Monday, February 14, 2005

Dinner and a Movie

Yesterday i spent the evening TBS Superstation style, 'Dinner and a movie'.My choice of dinner was shrimp curry and movie was 'Kisna'.I made great choice as far as the shrimp curry was concerned, the movie turned out to be a chinese water torture*.I couldn't have spent the evening in a more pathetic way.

I started cooking the shrimp curry by frying some onion first. subash ghai started the movie with a story line similar to TITANIC, even the music sounded so close to titanic, I double checked to see whether subash ghai bought James Horner to score for his movie, but the DVD said the MD’s as ismail darbar and a.r.rehman.A old english lady named catherine comes to india with loads of money to donate. After a while she starts her flash back in 1935 when she was a kid.

Then i added tomato, subash ghai added the common story that comes in any desi movie where a rich little girl(the old lady) and a servant boy grow up together. I dont think i have to say who that little boy is.This kid comes with a long hair and a head band, you know why?. Cause when he grows up he becomes vivek oberoi who looks like Yanni's younger brother. so in order to be consistent and so that dumb audience can relate that this kid is oberoi he sports a long hair and a head band. They some how forgot to put a mustache and beard for that kid.

   


Then i added the important ingredient shrimp, subhash ghai added LAAGAN story. The girl who leaves india when she was a child, comes back as a gorgeous looking lady.she comes back and says that she still remembers the sweet sound that flowed from young oberoi alias 'Kisna' flute.




I forgot to tell about lucky vivek's other love, another gorgeous loooking lady(Isha Sharvani)who is madly in love with Kisna.Poor isha sharavani, half of the time she is shown, she is hanging up side down on a rope like a bat. 1/4 of the time she is hanging straight and 1/4 th of the time she is dancing. isha who usually hangs on the rope with red dress, in a scene when she is very sad, hangs with black dress, a very touchy scene :(.

Actually there is a technical innovation introduced by subash ghai here. Rather than your usual view of looking at the bottom of the screen or the center of the screen for the characters, when ever isha comes u automatically tend to watch the top part of the screen as she will be hanging from the top.I got so used to it that even in normal scenes if there was no person in focus i was looking at the top part of the screen, scanning deep into the trees in the scene looking for traces of isha.I wonder how subash ghai would have auditioned for this role.



I added spices, ginger garlic etc to spice up the curry, gai added some dance, fight etc. people burn catherines house and she is on the run.Off course MGR vivek oberoi comes at the right time and saves her and runs with her all through out the movie. But most of the time he is out smarted and someone takes catherine away from him. He on the other hand ends up chasing a car, police van, horse etc. This is exactly where the genius of subash ghai comes, he stretches the story as far as possible with out any thing to convey. Catherine and kisna disguise as muslim people end up at sushmitha sen's place so that the audeince can watch a song and all the smokers can take a break. After some sholay type chasing kisna and catherine end up in a god forsaken temple without any transportation. When you wonder how they are going to get out of that place,comes one of the villain’s henchman in a jeep.He comes to the temple, shoots kisna at point blank range and misses, kisna kills him and takes the jeep.

At last i added some chill’s to give the ultimate spiciness to the curry and gai added layers of hai ram. kisna and catherien are caught in midst of a Hindu Muslim riot and again catherine is taken away by the police and vivek end up chasing the police van.

I knew that the shrimp was cooked, i simmered and covered the pan. Ghai on the other hand...., Ghai on the other hand....,Ghai on the other hand...., damn i saw the movie like an hour ago and i don’t remember what was the climax. oh ok. got it.vivek safely escorts catherine to some British officers. Catherine asks vivek to come to england, you know what vivek would have said don’t you.....

vivek says that he has to be with isha to whom he is engaged and delivers the punch line of the movie "judaai be tho ek pyaar hai"( parting is also love). Time for you to have some goose bumps and after some romantic and patriotic rhetoric, when you start to bleed from your goose bump scratching, kisna walks into sunset. Hold on , its not over yet the shrimp is still simmering. The old lady who was narrating the story so far comes out of the flash back and every one who was hearing the story have exactly one tear drop in there eyes.

catherine comes to know that kisna died a few years ago and that he asked the family members to immerse his ashes in a certain place.It is a river bed where he embraced catherine, dressed like madakhini in 'Ram theree ganga meli'.Because that was supposed to be the place where there souls interchanged. The movie ends with a note that catherine also has asked to immerse her ashes in the same place where she was dressed like mandakhini, sorry where her soul mingled with kisna.

There is a place that comes thousand times in the movie. A very nice location. A hill edge with protruding rocks. In the end like stabbing an already dieing man subash ghai comes and stands in that rock, one leg forward looking at the horizon with the info 'A film by subash ghai'.I wished i was there dressed up like stallone in rambo 3. i would have pumped 5,10 rounds of bullets into this guy. Or otherwise push him from that protruding edge and stand at the same position with leg forward looking at the sunset.

This movie looked more like an attempt from ghai to serve the foreigners with a musical bollywood movie.It has beautiful costumes, locations, photography, songs etc, but not even a trace of good story or screen play. I am deeply sorry for not mentioning the other english/hindi movies from which this movie was copied/Inspired. Over all a thorough comedy movie if viewed with shrimp curry.

Chinese torture
you are tied spread eagle on a bed in a small room. The room will be completely dark and absolutely scilent. you can only stare into the endless darkness and yet not see anything. The torture consists of a hospital drip filled with water above your head. The water slowly drips out of it and onto your forehead. Each time the water drips it hits the same place on your forehead, it gets very annoying fast. Absolute silent and with occasional spat of a water droplet on your fore head. If left alone for more than 15 hours, people tend to go crazy.

Comments:
I was sternly warned not to encourage Ghai by watching this movie, and your very funny review told me exactly why that was so. Was very entertaining reading your review, far more than the movie itself, am sure!

Glad the shrimp turned out well :)
 
megha,
u should be glad that u have friends, who warn & protect you from harmful things :).
 
Senthil
Excellent posts,
I am still going through it.

Keep it up
I am going to link your site from mine

Anbudan
K K Nagar Kirukan
 
Thanxs ganesh
 
Great review...at least you got to eat the shrimp afterwards! You also frgot some GREAT scenes, like the map to Delhi (I was rolling around in laughter at that one), or then maybe you forwarded it, unable to bear the agaony.

Nice one, anyway !
 
What abt the map??.i completely erased the movie from my memory now.It was one comedy movie for sure.
 
Great Review.

Very true of Kisna-

One does not needs 15 hours of Chinese Torture to go crazy.

Just watch 2 hours of Kisna and effect lasts long.
 
p,
Iam sorry that even u had to go through the torture :)
 
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