Jodhaa Akbar
iView Author:
Ramesh Ramaswamy
(PA/USA)
Email:
cdrakenc [at] gmail[dot] com
Jodhaa Akbar
Bollywood’s wedding song for Aishwarya Rai is given epic treatment in this Ashutosh Gowrikar(Lagaan, Swades) effort that is an old-fashioned description of the fictitious love that develops between an imperial ruler and the girl sent to him as treaty wife. Gowrikar seems to have learnt to talk the language of the west but this still doesn’t quite sell arranged marriages of convenience as some kind of epic love.
A convincing representation of debutante innocence from Aishwarya Rai(most beautiful woman in the world) or of savage ferocity touched and softened by the ingénue, by Hritik Roshan might have taken the story into a passionate and altogether likable direction. History however seems to have gone against Ashu because of course being newly wed, Ms Rai Bacchan’s mind didn’t seem to be quite in the romance with another man.
What we see is an all too familiar portrait of the hyped romance being more hype than romance and of us wishing for Aahnold ‘s brand of woodenness because at least he whields a mean sword. (Hritik does an unconvincing Conan in the initial parts of the film.)
The movie is not without its redeeming features. The costumes and the measured drama in it actually work to make it a viable historic epic(even ifthe film is indistinguishable from the million others that computer generation has made possible).
The cinematographic images are archetypal and feed into a national mythology that counts “India” as a continuity from Alexander’s to Ashoka’s , Akbar’s and then the British empires , conveniently ignoring the dispairity in boundaries (The Akbar empire never quite crossed the Deccan plateau, Bakisthan objects). Or the Gupta, Kushana or the Turkish empires in between.
The songs are nice if slightly infantile (tu hai raja tu hai raja tu hai raja tirikitathom? Really!) and the picturization is good. I love the folksy colors and authenticity of the costumes.
What doesn’t work, though is the central thesis of the film. Both Akbar and Jodha never quite leave their comfortable cocoon of material comfort, except when politically expedient (for each) . Motivations are not quite fleshed out. Jodha just plays games of female intrigue, as she would, as someone disempowered in a testosterone driven society.
Akbar’s motivation is never explained. Does he see Jodha as a representation of the nation that has accidentally fallen into his lap? Does he see her as a wild animal that needs taming? We don’t quite know. He just walks like a zombie into the relationship with a stranger with alien habits. This is weakness we never think of as possible for one of India’s greatest emperors.The idea fails to start up as the engine that drove the motivations of the mughal empire to Jehangir’s Pax Indica.
One does not have a problem with the Muslim ruler taking a hindu wife from one of the Rajput families. It is immature political analysis that raises irritates. There is no mentionof the shia sunni issue, the turk mughal issue, the rajput/ vikramaditya issue, or even mentions of the Koh I noor or the peacock throne of delhi. The problem seems to stem from making the hindu wife the all encompasing motivation for all of Akbar’s reforms. It was just one of the consequences of Akbar’s realpolitik..
Akbar’s great grandfather (tamarlane)’s empire in central Asia had broken up by the time Babur and Humayun had suffered disasters in their adventures to capture Delhi. Unlike the Sunni Turks, the Mughals(who were mixed race Shias between Mongols (from Czengiz Khan ) and Turkish and Iranian dynasties of noble soldiers) showed a marked reluctance to loot and pillage. The exchequer was empty. Akbar, thus was forced to make Agra(instead of Kabul or anywhere else in central Asia) the center of his possessions.. This real history makes for bad romance, but would have been a compelling movie.
In the end the film threatens to sink into obscurity , except for all the controversy created by hindu groups who seem to fear everything from that Muslim boys in their mohalla will do like Akbar to Northern (Indian) imperialism on the rest of the country.
Jodha Akbar: Boring , poor stunts and Aishwarya Rai- BAcchan doesn’t seem to be all there..
Filed Under
Movies, PROJEKT iVIEW
Loading ...
26 Responses to “Jodhaa Akbar”
Leave a Reply
(Ref smilies)
Our Comments Policy : The following kinds of comments are troll capped, blocked and/or commenter's identity reported publicly: Verbal abuse, personal attacks, hate statements, spam, trolls, advertising. Please assist us in keeping the comments clean. Use the contact form to let us know if you find unwarranted comments on PFC. Thank you.
-
Advertisement
-
- Sorry Bhai R
- Irresponsible medium:Shame on me to be an aud
- Oye Dibakar, Dibakar
- I’m mad as hell and I won’t take it any
- Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! Reviews from re
- Catherine Deneuve in India - Win World Cinema DVDs
- OLLO is an incredible study of human character
- Who Is This Terrorist?? An answer
- Oye Lucky! Lucky Oye! Reviews from readers
- Oye Dibakar, Dibakar Oye!
-
Advertisement
Hottest Today:
Recent Posts:
One of the better reviews…clearly marking out where the problem lay fundamentally (and not cinematically) in the way it is made.
And yes, ‘Tu hai Raja’ was really really stupid. And so was Jodha-Baai singing ‘Mann-Moahna’ with an Awadhi-lingo…
ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha
ha ha ha ha ha
:-j:-j:-j
mmm…but just what is your point..that Gowarikar should not attempt history ever again??!!
I saw the movie at an American theater here in SF bay area, California, just to show my support for bringing hindi blockbusters in regular american theaters. Amusingly the lady at the counter pronounced the movie as ‘Yoda Akbar’ - couldn’t stop laughing! That’ll be really cool, mix of star wars and Indian history! I am sure, at least it would have evoked little more interest than the boring 4hrs history lesson AG has created!
“Bollywood
french,
thanks for writing. why is calling the love story fictitious a ‘tall claim’? even the existance of jodhabhai is not part of mughal history. I was only reiterating succintly, ndian the objective view.
Re : Bollywood,s wedding song for rai, the snarky undertone aside, in my review, this is precisely what the film turns out to be…allthose people dressed up singing dancing and rowing and dhowing …all to ease a gal into married life…accidentally , ms Bacchan…or not….
re akbar ” finding himself” in his love for jodha, im as much a believer in true loe as the next mun, but the last thing I would have expected of a full grown imperial conqueror prone to taking women like property..not his fault…tempora mores etc…is needing to find virginal love in an treaty wife.
even if this was what truly happenned(and its not) the motivations would be more like a distancing from the decadance in a harem, than easing into an arranged marriage setting.
Maybe im just faulting gowrikar’s vision in imagining the circumstances of how a putative romance happenned.
hope that clarifies.
cheers.
indraneel
I can say I didn’t like the film, can I say Gowrikar shouldn’t attempt historicals ever again? Certainly if I hated the film…which I didn’ just thought it boring.
but should a filmmaker can makejust about any film he wants.People have to like it tho
@cdrakenc - not necessarily man..people may not make movies to please all..they make movies that could be seen by all..but liked..wow man that then will have to be something like what Manmohan Desai or Farah Khan does!!
I see JA as a sincere try to put forth an unknown story in a grand but understated manner…Yes, it looks for popular liking..but so what??
by people I also mean historians and critics…and not nescesarily the masses.
Yet another post on this mediocre film? Lukewarm romance, laughable fight sequences, and we are left with Hritik’s muscular unclothed torso and Aishwarya’s navel and belly revealing costumes.
“Aishwarya
Hi PFC,
Review is good, but the movie was targetted to be a soft romance, and romance doesnt come revealing everything, navel…it is a soft love story and not ramgopal varmas rangeela, though not accepted by historians, i can call it as Shakespeare Star wars.. Good Job Ashutosh.. we liked it no matter what others Say.. never to miss movie.
History is something that a historian looks at, some call the death an end and some call it a new beginning, but stories are to be told and discussed. Who knows about Akbar, if he doesnt made a movie. So my kudos to Ashuthosh…
Most of the time it was a ghaghra and not a sari and those were worn below the navel by the nautch girls of the time! Anyway, how many bellies and navels of sari clad women in India have you seen?
We knows about Akbar from books, better that or him being forgotten!
or a gaghra…
I didn’t think the woman costumes were too revealing..or hritik’s body was displayed exploitatively.
people are allowed to like the film( in my case, dislike it).. as they wish.
Im not sure PFC has a view one way or the other about this.
I lost the number of times I yawned through the film… I cannot believe the movie could be that boring!!! Lagaan is by far a better movie just coz it never takes the easy-way-out. Yes, despite the end.
The problem with the movie was its hero. Akbar, the Great is so damn fucking Great that there can’t be any obstacles that are too big for him. So we have not a single worthy-of-Akbar conflict in the movie either during his coming-of-age or the coming-of-age of his romance with Jodha bai. That leaves the story-teller with reels and reels of exploring how amazing a man he was and how simple and touching their love was. So? The point was??? At least if it were meant as an experience…but no! The medium was a conventional conflict-overcome-goal-oriented story without conflicts or goals. Sigh…
Another problem I had…(and I generally have lots in characterisation) was it just me or someone else too felt that he kept doing those liberal-pro-Hindu things JUST to impress Jodhabai??? And why did Jodhabai get impressed ONLY when he was tolerant of other religions? Akbar was a man of much greater virtues than that. The film too skims on his humane-ness. Whatever happened to his just-ness, his tolerance, his keen eye and support to art and craft, literature and most importantly his social and political vision. Uffff, I could go on and on!!! I mean HOW COULD YOU sell Akbar SO short!?!??? Here is a man FULL of heroism and all u can harp on his muscle and tolerance of other religions!!!
And by BIGGEST grouse. The urdu in the film!!! My My! The number of complaints I had heard abt the complicated Urdu in the film had me really tingling with anticipation for some great lyricism. But what do I find??? Some obscenely mundane phrases directly translated into Urdu by the use of 20th Century Hindi to Urdu Dictionary. The dialogues were ghastly and an absolute PAIN to the senses. Switch to plain-speak Hindi, switch to translation. Obscene, I say! I am not even talking of the pronounciation or the intonation of the actors. The very lyricism of royalty was missing. Leave alone royalty, the very lyricism of Urdu, the language was missing! Akbar and the others should have been mouthing poetry not sentences gruesomely put together with some arbitrary high-sounding Urdu! Unforgivable!!!
Oh! How much do I rant? The only pardonable mistakes, Hrithik and Ash. Both looked too good, too breath-taking. But Ash’s character was a nice extension of that of HDDCS and Devdas and Hrithik, my God forget it. Kept thinking he will drop it all do a Dhoom-2 any moment! Whatever happened to method acting and all that jazz???
Oh! I am too disappointed, good I didn’t have to review it.
I was thinking about how the film might have worked …or been less boring…
AG should have made it into a full musical revue. Akbar singing his pieces in courtly urdu, jodha in royal hindi(ie not dialect)…and the songs and dances as they are.
even the bad muslim chaplain and the wet nurse dressed in black could sing out their intrigue.
That would have been wagnerian.
@cdrakenc
navel revealing sarees are a contribution of cinema. If I am not wrong, this style of saree cladding was first introduced by V.Shantaram in one of his movies (was it ‘Shakuntala’?)
@Fatema
I completely agree with what you have written. Of course, I handn’t expected much in lyrics given that its Javed Akhtar but diaglogues, I had hoped might have been better. Unfortunately, it is too pedestrian to handle. Absolutely Unforgivable!
“navel revealing sarees are a contribution of cinema.”
Thank you cinema!
but i doubt if the credit is exclusively film’s.
http://www.4to40.com/images/culture/rajasthanrajputpainting/miniature_painting_kota.jpg
@cdr - that is a dancing girl and not a regular Rajput lady. I agree that Ashutosh modeled his Jodha after a nautch girl!
The word Nautch girl itself is post british. the unsavory associations (Lady/whore) are victorian in nature.
I do not believe that there was this Nautch/homegirl distinctions of dress in 14th and 15th century India. W also know very little about Jodhabhai…not least whether she was the Raja’s child from his only wife or whether, like many court in the time, the court of Amer was polygamous.
IMO, Jodhabhai’s charecter wasn’t modelled after a coutesan, more after an illustration from the Amar chitra katha(this is also what gowrikar claimed.) which is as indian as on can get…
Sorry to disagree. There were dancing girls even then - may not called nautch girls.
Here are true blue Rajasthani ladies, notice the ghaghra sitting at the nip in the waist - that is above navel.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/SSEAL/AsiaExhibit/lady.gif
http://chdmuseum.nic.in/art_gallery/images/miniature_3018_large.jpg
Let us face it, Ashutosh wanted to exploit Aishwarya’s assets - and they were not that great - she does seem to have developed a belly that was needlessly shown.
the first link has the following narrative to it:
“Lady gathering flowers from the Parijata tree
Miniature painting. Modern. Rajasthan state. ”
The second one says “Lady with a lotus, opaque water colour on paper, c 18th century A.D., Rajasthan”
These are not 15th/ 16th century paintings.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.craftsinindia.com/images/Image4.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.craftsinindia.com/newsletter/newsletter-05/index_march.html&h=328&w=240&sz=16&hl=en&start=371&um=1&tbnid=VGQrMDOTFsZbAM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=86&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRajasthani%2Bminiatures%2B16th%2Bcentury%26start%3D360%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26suggon%3D0%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:officia%26sa%3DN
Try the 4th one down - 16th century, ghaghra at the waist.
not to quibble , but this one says DECCAN india , and the lady is holding a musical instrument(a rudra veena)….surely this is not a lady of the home from rajasthan, it’s a dancing lady of the court dressed warmly,from deccan.
cheers.
Sorry - it does not say Deccan India but 16th century Rajasthan, if she is dressed warmly then Jodhaa was dressed most un-warmly indeed. Why do you not post some AUTHENTIC pictures of non-dancing ladies from Rajasthan who had their ghaghra tied 4 inches below their navel? I am afraid Amar Chitra Katha may not cut it. At least we agree that there were dancing girls in the 16th century http://passionforcinema.com/smilies/yahoo_bigsmile.gif