Eklavya

Vidhu Vinod Chopra makes a film after ten long years and he fulfils his dream of directing the big B.

These are the only two achievements of this film.

Eklavya has just two memorable moments. There is a scene where a blindfolded big B throws his ‘katar’ (short sword) to cut the gungharoos tied to the leg of a flying pigeon. Then there is a shot of Rana’s car, stopped near a railway crossing, while a goods train passes by, and a herd of camels goes running across with a part of the car in the foreground to create a classic low angle composition.

There is nothing much to the film beyond these. The story and the name of Eklavya are used as a convenient and crafty ploy to hype it as historically and socially relevant cinema. The Gayatri Mantra is the dominant theme of the film’s background score, played liberally and thoughtlessly in various situations.

While Saif and Vidya Balan are getting into an amorous mood, ‘Om bhurbhuwah swah...’ reverberates in the background. The filmmaker inter-cuts between this and a shot of the big B burning a scarf, a memorabilia of love from the late Maharani who was blessed with a son thanks to the selfless impregnation efforts of Eklavya, a low caste bodyguard. The Gayatri Mantra continues to cast its spell all through this.

If it was supposed to be a story of strange palace intrigues, dark hidden secrets, and dangerous and nerve wrecking behind the back conspiracies, we don’t feel it. We don’t feel anything -- neither the fear nor the sense of romance and love. We don’t hear much either, except  ‘Om bhurbhuvah swah...’ . Then there is a scene where we don’t see anything.
 

Does it sound like a path-breaking and revolutionary experiment in cinema where you feel nothing, hear nothing, and see nothing?  Hail Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the Orson Welles of India!

 

Eklavya also discovers Pitamah Bhishm and his definition of Dharma. It is very interesting. ‘Whatever your mati (mind) says is right is your true Dharma.’ Wow! This is fantastic. But why Vinod Chopra had to drag Pitamah Bhishm into all this? Pitamah is neither Manu nor Krishna nor Ved Vyasa that you have to sanctify your pedestrian script with his quotable quotes. ‘Whatever your mind says is right’ is the reigning philosophy of the murderer, the rapist, the dictator, the Nehru-Gandhi parivar, the Bachhan parivar, the kid who is overfed on chocolates, ice-cream, burgers, coke etc., and the Bollywood producer.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra, the producer, rules the roost here. Eklavya is a producer’s film – star-studded, well-hyped, low cost, and premium-priced. It is an abject failure of the director and the writer.

And the three crore worth Rolls Royce could not have been given to the big B for his great performance. How come I didn’t see him perform? Was he performing in the darkness? May I ask as to what’s the use of such performance that cannot be seen, heard, and felt by the cinema audiences?
 

RKS

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