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iView: A. Singh (Fremont, CA, USA)

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“Khoya Khoya Chand”: A classic that didn’t get it’s due

This is the third time I watched KKC on a DVD. Yes, I get to watch most of movies now a days on DVD. I am not a professional movie reviewer, so have no compulsion to go see the movie in a theatre. Also, it’s a pain to watch the movie with small kids, and I have two of them. Yes, as you might have guessed by now, I am a middle aged man, stuck in the rut of life. Is that why KKC appealed to me?

I say that because KKC was largely ignored by critics and masses alike when it came last year. There were review here and there, but I couldn’t make out whether the movie was a classic like Hazaron Khwahishen Aisi or a bore. I know that Sudhir Mishra writes for PFC and most people on PFC were big fans of HKA, still when KKC it came it didn’t make a big splash on PFC, or let me say big enough because many of you did write some reviews and at least one of you called it a classic. Was it because a fatigue set in after HKA was praised to the skies and even became a decent commercial hit?

But my fixation with KKC goes even beyond that. I think it’s one of the all time best movies made in Indian cinema. It’s so hatke in so many aspects, breaks the norm in so many aspects that it should be considered a milestone and put in the hall of fame, if there Is one some day. The lead protagonists are flawed like no other characters in India cinema. We have seen heroes being flawed by choosing to become gangsters or heroines becoming prostitutes but they were always justified because of all the injustice that happens with them in the first half of the movie. I am not mentioning the roles where a big star paid villains. Yes Boos tried that to an extent but then got lost in it’s comedy and goody goody stuff.

KKC does it in hardcore, slice of life style. Nikhat uses the reigning super star to get a break in movies, super star uses her to satisfy his otherworldly desires. Jafar wants to use Nikhat to establish himself as a director; the lead actress tries to use Jafar and so on. The beauty of it is, they all have one thing in common, and they love cinema and the art of it and can’t live without it. Even though Jafar and Nikhat are the lead characters, all other characters have similar flaws or heroic characters, except may be Rajender, who is not that well fleshed out. The fact that they all come together in the end to make one last classic, even though they have hated each other is so poetic. It takes the movie stars and puts them on another pedestal where we feel like forgiving them for all their flaws and get to understand their mideset, their psyche. It helps to understand the public’s (includes people like us) fascination with stars, despite knowing every good and bad thing about them. Brilliant stuff, hats off Mr. Mishra. !

The story and the plot appeals at so many levels. Through Nikhat’s life, we see almost see life itself. We see how we are all kind of characters, slaves to situations and the environment around us with very little control over the shape the life takes. This is when you go deeper. Even if you stay at the surface and with the characters, the film is a beautiful literary piece on cinema, the making of it, the personalities involved, the art and craft of it, the period of 60s. In general, I have a weakness for stories that cover an entire life span, but this one is special. They way the changes are shown; particular in Vinay Pathak’s character is superb.

Coming to the technical aspects, I am speaking purely from layman’s perspective. I am not an expert on the art and craft and technicalities of cinema. But I am a big fan of Mishraji’s style of scene build up and shot making. The way the scene style starts, you have no idea where this is leading to. Like the marriage preparation scene, the way the scene starts, everything looks so normal, almost ‘Blue Velvet’ish. People are celebrating, dancing and singing, Jafar getting ready etc. You somehow get a sense that something is lurking in the background, but have no idea what it is, until the director chooses to show it to you. By then, you are almost dragged into the scene, mesmerized and dying to know what happened. You almost feel like following Jafar to Nikhat’s house to find out what happened, Brilliant stuff!

I must say, I did notice this style of scene build up in HKA as well. Mishraji, what style is this called? The only similarity I see is with Francis Coppola in Godfather movies. Like in the first Godfather movie, where you see the function where everybody is happy and celebrating while the business is going in the background. Am I making sense? Is there any similarity here?

But whatever, I love this style. The director is not treating me the audience as a kid and spoon feeding the scenes to me. It seems as if the director is busy trying to tell his story and it’s upto the audience to come along. I did go along and loved it.

The music is brilliant. Unfortunately when the music of KKC came out, there were 2-3 other movies that had the retro style music, OSO( some of it) and Johnny Gaddar. I loved JG’s music too, but KKC was really like going back to 60’s. If you don’t believe me, play the music in the night, like the golden oldies of yesteryears and you’ll see what I mean. I used to love listening to 60’s and 70’s Hindi music in the night, when it’s silent all around and even better if power is gone out and it’s all dark all around. KKC has that kind of appeal.

Of course, the way the songs have been used in the film, brilliant. The characters are lip synching in the movie but are not really lip synching but merely doing it for the movie scene being shot in the movie. Does it make sense? Perfect sense! After all, it’s 60’s and they are making a Hindi film. But Mishraji makes his movies in today’s times and doesn’t want to show bollywood style lip synch in his movies. If I remember correctly, HKA didn’t have that either.

Last but not the acting, what a stellar cast. Every cast member is a brilliant actor, not some big star and puts in great effort. Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak and Saurav Shukla are all brilliant. They capture the 3 key characters in the making of a Hindi film – the larger than life Super Star, the behind the scene secretary and the typical producer. Saurav Shukla, in particular was in another zone altogether. It seems he was living the character, beyond the written dialogue for him. Forget one liners, even one or two words he says, don’t appear like dialogues, seem like what the character would really say.

The only week point of in acting department unfortunately is Soha Ali Khan. I am sorry to say this, I did like her a lot in RDB, but she was a big let down here. She tried her best but this was an extremely challenging role and she did fall short in doing full justice with it. I am not sure why Mishraji chose her. He needed a more mature, more charismatic, more confident start actress, may be Madhuri in her prime or so. He could have signed anyone and it would have been a swan song for that heroine, but that doesn’t happen here for Soha. Sorry Soha, love you, I know you did your best. And I can understand if you received a lot of praise, but this was a once in a lifetime kind of role..

You see how obsessed I am with this movie. I failed to understand why it failed. Was it because Mishraji received too much praise for HKA? Was it because audience wasn’t ready or couldn’t understand a complex plot? Was it not properly marketed? What happended?

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