In the last few years, particularly after debacles such as Saawariya & Guzaarish, the works of director Sanjay Leela Bhansali are being studied from extremely diverse angles by two different sections of viewers quite interestingly. Where one set of audience considers him to be a sheer genius and a master of his art with a great sense of music, the other simply considers him an over-rated director who has mostly worked on inspired projects and that too stressing more on their looks, feel, colours and art department rather than the script and the much required entertainment factor.
Honestly, I also consider myself to be the part of this second group keeping in mind his last two films and my belief got strengthened further after watching his latest RAM-LEELA which remains another self-obsessed, colourful but over-stuffed painting on the celluloid with some exceptional brush strokes failing to generate any huge impact on the viewer in totality. So yes, as expected (and as usual) this new SLB-Leela is again full of sparkling colours, stunning visuals, few dream like sets with peacocks and trees, an intense drama, actors trying to get deep into the skin of their characters, some melodious tracks and a forcibly enjoyable chemistry between the lead characters undoubtedly. But yet in the end, it all seems to be completely artificial, disoriented, overblown and excessive in nature as I felt, failing to make any kind of direct emotional connection with the viewer watching it passionately.
The film does have its worth watching moments which are mostly to be found in its first half watching the lead pair together doing their lusty sexual acts (questionably) portrayed as Eternal LOVE. But post intermission it all fizzles out drastically and the director tries to add too many unconvincing twists and turns taking it to an unnerving end sadly. No doubt few magical moments do come in at various intervals, consolidating the director’s famous status in the industry. But regrettably they are not something fresh or path-breaking, since either they remind you of a song sequence of his mega hit “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” or of a powerful scene of “Devdas” giving you a seen before kind of feel, repeatedly. The soundtrack too is able to impress only partially with a few good tracks in the initial reels and as the film progresses their excessive use starts becoming annoying, particularly in the second half.
To say the truth, being a powerful love story as per its theme, I found the famous “Bhansali Feel of Love” also missing in the film replaced by lust, sex and double meaning dialogues quite surprisingly. For instance, I may sound to be an ‘old timer’ but I don’t think a girl can easily come forward and give a straight smooch to a boy if he looks good and of her own type just in the first meeting itself in a public place. Moreover the way both the boy and girl start rolling over each other on the bed with several kisses one after another in their second meeting only…………, for me it wasn’t anything close to ‘Pure Love’ but only Lust, Sex or Body Hunger and nothing else.
Interestingly such depiction of love was not there in any of Bhansali’s earlier films. The director never showed his love birds in this kind of sexy, lusty avatars ever before. Hence undoubtedly this time Bhansali is more interested in reaching the masses with cheap insertions of a blue film parlour, David Dhawan like rhyming dialogues, guns, bullets, murders, rape attempts and bloodbath, may be in a state of desperation. Yes, he begins well with an exceptional sequence of rivalry between two groups in the first scene and then handles another sequence depicting the same with a superb camerawork & vision. But actually this isn’t a Bhansali genre at all and once the love birds get separated, going into the violent mood, the film falls flat with everyone behaving in a confusing manner not suiting their actual character as defined in the first hour.
Putting it differently, Bhansali’s visionary execution both as a director and art-director can easily be seen & applauded in many individual sequences of RAM-LEELA. But putting them all together in a 150+ minutes of film, doesn’t make a very entertaining venture, majorly because of a pretty weak second half (read screenplay) and a more than required length as usual, full of many unwanted songs coming one after another. In fact at times you realise that the director is unnecessarily trying to make his every frame a masterpiece with all forcibly stuffed details and over the top drama. And probably that is the reason why one doesn’t feel like having a direct connect with the characters as felt in Bhansali’s first few films in his early days.
In the performance section, the actors simply surrender themselves to the vision of their director and the three winners coming out of entire cast are Deepika, Supriya Pathak, and Richa Chadda unarguably. However even their performances keep varying between brilliant and superficial with some visible character differences in both the halves. Following the above are Abhimanyu Singh, Gulshan Devaiah, Sharad Kelkar and Barkha Bisht who play their parts well but the director should have given more mileage to Richa Chadda alone, who had the capability to bring that much needed explosion in the end. Along with these good performances there are some pretty ordinary ones too including Raza Murad, Homi Wadia and the deliberately added poor item number of Priyanka Chopra.
Talking about the lead pair, Deepika once again scores over her hero and she even goes shockingly bold this time as instructed by the so called love-guru i.e. SLB. She looks absolutely stunning in those revealing traditional dresses but her written character hasn’t got that desired depth of a pure selfless lover towards the end. Ranveer on the other hand, doesn’t offer something new, as he plays the same old flirty lover boy with the only difference of his Rajasthani attire and nothing else. So in terms of a love-couple also, you are not given anything new to watch, except their extreme eagerness to feel each other’s body instead of reaching the hearts.
Musically, RAM-LEELA has few well-composed and beautifully designed songs (in the first half) like “Lahu Munh Laga Gaya” and “Tattad Tattad”. But post Saawariya, SLB’s music has surely lost that magical feel to a great extent, with the director composing himself and not taking the services of the available musicians. Accompanying the songs, it has a fine background score, a splendid cinematography and a great art direction too bringing alive the vision of its director wonderfully. But I really wish this was all presented through a great script too with something novel to share.
Regarding the controversy around its title.
Revealing the truth, SLB’s film has nothing to do with either Lord Ram or his sacred Leela at all. So the director had a clear intention of using the phrase “RAM-LEELA” for his film’s instant publicity alone and all this controversy could have been easily avoided by using any other name with a regional touch. Moreover in the present sensitive times, there is no need of getting involved in such religiously objectionable phrases leading to further complications when they have nothing to do with your actual theme of the film and its storyline. But as they say, positive or negative, a film gets benefited by any kind of publicity, which seems to be the only reason of keeping this controversial title by the makers in all possibilities.
Regarding the over-used subject of Shakespeare’s “Romeo-Juliet”.
I remember watching QAYAMAT SE QAYAMAT TAK when I was in school and then few other films too with the same theme. Plus just recently there was not one but two films made on the same subject namely ISHAQZAADE & ISSAQ, which forces me to think that perhaps except Vishal Bhardwaj, very few have read the other classics of William Shakespeare in reality in our own Bollywood. And that might be the reason why they repeatedly pick the same old, over-used Romeo-Juliet again & again to bore the innocent audience quite arrogantly.
However there is one more reason which comes to my mind regarding the use of this same theme again and that is the ‘Fear of Rejection’. Because if a director has reached a stature of Sanjay Leela Bhansali then ideally he should feel free and interested in discovering new stories or subjects for his loyal viewers boldly. But ignoring the fact, when he goes on to make a big film with such a wide canvas and lavish budget on the same rotten storyline used several times before then he is surely doing this out of his fear of rejection and doesn’t want to try something experimental moving away from any tried and tested formula in the trade.
Interestingly though hugely inspired, but almost all his films since KHAMOSHI had something new to offer, which eventually did play a substantial role to build up the director’s current reputed status in the industry. But then why SLB picked this ‘too old & over-tried’ story to tell in a different style raises many bigger doubts in my mind about his future projects too.
Anyway, for me CINEMA means “The Art of Storytelling” and if a film hasn’t got a new or interestingly fresh story to tell then it is quite a waste of time despite all the great visuals, drama, music, performances and execution. To elaborate on the same, we have a small life here to live on this planet with a limited capability to read or know all the worth studying literature of the world. So we need the medium of cinema to introduce us to many unknown and unexplored gems written within as well as out of the country following a wider vision. And that is exactly what I search for while watching every new film coming my way in any form.
Moreover this reminds me a very thoughtful quote of the maestro SATYAJIT RAY about the huge treasure lying untouched in our own Indian Literature which would be a perfect ending to this review for all like-minded friends here……………wherein he says,
"The raw material of cinema is life itself. It is incredible that a country which has inspired so much painting, music and poetry should fail to move the film maker. He has only to keep his eyes open, and his ears. Let him do so.”
But unfortunately we are still only interested in re-visiting the same stories again and again due to the over-commercialization of art and a constant fear of rejection. So with a hope that these reputed film-makers of our industry would soon find their old courage back, I can only recommend RAM-LEELA to the viewers who are more interested in just the bodies and not their souls.
Rating : 2 / 5
