Kalank, the star-studded, sumptuous offering from Dharma Productions designed along the lines of a Sanjay Leela Bhansali extravaganza, only highlights this inadequacy.ĭirected by Abhishek Varman ( 2 States), this 168-minutes long soap opera (hey there’s a hat tip to Lux too), based on Shibani Bathija’s story with Hussain Dalal’s dialogues, is stuck in a bizarre time warp of real world and surreal treatment. Except the language of make-believe has changed dramatically over the years and not everyone is equipped to articulate its histrionic zeal. The highs have to be higher than the mountain, the lows beyond the abyss. It could be built around fantasy or traditions but its success entirely depended on the people inhabiting this all-consuming world. Is there a place for him in the about-to-be Pakistan? In India? In a different movie, these might be burning questions.What makes the great costume dramas of Hindi cinema so awe-inspiring is their ability to transfix and transport the viewer into another time. In sum, Zafar is an Indian fellow - who contains multitudes of contradictions. Roop is a Hindu, too, as is Zafar’s half brother, with whom he unwittingly bonds as fireworks burst in the background. His mother is a famous Muslim courtesan and singer, his father a Hindu. Zafar, though an orphan, isn’t parentless. That’s because, in good Bollywood fashion, the personal is mythical more than political - and even the political is mythical. And the disruptive element is a group of Muslims whose anger Zafar has stoked, though for reasons that have nothing to do with politics or religion. “Kalank” takes place near Lahore, in what was northwest India and is now Pakistan, so the Hindus, not the Muslims, are the film’s threatened minority. But you still may wonder about the movie’s politics. Partition, here, is mostly just a looming backdrop. Varman leaves the actors at sea when the script calls for character complexity, the result usually reads as incoherence. When the singing and dancing and action stop, which is less often than you might think, so does “Kalank.” Dialogue scenes can be static, stand-and-deliver affairs. Varman’s hands, that neighborhood is as lush as any reputable one, its clean lanes opening into grand havelis with dancing girls inside and lotus-clogged waterways out back. (She’s dying, so she picked a successor.) The unhappy Roop becomes a reporter at the newspaper Dev owns Zafar becomes her guide to the colorful doings of the disreputable part of town. Zafar falls for Roop, but she’s married to Dev, who also has another, more beloved wife.
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