Bananas in Banares: Raanjhanaa

Raanjhanaa hua main tera, kaun tere bin mera...

I did not expect to like this movie. The reviews debating the stalkery romance plot were enough to keep me away from the theater, but eventually the song promos and internet hubbub drew me in, and I found Raanjhanaa to be a nuanced and very human story. And despite what I expected, I think it’s watchable from a feminist perspective.

It’s the story of Kundan (Dhanush), the son of a Tamil priest in Benares who falls in love with a Muslim girl, Zoya (Sonam Kapoor). It’s an obsessive, selfish, and unreciprocated love in all its human messiness. It’s not just that they are from different classes or religions. Kundan is in his own world, one where there is only the Zoya of his dreams, who is rather different than the Zoya of reality. I never thought I’d say this, but Sonam was really well cast here. I just can’t connect with her characters, but Zoya can’t connect with people either. She’s not always a sympathetic character when she uses Kundan’s devotion for her own ends, but she’s three-dimensional and we see glimpses of why she acts the way she does and how she feels so trapped.

Pyaar Diwana Hota Hai, Part 2

Part 1 here. Obviously, I loved the movie. With Govinda and Rani being their fabulous selves, it’s pretty easy to enjoy it on a superficial level. I didn’t even feel the need to snark (much). Sure, you have to suspend your disbelief that Sunder is able to pull off the charade and nobody figures out that he can actually speak for most of the movie, and you just have to revel in the sheer filminess, but the whole package just worked for me.

Sunder's speech about his mother's tears in the clay toys she sold. You can almost see his mother in black and white, with tears on her face and mud on her sari.

And some really good lines, like these: “When I first made a painting of my crying mother, the world didn’t go and wipe those off. The world did congratulate her.”

I love the contrast between his silence when he's with Payal and these eloquent monologues.

Hero No. 1 (1997)

This is pretty typical of 90s-era comedy/romance/family drama Govinda vehicles. It happens to be one of the best of the genre, though, full of fun times, fun songs, and funny outfits.

UP Wala Thumka has all three of these things.

Meena (Karisma Kapoor) is an orphan who lives with her large dysfunctional extended family. When her college offers her a chance to go to Europe, her strict grandfather agrees and she sets out, meeting Rajesh (Govinda) who has run away from his overbearing father (Kader Khan). First she doesn’t like him, then he’s mad at her, but they quickly fall in love.

I love how even when he’s mad he can’t help dancing along with her.

Rajesh’s father quickly agrees to the match to get him to come back home, but unknowingly insults Meena’s grandfather who refuses to even meet Rajesh after that. So he decides to pose as a servant to insinuate himself into the household. As Raju, humble cook, he brings Meena’s uncles success in business, reconciles her aunt with her estranged husband, and lectures the teenage cousin who stays out all night at discos (and rescues her from the thugs that are the direct and natural result of said discos and are not regressive moral commentary at all) such that she stays home, puts on a dupatta and serves her grandfather breakfast. He makes the whole family eat together and even sings duets with Meena under everyone’s nose.

As Raju, undercover future son-in-law.

So it’s nothing new, but everybody is just so damn charming that you can’t help but find it all absolutely delightful. We could have done without the Shakti Kapoor bit, but we can always do without the Shakti Kapoor bit. Overall it's a very enjoyable movie.

Ishaqzaade (2012)

ARG! This movie pissed me off so much. All it had to be it just the tiniest bit less misogynistic, the tiniest bit more coherent, and I would have loved it. I loved Parineeti Chopra, Arjun Kapoor was acceptable, and even if the rural, testosterone-fueled gun-toting setting wasn’t anything new, it was fun to watch. I came back to this review a year later, trying to give the movie another chance. Well, it still doesn't work for me, despite knowing what I was getting into.

Zoya Qureshi is the headstrong, spunky daughter of a local politician. Parineeti Chopra is a lot of fun to watch and she just shines here. Arjun Kapoor plays Parma Chauhan, the grandson of the opposing political candidate, he likes to beat people up for no reason and set fire to warehouses full of diesel. He’s Hindu, she’s Muslim. They meet while campaigning (or in Parma’s case, generally causing trouble) for their respective families, they fight, he points a gun at her head, she slaps him, that sort of thing. After he corners her in the bathroom at college, she decides she’s in love. (Yeah. Don’t worry, it gets worse.) They have an adorable little courtship, until he sets up a secret wedding for them, with both Hindu and Muslim rites. Right after they consummate their marriage in an abandoned train car, Parma gets up and tells Zoya that it was all a lie, and he just did all this to get back at her for slapping him.