REVIEW 468: RANGOON

Release date:	February 24, 2017
Director:	Vishal Bhardwaj
Cast: Language:	Kangana Ranaut, Saif Ali Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Richard McCabe, Shriswara Dubey, Gajraj Rao, Saharsh Shukla, Kashmira Irani Hindi

Bloody hell!

She rides a horse across a stage near the India-Burma (Myanmar) border, blindfolds herself to throw knives at targets several feet away, bashes up bad guys, mud wrestles with a muscular soldier and runs swiftly atop a moving train.

The point is not that Kangana Ranaut merely manages to do all this in a film. The point is, she is convincing while executing challenging stunts, and looks good while doing them. So, allow me to borrow her character’s signature line in Rangoon: Bloody hell!

Ranaut is a queen. If there is one takeaway from Vishal Bhardwaj’s Rangoon, it is this: that there is something terribly foolish about a film industry which fails to fully tap the vast reserves of female talent at its disposal, and does not centre more action films around this lovely actress… or Priyanka Chopra… or Deepika Padukone… or Anushka Sharma… or any of their other feisty, fleet-footed women colleagues.

When Rangoon has the heroine displaying her physical prowess, it is on solid ground. It falters in other areas, but for the pleasure of seeing a fiery woman skillfully performing feats that have for too long been available only to the men of Hindi cinema, it is worth a watch.

Bhardwaj’s latest takes us back to 1940s India, where an action star screen-named Miss Julia (Ranaut) rules Bombay cinema. Her professional mentor and producer, Rusi Billimoria (Saif Ali Khan), is a married man who treats her like he would his pet poodle, a pretty creature to be patronised, pampered and protected, loved in the way he thinks love is meant to be given to a woman, but not respected.

We meet these two against the backdrop of multiple wars. Within India, Mahatma Gandhi and like-minded freedom fighters are trying to rid the country of its British colonisers with the weapon of ahimsa. Elsewhere, Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose is building his Azad Hind Fauj. A battle is on between these two ideologies to capture the imagination of the people.

Meanwhile, Billimoria becomes beholden to the British for business reasons. Circumstances force Miss Julia to travel to the Indo-Myanmar border where she must headline a series of shows designed to raise the spirits of the ‘British’ troops stationed there. This is where she meets Jamadar Nawab Malik (Shahid Kapoor), an Indian like so many others serving in the British army, and employed to keep his own people down.

These then are the two triangles around which Rangoon revolves: Julia, Rusi and Nawab; India, Gandhi and Bose.

On the face of it, this is a setting bubbling with possibilities, and considerable swathes of Rangoon (especially in its second half) do mine that potential. Ranaut delivers a seemingly effortless, chameleon-like performance as a woman who is by turns fragile and fierce, hurting yet invulnerable, a child who grows into a woman during the course of the film. The actress and the character she plays here, possess a body that is as intriguing as her mind: she appears delicate, yet explodes with energy and athleticism when life demands it of her.

Thankfully, Rusi is not the suave, likeable, easygoing flirt Khan has played in too many films now. He is an amoral yet charming creature, a man of grays and internal conflicts that appear to surprise him as he discovers them. Khan is as assured here as he has been in his best work so far (read: Hum Tum, Ek Hasina Thi and Omkara), making Rusi hard to like yet impossible to hate in a way that only he can. Rangoon is a sorely needed reminder that this Khan is one of the finest actors among all the heroes in Hindi cinema right now, the one whose versatility has been least explored.

However, for the film to be compelling all the way, it needed us to root for Julia and Nawab, not Julia and Rusi, but the chemistry between Ranaut and Kapoor is strangely lukewarm. And Kapoor deadpans his way through the role, which is inexplicable considering that he is emerging here from a career best performance in Haider (2014) helmed by the same director.

Chemistry is not a factor of good acting alone, it emerges from great writing. Therein lies the problem with Rangoon. Unlike the immersive writing of Haider, Rangoon seems detached from its proceedings, narrating them like an observer rather than a participant.

The story of Rangoon is credited to Matthew Robbins who earlier wrote 2011’s Saat Khoon Maaf, which Bhardwaj directed. The screenplay has been jointly written by Robbins, Sabrina Dhawan (who wrote Mira Nair’s Monsoon Wedding) and Bhardwaj himself. Perhaps Bhardwaj should have known better than to team up once again with Robbins, considering that despite all the atmospherics and intrigue he managed to summon up in Saat Khoon Maaf, that too ended up feeling like an outsider’s view of the world it sought to create.

This is one reason why Rangoon does not come alive on screen. The film also takes too long to lift off. The best of Rangoon is packed into its second half, but it is once again pulled down by an overly dramatised, ham-fisted ending that is trying too hard to be emotionally wrenching in its nationalist fervour and imposing, but ends up being amusingly trite instead.

That said, the positives of Rangoon call out. Pankaj Kumar’s cinematography is imaginative and grand, and despite the occasional weak spot in the special effects, the film looks rich. Dolly Ahluwalia’s costumes, the hairdos and styling are all exemplary. The combination of Ranaut’s verve, the retro choreography by Farah Khan and Sudesh Adhana, well-written songs blending perfectly into the narrative and lavish set pieces, make Rangoon’s many song-and-dance numbers memorable.

The music is by Bhardwaj, the lyrics by Gulzar. Now that’s a team worth repeating. They roll out an entire spectrum of moods for Rangoon, ranging from the ruminative romantic ballad Yeh ishq hai to the frothy mischief of Mere miya gaye England. When the same film gives you Arijit Singh singing “Sufi ke zulfe ki / Lau utthi Allah hu / Jalte hi rehna hai / Baaki na main na tu” and “Mere miya gaye England / Baja ke band / Na jaane kaha karenge land / Ki Hitler chauke na”, in Rekha Bhardwaj’s voice, you almost will it to extend that quality into every other department.

If only.

Early news about Rangoon indicated that it was based on the true story of Fearless Nadia, the Australia-born actress who lived from 1908-1996 and ruled the Hindi film industry as an action star in her time. As is often the case with such Bollywood ventures, the rumours (very likely initiated by the film’s own team to generate a buzz around the project) have given way to an officially stated position that Rangoon has nothing to do with Nadia.

The truth is, Julia is probably inspired by Nadia, but this is not a biopic. This is a love triangle set in a time when the people of India were grappling with the opposing ideologies of the Mahatma and Netaji. The Bhardwaj who made Maqbool, Omkara and Haider is a man perfectly suited to a film like Rangoon. Sadly, without the writing brilliance of the director’s Shakespeare trilogy, Rangoon gets many things right, but fails to come together as an involving, engaging whole.

Still, Ranaut is remarkable playing the sort of character no Hindi film leading lady has been given for decades now. A big bow to Bhardwaj for that, and to the actress for choosing a path advocated by Gandhi, being the change she clearly wants to see in Hindi cinema. This action queen deserved a more vibrant film though.

Rating (out of five stars): **1/2

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	167 minutes 25 seconds

This review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/entertainment/bollywood/rangoon-movie-review-kangana-ranaut-is-an-action-queen-in-search-of-a-vibrant-film-3300232.html

Poster courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/RangoonTheFilm/

REVIEW 436: MIRZYA

Release date:	October 7, 2016
Director:	Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Cast: Language:	Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher, Anuj Choudhry, Art Malik, Om Puri, Anjali Patil, K.K. Raina, Iteshyam, Anuja, Shourya Pratap Singh Shekhawat Hindi

Once upon a time there was a man called Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra who lived in the Enchanted Forest of Imagination and Splendour.

One day, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra decided to make a film on the Punjabi folktale of Mirza and Sahibaan, setting it in present-day Rajasthan.

It was a story of love, faith, hope and betrayal, rocks and hard places, Scylla and Charybdis, devils and deep seas. It was a story that lent itself to the kind of epic scale and magnificence that Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra was known for in the Forest and the many lands of Far Beyond.

And so Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra went about gathering the best team in the Forest for his film. He roped in Dadasaheb Phalke Award-winning stalwart Gulzar for the screenplay and lyrics.

And Gulzar did not let him down with the songs. He wrote with wistfulness, of a little boy mooning after a girl, of a woman torn between her family and her lover.

In the Village on the edge of the Forest there lived a Critic. She was filled with hope for Mirzya for she thought Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s Rang De Basanti released in 2006 was one of the best Hindi films of the 21^st century, and though some folk in the Village said his Bhaag Milkha Bhaag in 2013 was over-wrought, she did not agree with them.

When Gulzar’s words for Ek Nadi Thi, put to tune by the formidable Shankar Ehsaan Loy, sung by the Nooran sisters and K. Mohan, rose up from the screen, a feeling of warmth enveloped the Critic. “Ek nadi thi dono kinaare / Thaam ke behti thi / Ek nadi thi… / Ek nadi thi koi kinara chhod na sakti thi” (There was a river who embraced both her banks / There was a river… / There was a river who could not leave either of her banks). A picture began to paint itself.

It was clear that Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa had poured their soul into Mirzya. The melodies, the instrumentation, the choice of voices – it was oh so beautiful.

Most beautiful of all was Daler Mehndi, whose full-bodied rendition of that evocative title track got the Critic’s pulse racing each time.

In the same Forest there lived a cinematographer called Pawel Dyllus, who bathed Mirzya’s present in burnished tones and the blazing sun, while drenching the past in a dreadful steely gray. Pawel Dyllus’ canvas was large, and every frame was a museum piece, not counting some close-ups of the lead actress Saiyami Kher in which her make-up was screaming out at the viewers – a folly indeed.

The music, the lush landscapes and shadowy interiors, Mirzya’s art design and narrative structure were designed to build up a haunting atmosphere. There was foreboding in the air. Great sorrow would befall these people – the Critic knew that, not only because everyone in the Village had read of Mirza and Sahibaan, but because she sensed it in the air of the Forest.

Mirzya was related as a fantasy fable, juxtaposing the ancient saga of Mirza and Sahibaan against the contemporary account of H.R.H. Prince Karan, his one true love Soochi – daughter of a top policeman in Rajasthan – and the stable boy Adil. There was much promise in this idea.

But Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra made a big mistake. He strayed from the Path of Golden Rules, he did not chide Gulzar for writing a screenplay with many strong pillars but no rooms, for constructing a fascinating frame with no interiors, for outlining characters that could have been interesting if only he had filled in his lines with colour and life. Perhaps that was not possible. After all, Gulzar, as the people of the Village well know, is a legend.

There were moments when the Critic thought, “Ah, this looks and sounds so good. Maybe soon the life blood will flow?” And she waited, and waited, and waited. But it did not.

No doubt Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had aimed his film at intelligent, well-read Village dwellers. He infused it with literary references, but mostly with the words of an old English wizard called William Shakespeare. Then though, he doubted the knowledge of the Village people and felt driven to mention the names of Wizard William, Romeo and Juliet, just in case the Critic and her Village did not quite get it.

It was a film with few dialogues. In the Enchanted Forest, words are precious. Yet Mirzya squandered away its limited number of spoken lines with clunky writing. Such as when a father and a fiancé pun on the word “samaan” (property, possession, thing, stuff) to refer to the woman they love and the luggage she has brought home from her travels.

Now in the roles of Mirza and Adil, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had cast young Harshvardhan Kapoor (son of actor Anil Kapoor, brother of Sonam Kapoor, nephew of Sridevi Kapoor and producer Boney Kapoor, cousin of Arjun Kapoor and Ranveer Singh). Harshvardhan was a debutant so sweet of countenance, with eyes of such boyish innocence, that the Critic wanted to reach out and embrace him, and whisper, “Come child, I will protect you from this film. For it does look like you could be better employed.” Some scenes hinted at a fluid face of a million possibilities, but for some reason Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra had given him an under-written role. He had little to say, the camera rarely dwelt upon his face and in his one big moment in the film, when he filled the screen and turned around to look at a figure of treachery, he deadpanned.

Saiyami Kher fared no better playing Sahibaan, but as Soochi, she got enough space to display her smart personality and innate pizzazz. Saiyami Kher, so the Village crier said, was the granddaughter of Usha Kiran, an actress of yore, and the niece of Tanvi Azmi.

Oddly enough, the central character written with most empathy was neither of these two, but Prince Karan. And actor Anuj Choudhry stepped up to the challenge, making a mark despite the frigid film within which he found himself.

Moral of the fable: all the packaging and grandeur in the world, all those artistically writhing bodies doing a sexual dance as a backdrop to Mirza-Sahibaan and Soochi-Adil-Karan, all those pretty costumes and young actors with potential, Shankar Ehsaan Loy and Daler Mehndi, they all add up to nought if the heart of your story does not beat. 

Early on in Mirzya, a character quotes a moonstruck Romeo’s monologue on Juliet: “She speaks yet says nothing.” It is an unwittingly apt description of this film. It speaks, yet says nothing.

Ah that Wizard William, he whose works in which you will find passages relevant to every given situation all these centuries later.

The Critic thought: all is not lost, for in Harshvardhan Kapoor, Saiyami Kher and Anuj Choudhry, Mirzya has presented to us, three newcomers who may give the people of the Village great pleasure in the coming years; and forgiveness ought to be offered generously to the man who made Rang De Basanti.

So the Critic embraced that thought and slept peacefully that night, remembering that in the Village and in the Forest in every tale, they always all lived happily ever after.

Rating (out of five): **

CBFC Rating (India):	UA
Running time:	129 minutes 45 seconds

A version of this review has also been published on Firstpost:

http://www.firstpost.com/bollywood/mirzya-review-saiyami-kher-harshvardhan-kapoors-sweetness-is-squandered-in-a-frigid-film-3039128.html

Poster courtesy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirzya_(film)

Harshvardhan Kapoor & Saiyami Kher’s photograph courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/Mirzya/