Sunday, August 13, 2006

KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA/NEVER SAY GOODBYE - Crass Bollywood melodrama

Man. I thought I was bored watching MIAMI VICE. If you choose to disregard my advice (rant) and see this movie you will get very little change from four hours. Of course, long isn't bad all on its own. THE SORROW AND THE PITY is one of the films I admire most and it clocks in at well over four hours. But why take four hours to say something that could easily be said in the regular ninety minutes?

The plot is insultingly simple and I'm going to go ahead and tell you what it is. Don't worry, this doesn't constitute a spoiler. There is barely any plot to spoil and what does happen can be seen half an hour before it actually happens. So, we are in contemporary New York and there is an embittered ex-pro soccer player* called Dev (Shah Rukh Khan) whose career ended after an injury. He resents his high-earning wife, Rhea (Preity Zinta) and is abusive to his young son. Also in New York there is a barren primary school teacher called Maya (Rani Mukherji) who has married a man, Rishi (
Abishek Bachchan) who loves her and settled for cotentment rather than love. They are sexually incompatible. An hour into the movie, Maya and Dev start hanging out and half an hour later they declare their love for each other. Then there is an intermission. After the intermission, Maya and Dev sleep with each other. Then they confess to their other halves who kick them out of their respective houses. Three years later (an hour and a half in movie time but it really does seem like three years) the other halves have moved on and found new loves. But Maya and Dev are alone and miserable because for some odd reason they didn't tell each other that they had been dumped. Rishi and Rhea tell Maya and Dev to get it together (such magnanimity!) and they do. The End.

Like I said, the plot is simple and does not need four hours. We have writer/director Karan Johar to thank for it. Karan Johar is a supreme hack with delusions of profundity. He wants to tell us that the only foundation for a successful marriage is love. Hmmm. Thanks for that, Mr. Johar, but I'm seriously not going to take any advice on adult relationships from a man who writes "I love you, mom" on a credit at the start of his film. And yes, I know that the concept of sanctioned marital infidelity is a novelty in mainstream Bollywood cinema, but KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA is hardly an adult, insightful treatment of this theme. For all its pretensions, this movie is not remotely in the same league as PAGE THREE or SILSILA. I mean, come on, how can you tackle marital infidelity when you haven't got the balls to show two adults so much as kissing on screen?

So this movie sucks. The script and directing are superficial and hammy and Karan Johar cannot do discreet or subdued. Everything is egregious to the point where you want to vomit. At the key "declaration of love" scene between Maya and Dev, he says to her, tearfully: "I'll buy a blue car. I like blue. You like blue..?" She replies, tearfully, "I like blue!" (Audience laughs maniacally.) Everyone on the train platform is now miraculously wearing blue. And now Maya and Dev are wearing blue. I had this compulsion to do an Alan Patridge and keep shouting "A-ha!"

The over the top camera work and production design continue throughout. Someone should tell the photographer that he can use shots other than tight close-ups. Someone should tell the production designer that real houses don't look like pictures from the Heal's home catalogue. Real women don't wear fake eyelashes and hot curlers every day. And they don't go out in the rain without an umbrella. Someone should tell Karan Johar that great directors don't use Manhattan city scape as a vapid picture-postcard, but capture the energy and spirit of the city. They should also tell him that Burberry and Louis Vuitton aren't aspirational but
chav. And while they're at it, they should point out just how crass it is to have a couple about to embark on adultery singing to each other as they walk up the aisle of a Catholic church making the sign of the cross.

In fairness, KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA is delivered by a competent but hamstrung cast. That is, with the exception of lead actor Shah Rukh Khan. Khan's apparent desire to be David Beckham and/or an MTV star is induldged to the hilt and his "acting" is absurdly over the top.

All in all, KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA feels like a delusional attempt at profundity from a director best known for creating crappy, melodramatic B movies. It is the most expensive Bollywood movie ever made, apparently, and that will guarantee it some publicity. Maybe it will have a large box office taking. Frankly, the whole exercise looks like a shameless cash-in. Why else would Johar give small cameos to stars such as Kajol, Arjun Rampal and John Abraham if not to lure in their respective fan-bases? Oh yeah, and the music sucks. The dance numbers are derivative and sound like shitty Euro-house with the odd tabla beat and Hindi lyrics.

KABHI ALVIDA NAA KEHNA is on release in India, the US, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia. *I know, I fell off my seat laughing at that one, too.

8 comments:

  1. Enjoyed your review it is definetly much better than watching 3 hours of CRANK ... I mean KANK.

    I think we can summarise KANK as B Grade movie with A Grade movie budget/star.

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  2. I agree with most of what you have to say.
    they should point out just how crass it is to have a couple about to embark on adultery singing to each other as they walk up the aisle of a Catholic church making the sign of the cross.
    Word!

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  3. Bina

    First time here. I should profoundly thank u for 3 things!:)

    1. For bluntly calling SRK's 'acting' absurd and 'over the top'.

    2. For a few real eye-openers that should serve a purpose, if only KJ got to read this one!! Especially regarding the ridiculous Art direction and the atrocious dialogues.

    3. For generally making mincemeat of this supposedly hi-fi absurdity, thats being clouted by a few reviewers as a, hold ur breath, 'mature romance'!

    I especially loved that one very important line in ur profile, that says it all - Unlike a lot of famous film reviewers, I only review movies that I have actually seen.

    :)

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  4. Hi Velu, seems you are a Madhuri fan too. I miss those days. Having Kajol on screen for two seconds in KANK reminded me just how much charisma she has compared to today's heroines (Aish aside.) As for "mature romance", I await the new UMRAO JAAN with bated breath. The old version is one of my favourite Indian movies.....

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  5. Bina,

    I'm scared of this film. I won't see it.
    I feel like when its done I'll come out of it in a daze, like JESSICA LANGE in FRANCIS with her labotomy.\

    That's what these movies are designed to do, kill one's spirit.

    Why bother talking about it, it just makes me feel like im 14 again and in high school just hating it and hoping that college won't be like this, that the real world is full of cool people with individuality and original ideas and then finding out that it never changes, poeple get older but life is really like HIGH SCHOOL but forever.

    That's what these movies remind me off and I no longer feel like i have to go and watch, I'm just going to throw a dirty mattress out in the mddle of the street and let myself be gang raped by a bunch of drunk truck drivers. Whatever i feel will be more mature, real and at least more genuine then anything in this movie.

    CRANKY,
    Duncan

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  6. I THINK THE MOVIE WAS GREAT. iF KANK IS A B GRADE MOVIE THEN I THINK THE REST OF THE MOVIES MADE IN THE WORLD DONT MAKE THE CUT EVEN TO THE B GRADE.I AGREE THE MOVIE IS A TOO LONG BUT WHAT I DONT AGREE WITH IS THAT IT IS A B GRADE MOVE NAHHH MATE NAHHH .YOU NEED TO OPEN YOUR MINDS AND UNDERSTAND WHAT IS BEING SAID .TIME TO GROW UP AND VIEW RELATIONSHIPS IN A DIFFERENT MANNAR

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