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The girl on my right muttered, “What self-indulgence!” The one on my left said, “Pretentious”. The audience yawned and switched off.
Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s “painting on celluloid” remained lifeless and should, strictly speaking, have simply adorned his private walls.
Like J.P. Dutta whose nasty narcissism of several years stood exposed with Refugee which made a pile of money for him and for generations of his family merely on the strength of the star children (Abhishek Bachchan, Kareena Kapoor) he introduced, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been bared like Ranbir Kapoor’s butt.
In fact, watching Saawariya was like a rewind of Umrao Jaan. Honestly, like the self-acclaimed genius of J.P. Dutta, SLB has run out of steam, he’s now piggyback riding on two huge Kapoor names to get his audience in. No wonder the hype was hysterical since promoting the two star progeny was the only ace in Bhansali’s “painting”. The truth behind the unprecedented, aggressive promotion of Om Shanti Om and Saawariya is that Shah Rukh-Farah Khan were genuinely alarmed at the tidal wave of publicity Sony had unleashed to promote Bhansali’s exhibition of blue paintings.
“When we saw what the other party was doing, we decided that we’d have to match the same aggressiveness. Shah Rukh, Niloufer (the PR girl) and I went into mad overdrive, it’s been really crazy,” Farah Khan discloses. After the madness, the doctors have told the pregnant director to put her feet up and Om Shanti Om, just relax.
Incidentally, Sanjay Leela Bhansali has earned a reputation for presenting his heroines wonderfully. He did do that with Aishwarya Rai in Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, his most honest, and thus his best, so far. Sonam Kapoor, his new protégée, has an aura of tender innocence and charm for which, full marks to Bhansali. However, the first shots of Sonam are a lift from his own past, exactly the way Ash had been shot. And when he’s not borrowing from his own previous work, Sanjay helps himself to RK’s Nargis. How about something original, Mr Bhansali?
The problem is that SLB does not like to hear a dissenting voice. Earlier too, in the hype preceding the release of Saawariya, he and his producers were disturbed by any word against the maker. Come on, if you could be applauded so unstintingly for Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam (from the music to Ajay Devgan, it was so refreshing), why can’t you take a rap for repetition with equal grace?
As for unveiling a new heroine, Farah Khan, despite a completely over-the-top Om Shanti Om, has cleverly presented Deepika Padukone as hot, sexy but very dignified in her first outing. Without making such a fuss over how wonderfully she has handled a newcomer, Farah has launched the best discovery of the year.
The two Diwali releases are a study in contrast. Om Shanti Om is unabashedly unpretentious, commercial masala while Saawariya is unwittingly pretentious, slow moving and subdued. Neither is great cinema, never mind the big names behind them. But Om Shanti Om gives you what you go in to see — and you do leave logic and questions behind when you go to watch Shah Rukh Khan woo the box-office unashamedly.
On the other hand, Saawariya makes a pretence of moving away from the beaten track even if Rani Mukherjee’s whore-with-a-heart-of-gold is as old as a Meena Kumari film. In fact, I thought Rani would suddenly burst into, “Hi, I’m Natasha,” her line in Laaga Chunari Mein Daag since she took to the oldest profession in the world in her last release too. Didn’t she also play the same role in Mangal Panday? Wonder what ‘variety’ Rani saw in all these films.
And so, at the end of the Diwali hysteria, after both Om Shanti Om and Saawariya got a flying start, the score board will show Shah Rukh and Farah Khan as the winners at the box-office.
By the way, the title song with 30 stars is a bigtime commercial treat for the audience. Oops, make that 31 stars because Shah Rukh complains, “When counting all the stars in the song, how come nobody includes me in it?” So count the producer in and the Om Shanti Om has 31 stars in it, choreographed with commercial flair by Farah Khan?
Bharathi S. Pradhan is managing editor of Movie Mag International