On 6/19/2010 8:42 AM India Time, _Gopal Srinivasan_ wrote: > Surprisingly, AR Rahman delivers his most uninspired score in years, > which probably explains why Ratnam wasn't inspired enough to shoot his > songs as innovatively as he usually does.
Another example of a critic putting the blame on wrong head. ARR's music is good, but if songs get used poorly, that is not ARR's, but the director's fault. SPOILERS ALERTS ARR's music appears misfit in the film, if that is what the reviewer meant, I agree with him. But the blame is on poor script of the film leading to a lack of confusion from the side of director that he didn't portray the characters with a certainty. In a wish to show changes of hearts, Mani has made a khichdi of characters and their personality traits, and that made the great purpose lyrics of Gulzar, thereby the music, become misfit. the characterisation of Beera is not shown such that he is not showing any class consciousness, not doing anything good for people or masses as such. All those long exchanges trying to prove that beera has 10 heads like ravan, meaning 10 personalities, fail to convince the viewers because we don't see beera doing things in tune with those 10 heads. His avenging his sister by torturing and be-arm-ing the runaway-groom is personal vandetta. surprising, when the to be groom gatecrashes the to be bride's house while marriage is going on, didn't you all notice all that exchange about cutting the hand that has touched beera's sister? then, what great new thing beera does by chopping the hand later on, when he could have cut the hand right there, so was his il-reputation? Does anyone remember Dayawan by FirozKhan, based on that smuggler's life? remember the scenes when Vinod KHanna was shown literally helping people in any many ways, and people crowding him, swarming him, singing praises for him. I think that was the proper display of a man of the "mass". Mani, in ravan, failed to depict that. And that's why Beera as well as thok de killi, along with their depictions of 10 faces of beera, and along with "door hai dilli" "not getting what we deserve, getting only crumbs", "chheen ke le le apna hissa", all seems falsehoods and lies just because the visuals don't leave any such impression on the viewers. Thok de Killi is one of the rare songs so superbly penned by Gulzar saab, because you all know that gulzar is a man of emotional feelings of heart, and is not a person for thinking brain, Gulzar has never written "social issue" lyrics earlier, the way Sahir used to write, and here, when gulzar does debut as social issue lyricist and ARR gives appropriate music for that, it is mani that failed to make that greatness of lyrics and music get reflected in the film on account of poor script. khili rey, was a personal song, that was shot ok with nice steps shown by Aish, the song in the film didn't touch the heart of viewers the way Humse Hai Muqabla's small singing pieces had done. Firstly, this song had been shown in the running, whereas the song clearly hints a reaction, response of blossoming of a lady on her first encounter with a male, but the film shows all the long vocal bed scenes of Aish and Dev before that. The scene had so unimaginative boring dialoge that that was more of a comedy effect instead of the melting of the lady - the way it was superbly shown in Roza when the anger of the lady leads to ess oh aar aar wye sorry. so, again, nobody remembers after a few seconds of the end of this sweet lovely song, that such a song has been there. Utter wastage by Mani. And Raanjha. What a superb film version. An entirely new thing, new concept, new style. What an effect that song created on listening and seeing in the visuals. great picturisation. but, again, the song is talking about a girl and guy falling in love with each other, whereas the film never shows Aish feeling love towards Beera, it was one sided sexual desire in the body of Beera towards aish. So, neither Beera was in love as such towards Aish (he just desired her physically) so he was not at par with platonic love of Raanjha, and Aish was no way in love with Beera or felt anything but hatred towards him, so Aish was outright not Heer. And that's why this song failed to convince viewers. An absolutely misfit song. the same goes with Behne de, such a lovely song, people are talking about its great picturization, but it is unconvincing to me. Remember Dil Se, the way Manisha keeps on manipulating Shahrukh, and Sharukh getting dragged towards her, well, i think something like that scenario was fit for behne de. but here there was no background, no build up, neither this 11th head of beera that loves a lady was ever shown, and no private exchanges happened between Beera and aish that would have broken through beera's rustic shell and would have gone into his heart. All that fearlessness of Aish I am not convinced of, as while she sees eyes to eyes with beera and talks openly, she still keeps on murmering "i don't want to die". that dialoge is a misfit for the personality of Aish and that again leaves viewers convinced. She doesn't want to die, then why does she jump all the way down the fall that would have killed her? why didn't make any attempt on Beera's life before ending her own? So, when beera appreciates the false fearlessness of aish, it sounded false, and thus beera falling in love towards aish "on this pretest" became a falsehood, and the song Behne de went dud. Killing this song is the deadliest sin of Mani that he can't be ever forgiven. and now my fav, Kata Kata. Actually, I couldn't place the chronology (timing) of the song in the turn of events in the film. It was probably the first incident in the chronology script, the film originated and proceeded from this scene. in his desire to draw inspiration from ramayan, Mani went ahead drawing parallel between Surpnakha's mockery and disfigurement leading to Surpnakha's bro ravan kidnaping seeta, Mani failed to understand and adapt the basic ethics of Ramayan, that it was a clash of rakshas culture in which any male or female can meet, talk, date, have sex with anyone he/she wishes, versus the rama's culture of chastity virginity and monogamy. In ramayan, it was surpnakha trying to seduce lakshan first and then ram, and she was dumb enough not to take their soft hints that they don't want to do it, so she gets angree, tries to hurt seeta, that leads bros disfiguring her. But the movie's Surpnakha suffered from being portrayed good. She was ideal sister of hindi films, and movie's ram, dev, unprovked shatters her life by spoiling her marriage, its background was never shown why and how Dev would go to such extreme, when he himself is a loving happily married husband, that she breaks in to the marriage ritual in such an ugly manner, shooting among the vast crowd of children and females, and further arranges that this surpnakha was the only one taken to police thana or somewhere where policemen rape her overnight. ye to hajmola lene ke baad bhi hajam nahi hua. If this was Dev, he was never ram to begin with. It became one of the dozens of person vandetta films that senior bachchan had played so well, and it went poles apart from ramayan. And while the viewer was confused realizing all these cause and effect, consequences, chronology of events and re-judging whom to put blame on, kata kata song happens. We were not ready for it. There were massive script transformation was taking place that we need to understand to appreciate the film, and we were shocked as our Mani's Ram being actually a ravan to begin with, and song came and went and we wished that it gets over soon so that the film can go on. the things described above happened after the song, but those were such a drastic about turn in the film that we quickly forgot the song and continued understanding the climax. -- It is the foolishness of Mani that is reflected everywhere in the film, and thus, Mani so systematically lets down a lovely work by ARR and Gulzar. -- Rawat
