Circle of Light. Review on Provoked

Over the last one year, there has been so much of bombardment of Hollywood movies(all kinds of) that it was really an excellent idea to watch desi flicks for a change. Evenings during vacation were meant

for Hindi movies and the theme was based on "Sufferings of Women in India".

The DVDs picked up and watched were SEEMA(starring Nutan & Balraj Sahni), UMRAO JAAN(Aishwarya Rai, baby Abhi and shetty Anna) and PROVOKED(again starring aishkarya why and Nandita Das) in that order.

SEEMA is such a wonderful movie. ITs highly recommended although I failed to get the message except for sympathizing with the characters and evergreen melodious songs. Tu Pyaar Ka Saagar Hain. Ahh. Manna Dey

UMRAO JAAN on the other hand is yet another pompous display of glamour instilled with banavti dialogues. Although it had some excellent background scores and Oh yeah I could once again catch a glimpse of Divya Dutta(Her face seems as fresh as when she used to tell the chutkules(jokes) on DD in late ’80s). BTW, I can give you a hint of the kind of movie it was. THere is this background line going on forever in the movie. It goes like this.

Agle Janam Mein Mohe . Bitiya Na Kijo.  (Let me not be reborn as a girl child)

At times, it gets on your nerve. and once that stops, there is Shetty Anna with his always ready-to-fight kind of utterrances. Overall can be avoided. Still feel ’Chandni Bar’ is the best portrayal of suffering of an Indian woman. Tabu has created a benchmark performance.

Most of the times I try to avoid Wastewarya Rai’s movies(not yet watched Guru, Taal and so many other so called gud ones) but after having stayed awake all along Umrao Jaan even though disinterestedly, had built up enough courage to stand her for another 90 minutes. And then there was the consolation of Nandita Das in PROVOKED.(idk why most women do not like Nandita Das while all men Love her).

Provoked is based on an inspirational true story about Kiranjit Ahluwalia(played by Aish). Deepak(Naveen Andrews, the Bombay Dreams guy) who works in a postal Office in UK gets married to Kiran from Punjab and returns back to lead so called happily married life. Unfortunately, Deepak turns out to be a drunkard who ill-treats his wife, abuses her all the time, both physically and mentally, beats her up for no reason with shades of being a good human to outsiders at times. In spite of giving birth to two children, the saga continues. Like many other typical Indian women, Kiran suffers through all the torture believing the Pati to be the only God, Good or bad in her Life.

Anyhow, after 10 years of suffering from the drunkard, one night, she sets him to Fire and attains true Freedom by way of incarceration in a London jail on sentence of Murder. An English inmate and the SouthHall Black Asso. sympathise with her story and try to make one last appeal to release Kiran on the grounds that Kiran was provoked to murder her husband and did not have any intention of murdering on her own.

What did I find about the movie?

-The movie is Loud but bold.

-Aishwarya Rai does a sincere job. Still could not relate her to be the troubled housewife.

-Nandita Das is as usual excellent. Among the many typical activist kind of women who believe that in order to liberate other women, one has to liberate oneself by showing off(smoking all the time), Nandita as Radha Dalal stands out. Wonder how she would have fared in the role of Kiranjit. BTW, some compliment for Aish, her Punjabi accent is flawless in the movie.

-Rahman’s background music has lot of effect but still Loud.

-Photography is excellent, especially the MURDER scene. ’No songs’ makes it even more real

-Naveen Andrews as the villian did the job very well forces you to hate him to the core.

-The inmate friend(English woman) of Aish creates a lasting impression.

The movie kept me glued all the time. That was one reason why the ramblings. Give it a try. It might just inspire you with new ideas if not with performances.:-)