saving my daughter... would you mind pretending to be her mom too?" Mom was like, "WTF?" and Dad was like, "Don't worry, she can't tell the difference." Which she can't.

Ahem.

Anyway, Mom's like, "Sigh, fine." Dad gets knifed by this random goonda, and Dad dies, making Mom swear to look after Daughter. (Nota bene that Mom and Dad are not related.) Mom and Daughter grow up together. But now that Mom's met Prof again and cleared everything up, they're all in a bind: how can pretend-widow Mom snuggle with Prof, if the kids - Daughter and Boy - don't realize that they are actually still married? How can they possibly untangle this knot of human relationships?! To wear the sindoor, or not to wear the sindoor? And sindoor to whom!?! Argh, my BRAIN!

Much confusion ensues, but all is well in the end.


Govinda and Neelam, kickin' it, Switzerland style.


Jeetendra again, in his glorious fight scene. Eight-year-old daughter in one arm, goonda in a choke hold in the other.


Overall, we greatly enjoyed Sindoor. We loved the episodic nature of the plot - hopping from flashback to flashback, melodrama to melodrama. We loved the cuddling cuteness parallels between Govinda-Neelam and Shashi-Jaya in that one song. We loved the unexpected cameos - Rishi! Jeetu! - even when they felt like hangovers from the 70s - Kader?! Asrani?! PREM CHOPRA?! The music was generally OK, but forgettable, while the choreography had some very fun moments - Govinda and Neelam, especially, were delightfully youthful. But hey, any movie where middle-aged romance features (especially with 1980s Shashi) gets a big plus in our book, especially when he's gone all Muppetified and spends most of the movie cuddling people like Mr. Snuffleupagus.

10 comments:

Anarchivist said...

I love those reaction shots of disdain that Shashi shoots Rishi's way in the YouTube clip: "Damn you and your qawwali."

Anonymous said...

I suspect that as is often the case I might enjoy your review more than the actual film. Only because of Govinda though. Like Shammi, fat Shashi is better than no Shashi.

I think he is still v.v. handsome :-)

Beth Loves Bollywood said...

You are so rude about Shashi. Honestly.

This sounds pretty cute. Plus Rishi! But I did not at all follow the plot summary, and then I felt bad about myself for getting confuse by a Govinda movie.

"Damn you and your qawwali!" is what I"m going to yell while shaking my fist at the kids who play on my lawn when I have my retirement haveli.

Shweta Mehrotra Gahlawat said...

Oh dear lord this was a ghastly movie, but tolerable for Shashi.
I absolutely agree w/: "And the more his temples grayed and his waistline expanded, the more he went from funky masala stud to comforting teddy bear."

a ppcc representative said...

Anarchivist - Hee, I know! I quite enjoyed watching him, as Peter Sellers would say, rurn with a bealous jage.

Memsaab - Awww, I agree.

Beth - Oh jeez, I know. I'm cruel. He is surprisingly different though! I think the gray sideburns help a lot, though, they soften his appearance. When they kept his hair dark in those flashbacks, it didn't really work.

The retirement haveli!

Shweta - Aw, hey, I liked it!

Anonymous said...

That classroom clip you've linked to is so cute. If I could get the movie edited to exclude all the Govinda parts I'd watch it too! In the meantime I'll content myself with your review and the youtube clips.

"The music was generally OK" - you wouldnt have thought so if you'd heard it blaring raucously from every street corner back then! :-( Pathjhad saawan has all the finesse of a dentists' drill and makes me want to scream just as hard as a drill would!

Rum said...

Awww Shashi's not fat ppcc, I would prefer you use the Kapoor term "Blobby" When i watched this at my neighbour Rita's house, she told me that Shashi told her a few years ago that he let himself go coz Jennifer used to control his diet, but ever since she passed away he became a blobster, lol she even told me that the Kapoor's have an obesity or blobby gene! I refuse this claim as my Shammi isn't as humungo as be4, and Randhir and Rishi have slimmed down! Back to the movie, I love your plot summary so easy for a young 'un like me to follow!
I think Rishi will be synomous in my head as "Damn you and your qawwali" Nahiiii! I love Rishi and the qawalli, and Jeetu's fight was my fave part that he could juggle the kid actress and kick the crap out of the goonda!

Anonymous said...

The pictures you uploaded are very nice. Thanks for sharing.

gebruss said...

Govinda is actually quite cute in this movie. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with getting confused by a Govinda movie, it happens to me all the time.

I am not a great fan of Sindoor myself, too much comic relief, and not enough of either Shashi, Govinda or Rishi for my taste.

I wonder, PPCC, have you seen Ghar ek Mandir? It has rather cute middle age romance, even if Shashi is only in it for the first hour or so.

Anonymous said...

Yo! I am glad you said it about Shashi's size. I couldn't speak about it outloud. It's unmentionable. That's all I could focus on for most of the movie. "Shashi, kya hua?" I had recently seen him in Heat and Dust from 1983, here's a little post: http://bollywoodfoodclub.wordpress.com/2008/10/28/heat-and-dust-1983-its-not-bollywood-but-it-has-shashi/

1987 - 1983 = 4 years. 80/4 lbs. = 20lbs. per year. There but for the grace of God...I better be careful of what I eat!

I LOVED Govinda's outrage at the mom being a SLUT, that is before he knew the reality that the prof. was really married to future mom-in-law. I LOVED that!

All the best!
Sita-ji