Rab Ne – Thoughts of a general movie goer
iView Author: SUBHASISH CHAKRABORTY (Bangalore,India)
Email: subhasish.schakraborty [at] gmail.com
As Antonio says in Julius Caesar (I’m misquoting) – “I stand here to bury Caesar, not to praise him”, my intent of writing this post is not to say Rab Ne is a great film.
Probably it’s an act in futility trying to say so considering the overwhelming sarcasm and negative reception in PFC and most of the popular media, but I would just want to show -case a different point of view for the same. Probably, Rab Ne is a case study for any budding movie maker as well as a critic because it’s a movie which is a mediocre one which could have been excellent with a bit of radical thinking. If someone were to just set a few things right and put together a few missing pieces together, it can act as an ideal blue print for commercial success in Bollywood while still making good cinema which has a story to tell and an idea to communicate. Can you say that often about Yash Raj films? I can’t and that’s why I write this post.
Let’s first see why there’s so much flack in the popular media.
The flak is there because the fundamental principle on which the end is rooted is regressive. The fact that the girl must love her husband back because he loves her is arcane and outdated if you like. Do you love somebody because somebody loves you? That’s hogwash of a theory. Neither do you come back to somebody because it’s your husband if you really love someone else. You love somebody because YOU love. The social values in India have progressed far beyond this sort of regressive mindset.
The other reason, the flak is there is because You have this over whelming presence of Rab everywhere. Nobody forced you to keep the “Rab” in the name and force it onto the audience ever so often. I’m sure there’s a more relatable way of explaining love than the fact that you see “Rab in the person”. It’d surely have gone better with the 80’s generation than the generation of today.
Also, the movie should have been made more believable by making Suri a sardar and making him wear a turban with Punjabi beard on his face. That way, one could take the fact at the face value that the girl doesn’t recognize her own husband in his alter ego.
The incandescent discussions have dissected the above mentioned points to the hilt.
Now, let’s see why I find this film worth reconsidering once.
First, for the first time, Aditya Chopra’s stable tries to capture some realism. The way they capture Amritsar, the place, the people and their chores, there’s a certain level of realism and integrity which is refreshing to see in a main stream movie.
Secondly, the protagonist is an ordinary man. He’s not your macho hero, nor is he the romantic that SRK usually is. He’s a middle class, middle aged man going through his boring uniform life, canvas shoes and ill fitting clothes, a persona more characteristic of herbs than that of a human being. What’s so special in such a boring ordinary man that he can be the protagonist in a movie aimed at being this year’s ultimate box office grosser? The simple fact that every man can have a dream, can love and neither dream nor love is necessarily ordinary and boring.
You have a vivacious girl who’s married to a boring guy but doesn’t love the husband. It’s a marriage made in circumstances. She falls in love with someone else and not necessarily she resents it. In fact, before the proverbial regression darts in towards the end, her character stays out as a really fresh character that’s also a realistic one. She’s no Barbie doll and she enjoys life like a twenty-something can and should.
The boring middle class man and the comedy arising out of his ventures is neither loud nor cheap and they manage to warm your heart. SRK actually endears him so much that You don’t want to see the usual macho-romantic hero to enter. A geek’s yearning for love from a beautiful young lady is again very realistic and common.
I liked the movie when I watched it. All the analysis and dissection was overpowered by the engaging quality of the movie while watching it. The movie made you laugh, cry, feel happy and everything. I don’t think it’s an easy thing to attain. Retrospect is one such thing, we can even argue that NASA never landed in moon and the entire Apollo thing is a hog-wash. But a movie that manages a spontaneous watch is worth by itself.
Why I feel it’s Aditya’s best effort at direction till date is because he chose to tell a different story. Actually tried to tell it in a very un Yashraj way. There’s a lot of relatable realism at places and it largely comes across as an honest attempt. Yes he’s no Dibakar Banerjee and we always knew that.
I think if the basic premise of the movie, that the heroine comes back to Suri, could have been changed in favour of more realistic possibilities of her obliging to her real love, it’d have been more readily accepted by the intelligent audience. She really needed Suri to be a sardar with beard and turban to be fooled by his alter ego. The definition of love could have been a little less spiritual and more relatable and it’d have struck a better chord.
You know, it’s nobody’s fault to be like Suri. Unattractive, unsmart, ordinary. But You don’t have to be SRK to be romantic. Suri didn’t have to be the text book Suri to win over his girl. If Suri had to get the girl, Suri should have expressed his love, may be in his own way which was different from Raj, but definitely not by throwing out a Sumo wrestler.
I liked this movie because it had a premise which is interesting and new, a girl falling in love with two variants of her husband. I liked it because it entertained and engaged. It spoke lingua franca. It spoke at a basic level with the audience. There was a connect that could be felt. It didn’t become a kafka attack and didn’t alienate the audience. It had a great performance from SRK as Suri the common man. It’s the SRK we’ve hardly seen. A believable performance from Anoushka and usual high quality production values which entailed a microcosm of Amritsar in all sincerity. If cinema is commerce and I know that there’s no “If” to it, it’s a nice attempt by a good director. Ultimately, it stayed rooted to the middleclass regressive values and paid the price. But by no accounts is this a movie that deserves the sarcasm it’s getting. Not liking SRK and not liking Yash Raj is one thing. An open source developer never appreciates Microsoft or Apple. But an open source developer does respect a Mac. That’s what I wanted to say. Bash whomever you want. Don’t bash cinema. Learn to separate people and their work. It’s a flawed but an honest work. Yes I did like it but I won’t be the only one.
Tags: aditya chopra, Anushka Sharma, Rab ne bana de jodi, Shah Rukh Khan
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
A welcome post and much needed one PFC.
i am not qualified to comment on the movie as i haven’t watched it yet and frankly nothing in it has appealed to me.
i do have an opinion on shahrukh, OSO, M/S Yash raj and fruit cakes.
As much the “smokin torch bearer” of modern new age cinema of the intellecuals for the intellectuals..
celebrated absence of any ryhme and logic in the movie i am afraid they have been missing in many of the over zelous or joyos posts.
PFC needs to brighten up you guys chose to be different. I take it that you are courageous hav conviction a twiated sense of humor and as faith would have it a little sadistic.
maybe that ugly huge blank that void which is gaping at you or the other around is the whole point.
there are three india in the same space all in different timezones. the circle made by the needle of the clock need not signify progress its that never ending orbit which means nothing.
1947 ia just too pre mature. 302(rifle) is our reality a symbol of an anarchic democracy i can laugh on the ppl who make Sing is king a super hit or choose the leaders we get.
where RNBDJ team has got themseleves in tangle is there target audiance which is pre dominently multiplex and of course NRI’s.
they should have taken sunney deol as suri.
let me bring Ghajini (aka Memento) into it.
I have seen Memento as well as tamil version of Ghajini.
Memento has to be one the most brilliant and intelligent movie made ever how can you guys be su psudo’s
i mean who in his right mind wil put 40 crores to make a main steam movie which threaten to demand a full eye ball attention of your grey cells.
i wud reserve highest bravery award for the one “who is not just content being intelligent but has audacity to think and demand intelligebce from indian audiance in the darkness”
Chalo, ab toh yahaan bhi comment chhodna padega ;-)
Well, as everyone’s high-lighting the negatives, I have to address that some of the dialogue really works too.
That whole, ”Aap toh Dhoom 3 hain” line cracked me up!
As did, ”kahin tum Krrish ki tarah udh to nahin jaaogi!” :-)
Vinay Pathak was so effective in the scene when SRK explains his situation at the begining.
It is a weak film, but it does have a few redeeming factors.
All said & done, SRK’s Surinder was a fabulous portrayal.
A lot of movies which we love, have a basic regressive characteristic. The thing is whether You see it when you see the movie or it strikes you way later. I think with Rab Ne, you see it even when you are in the theater. That’s where the failing lies. But it’s undeniably a good watch for the most part. Realism anyways haven’t been Indian cinema’s forte, nor have been progressive cinema.
Dude this comment was just to apologise for calling Jahan a lone warrior against the onslaught that PFC lashes out around the release of any popular cinema.
the intent of RNBDJ is so strong that u r bound to overlook its technical flaws coz the makers hv overlooked them,& inspite of it they hv gone ahead & told a story which seems that they believed was ought to be told & in the manner(format)it is to be told.Its no DDLJ but there wudnt b any DDLJ,ever.And acc to me the makers were nt even attempting it.MOHABBATEIN was a bad film.It didnt touch me.But RNBDJ is good cinema by a good team.And yes SRK is an actor & a powerhouse one at that.His understanding of collective human emotional psyche is immense(esp. the ‘healthier’ human emotions like love,patience,sacrifice,faith).Also there was some rawness in SRK’s performance,innocence that had been missing in the middle of his career & we hv seen emergence of a new SRK after Swades & its a delight.Go watch RNBDJ.All the talk abt ‘regressive’ end is bullshit acc to me..irrespective of all the reviews go & watch it coz of SRK..go & watch fr the team who gave us DDLJ & I assure u will not come back dissapointed.
Well I feel that you’ve nailed it correctly.The movie could definitely have been better but is certainly not so bad that some people are trying to project it to be.I think the critic in us is gaining more prominence these days than the pure unadulterated film lover.So this movie is an attempt to bring out the film lover in us once again.
Every movie stands alone… and deserves a fair chance. Only because SRK is in the movie it cant be bad or it cant be good. Cinema stands above all the biases.. and I respect your thought Subhasish.
i agree with Subhashish. I also think that there is a lot of negativity and pseudo intellectualism on pfc. Of course its not logical that she does not recognize her husband in the film. was it logical that in khosla ka ghosla they actually manage to sell the land to the builder and con him? no !!! but the film worked. rab ne as a film works. period.
@ subhasish –
i had no desire or intention to watch this movie. your post is intelligent and honest about the flaws, and the reasons for overlooking them. I will watch this film in a theater for you, for this post.
before this thread turns into an ad hominem attack on PFC (u are free to do so, of course), every time a release from a big banner or star comes out, there will be criticism and praise.
some of it will be well articulated, and others will be rants. it’s all good. let me remind all of you, in case you didn’t already know, that everyone has a voice. You are welcome to share your thoughts on any film (either supporting mainstream or championing smaller indie films, or suppporting or dissing both – ur call) through Projekt iView. But that’s like so much work and shit. Put up or shut up.
@ 8 Sajjad,
I disagree with you on negativity and pseudo part.
I don’t think most of the people here are intentionally trying to bring down RNBDJ (they may be few but then they are on every forum :-)).
.
The idea is to sift thru the comments and posts and figure out who is who. I can safely vouch that most of us are really passionate about movies. And many of them always channelize their passion thru constructive arguments and valid points.
.
vishesh – I am in the film business and the only reason is that i love films. I have been an avid pfc follower. But over the past few months I genuinely feel that a lot of people here get extremely personal and vindictive. I believe that a film should be judged purely on its merits or demerits. There is a clique on pfc that praises only a few films made by its contributors. I have no qualms in saying so openly. I know most of them. I still have no qualms in saying so openly. That is my personal opinion and perspective. You may or may not agree.
@ Sajjad -8
While, i don’t know if PFC is indeed a forum full of pseudo intellectuals, it certainly has an inclination to revive the spirit of new age cinema, often labelled as parellel cinema or in the most crude way as Art cinema… However, the writers are not biased against mainstream filmmakers.
Although i have not yet watched RNBDJ and so can’t comment on the film per se, i wud like to say that though the second part of Khosla ka ghosla might have seemed a trifle far fetched or too good to be true but it was in no way unreal or illogical. And these are the two major complaints of viewers from RNBDJ.
As far as Khosla ka Ghosla is concerned, the fact that maker didn’t make a superman out of KK Khosla while the congame was on or didn’t try to reform the charcter of Khuran despite his claim of being a maata raani ka bhakt, make KKG the bitter-sweet film it turned out to be…..
@ Manish – In your statement itself lies the dichotomy. My biggest issue lies with the mindset that mainstream cinema is bad or so called parallel cinema is better. pfc gets venoumous towards films like Singh is King of Rab ne. Its like saying “the more i trash mainstream cinema the better meaningful cinema becomes”. It should not be like that. If Dibaker is good, do Karan Johar pr Adi have to be bad? Fact of the matter is that more people like Singh is King than KKG. Thats a statement of FACT. Not an opinion. My biggest grouse with pfc is the mindset that “commercial cinema is evil”. Why can’t both co-exist.
@ Sajjad -
I don’t know if there is a paradox in what i tried to say but i never mentioned anythng in favour or against any filmmaker or put any particular form over another. But taking ur words, if Karan or Adi are good, then do the likes of Dibakar have to be bad? The only FACT is that the ilk of Dibakar is in a minority despite the heavy backing of PFC. And box office collections shud not always be the sole criteria for judging a movie, Kaagaj ke Phool failed but was it a bad movie (just for example sake)? And yes, mindset of commercial cinema is evil, if you have 50 crore you can earn 100 crore on the back of publicity blitzkreig and inundating multiplexes with 100 odd prints, satellite rigths and overseas collections but if you have 10 crore you can’t even make a movie, forget about signing Akshay Kumar
“My biggest grouse with pfc is the mindset that “commercial cinema is evil”. Why can’t both co-exist.”
Well some info for u. My article here on 90’s Bollywood movies had 817 comments. And the discussion entirely was on mainstream cinema.
Check it out.
http://passionforcinema.com/bollywood-in-the-90s/
So its not that we have a hatred for mainstream movies.
And there are equal number of people here praising RNBDJ.
@ Manish – Why is making money evil? Why is marketing a movie a bad thing? The same UTV that backed Race, also backed Oye Lucky and wednesday. If they had not made money on a “bad” film like race, there would not be “good films” like Oye and wednesday. Let me tell you that for every Dibaker that is a great filmmaker, there are 10 morons who think they are Kurosawa’s. So spare me the “commercial cinema is evil” crap. Fact is films cost money to make and the money has to be recovered. I completely stand by commercial cinema. I also love Dibakers work.
Here I would like to second Ratnakar.Yes people do tend to at times “attack” the so called mainstream cinema.But its not done intently & as a rule.There are a lot of people supporting RNBDJ and this is very clearly seen.I’ve myself been quite vehemently making my point on the movie.And yes one look at Ratnakar’s article on Bollywood movies of the 90’s would vouch for the fact that there are a lot of mainstream followers here too.
@ Sajjad
Lot of people support your view on the necessity of commercial cinema to co-exist with the more meaningful cinema.Come on I was excited before the release of RNBDJ, I am now excited & looking forward to the release of Ghajini & CC2C also.As much as I like my dal-roti-subzi, I would like to have a biriyani or chaat at times, thats how I view the situation.
Lets get it clear, i don’t think people attack mainstream cinema as such here. And get real guys, the fact is that barring Jodha Akbar and maybe to some extent RNBDJ, 90% of mainstream cinema, this year has been utter rubbish.
I mean if Drona, Kidnap, Hello, God Tussi Great Ho, Yuvvraaj, Race is what you have to offer as “mainstream” entertainment, please i am happy with sticking to the non mainstream ones.
Lagaan, Kabhi Haa Kabhi Naa, Jo Jeeta Wohi Sikander, Munnna Bhai series, Andaz Apna Apna, Hera Pheri, Koi Mil Gaya, Lakshya have proved that you can make a mainstream movie, that is entertaining and where you dont have to leave your brains behind.
I think the people’s ire here is more due to the fact that barring 1-2 movies, mainstream cinema, has been stagnating badly, and totally stuck in a rut.
Also when you speak of mainstream and non mainstream, it is not a clear cut B& W division.
For me KKG is as mainstream a movie as you can get. Yeah it did not have big stars, but it was a total entertainer from start to end.
Vishaal Bharadwaj’s movies are mainstream, barring some like The Blue Umbrella. His movies have songs, have a narration, have a story.
Even Johnny Gaddar was as mainstream as it comes. In fact Sriram Raghavan, made it as a tribute to the masala thrillers of teh 70’s.
The division between commercial and art house cinema, is not as distinct as it was earlier.
Now its like both forms of movies have merged, creating a new grammar, a new language.
Also i dont think that people here praise a movie just because it does not have big stars and no songs. By that criterion, most of RGV’s movies would have been hailed as masterpieces here.
@Ratnakar
I’m absolutely agree with you on post#20 and 21
According to Rediff the movie has had a good opening in the U.S & in India.Check out the links below-
http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/dec/15rabne-opens-big-overseas.htm
http://specials.rediff.com/movies/2008/dec/15box.htm
Of course its too early for YRF to celebrate.lets see what the other sources have to say.
What ‘mainstream cinema’ is everybody talking about? The so called ‘parallel cinema’ was dead long back. So, how do you define mainstream? Do you mean formula films? But even formula is dead. Do you mean films with big stars? Then where would you put a film like ‘Cheeni Cum’? It has big stars and an off beat story. Is it mainstream or not? ‘Jaane tu ya jaane na’ has all newcomers and a different story delving on a familiar premise. So what is that? mainstream or not? Or is successful mainstream? Then what is ‘Taare Jameen par’? off beat or mainstream? Does big budget make the film mainstream? What do you think of ‘Sawariya’? I think people must have understood what I am trying to say. There is no such division. I guess people are referring to glossy, song and dance movies about rich people that use the lingo of today’s urban youth and have a storyline that appeals to the NRI public. Is that it? and by the way, what is ‘psuedo intellectuals’? This term is used so many times on this forum. Nobody accused anyone of psuedo intellectualism when ‘Drona’ or ‘Yuvvraj’ were trashed. Weren’t they the ‘mainstream’ movies? People are said to be psuedo intellectuals only when they critise a ‘Dostana’ or an ‘RNBDJ’. What is this style of defending your taste in movies? It’s a bad practice. It should be stopped.
I think its not a very expensive movie unlike SiK, Drona, LS2050, Yuvi or Ghajini. So in terms of B.O. returns its should already be a safe bet, IMO.
.
Btw, did anyone saw Billu Barber promos when they went for RNBDJ? I saw New York trailers.
.
I miss US for this single reason. Before the movies, there are loads of promos. Sometimes they are the best part of the movie experience :-)
@ Vishesh
Yes I’m sure the movie looks to be a safe bet.Well even I got to watch only the trailer of New York.
So let people who’ve seen the promos of Billo Barber comment.But I have a strange feeling that the movie will turn out good.I’m saying this because I’ve seen the movie in Malayalam & Tamil and I know what to expect.
I also know Priyan’s take on the movie.Its going to be a simple tale told with minimum fuss.Irrfan Khan is the hero but SRK will rock with the climax
@ Sethu (26),
What I heard from the people who saw the promos, they have few items songs in the movie. Now that’s my concern what if instead of Billu Barber the movie becomes Billu Baadshah :-) (remember the 80s!)
@ Vishesh
Dude since I’ve not seen the promos I cant comment.But from what I know there’s one item song basically where Irfan Khan will get feted by the people of his town/village & maybe there may be another item song shown as part of a film sequence that SRK is shooting.If thats the case then I’m ok – but anything more than that would be way too much!!!
I found a camera copy of the trailer:
http://www.filmicafe.com/movie_trailer.php?movie_id=904&value=trailer
I have some hope left, they show SRK in only last 10 seconds out of 70 second trailer.
btw, I saw only the video, my audio does not work :-(