Fashion

The film is less about fashion, more about modeling. It is a layman’s perspective based on hearsay and tidbits of everyday TV news. Madhur Bhandarkar and his research and his script writing post Chandani Bar have always been like that. He does not explore his subject matter. He caricatures banal everyday stuff on celluloid and makes his money, and wins awards. 

He has done grave injustice to the modeling profession by portraying it as a world of junkies and ambitious but stupid self-centered girls who are ready to do anything to succeed in the profession. He fails to highlight the fact that a lot of hard work and sustained preparation is needed to be successful as a professional model, in a highly competitive environment.

He has improved a little. He seems to have developed some idea of shot compositions, lighting, and production design after having helmed so many films. But he has lost that unique sense of cinema. Cinematically, Chandani Bar is his only noteworthy film.

The singlemost redeeming feature of this film is Kangana Ranawat. She is always good in edgy and freaky roles like this. She becomes the role, imparting it a touch of credibility. She does total justice to them. Nothing is amiss here. It is a nuanced portrayal with very little help from the script. The film should have revolved around her.

The director and the writers of the film made a bad decision to focus on Priyanka Chopra’s character. They probably did it in their anxiety to rope in star power and thus squandered an opportunity to make a significant film like Chandani Bar.

Priyanka Chopra should have opted for Kangana’s role to establish herself as an actress of substance. Would she have succeeded as much as Kangana? I am not sure. She may have. These girls are better than some of the boys who call themselves actors. However, Kangana has that crazy streak about her. One hopes she is not typecast as a perpetual junky of Bollywood. She has to be careful.


Roadside Romeo

It is a breakthrough animation film from India and Yashraj banner deserves a khullamkhulla pat on its back for having ventured into the animation feature terrain. They have established an important technical benchmark for other Indians to beat.

I was seriously looking at the end credits for names of Disney animators to appear. They were not there. What I saw was a whole lot of Indian names rolling by, from various departments, from modeling, to rigging, background painting and lighting and compositing. There were hundreds of them and that warmed the cockles of my heart. Finally, the perennial cynic in me can rest. There is a lot of hope out there on the horizon. There are these guys and girls in the industry who are working hard and have the talent and capacity to deliver.

What they need is a genuine animation film script with universal appeal. Roadside Romeo is not it. This Bollywood spoof presupposes that audiences will easily relate to it. It is not even sure about who is its audienece, kids or adults, or yuppies. It is too wordy, with typical Javed Jaffry kind of alliterative smart ass humor that works very well in dubbing studio environs but fails on screen. Jugal Hansraj should have been careful to have not been taken in by Javed’s unpredictable and intelligent one-liners. He should have also ensured that the dialogues of the film are easily comprehendible.

I have a feeling that the characters of Laila and Romeo or even Charlie Anna will have very short shelf life and have no franchise value. This is an important aspect of animation filmmaking, creating characters that lend themselves to long-term franchising possibilities. That is how the whole exercise becomes viable and cost-effective. 

However, hats off to Yashraj Films for seriously exploring the animation arena. They must pursue the course, and build further upon this valuable experience.

RKS