![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieFanaa.
Run, don't walk to see this movie.
It's a flawed movie, of course, but it's beautiful and emotional and in many ways startlingly grown-up and has angst and melodrama and by the end I was very overcome but it was perfect. And the script had these little conversations, characters teasing or fighting or repressing that had a huge emotional truth under the veneer of the more usual Bolly melodrama full of oversized moments (though there was plent of those as well). It gave me that indescribable feeling that the very good Bollywood movies do: it emotionally grabbed me and pulled me into a super-saturated, hyper-real world of its own. I am so jazzed up from it I cannot sleep even though I have to be up in three hours.
First, the most important thing. Aamir and Kajol. This is the first time I've seen Kajol on the big screen and she is luminous. She is gorgeous and heart-breaking and vivid and everything. She really is my favorite Bollywood actress for a reason. And Aamir? Once upon a time I used to think he was OK but overrated. But with every movie I see of him I fall for him more and more. Rehan is nothing like either Mangal Pandey or DJ from "Rang De Basanti" but he feels like such a real human being. It's the little gestures he makes, it's the look in his eyes (even when the rational part of my brain wanted to hate his character, I couldn't, not when he'd look at Kajol the way he did). And why did I never realize before just how sexy his voice is? (Oh, and don't worry, the horrible long hair is gone by intermission and post-intermission he looks 10 years younger and 20 times hotter). And the chemistry? Out of this world. I was so right to want to see the two of them together since "Ishq" because the chemistry was so intense sometimes I wanted to look away. It's a very different chemistry than the one Kajol has with SRK. It's more grown-up, darker, not as swoonily romantic. I hope hope hope this movie does really well and maybe they will make another one together.
I actually found the ending, while devastating on one level, kind on another. True, Rehan has died, and Zooni is the one who had to kill him (though I think it's because she wasn't thinking clearly at that point: just shoot him in both legs or don't shoot at all, as the bad guys are about to get here and he can protect you), but she can live on with their son, and she has found him again, and she found that despite his other lies he truly madly loved her.
And I continue to be fascinated with Bollywood's approach to terrorist portrayal. I cannot imagine a HW movie make a terrorist a lead with whom you sympathize. Rehan is clearly a horrifically damaged human being (but then, honestly, he clearly was brought up by his psycho grandfather since he was three) who has done some horrible stuff in his life, but you see glimpses of another person, a fun person, a caring person. You see him truly love his family, you see his longing and his despair. But this movie does something better than do such movies as "Dil Se" (even though DS is a better movie) or "Mission Kashmir:" it does not glaze over Rehan's actions. Neither Manisha nor Hrithik really killed anyone in thei respective movies. But Rehan is not like that: he is shown brutally and efficiently dispatching people and it's not always soldiers in pursuit of him: when he gives his co-soldiers the poisoned drink (and what a parallel with his son later bringing him milk and saying it's 'poison') and watches the people he played with die, or when he kills and closes the eyes of Jolly Lucky with whom he was hanging out before, you can see how irrevocably unsavable he is: he's done too much (and he will look you in the face and stab you, not run away). It's such a telling moment when Kajol confronts him later and yells "you killed my father" and he replies, wearily "it was an accident" but then se brings up her uncle and he is silent.
But yet, he is savable at the same time. He can feel. I knew Rehan was a terrorist going in, so the look on his face as you saw him visibly falling for Zooni and knowing how useless it was in the first half was a revelation. Or the hunger on his face in the second half: he wants to be human, he wants to have a life not dedicated to the cause, in fact he cannot hold his humanity in any longer, you see his walls battered down by his son, by Zooni, by normalcy. But of course he cannot 'retire,' it's a pipe dream. His grandfather would never let him go and it would be perverse for him to enjoy his family when the bomb would have the potential to destroy so many other families. He wants out, but he still believes in the cause, as well (and I loved that he didn't change his mind at the end). I think, just like Manisha in Dil Se, he is so irrevocably damaged that the most he can give as proof of love is his death. When he throws away his gun, he knows Zooni would shoot him (and I love how it goes against all his instincts to do so), and he does so. And she shoots him, and it's not just to save the country or what not: it's to give him peace, peace he can never have. After these events they could never be happy together, he could never escape the military, the terrorists would never let him go. This is, in a way, the only way he can be free. He really did become 'destroyed in love.' But he also rediscovered his soul.
And connected to that, I loved an adult complexity in the Zooni-Rehan relationship. In some ways, this movie begs to be ficced. She falls in love with him in utter purity but it's also because she's never been wooed before that she is so desperate. I love her wanting to spend the night with him, no strings no attachments: after all, she knows she will never have anything else from anyone else, not with her being blind. And I love that he is overwhelmed by the magnitude of her gift, of her love, that it freaks him out as he sees his practiced wooing turn into something else, that he tries to run away from it, never to show up. He belives in his cause but I think he knows he is a damned soul and the fact that someone like Zooni can love him, really love him, not just find him hot or fun, turns his world topsy turvy for a bit. The serious, devastated look on his face when he looks at her after she tells him she likes him and holds him speaks volumes. Or that utterly open and vulnerable look after their lovemaking as he just watches her sleep. And of course, he sees her off on the train but he cannot let her go and so he gets off on the train and stops it and takes her back to Delhi even though he knows it's futile, that their time has almost run out (and the shot of him carrying her down the tracks? Adorable). Just as the hugs he gives her when she is about to have her eye surgery and he is about to leave her forever. He keeps holding on to her, he gives her his amulet, because in a way she is he only personal life, only personal emotion he's ever been allowed to feel.
The fact that he stops the train is really symptomatic of the fact that fight as he may, he will always pick her over everything. It starts out small: he shows up to 'date' her even though he said he wouldn't. He interrupts his plans to save her from a car. He changes his mind and spends those twelve hours with her. He gets her off the train. He lies to his grandfather that the woman is dead so she will be left alone. And much much later, when recuperating in her house, he sheds his reserve layer by layer and finally just tells her who he is and begs her to take him back. And of course, in the end he dies for her. I don't think heis lying when he indicates near the end that what drives him is protecting her and their son. His comment about what would happen to them if he doesn't give grandpa the part he took is chilling: "First they ill kill our son in front of us, then they will kill you in frony of me, and then if they have any mercy, they will kill me." In a way, he is always emotionally honest with Zooni. When she asks him to give her one good reason why she should take him back, hunger in his eyes or not, he tells her all his reasons are bad ones.
The pity of this whole situation is that there is a potentially wonderful person under there, that could have existed under other circumstances: just watch him gently wash his son's hair (the child actor is adorable and funny and manipulative the way real children are. He will also need years of therapy). And of course he is utterly vulnerable to Zooni: she and only she can make him cry (btw, love the way Aamir cries. Looks so natural). The scene where he knocks on her door, all wounded and half-delirious and sees her open the door? I would buy the DVD solely for the look on his face. And he tells her that he thought he would die in her house to atone for his sins but now he wants to live. And of course his greatest nightmare is killing Zooni and his child: he dreams of it and wakes up sobbing. And I love how he gradually gets acclimatized to humanity again: the way he watches the normalcy which I don't think he ever had, the way he tries to stay away from his son, even though he so clearly wants him: his feelings make him lose control and he snaps at the kid and Kajol and it's brilliant and so full of layers and pain. And how he cannot hellp but follow her with his eyes (and I love that she doesn't recognize him right away. It's realistic, that after 7 years it would take more than a few words said by him). And how there is all this sexy tension between them, as in when she bandages his arm and he half flinches half leans into her touch and she is so bewildered by her body's response to him. Or when he tries to form an apology and ends up hammering nails instead.
And of course the brilliant scene where he finally discloses he is Rehan to her. I love Kajol's character. She's shown a maturity and acceptance throughout, and she is a strong woman (so are the other women in the movie, yay!) I love that she doesn't fall on his neck, but she is devastated and she tells him about how she tried to compile his face. And he leaves in the morning after their emotional conversation the night before (I love it when he begs her to take him back) and she abandons her stand and runs, runs, runs after him and then slaps him HARD and hits him and she is sobbing and his arms go around her and he is half-unbelieving and I wanted to cry. (And then we get that wonderful picturization and boy do they look hot) and he ends up with his head in her lap, such a parallel to how he dies later.
And of course, there is the adult fact that they clearly have extramarital sex in Delhi and that is such a gorgeous, sexy scene and he kisses her foot (!!!!) and then they are in bed together and I want to rewatch this movie right now!
I have so many more thoughts about this movie, but for now I'll just close with another favorite scene, one I haven't mentioned up above, because it didn't fit into the write-up but which was too good not to list:
The way he shows her around Delhi and she feels his face and tells him what he feels like and what his voice sounds like and they tease and laugh later and he holds her and she is all shy.
Oh, and the scene where he watches her perform and you see he's fallen so in love.
It's a flawed movie, sure. Some bits are not too realistic and a very few a bit too melodramatic (but hey, it's a melodrama, so what else can you expect). But it's a wonderful wonderful film I want to watch again and again and again. So thank you, Kunal Kohli. And Aamir. And Kajol. And Yash Raj.
Run, don't walk to see this movie.
It's a flawed movie, of course, but it's beautiful and emotional and in many ways startlingly grown-up and has angst and melodrama and by the end I was very overcome but it was perfect. And the script had these little conversations, characters teasing or fighting or repressing that had a huge emotional truth under the veneer of the more usual Bolly melodrama full of oversized moments (though there was plent of those as well). It gave me that indescribable feeling that the very good Bollywood movies do: it emotionally grabbed me and pulled me into a super-saturated, hyper-real world of its own. I am so jazzed up from it I cannot sleep even though I have to be up in three hours.
First, the most important thing. Aamir and Kajol. This is the first time I've seen Kajol on the big screen and she is luminous. She is gorgeous and heart-breaking and vivid and everything. She really is my favorite Bollywood actress for a reason. And Aamir? Once upon a time I used to think he was OK but overrated. But with every movie I see of him I fall for him more and more. Rehan is nothing like either Mangal Pandey or DJ from "Rang De Basanti" but he feels like such a real human being. It's the little gestures he makes, it's the look in his eyes (even when the rational part of my brain wanted to hate his character, I couldn't, not when he'd look at Kajol the way he did). And why did I never realize before just how sexy his voice is? (Oh, and don't worry, the horrible long hair is gone by intermission and post-intermission he looks 10 years younger and 20 times hotter). And the chemistry? Out of this world. I was so right to want to see the two of them together since "Ishq" because the chemistry was so intense sometimes I wanted to look away. It's a very different chemistry than the one Kajol has with SRK. It's more grown-up, darker, not as swoonily romantic. I hope hope hope this movie does really well and maybe they will make another one together.
I actually found the ending, while devastating on one level, kind on another. True, Rehan has died, and Zooni is the one who had to kill him (though I think it's because she wasn't thinking clearly at that point: just shoot him in both legs or don't shoot at all, as the bad guys are about to get here and he can protect you), but she can live on with their son, and she has found him again, and she found that despite his other lies he truly madly loved her.
And I continue to be fascinated with Bollywood's approach to terrorist portrayal. I cannot imagine a HW movie make a terrorist a lead with whom you sympathize. Rehan is clearly a horrifically damaged human being (but then, honestly, he clearly was brought up by his psycho grandfather since he was three) who has done some horrible stuff in his life, but you see glimpses of another person, a fun person, a caring person. You see him truly love his family, you see his longing and his despair. But this movie does something better than do such movies as "Dil Se" (even though DS is a better movie) or "Mission Kashmir:" it does not glaze over Rehan's actions. Neither Manisha nor Hrithik really killed anyone in thei respective movies. But Rehan is not like that: he is shown brutally and efficiently dispatching people and it's not always soldiers in pursuit of him: when he gives his co-soldiers the poisoned drink (and what a parallel with his son later bringing him milk and saying it's 'poison') and watches the people he played with die, or when he kills and closes the eyes of Jolly Lucky with whom he was hanging out before, you can see how irrevocably unsavable he is: he's done too much (and he will look you in the face and stab you, not run away). It's such a telling moment when Kajol confronts him later and yells "you killed my father" and he replies, wearily "it was an accident" but then se brings up her uncle and he is silent.
But yet, he is savable at the same time. He can feel. I knew Rehan was a terrorist going in, so the look on his face as you saw him visibly falling for Zooni and knowing how useless it was in the first half was a revelation. Or the hunger on his face in the second half: he wants to be human, he wants to have a life not dedicated to the cause, in fact he cannot hold his humanity in any longer, you see his walls battered down by his son, by Zooni, by normalcy. But of course he cannot 'retire,' it's a pipe dream. His grandfather would never let him go and it would be perverse for him to enjoy his family when the bomb would have the potential to destroy so many other families. He wants out, but he still believes in the cause, as well (and I loved that he didn't change his mind at the end). I think, just like Manisha in Dil Se, he is so irrevocably damaged that the most he can give as proof of love is his death. When he throws away his gun, he knows Zooni would shoot him (and I love how it goes against all his instincts to do so), and he does so. And she shoots him, and it's not just to save the country or what not: it's to give him peace, peace he can never have. After these events they could never be happy together, he could never escape the military, the terrorists would never let him go. This is, in a way, the only way he can be free. He really did become 'destroyed in love.' But he also rediscovered his soul.
And connected to that, I loved an adult complexity in the Zooni-Rehan relationship. In some ways, this movie begs to be ficced. She falls in love with him in utter purity but it's also because she's never been wooed before that she is so desperate. I love her wanting to spend the night with him, no strings no attachments: after all, she knows she will never have anything else from anyone else, not with her being blind. And I love that he is overwhelmed by the magnitude of her gift, of her love, that it freaks him out as he sees his practiced wooing turn into something else, that he tries to run away from it, never to show up. He belives in his cause but I think he knows he is a damned soul and the fact that someone like Zooni can love him, really love him, not just find him hot or fun, turns his world topsy turvy for a bit. The serious, devastated look on his face when he looks at her after she tells him she likes him and holds him speaks volumes. Or that utterly open and vulnerable look after their lovemaking as he just watches her sleep. And of course, he sees her off on the train but he cannot let her go and so he gets off on the train and stops it and takes her back to Delhi even though he knows it's futile, that their time has almost run out (and the shot of him carrying her down the tracks? Adorable). Just as the hugs he gives her when she is about to have her eye surgery and he is about to leave her forever. He keeps holding on to her, he gives her his amulet, because in a way she is he only personal life, only personal emotion he's ever been allowed to feel.
The fact that he stops the train is really symptomatic of the fact that fight as he may, he will always pick her over everything. It starts out small: he shows up to 'date' her even though he said he wouldn't. He interrupts his plans to save her from a car. He changes his mind and spends those twelve hours with her. He gets her off the train. He lies to his grandfather that the woman is dead so she will be left alone. And much much later, when recuperating in her house, he sheds his reserve layer by layer and finally just tells her who he is and begs her to take him back. And of course, in the end he dies for her. I don't think heis lying when he indicates near the end that what drives him is protecting her and their son. His comment about what would happen to them if he doesn't give grandpa the part he took is chilling: "First they ill kill our son in front of us, then they will kill you in frony of me, and then if they have any mercy, they will kill me." In a way, he is always emotionally honest with Zooni. When she asks him to give her one good reason why she should take him back, hunger in his eyes or not, he tells her all his reasons are bad ones.
The pity of this whole situation is that there is a potentially wonderful person under there, that could have existed under other circumstances: just watch him gently wash his son's hair (the child actor is adorable and funny and manipulative the way real children are. He will also need years of therapy). And of course he is utterly vulnerable to Zooni: she and only she can make him cry (btw, love the way Aamir cries. Looks so natural). The scene where he knocks on her door, all wounded and half-delirious and sees her open the door? I would buy the DVD solely for the look on his face. And he tells her that he thought he would die in her house to atone for his sins but now he wants to live. And of course his greatest nightmare is killing Zooni and his child: he dreams of it and wakes up sobbing. And I love how he gradually gets acclimatized to humanity again: the way he watches the normalcy which I don't think he ever had, the way he tries to stay away from his son, even though he so clearly wants him: his feelings make him lose control and he snaps at the kid and Kajol and it's brilliant and so full of layers and pain. And how he cannot hellp but follow her with his eyes (and I love that she doesn't recognize him right away. It's realistic, that after 7 years it would take more than a few words said by him). And how there is all this sexy tension between them, as in when she bandages his arm and he half flinches half leans into her touch and she is so bewildered by her body's response to him. Or when he tries to form an apology and ends up hammering nails instead.
And of course the brilliant scene where he finally discloses he is Rehan to her. I love Kajol's character. She's shown a maturity and acceptance throughout, and she is a strong woman (so are the other women in the movie, yay!) I love that she doesn't fall on his neck, but she is devastated and she tells him about how she tried to compile his face. And he leaves in the morning after their emotional conversation the night before (I love it when he begs her to take him back) and she abandons her stand and runs, runs, runs after him and then slaps him HARD and hits him and she is sobbing and his arms go around her and he is half-unbelieving and I wanted to cry. (And then we get that wonderful picturization and boy do they look hot) and he ends up with his head in her lap, such a parallel to how he dies later.
And of course, there is the adult fact that they clearly have extramarital sex in Delhi and that is such a gorgeous, sexy scene and he kisses her foot (!!!!) and then they are in bed together and I want to rewatch this movie right now!
I have so many more thoughts about this movie, but for now I'll just close with another favorite scene, one I haven't mentioned up above, because it didn't fit into the write-up but which was too good not to list:
The way he shows her around Delhi and she feels his face and tells him what he feels like and what his voice sounds like and they tease and laugh later and he holds her and she is all shy.
Oh, and the scene where he watches her perform and you see he's fallen so in love.
It's a flawed movie, sure. Some bits are not too realistic and a very few a bit too melodramatic (but hey, it's a melodrama, so what else can you expect). But it's a wonderful wonderful film I want to watch again and again and again. So thank you, Kunal Kohli. And Aamir. And Kajol. And Yash Raj.
