In a love story two things are very difficult to convince. One, about the hero’s single minded obsession for his lover. Second, his pursuit of the path to damnation.’Ranjhanaa’ does these two quite easily thanks to a good screenplay by Himanshu Sharma and a sublime acting performance by Dhanush.

When a young Kundan announces his love (much like Henry wanting to be a gangster in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Goodfellas’) amidst all that chaos in Benares, the audience is bound to believe both the sheer innocence and also accept the fatality of his love in that moment.

When the same boy gets older and his feelings remain unchanged, Dhanush carries on the same effervescence inspite of the film going the noir route.

Dhanush’s potrayal of a carefree, yet good for nothing boy, who only believes in his love as his sole purpose in his life, is one of the best in the recent times. He takes Kundan character to its logical conclusion all the while retaining the original shades. Audience stays with him throughout.

The director Anand Rai exploits Benares pretty well and creates an excellent setting for the conflict between a Hindu boy and a Muslim girl. A.R.Rahman’s inspired background score helps to elevate the mood right through the film.

While Abhay Deol’s character seems a little incongruous and the second half a departure from the first half, once again Dhanush comes to rescue and carries the twists and turns with ease.

Overall, ‘Raanjhanaa’ is a decent watch. Kundan’s theme can be summarized in this excellent song from Kashmir ki Kali..

hai duniya usikee jamana usika
mohabbat me jo ho gaya ho kisee kaa

luta jo musafir, dil ke safar me
hai jannat yeh duniya usakee najar me
usee ne hain luta maja jindagee kaa

hai sajade ke kabil har woh divana
ke jo ban gaya hain tasvire jana
karo yehataram usakee diwanagee kaa

barabad hona jisakee ada ho
darde mohabbat jisakee dawan ho
satayega kya gam use jindagee kaa

It is heartening to see ‘Devi’ theatre, the good old single screen kicking some butt, thanks to a terrific QUBE and CDPL’s 4K installation. ‘Man of steel’ thunders over its excellent sound and digital projection systems. With several single screens closing shop, this is pretty significant. (Venkatesa theatre, where I saw the first ‘Superman’ in the 80s is now a commercial establishment.)

‘Man of steel‘ is indeed a film by the famed duo—Christopher Nolan and Zack Snyder. While the first part of the film painstakingly creates the conflict within the hero and its resolution, the second part takes you on a mind numbing VFX ride. While the duo deliver on their expectations, it is the comic book character ‘Superman’ that  takes a beating, rather literally and even does a ‘Tarzan’ kind of a yell, when confronted with extreme emotion. For anyone who is as devoted as me to the ‘Superman’ and who reveled in what he could achieve instead of what he was made of, this movie disappoints you both with its length and the manner in which the story unfolds. One of the utterly frustrating aspects of movie is the ‘Man of Steel’ being straight away hurled into the big battle, without any minor skirmishes. You never get a taste and sniff of the cake, and suddenly you are splashed and smeared with it all over your face. With all that father talk about the ‘Superman’ getting ready to save the mankind, and testing his limits, one would have expected a few earthly battles before it turns out to be one giant galactic warfare.

Infact it is this galactic mumbo jumbo starting with the DNA, the codex (did a video engineer coin this term from codec?), energy,  logo of hope, sucking in radiation to grow stronger, weaker core, ecology, conservation et al. that burdens you throughout.  Speaking of ecological conversation, what was our cerebral ‘Man of steel’ thinking, when he goes about like a super fast lawn mower all over the cities.

It is some of these mindless battles that bring out the conflict in storytelling. The new superman is almost a split personality, a brooding Ramachari and an uncontrollable Anniyan.  Guess,  it’s time, one of our Indian directors is given a chance to run the show.

One cannot but escape the fact that how much indianized Hollywood films have become. So many emotions and idiosyncrasies we see in Indian movies are peppered all over the film, much to the delight and dismay of the Indian in me. Need a proof? Let me give you two. How about the ‘Man of steel’ screaming and pushing the villain all the way through a zillion of hectares of corn fields and one hapless petrol bunk, because the villain hit his mother?  Or the scene where heroine walks in with a stylized outfit,  stiletto high heels included, in the middle of a desert? (Please blame it on 4K if I could spot this one)

It will be interesting to see where the sequel takes off from here, with no connecting themes or characters. Or because the movie ended with Clark Kent’s appearance, are we to assume that the triology will actually begin as the sequel? So, what did we just watch then? A trailer of sorts?

Hmm…this was one heck of a lonnggggg trailer then!!!!

Tailpiece:

What Nolan and Snyder, did to Superman (most visbly,  the underwear thing), we Telugus implemented it  a long time back, when our beloved NTR played a super hero role. While the makers during the course of the movie, did not clarify about the ‘H’ logo, my guess is because it was Lord Hanuman who had blessed the young NTR with all the power 🙂 Check out this out of the world video http://bit.ly/13U6xht where he sashays his wonderful outfit and the associated bulges, sings his heart out, and dances with a damsel in distress. All this, without a care in the world. Isn’t this how a superhero supposed to be?  🙂

Related Links:

Hans Zimmer soundtrack on iTunes