Salaam-E-Ishq : Analysis
Everyone is after Nikhil Advani with hammer and tongs. Salaam-E-Ishq (SEI) is being battered to pulp. Reviewers all over the media are slashing it more violently than the melons in their kitchen. Nothing I’ve seen yet, has much good to talk about SEI… except of course the performances… So here’s a short chitty chitty bang bang on why…
oz likes SEI…
Firstly SEI is not a bad film… it isn’t a very good film either… but for inspiring screenwriters, editors and directors – if you guys watch it closely… SEI has all the ingredients to be made into an Exceptional movie.
Yes. SEI has all the ingredients present in it to be a nice, feel good movie… much more sensible than the other substandard movies that have been raking in the moolah…
So what went wrong?
Parallel Tracks
The English have done it. The Italians are obsessed with it. The South Americans have perfected it. It is now the turn of the Indians to move into it… SEI and a few in the past (Yun Hota to Kya Hota)… have started making attempts… BEEP… the answers aren’t correct so far… they are getting close though…
What am I talking about?
Multiple Parallel stories in One Movie that overlap each other. Attempts are being made… but uh huh… close… but yet so far… It’s amazing to see that Hrishikesh Mukherjee achieved the balance of multiple stories way back in Musafir.
So where may things have gone wrong exactly?
Story Telling
Watch any of the parallel story telling movies… In each story, when it starts, you get a very distinct feeling, you have moved to a new track… a new plot… a new road… the parallel stories may over lap each other – which creates a kind of a euphoria in you, when that happens… but until that stage… the distinct dissimilarities are kept sharp and precision defined. Traffic is one movie where the director goes a step ahead in terms of colors for each different story track…
But here in SEI, it almost seems that a deliberate attempt is made to show that the stories are meshed one within the other. For Example: Govinda meeting Akshaye Khanna in the very beginning.
Its almost as if Nikhil wants to force the audience to see all the 6 tracks as one… believe that there are no parallel tracks…
And there in SEI loses the uniqueness.
And most importantly what the 6 parallel tracks now look like what is a typical movie architecture : A Main Plot line with many sub plots.
And that’s what SEI becomes a Main Plot – perhaps John-Vidya or perhaps Salman-Priyanka… and the balance 5 look like subplots… it’s the way stories have been told all over… it’s the way we look at Bollywood’s storylines… it should not have been the form SEI should have taken… the 6 tracks should have been 6 tracks and not look like 1 Living Room 5 bedroom house.
Flow and Cutting
As in the case of the previous point, the flow and cutting too seem to adopt a similar pattern. The result is that SEI looks like a David Dhawan (Aankhen) movie in terms of story flow and cutting.
This ofcourse comes with the 1-plot 5-subplot hangover. Scenes move so quickly that the story moves to another couple the minute you are about to get involved in the story of the current couple…
Not enough simmering time is given to those parts in the flow where it really could have mattered, enough, to suck the viewer in.
And sometimes it seems that Nikhil and the editor had no heart (mind boggling this!) to cut short some scenes. Any reason to have all those songs that were there and those over extended scenes particularly those of Salman-Priyanka?
The pre-climax song which moves from couple to couple and keeps rotating between them in an infinite loop. Example? Watch Priyanka heart broken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion… cut to other couple… cut to other couple… cut to Priyanka standing there hearbroken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motion…
What the hell?
Missing Condensation
The over the top scenes had to go… SEI on itself had enough punch to not have to lean on the typical Bollywood over the top humdrum.
But the condensation effect, rather the lack of it can be explained from your truly’s point of view in here:
Anjana Sukhani wants Anil back… Juhi is leaving Anil… Anil meets Priyanka at a coffee shop… head clears decisions made… Anjana Sukhani disappears and is never seen, Anil has to do the over the top stop the plane thingy…
oz Condensation Method:
The above expands to multiple reel, multiple minutes and slows down the pace, leaving many open ended questions…
Instead Anil could be shown leaving with Anjana for France. Juhi at the airport for India. Priyanka at the airport for India. Coffee shop. Anil still troubled with what decision to make. Talk to Priyanka… head clears… he lets go of Anjana’s hand as she boards the flight to France… turns back to go to the boarding gate of Juhi… where he could do all the tadatadatada…
According to me Nikhil missed showing Anjana’s heart breaking impact along with Anil’s ethical decision rolled into one… instead, as we say, Anjana drops out of SEI like a hot potato.
Of course all this is so easy to analyze now that the movie has been completed and rolled out.
But Nikhil Advani should be applauded for bringing in the story style that India is yet to experience. I’m a sucker for parallel stories and this was another opportunity. Simply sandbagging Advani for his mistakes, is going to push such parallel story tracks a couple of years further away from us…
In the end we lose. The critics with their ever short sightedness gain and retain their jobs…
Salaam E Ishq does have all the right ingredients to make it into a wonderful story. It falters in the flow and the way it is told.
One does wish that Bollywood can be given a crash course to tell multiple story tracks by the South Americans or even the English.
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
Anjana Sukhani wants Anil backUN:F [1.7.5_995]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Musafir! What a movie!! Loved Kishore’s unemploeyed episode. The bahu, bete in the rented house episode was ultimate. But Dilip Kumar hammed it up. Couldn’t connect with his synthetic histrionics at all.
btw, i remember that dilip kumar’s episode was an inspired version of o.henry’s the last leaf.. with some western classical played by salil choudhary in the background… it’s funny how you remember some bad movies/episodes more than the good ones…
The first half of SEI was pathetically slow…yawningly slow to some effect, couldnt understand if the story had a flow or if the story was playing the game of “statue/freeze” with the audience…to have 6 different stories for the heck of it didnt make sense…can understand it was another of those ” expeimental” movies…but in a nutshell SEI was just one story of a couple in different age forms/ different periods in their lives
1. Meeting the right mate ( Salman)
2. A budding romance ( Govinda)
3. Insecurity to commitment( Akshayee)
4. High testoritones driven Suhaag Raat ( Sohail)
5. 2 years after marriage Tragedy Strikes( John)
6. 15 years after marriage boredom strikes ( Anil)
This is the story of one couple..but we are being “experimental” so ahem lets add star value and a gimmick..6 stories
That is why the South American movies have mastered it and we are still learning…Still waiting for an average multiple track movie after Teen Deewarein
Ohh did anyone think SEI was on the lines of Run Lola Run on a high-level?
ya multiple tracks, that remind me of something.
i was taking deep breaths and doing “Yog mudra” to keep my cool. my mind was reflecting red images of blood soaked advani looking at me with guilt as i stabbed him, from the corner of my eyes i watched a family man taking his family into safe abode which start just after exit door.
i had my raised middle finger in my ears which accepted it with unprecedented joy, after suffering endlessly from that pain provoking back-ground score.
i thought i handled it all way better then advani did.
And we forget even Dil Chahata Hai was a multiple track one and it was pulled off well….was not necessarily…..they existed in different orbits and one fatal day they happened to meet and life changed forever…..or is it that just we mean multiple tracks
//Vasan
layercake films in India is nothing new…. don’t forget Satyajit Ray’s attempts with teen kanya, kapurush/mahapurush…
recently RGV’s darna marna hain, darna zaroori hain, Khalid Mohammed’s Silsilay, are the movies that could fall under the same category…
and the award winning ek mutho chobi (a fist full of films)
coming thorough the pipe line are dus kahaniyan, honeymoon travels…
@ Vasan Absolutely true..Amar Akbar Anthony and many other lost and found would come under multiple story format..wow you have opened a Pandora’s box Bala… Infact Oz made this great observation of subplots and multiple stories…arghhh someone please explain me..where does subplots end and multiple stories begin?
anurag,
I agree with your take on critics. It was cruel on the part of critics to crucify Nikhil. the irony is that some of the reviews which criticised the length of the movie, had 1500 words!
I have realised that most of the movie-lovers are more knowledgeable than these so-called critics. Just because every paper, channel has to have film review there’s a MOVIE-CRITIC!
I know one young critic, who started with a mumbai newspaper 2-3 years back and now his views are used for film publicity in press ads. He can’t be older than 24-25! I’m not talking about his age…but the experience in reviewing!
The main culprits are the movie-makers. They attach too much value to these people and groom them and make them demi-gods!
- The film concept and half of the story is copied from Love actually
- Director has been infatuated with Karan Johar
- Only one song is situational
- too lengthy
- Over hyped director and over hyped film, the director and cast almost took junta for granted and behaved as if they had a sure shot super hit in hand
- Main stories had jhel actors(Salman, John)
- ONly positive – Govinda and Anil kapoor’s tracks were good and mainly due to individual performances
IN SHORT A BAD FILM. AVOID
= Jwalant,
(1) “The film concept and half of the story is copied from Love actually”… I agree on the concept… but then if we go by your “judgment” Love Actually is copied from “the concept” of a thousand other stories, plays and fiction which have multiple love stories in one common envelope.
(2) “Half of the story is copied from Love actually”… Please enlighten me here by giving me ALL or SOME of the scenes in SEI that are a carbon copy of Love Actually…
anurag?!! did anurag comment on this? phir se comments are gayab? or did satish think oz is anurag? what is happening?
As much I can’t stand to watch Salman “act”, I’m also a sucker for this format so i will be giving SEI a look. Robert Altman’s “Short Cuts” is a fantastic film of this genre, vastly superior to “Love Actually” & “Crash”, which though eminently watchable, were a little contrived. Just my two cents…
= WB, whatever you are smoking… I want some of that ;) Satish made a mistake…
//Sirjee hum tho sutta peena bandh kar diye hain. Abhi to sirf sookha sutta peete hain, jaise Ram Balram main Dharam paaji ne piye hain.
Point Taken.
3.5 hours of bum ache seems far to much hassle for me esp as its a candy floss flick, i’ll wait for the dvd version
yes.. i agree.. helps us skip the part where we… watch Priyanka’s heart broken as the press clicks photos of her in slow motionUN:F [1.7.5_995]
Rating: 0 (from 0 votes)
Sorry, but I thought it was bloody gor-JUS!! (Except for the ‘Anil on the plane’ thing. UK airport security staff do not stand quietly by while people settle their domestic differences.) But then, maybe I’m just an old romantic who finds no hardship in watching extraordinarily pretty people swan about in pretty clothes. (Oh yeah, for what it’s worth, I thought John and Vidya were wonderful together.) Vxx
Watched it yesterday night…And Salman Khan…what was he thinking….when he kept using that weird accent whenever he spoke…and why did the director not stop or correct anything? That was really bad…Raaoooool…..
Oz, i am glad you did the post – i wanted to see salaam e ishq and i am glad i did. i liked it. i had all the time to watch it and wanted to watch it. felt that the characters were quite real and their emotions authentic – i loved the songs already, nothing else mattered to me for this film. i didnt go to watch the film hoping to catch any technical breakthroughs in cinema.
(..and i havent watched love actually.)
maybe i won’t see it a second time- but if they released a vcd version of just the songs might buy that!
Oh yeah. I forgot to say – my Bengali Auntie loved it too. As we left the cinema, she tossed her scarf over her shoulder and declared emphatically – “First time in long time I see good film!”
ok, here goes my four bits. No doubt the film is good in moments and parts but its so lonnnggg that at the end of it you feel thank god, its over. Nothing else.
Two tracks, Salman-Priyanka and Anil-Juhi-Anjana had nothing new. So predictable, everyone can guess. Remember the scene, where Anil meets Priyanka in the coffee shop and Priyanks tells him his story just looking at his face. Ha ha ha. Now that was some honesty. It was like that.
Some things are overdone. Like they have tried to put history to every story. John-Vidya (their hindu-muslim thing…going back to his parents), Govinda waiting for gori mem (people coming n telling him to move on n stop day dreaming)
To fit the songs the story is narrated in this fashion – 1st story starts, 2nd n then 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th…so introduction song. Love blooms in 1st story n then 2nd n 3rd….so a love song. Heartbreak in 1st story n so on….so a sad song. That was too much. To bring every story to same point and put a song.
Here goes 4 step my unwanted tips – 1) cut out Anil-Juhi and Salman-Priyanka tracks. 2) Cut out few songs. 3) Cut out the background bit of every story. 4) Now c the film with John-Vidya, Akshaye-Ayesha, Govida – firangi and Sohail-Isha….Fell it will look and sound much better.
OK, Nikhil should be given some credit for trying out something new. But he should get some minus marks too…they are trying out new things but even then it is copied. It seems he fell in love with his product. Too much importance to Salman-Priyanka story cz they are the biggest stars. So, the film is promoted big time with Salman-Priyanka. And thats the weakest story. Also, its like putting six bollywood stories and trying to connect all of themsomewhere…iski girlfriend aur uski biwi ko behan bana do, isko uska manager bana do, iski biwi ka uski gadi se accident kara do aur shaddi me last wale ko bhi mila de. Grow up, kids. And we r not kids also. Can we some new stories ??? Waiting eagerly for Eklavya now.
Had gone to c the film in evening show. In short, felt it should be renamed as “IS SHAAM KI SUBAH NAHI”
see? it’s not so hard to tell from the trailers that this is worth a pass.. show me something better than a bunch of people doing naach-gaana on the streets of london/new york/mumbai or in the swiss alps or in a shaadi or a cultural show or a mehendi or a sangeet or a… @#%@^!$^!^!!!!! somebody teach these filmmakers how to cut a goddamn trailer so they can actually pique the audience’s interest instead of luring them in with “stars”. sure love stories aren’t exactly my favorite genre but i enjoy an occasional DDLJ (or even veer-zaara!).. let me see stars actually being utilized to make a good SPOOF film and i’ll watch it, as i’m sure others will.. sick of being played like a pawn….
Oz,
I am saying half of the stories are copied not the scenes. Do you want example of storis copied from Love Actually?
The fact is film was screwed by the director and it has been outright rejected all over the world. With such an impressive star cast and best available technical team what else can you say. Certainly audience are dumb wont work here since it did not get any. Film is rejected at concept level itself. I agree with you that one more reason was trying to mix all stories and length.
= Jwalant, yes please give me similarities (so now they are “similar” but not “half of the story is copied”?)… of those stories between love actually and SEI… would love to hear you POV.
Phoenixnu – Another reason was promo. It looked like a brick wall was mouthing the evergreen lines “Salaam-E-Ishq meree jaan…”. By God, there was no expression at all on Salman’s face. Only he can pull it off!
Oz,
similar/copy/borrowed choose what you like, watch love actually again check out colin firth(govinda), Emma thompson and Rickman ( Anil/Juhi), Salman – Freeman ( Porn star replace by extra)
If you like it fine, for me it is trash.
Good post, oz. I too felt the same, except for your sub-plot idea. It’s a tolerable movie, but definitely a waste of money and stars. I liked only the John-Vidya story.
Salaam E Ishq does have all the right ingredients to make it into a wonderful story. It falters in the flow and the way it is told.
Bingo!
I am a sucker for experimentaton too.. esp for this kind of a format… and so am glad SEI came about. But it could have been so so so much better…
I will applaud Nikhil’s spirit in venturing out for such a movie, but I will definitely criticize him for the way he has managed to squander a good concept and some good resources.
I ABSOLUTELY HATED IT……so much that i really dont know where to start and where to end! What was Mr Advani thinking??? :-?
If we’re talkin about LOVE ACTUALLY, i do wanna know, how can the same formula (of 6 diff stories) be portrayed so beautifully in 90 mts and our very own Nikhil desperately tries to say the same in something like 210 mts and still fails terribly!
AND, cut at least 2-3 songs!! :o…still couldnt manage to say what he had to…..
AND, from what i heard, he already edited 30 mts earlier!! :o
AND, still dint manage to say what he really wanted to!!!
AND, one story (sohail-isha) had to be mercilessly chopped off – without even an approriate ending!!!
AND even though some actors like John & Vidya Balan had precisely 4 dialogues, in fact Vidya probably had 1, it was NEVERENDING! YAWN!
When does that Anjana fall in LAV with anil kapoor??? HUH??
Anyway, i can go on and on! really!!!! but i rather not get into nikhil’s shoes ;)
I think Nikhil required a 5 hour movie to say what he wanted to …. He thought maybe “Kal Ho Na Ho”!! so he wanted to say like….EVERYTHING in one film!
THE DIRECTION & EDITING LOOKED SO AMATEURISH!
Lastly, thank God for Govinda & Shannon…
i thought the first half was kind of boring..but then second half was good. butt overall i like it..the songs were truly amazingg.
juhi chawla was the bomb diggity foolss.:)>-