The startling everydayness of KANK
Aug. 22nd, 2006 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieQuote of the day is courtesy of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna:
"Hello...Thank you...Nice to meet you...I love you dammit!"
That quote encapsulates why I adore KANK and why it's no traditional against-the-odds weeping romance that Bollywood is so good at.
I've seen comments on the net about how KANK doesn't show that Dev and Maya are soulmates, OTP, One True Love to End All Loves.
It's true, KANK has no grand romantic gestures. But it's clearly on purpose. SRK can romance in his sleep. Just watch Veer-Zaara (from 2004!) where he, as Veer, made my cry like a five year old, and where the movie broke my heart and made me forget to breathe and just swept me away in its romance.
And Karan Johar has clearly made swoonily romantic movies before, with SRK. The gazebo scene in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is still the most romantic scene I've ever seen in a Bollywood movie (even beating out Tujhe Dekha scene in DDLJ starring no one other than...SRK :P. And then there is Asoka) and that's a tough competition. In the last KJ movie, KHNH, the scene with Preity crying into SRK's chest 'why do you love me so much' as he can't help but hold her, repeating 'I don't love you. I don't love anyone...' has the ability to make me tear up just thinking about it.
So they clearly know how to do swooping romantic gestures. KANK lacks those on purpose. It's about every-day approachable people. It's not a grand epic star-crossed lovers romance a la Veer-Zaara. It's a very different look at flawed broken people finding love together, finding their jagged edges fit together. I bought the love between Dev and Maya, but it's shown in small, little, everyday things: the way he stops littering and she starts. The way his humor softens when he is with her. The way she unfreezes. These are not larger than life characters. They are people you might meet on a street-corner. It would have been completely off to have them have sweeping romantic gestures.
"Hello...Thank you...Nice to meet you...I love you dammit!"
That quote encapsulates why I adore KANK and why it's no traditional against-the-odds weeping romance that Bollywood is so good at.
I've seen comments on the net about how KANK doesn't show that Dev and Maya are soulmates, OTP, One True Love to End All Loves.
It's true, KANK has no grand romantic gestures. But it's clearly on purpose. SRK can romance in his sleep. Just watch Veer-Zaara (from 2004!) where he, as Veer, made my cry like a five year old, and where the movie broke my heart and made me forget to breathe and just swept me away in its romance.
And Karan Johar has clearly made swoonily romantic movies before, with SRK. The gazebo scene in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is still the most romantic scene I've ever seen in a Bollywood movie (even beating out Tujhe Dekha scene in DDLJ starring no one other than...SRK :P. And then there is Asoka) and that's a tough competition. In the last KJ movie, KHNH, the scene with Preity crying into SRK's chest 'why do you love me so much' as he can't help but hold her, repeating 'I don't love you. I don't love anyone...' has the ability to make me tear up just thinking about it.
So they clearly know how to do swooping romantic gestures. KANK lacks those on purpose. It's about every-day approachable people. It's not a grand epic star-crossed lovers romance a la Veer-Zaara. It's a very different look at flawed broken people finding love together, finding their jagged edges fit together. I bought the love between Dev and Maya, but it's shown in small, little, everyday things: the way he stops littering and she starts. The way his humor softens when he is with her. The way she unfreezes. These are not larger than life characters. They are people you might meet on a street-corner. It would have been completely off to have them have sweeping romantic gestures.
