SLB & Saawariya: Oppression of Opulence
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August 26th, 2007

By: Pratim D. Gupta

First, a lot of firsts. The first teaser of Saawariya (www.saawariyafilm.com) is out. This is the first Indian co-production of Sony Pictures. This is the first film of Rishi Kapoor’s son Ranvir Kapoor and Anil Kapoor’s daughter Sonam Kapoor. And it is being billed the first international film from India.

Oh, I forgot – it’s a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film. The man who debuted with Khamoshi, went on to make Hum Dil De Chuka Sanam, Devdas and Black. Bhansali means a lot of things to a lot of people. For some he is modern Indian cinema’s only auteur, the only cinematic progeny of Guru Dutt, the only star director of our times. For others, he is a big ball of @#$%& who disguises everything in grandiose but fake sets and copy-pastes other cinematic treatments calling them his own.

Well, the way I look at him, and the entire purpose of this post, is that Bhansali is being forced to do what he is doing. Now why do I say that? His first film Khamoshi, despite some great moments and performances that still stay with you, flopped. He did try something different. A film about physically challenged people, a mute Nana Patekar, a very different love story… It must have been a major heartbreak for the man who had set big benchmarks for himself.

Then came Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam – hawa ka jhonka. Pure unadulterated passion punctuated with a great musical score and again the career-best performances of all three leads. The film worked with the critics, made money at the box-office, Dholi taro became an anthem and Bhansali was in business.

Now, he had to get into Mughal-e-Azam territory. The K. Asif film, besides the Guru Dutt staple, had moved the young young Bhansali so much that his tryst with celluloid couldn’t be fulfilled without a tribute. He planned to remake Devdas, which despite having been made more than 15 times was synonymous with the Bimal Roy version on screen. The only way Bhansali could have matched it or surpassed it was to rob it off its simple ways and make it into an epic. Enter the coloured wall motifs, the multi-crore sets, the 10 kg saris…

I remember my father telling me that it was only for Mughal-e-Azam where people had gone to see the sets and the cinematography more than the film. Even the poster looked the same. Dilip Kumar caressing Madhubala with a feather. Here Shah Rukh was caressing Madhuri with a wine glass. Bhansali had achieved his dream. He had made an epic. Good, bad, ugly, it was grand and it was popular and it garnered all the best director and best film awards. He had found his formula.

Next, the man planned another visual epic, another period piece Bajirao Mastani. But before he could spend the crores on that, the cast got all messed up and he couldn’t make it. He decided to make a “quickie” called Black. And it was here where he got @#$%& in. Bhansali figured out that he could no longer make anything small. He no longer needed to shoot songs to blow up 20 crore rupees.

He justified the beauty of the Black frames by saying that look at what the blind girl is missing. He was lying to himself because he had forgotten how to make a simple film. Mozart has to play on the sets, one corner has to be spotlit, he has to have wet hair whiplashing his forehead, he has to look mad on the sets… he has to be the gum-chewing cinematic genius, god’s gift to Indian cinema.

So if and when you look at the Saawariya promo you will realise the disease plaguing Mr Bhansali. Yes, each frame is a picture postcard, where you will get seduced nine times out of ten. Rain, snow, hail, storm, the shots look magical, carefully picked so not to reveal the debutants’ faces.

But are movies only about mise-en-scene? Do great shots make great movies? I remember Ray saying in Our Films Their Films, that while making Pather Panchali he realised that a beautiful frame (of Durga) can ruin the entire sequence. And here we are talking about only beautiful frames.

Bhansali is, however, not the first director to have got @#$%& into this look-at-my-frame syndrome. Chinese director Zhang Yimou who started out making such spectacular films like The Road Home and Raise the Red Lantern stopped making those intimate portraits once he got a taste of the grandiose. Hero, House of Flying Daggers, Curse of the Golden Flower… if you take the visuals off, the carcass is unpalatable.

In many interviews to the same journalist, Bhansali has claimed how he has returned to innocence with Saawariya. Well, if the promo is anything to go by, sorry SLB you are still stuck in the oppression of opulence. And it will tough for you to check out.

From Passion For Cinema

There Are 19 Responses So Far. »

  1. Comment by imgr8 on 26 August 2007:

    such vitriolic language! The guy seemed to have despised every single film of Bhansali, why did he even care to take a look at the promo then, just to write this scathing article? Every director has their own take on cinema, one doesnt have to abide by the rules set by the previous generation directors, nor they have to make a movie that pleases everyone. First they have to make a movie that pleases their senses and if they remain true to their passion, then automatically they will find takers for the piece of art. Heavens forbid if SLB ever tries anything that coincides with this writers definiton of cinema. If this guy likes simpler cinema, with barren landscapes, white walls and two pieces of furniture, then there are other films he can choose to watch. There are a lot many films like that available in your local video store. Go check them out! I cant even see a real valid reason justifying this article. Just because SLB likes to make his movies visually pleasing, this guy has a problem with it. If his problem is with the soul of the movie, then he needs to go meet people who cried and laughed and enjoyed SLB’s earlier ventures. Bashing a person and a movie just for the sake of bashing is biased and I pity this person.

  2. Comment by Tango on 26 August 2007:

    Very funny.

    Just the name Bhansali will be enough to pack into the theatres.

    People may bullshit but every new Bhansali movie is an occasion for his fans to look forward.

  3. Comment by Tango on 26 August 2007:

    As thry say in Hindi ” Kutte bhonkte rehte hain aur haathi nikal jaata hai” (The dogs keep barking and the elephant passes by).

    Maybe Mr. Gupta was denied a chnace to interview Bhansali.

  4. Comment by henry on 26 August 2007:

    Couldn’t agree more, imgr8. If you don’t like his style, don’t watch his films, but don’t say that he is violating the conventions of good cinema by making such inhumanly beautiful films.

    Sometimes I find critics to be the most useless people in the world. I would be surprised if this writer done anything in his life that is remotely as accomplished as Saawariya’s trailer.

  5. Comment by jeegs253 on 26 August 2007:

    Tango - but does a bhansali film does that well. his only hit till now is devdas while all other are just semihits or averages.

    BTW i may be the only one here but i didnot like sawaariya promo for the simple fact it was like they wanted to attract audience on the bases of sets rather than story .

  6. Comment by Sambaba on 26 August 2007:

    Aptly put up imgr8!!! I’ve always said that Bhansali makes his type of films, if you don’t like his style, need not watch his film but always expecting some realistic parallel cinema touch is bit too far fetched.

  7. Comment by Tango on 26 August 2007:

    Well, Jeegs we watch cinema in theaters to see something that is worth our money and Bhansali gives it to us.

    In fact, just yesterday I said to Jayshah that one remake I want to see is Mera Naam Joker and I want Bahansali to make it.

  8. Comment by Tango on 26 August 2007:

    I was stunned to see a song that I did not like on the CD from Devdas.

    Yes, the Aishawrya rain song ‘Yeh Diya’.

  9. Comment by Tango on 26 August 2007:

    **Silsila Yeh Chahat Ka**

  10. Comment by Pranay on 26 August 2007:

    I like Bhansali films.
    These frames are far more pleasing than a KJo film set..
    Black remains one of my favourite films, and Saawariya looks magical and haunting from its promos.
    Will surely check it out. The promo is much better than OSO

  11. Comment by rockstar on 26 August 2007:

    “Oppression of Opulence” .Bhansali is being forced to do what he is doing. Now why do I say that? His first film Khamoshi, despite some great moments and performances that still stay with you, flopped.” khamoshi was way ahead of its time and made the silence one of the powerful tool

  12. Comment by sheeru on 26 August 2007:

    The trailer is off the hook…hoepfully they show the newcomers faces before we go to the damn cinemas to see the film hahahahaha.

  13. Comment by jeegs253 on 26 August 2007:

    silsila yeh chahat ka is an brilliantly picturised song .

    may be i dont like his style of filmmaking ,the only film i have liked is khamoshi(which had none of this visuals) and second half of devdas to an extent .

  14. Comment by rockstar on 26 August 2007:

    Kutte bhonkte rehte hain aur haathi nikal jaata hai” really offensive indeed everybody has an opinion and most of pratims article make sense and is highly regarded bte here is the actual link for this
    http://passionforcinema.com/slb-saawariya-oppression-of-opulence/

  15. Comment by rockstar on 26 August 2007:

    btw

  16. Comment by mgs on 26 August 2007:

    i agree w/ jeegs…i’ll catch every single slb movie in teh theatre but just for superficial (and i guess somewhat girly) reasons…sets, songs, dances, and costumes. agree w/ pranav w/ his comparison between kjo sets and slb sets. saanwariya promo looks good but it felt like a stage play. the sets looked even more like stage sets than in devdas and black. one thing i dislike about slb’s style is that his supp. actors r usually too loud.

  17. Comment by akshay shah on 26 August 2007:

    Dare I say, I do find Bhansali highly overrated…I loved KHAMOSHI, loved HDDCS even more, didn’t think much of DEVDAS, and found BLACK overrated despite some tremendous performances.

    No doubt he has a superb vision and a knack for some amazing technical finesse, but somewhere along the line I feel something’s missing. SAWARIYA is no doubt a film to look forward to and the promos/poster is amazing.

    A.Shah

  18. Comment by Qalandar on 26 August 2007:

    I agree with Gupta on Zhang Yimou — at their best Yimou’s films married spectacle to sweep and dynamism. Unfortunately of late the films are no more than spectacles, and rather stagnant ones at that (I might add that they seem to “toe the [government] Party line to a far greater extent as well). Unless I am surprised by reviews or something, I intend to skip Yimou’s next film in the theater for sure.

    On Bhansali, the fact that he makes his own brand of cinema does not render his style above critique: it’s like saying that Dhawan has his own vision and style and thus cannot be critiqued for anything, or that Shankar has his own unique style and cannot be critiqued for anything. Bhansali gets very high marks from me for the ability to mount visually arresting spectacles, and the Saawariya promo is the best anything I’ve ever seen from Bhansali. However, where Devdas, Khamoshi, Black, and even HDDCS faltered was in the narrative: in Bhansali’s films the narrative tends to meander and lacks dynamism, and I don’t find his films very interesting.

    That being said, Bhansali still must be ranked above most Hindi film directors, because in an industry chock full of recyclers, plagiarists, he has a vision. And while he gets the velocity of cinema wrong, he at least remembers that cinema is a visual medium, and not the mere “reduction” to image of a script. Hence Saawariya is a first day film for me.

  19. Comment by NyKavi on 26 August 2007:

    I actually found the promo strangely plastic, manufactured and suffocating. Maybe a psuedo- Venice is more attractive than the real thing to some. However, since he is the only desi director with the perception to even create a psuedo-Venice, I will give him full marks for it. KJo probably comes second best at set creation after Bhansali.
    But, I do find a lot of his stuff OTT, eg that irritating background score in Black, which went off into a crescendo at about every 5th minute in the movie, totally robbing it of any relevance and lasting effect. or the absolutely loud performance of Kiron Kher in DD and a lot of cacophony in that soundtrack.

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