Circa June 2000. *Refugee *was released. It had two star kids
making their debut: Abhishek Bachchan and Kareena Kapoor. The
movie was
directed by once-upon-a-time famous and big director Mr. J. P. Dutta. The movie
was one of the biggest commercial flops of that year. However, some of the
critics did appreciate Kareena and Abhishek. History got repeated this year.
Another pair of star kids namely, Ranbir Kapoor and Sonam Kapoor make their
debut in another famous and big director SLB’s movie *Saawariya. *Movie has received mixed response(though the weight is
more towards it being one of the bad movies of this year and by SLB
respectively).
Coming to talk of *Saawariya, *by now almost every one would
be kind of aware of the story line. So, I will go into the other details. To
start with, I would like to mention that the movie is not copied in its
entirety from the *Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s *short
story *“White Nights” *on which the
movie is based.
Story of *White Nights *has influenced many around the world to make movies
based on it. It’s first for India. After reading the story of *White Nights, *I feel SLB failed
absolutely to bring about the soul and simplicity of the story on which he
based his supposedly magnum opus *Saawariya.
I will give my reasons for saying so eventually.
SLB did change the story a bit
(or may be more than a bit) which he claimed to suit the Indian sensibilities.
What? Are we Indians a special species that they get up and say *‘This is according to Indian audiences’
sensibilities’ *whenever they come up with something new that had never been
seen in Bollywood before? First of all, every one is going gaga over the
visuals of the film saying it is stunning and using all possible impressive
words(after referring Oxford dictionary) to describe the set and the location.
Yes, it indeed is visually outstanding but that is what is working against it.
Where is the story, sir? He got himself so engrossed in making it look so grand
that he forgot that he has to work on the characterization as well. I however
have problem with the set as well. It is so grand that after sometime it seems all
unoriginal and the worst part is you realize that. SLB had grand and lavish
sets in *HDDCS, Devdas *and *Black *as well but those were intertwined
in the story very well which seemed digestible unlike *Saawariya *where it looks nothing more than a dream sequence. Had it
been used just for a sequence, it would have been nice. In original story,
there is a name given to the place where this poetic story was set, St.
Petersburg. But, which city did you show? Where in India you have city which
has people watching *Mughal-E-Azam *on
a big screen whilst sitting on their boats? Where on earth it rains one moment
and starts snowing the other moment? Which *Masjid
in world has its devotees allowing a man clad in suit boot to enter its
premises and break into song and dance? Did you bother to tell us in which era
the movie is set in at least?
Now some say, you need to be
either die-hard romantic or poetry and art appreciator to like this. I am all
of those aforementioned things. Still, I did not feel an inch of romanticism
portrayed or art displayed or poetry rendered at any point in the whole movie.
You have a young man(Ranbir
Kapoor) coming into this unbelievably heaven like city which has no name and
there is no reference to what era it is. He befriends a pr*stitute(Rani
Mukherjee) who in her first meeting with charming boy gets smitten by his
speech and his innocence when he asks for milk instead of *daaru *at local bar. There is possible love blooming inside her
which she rejects when that love comes knocking at her door one day after
feeling dejected by another love which bloomed in his own heart for a beauty
(Sonam Kapoor) whose heart has fully bloomed love for another man(Imaan) who
has gone(God only knows where and why) for a year. This beauty roams the
streets of this postcard perfect city only in nights after fooling her
grandmother(Begum Para) into believing that its she who is fastened to her
through a pin whereas it’s the caretaker of the house. This young man, when not
trying to appease the beauty’s untimely laugh at one moment and hysterical
cries at the next is happily going on bringing smiles on the faces of roaming pr*stitutes
and his owner(Zohra Sehgal) who has not hugged any person in 37 years. And
when not singing lullabies to the crying babies, he does a towel dance after
shedding his clothes in the chilly night.
So, there are many questions
unanswered. The characters are not(daresay) poorly built but I would say not
built at all. You do not get the feel of any dialogue spoken, any act enacted.
If you talk just about performances, Rani is a good actor and she is completely
at ease in the role of a pr*stitute. She is getting *pro *at it after *Mangal Pandey
and *Laga Chunari Me Daag *(pun
intended). Salman has not much to do so lets’ leave him out of it. Poor boy was
kept in the movie(superstitiously) to bring good luck I guess. Zohra *Cheeni Kum *Sehgal is to some extent
repetitive.
Now the young man and the beauty themselves.
Sonam Kapoor is just ok. She does look uninteresting in the character which
demanded heavy duty emotions and compassion. Ranbir Kapoor shows immense
potential as an actor. I feel he is the only saving grace(if any) apart from
the beautiful songs. Now coming to songs, they all seemed to be popping up one
after the other. Imagine some eight songs in just two hours plus movie. What I
personally felt is that SLB should have made a *Saawariya *musical album instead of movie. Like Sonu Nigam used to
do with his *Jaan, Deewana *et al. It
would have been perfect had it been a musical album.
My actual rating: 1.5 stars
P.S. I recommend this movie strictly for lazy Sunday
afternoon where you can doze off while watching it and do not feel bad about
missing anything special.
