Kundan Shah’s Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron released in 1983 is unanimously considered as one of the most famous cult comedies of Hindi Cinema till date. And the moment you think about the film and its hilarious characters played by well-known actors, the first memory you have is of its sequences featuring Satish Shah as the corpsebeing taken along by Ravi Basvani and Naseeruddin Shah reaching the stage-show where a play on Mahabharta is being performed. In fact, such was the popularity of this particular insertion in the film (post its initial release), that in the subsequent decades the dead Satish Shah used as an entertaining prop gradually became a textbook referencewhile discussing black comedies and political satires made in India.
Interestingly Kundan Shah’s fascination of using the corpse for creating funny sequences on the screencontinues in his latest project P Se PM Tak too, that coincidentally also happens to be a black political satire on our present scenario of the country going through a significant change. Revolving around the story of a prostitute accidentally getting into the major political circle of the state, the film again has its final hour written around a dead minister whose body is used as a mere prop that can walk, talk, jump and even dance through some electrical gadgets fitted in by an eccentric scientist.
So after 32 long years, director Kundan Shah once again tries to incorporate the tried and testedidea in his latest flick,witha hope that it might help in recreating the same euphoria again in an upgraded (sci-fi) form going with the changing times.
However, this time the idea doesn’t work due to a completely outdated execution on screen coming from the veteran director and is not able to do any wonders whatsoever in uplifting the mediocre venture. In other words, the particular sub-plot that earned huge appreciation for the director in his first film gets outrightly rejected when re-used after three decades in another political satire from the same person.
Cheers!
This article of BTC was published on IBNlive.com on 3rd June 2015 with the heading :
“Filmmaker Kundan Shah's fascination with a corpse as prop continues in his latest ‘P Se PM Tak’” - By Bobby Sing
Tags :
Article on Cinema by Bobby Sing, Kundan Shah's fascination with a corpse as prop, P Se PM Tak, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron and its corpse gimmick.
