Release date:
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November 15, 2013
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Director:
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Sanjay Leela Bhansali
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Cast:
Language:
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Deepika
Padukone, Ranveer Singh, Supriya Pathak Kapur, Richa Chaddha, Abhimanyu
Singh, Gulshan Devaiah, Barkha Bisht
Hindi
|
Sanjay Leela Bhansali is a
freak. He is unlike most Bollywood filmmakers who assume that men have hormones
and women don’t. And so in that beautifully choreographed song-and-dance Tattad tattad with which the hero Ram (Ranveer Singh) is introduced to the
audience of this film, women watch expectantly as this delicious man starts stripping
off his shirt, one lady faints at the first sight of his naked torso, another
walks up to him to eagerly touch that bare skin. The men, meanwhile, dance with
an energy that radiates from the screen right into the theatre, puffing out
their chests like preening peacocks, quaking with bodily
exuberance, almost seeming to vibrate with passion. Rarely before on the Hindi
film screen have male and female libidos been given such equal and equitable
treatment.
Later, Leela (Deepika
Padukone) gets her grand introduction. As her hair flies in the air, her
garments swirl about her, she flashes that stunning smile and the endless slim
torso goes on display, just as you’re thinking, “Hmm, we’ve seen this before,” she
takes the wind out of the sails of a good-looking stranger who has the cheek to
sexually challenge her.
That’s the thing about Ram-Leela (a.k.a. Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-leela): there’s nothing conventional about
it. It’s based on Romeo and Juliet,
but Bhansali has contemporised and Indianised it so much that it feels like
Shakespeare’s play is just the foundation on which has been built this
extravagant film. In a town in Gujarat, two wealthy criminal clans have been
enemies for 500 years. Ram and Leela are on opposite sides of that fence. In
the midst of his gun-toting relatives, the dandyish womaniser Ram sticks out like
a sore thumb with his love of fun, frolic and the gentler side of life. Ram runs
a porn shop, supports the family enterprise but decries their bloodlust. When
he meets Leela, the physical attraction between them is electric and instant,
but he also discovers in her a soulmate; a gutsy, unorthodox creature, unaffected
by the family feud and possibly more drawn to him precisely because of his surname. Obviously the
road ahead is not carpeted with roses, but what’s not obvious is how different
their actions will be from the two teenagers at the centre of Shakespeare’s 16th
century classic.
Bhansali’s film is as much
about star-crossed lovers, their unquestioning faith in each other and the enmity
between their families, as it is about the enemy within, intra-family power games,
pacifism and even gender politics. The women of this film don’t cower behind
closed doors, they’re equal partners to their men. Leela doesn’t wait for Ram
to kiss her, she kisses him first. When he hollers at her, she hollers right
back. When a don is felled by a bullet, it is not automatically assumed that
the nearest male relative will take over. And unlike the heroine of last year’s
horribly misogynistic Ishaqzaade,
strong women here don’t roll over on their backs and pant in submission when
love strikes. Into this scenario, the director weaves in song after song, with elaborate musical arrangements, sinfully lavish visuals and mesmerising dancers (Ranveer
is excellent, Deepika and guest star Priyanka Chopra are angels of grace). Not all
the songs are as melodic as Ram chahe
Leela (featuring Priyanka) or as fiery as Tattad – frankly, a couple of them would probably be boring as
standalone numbers minus the video, but that matters little within this film, so
lovely is the manner in which they’ve been used, never once slowing down the
narrative, rather adding to the tempo of the film each time.
Maxima Basu and Anju Modi’s costumes for Ram-Leela are
works of art; DoP Ravi Varman and production designer Wasiq Khan’s every frame
could be on a museum wall; the detailing in sound design by Parikshit Lalwani
and Kunal Mehta, supplemented by Monty Sharma’s background score, takes the
breath away. Ah well, that Bhansali will deliver an
audio-visual spectacle is a given. In his last outing Guzaarish though, he showed us how tedious beauty can be and how it
can rob a film of soul. Humans were arranged in that film to fit into carefully
created sets. Even Devdas,
magnificent though it was, occasionally felt overly self-conscious. Ram-Leela is different.
Except for a couple of slow-mo shots of bodies falling into water and one or
two where the leads look like they’re posing around, the film’s eye-pleasing nature at no point takes away from the
fire at its heart. Nothing dwarfs the emotions at its core.
Ranveer and Deepika are perfect for their roles,
both comfortable in their characters’ unabashed lustfulness, both capable of
pulling off the dialogues occasionally written in verse (this perhaps being
another of Bhansali’s bows to the Bard). Their chemistry is not quite in the
league of Hrithik-Aishwarya or Kareena-Hrithik, but it’s pretty darned close.
She looks impeccable in her gorgeousness. He looks a tad over-muscled in his
opening scene, but is otherwise an eyecatcher as well. Their performances are
so spot-on that it’s impossible not to laugh and cry with them. Of the very
strong supporting cast, special mentions must go to Supriya Pathak Kapur and
Richa Chadda as Leela’s mother and sister-in-law respectively, and Barkha Bisht
as Ram’s sister-in-law, for managing to convey a devastating blend of strength
and vulnerability.
The star of this film though is Bhansali. His
screenplay (co-written with Siddharth-Garima) is a wonderful mélange of passion,
politics, pain and even humour. There’s a lot of bloodletting, yet the
camerawork is designed to downplay the gruesomeness, with surprisingly powerful
results. The deliberately melodramatic tone never feels over-the-top. Quite to
the contrary, the proceedings are very believable – this is probably how
forbidden romance feels in Haryana under the watchful eye of khap panchayats. The
film’s occasional follies are hard to notice if you’re holding your breath as
often as I was while watching it. Ram-Leela is an adrenaline high.
Rating (out of five): ****
CBFC Rating (India):
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U/A
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Running time:
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2 hours 34 minutes
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