Love Aaj Kal (2009)

Some stories are just well-told.

Time out: The PPCC is all about philosophy of aesthetics, and we appreciate things like sharp narrative structure. In Love Aaj Kal, we were in for an unexpected treat: exciting, razor-tight, efficient pacing. Vah!

That may not sound like much, but it was exciting for us. Hindi films tend to be pretty Baroque in their narrative: they spend a lot of time lingering on emotional climaxes, building our interest in characters slowly and in great detail. Just remember the days of Manmohan Desai, where we would follow the Amitabh and Shashi brothers from the sidewalk to the front room, into the kitchen, upstairs, to the bathroom, and all that? There was a reason these movies were long.

They were also conventional in their chronology: the scenes were ordered according to the straightforward idea that what happened in Scene B was maybe a few minutes, or maximum a few days, after what happened in Scene A. If a larger jump in time was required, we would experience the required Flashback/Flashforward fuzzy camera + song.


This scene felt very Four Weddings and a Funeral, for some reason.

So what was very, very refreshing about Love Aaj Kal (Love Today Yesterday) was its use of a more post-modern style of storytelling. The plot spans two different generations, with the modern day love story taking place over several years. And yet - partly (we think) in order to maintain the intimacy of the emotional experience - director Imtiaz Ali abandons the David Lean epic effect in favor of a series of short vignette-style scenes. In this way, the characters and their romance is painted in broad brushstrokes; things are intimated and suggested more than explored in any great detail. And yet, paradoxically, as we abandon the mundane details of their lives in favor of a series of speedy snapshots, it becomes more realistic and more engaging! It's a bit like a Michael Ondaatje novel - most scenes don't last more than a minute or two, and they jump forward months and even years. Yet we never lose touch with the main thread.


Saif looking very good as a Sardarji.

That thread is the slow realization that Jai (a slightly plastic-looking Saif Ali Khan) and Meera (an unexpectedly wonderful Deepika Padukone) really do love each other in the old fashioned, soulmate way. A pair of light-hearted, cosmopolitan career people, Jai and Meera meet in a bar, date, enjoy each other's company and, when Meera's job takes her from London to Delhi, amicably part ways. Neither seems particularly devastated by their parting, there are no proclamations of eternal love. In fact, the two are pretty convinced that such love doesn't exist!

"Those 'made in heaven', 'can't live without you' soulmate types. They only exist in stories," Jai says confidently (and later in the film, desperately). "We're just regular people."

Their eventual understanding, over years and distance and obstacles, that they were, and are, in Love with a capital L, is a pleasure to watch. And it's partly helped along by a wonderful (CAN HE BE ANYTHING LESS THAN WONDERFUL THESE DAYS? THE ANSWER IS NO) Rishi Kapoor, who plays a sympathetic Sikh London coffee shop owner. As Kapoor relates his ultra-romantic, traditional love story from yore, we cut rapidly back and forth between the 1970s Delhi of the young Kapoor (played by Saif Ali Khan) and Harleen (Giselle Monteiro) - with its cinematic train departures, disapproving fathers and midnight escapes - and the stubbornly cynical text messages of post-modern Jai and Meera. The moral of the story: stop trying to deny your old fashioned heart goo, Generation Y!

We have very soft spots for jump cuts, drastic cross cuts (as between Sardar Saif and 2009 Saif) and old Rishi Kapoor, and we are also - at heart - old fashioned romantics, so we really enjoyed this film. Saif Ali Khan is dependably charismatic, and, since the film is mostly from his perspective, he does a fine job taking us through the highs and lows of Jai's awakening. He also impresses as the passionate young Punjabi in the old timeline. Deepika Padukone was surprisingly great - we say "surprisingly" because her roles in Om Shanti Om and Chandni Chowk to China were mostly throwaway stand-and-pose affairs. Or maybe she's maturing as an actress? Either way, she was just great. Rishi Kapoor... well, need we say more? What happened to this guy after 2000? He seems to have reinvented himself as, like, the best Papa Bear ever! The songs were fine, though - having heard them approximately ten billion times in the supermarket, gym, malls and autorickshaws - we were a little saturated. Special mention goes to the remix of the evergreen personal favorite Mera Mann Dole.

Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003)

What Kal Ho Naa Ho (Tomorrow May Not Be) lacks in subtlety or believability, it makes up in charm and emotional gimmicks. This fun and indulgent film is quick on its feet and shamelessly manipulative. In the end, you may cry - but you may also feel a bit cheated. Whereas director Karan Johar's later venture, Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna, was emotionally overblown but with an ultimately believable core, KHNH is sugar-covered fluff.


One of the big songs.

It comes complete with all the usual trappings of a Shah Rukh Khan/Karan Johar venture: super-pop dance sequences in unlikely night clubs featuring uninspired music, ample tears, emotional triangles and quadrangles and pentagons, many very famous Bollywood stars, New York City, and a Punjabi wedding. It also, like KANK, seems more geared towards the diaspora audience - this is another movie well-integrated into a multicultural, modern New York City, where the romantic ballads may just as easily feature multiracial or same sex pairings as the Desi hero-heroine.

The plot of Kal Ho Naa Ho is pure deep-fried Mars bar, yet - as with many mainstream Bollywood emo fests - it does contain a sincerity of heart which renders it appealing rather that torturous.

The setting is New York City.


New York City.

Bookish Naina (Preity Zinta) lives in a high-stress environment. Her mother (Jaya Bachchan) is constantly fighting with her paternal grandmother. Her younger brother is disabled. Her younger sister is adopted, and despised by the grandmother. Her father killed himself. There is religious dischord. It would really make anyone a bit upset.


Naina and her mother and the ever-present tears.

Things look grim, and one night, after a particularly nasty fight with the grandma, the rest of the family gets on their knees and begs God to send an angel who can save them from this mess. With no narrative shame, a sunny neighbor, Aman (Shah Rukh Khan), moves in before the prayer is even finished.


Aman moves in.

Aman takes it upon himself to improve Naina's situation. He teaches her to smile again. He sings in the street. He cooks. He even reconciles their familial troubles. Everyone is taken in by his charms.


Reconciling other people's problems, no problem.

It's not long before Naina falls in love with this ray of sunshine. But Aman knows he can't let himself love her, and we are left with only ambiguous hints as to why. Everything is very vague until the pre-intermission scene, where a tearful Aman declares to his mother (Naseeruddin Shah's ex-lover from Naajayaz!) and, helpfully, to us, the audience, that he doesn't have long to live. But he can't tell Naina this, as it will crush her.


He can, however, cry.

Instead, Aman is a generous soul and thus works to get Naina together with her best friend, Rohit (Saif Ali Khan), who presumably has a longer lifespan. Rohit has been in love with Naina for a while, but is romantically inept. In a series of wonderful scenes, Aman and Rohit conspire to get the girl. But everything resonates with that bittersweet core, as every success for Rohit is an arrow to Aman's fragile heart.


Successful arrows.

Eventually, the boys succeed (with some emotional ambiguity on Naina's part, but the movie doesn't worry too much about what she thinks - it's a surprisingly passive role for Preity Zinta!) in seducing Naina, and Rohit and Naina marry. There is bhangra music, and a fun Punjabi-Gujarati cultural clash. Saint Aman cannot hide his tears; he is human, after all.


But mostly saintly.

Because the true lovers of this film are the doomed Naina and Aman, who cannot even touch (let alone nuzzle on any piers!). So Rohit will just have to do, what with him having the longer longevity and all. That he is Naina's friend and a genuinely Nice Guy is a plus, making the match tolerable and the film sweet, rather than ubertragic. As the film winds down with the inevitable bedside hospital scenes, everyone weeps over Aman's pale form, and then, in a moment of privacy between Aman and Rohit, we have the best lines of dialogue:

Aman: Rohit, Naina is yours in this life. But in every life after this, in every birth, she will be mine. Promise me. Promise me.
Rohit: I promise.

Inevitable bedside hospital scene. Wobbly, sorry.

OK, we gave it all away, but so what? The fun of Kal Ho Naa Ho certainly isn't in the plot, it's in the fast takes, the divided screens, and Bollywood self-references (including a wonderful one to Devdas's Maar Daala). There are some moments with troubling undercurrents, such as the scene where Aman teaches Naina's family that the only way their restaurant business can thrive is if they give up their half-hearted integration into American culture and turn the restaurant into a super-Indian restaurant instead. Only then will they be able to compete with the Chinese restauranteurs across the street (to whom they often shake their fists). While we're all about preserving cultures, this just seem to be handled somewhat bluntly and simple-mindedly. Similarly, Aman, who is presumably very emotionally intelligent, rejects Naina with all the sensitivity of a jack-ass.


A sweet song between Rohit and Naina, dancing through the streets of New York.

There were some good gags, however, such as the series of scenes between Rohit and Aman wherein Rohit's maid, Kantaben, becomes convinced that they're having a gay affair. Aman cheerfully plays along, with one of the best scenes being his enraged, "Kanta! I will die before I let Rohit go out with another girl!"


We love the music that accompanies her scenes: "Heee-eee-eeeey Kantaben!"

The acting is predictable for a post-2000 Shah Rukh, a little disappointing for Preity Zinta (probably because she's playing such a passive character this time around and we like our Preity as a strong, independent woman!), and surprisingly appealing for Saif Ali Khan. But Saif already impressed us very much so in the Othello adaptation, Omkara, where he played the Iago character with much intelligence and sneering malice. Comparing his role in this and his role in that shows that he has quite a wide range. And yes, he can dance, too. Huzzah!

Omkara (2006)

The bad-ass trailer.

Vishal Bhardwaj's Bollywoodized Othello-remake, Omkara, is a strutting, masculine ride through the raunch and jealousies of men, and the havoc these men wreak on the woman who love them. More hypnotic and spacious than his previous Shakespearean joyride, the moody Maqbool, Omkara is set in the 'Wild West of India', the region of Uttar Pradesh. Perhaps Bhardwaj has a fascination with the lawless, but once again Shakespeare has been teleported into a criminal organization. This time, it's the rootin' tootin' gang of Omkara (Ajay Devgan), second banana and chief thug to Boss Bhaisaab (an eerie Naseeruddin Shah).


The sweaty, raunchy, boozed up dance party.

Omkara has two lieutenants of his own: the grimy and thick Langda (Saif Ali Khan), and the boyish and also thick Kesu (Viveik Oberoi). When Bhaisaab wins a seat in Parliament (shudder at the thought), he nominates Omkara to be official Crime Boss, leaving Omkara then to pick his General. Or Captain. Or whatever, we don't really understand the military metaphors. Anyway, if you know Shakespeare's original, you know that Omkara picks Kesu over Langda, much to Langda's chagrin. Langda then decides that the only way he can ease the pain of rejection is by destroying everything that is beautiful around him. Namely, the illicit love story between "half-caste" Omkara and his (presumably full-caste) fiancee, Dolly (Kareena Kapoor).

What follows is a train crash, protracted over nearly three hours. If you know the original, you know what to expect and, inevitably, you sit in grim anticipation as Langda manipulates Omkara's jealousies and creates an imagined world of sweaty adultery. If you've never seen the original, let's just say things don't really work out.


The haunting romantic melody. Doomed indeed.

Ajay Devgan is stiff and lumbering as the Othello character. But he does what he's supposed to, which is smolder for two hours, and then briefly weep. Likewise Kareena Kapoor is just Holy and Spotless enough that we feel genuinely sorry for her end, even though we didn't like her throughout the film. The milk and coal joke certainly seems... erm, apropos.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of Omkara is how amazing Saif Ali Khan is as Iago. Iago is generally a difficult character to play; too easily he becomes a charicature of the devil, all cackles and twirling black moustaches and no depth whatsoever. What Saif manages to do, even with the prototypical Shakespearean device of a bad leg, is invest Iago with a sort of sinister depth. Here is a man who hates himself, and, by natural extension, everyone around him. We at the PPCC don't like Saif Ali Khan at all, or thought we didn't, but now... Hmmm. He was certainly the only one, apart from Naseer, who was willing to look positively ugly for the film, what with his yellow teeth and lurching gait. And there's a tragic undercurrent to his behavior, a genuine and justifiable pain at being the loyal servant too-often overlooked.

Stream the lovely soundtrack.