Why Is Dostana Still Bothering Me?
This post is sponsored byKaran Johar recently said in an interview to a city daily that he pushed the envelope with Kabhi Alvida; he wants to tear it with Dostana. This isn’t the first time he has expressed a desire to break from his own moulds. Often in interviews he is seen applauding ‘good’ cinema, and if you indulge in a bit of reading between the lines, aspiring to make some as well. Despite the debacle of Kabhi Alvida, one couldn’t help but respect his struggle, as one perceived it, to risk it all.
Then after a lot of talk came Dostana, that seemed like a candy rom-com till news of its’ negotiating with the ‘envelope’ started to do rounds. The movie released with the expression of bonhomie and shock in different strokes by different folks. The shock part was not because of the ‘bold’ theme but because some people had dared to call it pro-choice.
Now, to be fair, the movie doesn’t particularly lampoon gay men as claimed by some critics. The genre is such that it sort of makes light of everything, including love, child welfare and psychology, Punjabis, Sindhis, fat/older women’s aspirations to look sexy, you name it.
But maybe the producer should not encash the ‘entertainment’ excuse just yet. It is ok to act according to genre. It is ok to be irreverent. But at what cost? Is it ok to laugh at prostitutes? Dalits? Rape victims? Girl infanticide? HIV patients? Perhaps not. Not even if the genre okays it. (The only envelope this pushes contains jokes on deaf and dumb people, now much in currency on the ‘blockbuster’ circuit). Simply because they are ills that are plaguing the society because of unchanging mindsets. So, unlike Punjabis and Sindhis who are not threatened races, the gay community might have deserved better than to be the butt of jokes in the film.
So the film does acknowledge that homosexuality exists and is even fairly common. The problem is that it sets itself in Miami not India. So those who like can safely conclude it’s a phoren phenomena.
Karan claims on his blog that even grandmothers have seen this film and now they will find it easier to accept their grandsons coming out to them and saying they are gay. Now really, if that is not delusional, nothing is. The oldest films we have are love stories. And to date in this country, inter-caste marriage is an issue! Those so called grandmothers will not allow their granddaughters to wear a swimsuit in public even after watching the film 50 times, let alone respect their homosexuality!
Besides, Karan’s claim is based on dubious grounds. The two male leads who pretend to be homosexuals make sharp disdainful disclaimers every now and then, “Main Gay Nahin hoon. Abe to main kaun sa Gay hoon”; worse- “main waisa nahin hoon!” They pretend to be gay because gay people seemingly have more privileges of whatever kind. Again, not a very healthy notion to propogate in India. The only two real gay characters in the film, Boman Irani’s fashion editor and the immigration officer, are effeminate, outrageously horny and even corrupt. This comes in the long line of gay portrayals that Hollywood and Bollywood have disseminated.
Hollywood was overtly homophobic upto the 70’s. The Celluloid Closet, a documentary based on Vito Russell’s book of the same name makes an important point – “In a 100 years of movies, homosexuality has rarely been depicted on the screen. When it did appear it was something to laugh at, something to pity or even something to fear. These were fleeting images but they were unforgettable and they left a lasting legacy. Hollywood, that great maker of myths taught straight people what to think of gay people and gay people what to think of themselves.” In such a climate, William Friedkin’s The Boys In The Band was a small revolution. But it was not until the 90’s and the new millennium that one began to see homosexuality as a regular part of sensitive cinema (think Birdcage, Philadelphia, Brokeback, Transamerica, The Hours etc. though there is still the occasional Notes On A Scandal and Talented Mr. Ripley, with its psychotic suppressed gay protagonists.) Filmmakers like Almodovar on the other hand have homosexual characters in every film without drawing attention to their ‘novelty’.
In India the tide has still not turned. The Indian male is more obsessed with his masculinity than anywhere else, arguably. And the gay ‘Gud’ is still planted to make him feel more macho. Gay men have no character but their orientation in these films. In Bollywood they are hardly even allowed psychopathic behaviour. They must only appear to be sneered at. When serious attempt is made at bringing homosexuality to light in films like Fire (though admittedly that was just as regressive, suggesting lesbian urges are a by-product of neglect by husbands), the Shiv Sena and other self-proclaimed keepers of our morality, attacked it. Manohar Joshi, the then CM of Maharasthra said something to the effect that homosexuality is “alien to our culture.” If Dostana has not heckled any feathers it is because it does not challenge the moral police even as little as Fire did. Karan loves talking about Bollywood as a fraternity he was brought up into. If he has to push any envelope, he cannot start on a clean slate. He will have to undo what this fraternity has collectively done to the gay character over the years, to begin with.
Politics of the film apart, it is an assembly-line product with no ‘heart’. In another interview, Karan was heard exclaiming in, “I want to kill the demon of Kuch Kuch Hota Hai!”- meaning that he is tired of being expected to meet the standard of his first film. Not to say that Kuch Kuch was a masterpiece of any sort. But to evaluate him by his own standards, he has failed to live up to the promise of his first film because he has started to want to manipulate his audience. The first sign of that is to see a film as a package of goodies rather than a cohesive whole. There is nothing wrong with formula if you have something to apply the formula to. It was easy to believe in Rahul and Anjali’s friendship and later their love. They were left on screen to create moments we could take in and savour leisurely. Dostana is a tale of friendship where we are ‘told’: ‘Ok, now they are best friends’; ‘Ok, now they love each other’; ‘Ok, now they are in love.’ All this, to be able to pack in infinite twists and turns in the plot thinking if one fails to work, the other will. There are three people in love with one girl and one cannot understand either.
The other issue of course, is the sheer unidimensionality (I know there is no such word, but you get the drift) of the characters. Shahrukh Khan once said that romantic heroes never had any character until he began to collaborate with the Johars and Chopras. He was partly right. Rahul and Raj had character. Anjali was more than a ‘heroine’. But in the true tradition of decline, Dostana’s actors are for representational purposes only. And they are representing little more than Manish Malhotra’s skills and their body contours. Even Kiron Kher has been put together with waste material from OSO and Hum Tum.
All Dostana is, is an ad for itself. And a bloody good one at that. Once again Mr. Johar has handed out a glossy empty envelope. It maybe a little tattered around the edges.
Movies , Dostana, Karan Johar
69 Responses to “Why Is Dostana Still Bothering Me?”
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Very well written and articulated. And my thoughts exactly.
thanks jahan
you nailed it pragya. hated, and i mean, viciously, HATED the film. last time i hated a film like that it had zayed khan.
haha yeah says it all striker!reminds me of a one line review gb shaw i think wrote of a play. it read-”so and so play opened on so and so date. Why?” end of review!
an utter, total crap movie……..walked out even before the half of the movie was over and sought refuse with old monk
Made for very good reading Pragya. Thank you.
GB Shaws review – succint and super…
and so far as the this gay thing is concerned, I have not seen such cliched depiction before……..the best IMO treatment of this subject is in Bombay Boys where the guy who played Nehru in Gandhi says – being gay or not is just a question of being on which side of wall one is…..it is this simple…..Karan has totally lost it or was it a clever mktg strategy?
Pragya, were u expecting “Sense and Sensibility” from Karan? didnt u see Kal Ho Na Ho?
I quote what John Anderson of Newsday said in his review of I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
“What were they thinking? Simple: They weren’t.”
BTW i did not feel anything at all for Rahul and Anjali in KKHH, the way i did for Raj and Simran in DDLJ. By the time, that shaadi scene came and every one was shedding tons of glycerine, I was looking for “The End” sign.
I guess maybe its coz the Rahul-Anjali track never really made sense to me. He fools around with her, does not even care for her, and then he meets her, and presto, he begins to have feelings for her.
hey ratnakar, i did mention kuch kuch is utterly flawed as well..it was only better in comparison with dostana in my opinion. there were problems with the ‘makeover’love story and feminists have even found it disrespectful but the film had its moments.it just felt like a more honest and confident script however weak.
shreyansh expecting is the first step to demanding and changing. we expected nothing of our politicians. look where it got us! its time to expect something from those who bear the flags of our cinema .
But one thing does beat me, is why KJo is spared the kind of media scrutiny, which Yash Raj is not spared of. Barring Raja Sen, i found that most of the mainstream reviewers like Rajeev Masand, Khalid Mohd let KJo get away rather lightly. In fact KM, who otherwise is quite acerbic in his reviews, seems to handle KJo’s movies with kid gloves.
Pragya,
I’m surprised you didn’t mention ‘My Brother Nikhil’. Probably the most sensitive indian movie on the ‘gay’ theme (and AIDS).
Also, ‘Daayra’ by Amol Palekar, which I haven’t watched yet, and am not really sure if its based on homosexuality.
@ Asmi
Daayra is more of a gender bender kinda relationship. Nirmal Pande is a cross dresser, who has a relationship with Sonali Kulkarni. It is very complex and layered. But the ending was stupid.
hi asmi, films like my brother nikhil and daayra are one offs.i was only talking of the majority treatment of gay themes in india. but ofcourse, they are films that deserve a mention anywhere.
u know ratnakar!just what ive been wondering. yrf is shredded at the slightest provocation but not karan. dostana got ‘careful’ reviews even if bad, when the same reviewers would go hammer and tongs at other such films. could it just be his PR skills??i hope not!
@Pragya and ratnakar – I think we should stop taking KM seriously. I haven’t read even a single meaningful review from him till date. Greatly biased to SRK, YRF and KJo. Remember he gave 5 stars to K3G? Can u beat that?
I liked the respect rajeev masand showed towards cinema, till OSO happened. he gave some 3.5 stars to it.
That brings to the question, y do they do it? Its clearly not some shadowy deals between the Broadcasters and the PR of movies, or else Sing is King and Welcomes would have got5 stars too. What my perception is that even they know that such movies are mass entertainemrs and any day better than mindless entertainers than what SIK,Welcomes, No Entries and the lot.
And in any case the BO results are not affected a bit by whatever the Critics say.
Ha ha, Shreyansh, i stopped taking KM seriously. Matter of fact, i dont take even my favorites Rogert Ebert and James Berardinelli seriously at times
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As far as movies is concerned, i just see the story, and if i feel its good, i see it, else no, simple rule of thumb.
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Hi Pragya,
You echoed my sentiments, in toto! I don’t know why everyone is raving about this movie. In my office i had a tough time explaining to my colleagues as to why the movie didn’t work for me. Plot was no-where in sight, poor acting by two leads, stale jokes and there was a contest between Kiron Kher and Sushmita Mukherji (otherwise two of the finest actresses) over the biggest hammer award. The whole premise was too flimsy. Such a waste of time!!
but shreyansh precisely what im thinking. when BO results arent even touched by what critics have to say, why review as per ‘mass taste’. why give in and say well oso is better than SIK,so..why dont they speak to those who are concerned with cinema, even if they are a handful.atleast that way theyll be speaking to someone!
@ Pragya-I understand your point Pragya, that leaves me wondering as well.But it doesnt take a nuclear scientist to say that movies like OSO,SIK and Welcome will do well.
Y dont we start a official PFC Rating Section for every Friday. I would love to ” be in KM chappals”.
@ Ratnakar- do the kind of promos affect your decission making? will u go for Maharathi?
we should shreyansh.that even those of us who dont have the time to write a full review of a film can make their thoughts known..lets see how diffrently the averages turn out.OZ?
Good idea. Than we can put all the reviews under 1 banner, Cos know there are too many reviews of the same movie. That would really be USER-FRIENDLY!
@ Shreyansh
Yeah will go for Maharathi, because it has my favorites Naseer, Om Puri, Boman Irani and Paresh Rawal. And i am a sucker for thrillers. But the starcast reminds me one of my favorites, Glen Garry Glen Ross, which had most of my favorites in it Al Pacino, Ed Harris, Dustin Hoffman, Kevin Spacey in it.
As for promos well to an extent. I think when i go to see a movie, the factors which influence it are
1) cast
2) movie genre
3) story.
I generally dont watch David Lynch much, not because i hate him, its just that i really dont dig abstract movies much.
But i would just go for a Tim Burton movie, because i generally love the dark, Gothic themes of his movies.
So its like kinda many things here
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@ Pragya & Shreyansh
The One line review section does that, where you can just give ur view of it and assign ur rating to the movie.
@ ratnkar – How will i create stupid rhymes in 1 line? remember im in someone’s chappals
@ Pragya, reviewers would have their own biases. Baradwaj Rangan is one of the movie critics i like, but his reviewing praising Drona was totally cringe worthy.
See even in US, most of the movie critics, went overboard in giving high ratings to Titanic, calling it Greatest movie of century and all, when it was just a standard boy meets girl flick, IMHO.
And much as i like JB, there have been many movies( Heat, Batman, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) where i never agreed with his views.
@ Shreyansh, well as of now PFC does not have a rating system, but i think you can put a rating, when you review the movie on your own.
I dont think Dostana is a crap movie. Rather its an ok-ok movie. Anybody who is exposed to hollywood comedies with similar themes will find it very ordinary.
Rather the climax John-Abhishek kiss scene was totally forced just for sensation-sake.In some scenes Abhishek shows some feminine charesteristics and otherwise he stays normal-macho.I think he should have continued with a consistent mannerism.
saying that , there were 1-2 scenes that i liked here.
1)When Priyanka says that “i cant believe we three are in love with the same person!” and she was serious. That scene was a lttl pleasent surprise.
2)The scene when John takes Priyanka’s hand and dances with a scene of KKHH at the background.There the movements are in total sync with the background scene.
I felt it was a sweet thought.
Completely agree with you and well written.
@ratnakar, no i am sure we will always differ in some point or another even with our favourite critic, but for me what works is critics who make me think about things i havent really given a thought to. the idea is a more cinema oriented review than an entertainment oriented review to put it very broadly, ofcourse it isnt easy to pigeon hole these things but perhaps a little more analysis from the point of view of cinema as a medium of art and craft is what im looking for in india. even if the critic likes a movie that i dont thats allright..as long as he isnt ‘bitching’ or ‘drooling’, but really saying something sharper than what my neighbour said about the movie.and that is rare unfortunately.
Well i do like JB and Roger Ebert in that aspect. Though nowadays i tend to disagree with JB’s revus more often than not, he sticks to the movie, its technique, and why he did not like it. And same goes for Roger Ebert too.
The problem with most of our Indian critics, is that like Raja Sen, they use language that just goes over my head. I read a movie review, to know what the movie is about, not to do a refresher course in English Literature. Even Baradwaj Rangan quite often just tends to use pretty complicated imagery, and at times as in the case of his review on Drona, it looked plain dishonest to me.
Hey Pragya, you write very well and what you have said here abt DOSTANA is right in its place BUT…
I think if you just treat it as another KJo film, it is rather good. KJo saying he wants to eliminate homophobia is same as Raj Kapoor saying he wants to express sympathy with the poor and so he shows a tramp in every movie of his. And a filmmaker’s interviews are also part of the publicity design of a film these days..
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BTW this is what I wrote after watching DOSTANA:-
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The film’s importance goes way beyond its cast, scale or success at the turnstiles. No doubt it aims to entertain and succeeds in it for the most part (save some heavy-duty sentimentality towards the end). It is a clever, commercial manipulation of the anti-gay prejudice that exists in each one of our minds.
But at the same time, it must be said that DOSTANA does not have a single malicious bone in its body. It is unlikely to offend anyone. The prejudice intact, it tries to find an acceptable popular idiom in which to address the taboo, without ever being judgmental. That, in my opinion is a hugely admirable and brave initiative on Karan Johar’s part and he must be cheered for it. In fact, the traditional mother accepting her son’s gay partner, is a big statement by itself. Whether the film stereotypes gays or not is a non-issue in the context.
@rafi, thanks for the link. enjoyed ure review. its a cutter!
@sanjeev, i can see where youre coming from.i can respect what you think because you have articulated it really well. but we cd agree to disagree about one thing- if one has to try so hard to find an acceptable way to slip in a taboo within the established bounds of a popular idiom, why bother?i know its a big deal to stage a scene where a traditional punjabi mother accepts her son’s gay boyfriend into the family fold, but it is so heavily doused with screwball comedy antics that the only people who will smell something radical beyond merely outrageous comedy are people who are sensitised to the issue. and there is little point in preaching to the converted. having said that, the real effect of any film on the minds of its audience is pure speculation on the part of the critic. and i would happily be wrong.
@sanjeev, i can see where youre coming from
I didnt quite get that…!!
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“preaching to the converted” is right, Pragya. But tell me, do you really think a movie is the best medium to change society? I think max a movie can do is teach ppl to light candles in hundreds, like RDB did. Beyond that, I doubt if anything substantial can be achieved by a film, be it by Johar or Benegal. So given this limitation, Dostana is rather imaginative.
@ Sanjeev
Hmm movies may not change a society, but if it helps in breaking stereotypes, that in itself is a big change. And yes movies do impact society in a way. For eg To Kill a Mockingbird, made people aware of the racism in Deep South, and in fact motivated many to take up law as a career. So movies may not change a society, but they can play a role in influencing opinion.
Just my do take ki thoughts from an Aam Aadmi.
Yes Movies can change Society!!!
Mozart became more famous after release of “Amadeus”,
People started buying more records, (Including me)
@sanjeev i would have to agree with ratnakar here. movies and other popular culture including our great epics like the mahabharata have taught us how to think and perceive a great deal of things intentionally or unintentionally. but yes it is rare for a single movie to make a huge change overnight.influencing the subconscious is often the work of popular media over the years. which is why it is important to break stereotypes. that one movie may not change the way you think but it will surely be a break in a chain of monotonous thought structure if it is well crafted. RDB’s instant and visible impact was candle marches, but that is not to say it could not have disengaged perhaps just a couple of people from political apathy. besides whats the harm in aspiring for change through any medium
hitler turned lakhs of people into barbarians with simple theatrics and gandhi too had only the power of words na?
Ratnakar @40 and Pragya @ 42, ok point conceded to optimists! But then isn’t Dostana a change by itself? What do you prefer? Leading men pretending to be gay in a KJo film or Bobby Darling/Suresh Menon playing characters of suspect sexuality in every third film and cracking jokes that are in bad taste?
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Secondly, a maker will make films that suit HIS/HER sensibility and should be judged against his own standards. By KJo’s own standards, Dostana is rather good. No point comparing it with Daayra or Nikhil. It will only throw up distorted conclusions.
Further to 43 above, What happens when a director tries to make a film that he isn’t sure he identifies with?
Amol Palekar makes Paheli.
Mehul Kumar makes Kitne Dur Kitne Paas (Had to get that one in!!)
KJo makes Kaal
Sudhir Mishra makes Calcutta Mail
Prakash Jha makes Dil Kya Kare
Additions welcome..!
Sooraj Barjatya- Main Prem Ki Diwani Hoon
Subash Ghai- All movies post Taal
Govind Nihalani- Takshak, Dev
Madhur Bhandarkar-Aan
Ram Gopal Verma- Shiva 2006, Rgv Ki Aag, Contract
Abbas Mustaan-Chori Chori Chupke Chupke
Sanjay Gupta- I am not sure if he identifies more with his movie or with the original inspiration.;)
Just a minor clarification, if I may. Karan Johar is the producer for Kaal and Dostana.
So yes, he does have say on the movies but I think aren’t we negating the factor that the director also adheres to these sensibilities. May be Tarun preferred to make his movie like this.
Why don’t we say Ronnie Screwwala made a good Wednesday and OLLO.
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I think Dostana was meant to be a high gloss, high glamor quotient and light on senses movie. It succeeded in it seeing the BO fate. Will it win any popular awards, I doubt it, except may be for the Best Jodi of the year
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Personally, Dostana was no great shakes for me. It was better than SiK (one of the worst main stream movie I have seen, makes Welcome look like the original Golmaal!)
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It’s ust another movie that I won’t think about unless Ratnakar writes a post in next decade about “Bollywood in 2000s”
Talking about KANK, I think Karan screwed up that with those stupid comedies and unnecessary clutter.
The premise was interesting and it had its moments. The movie needed to be intimate instead of a “magnum opus”
why doesn’t karan comes out of his closet
itna bhi chupaana kyon
@ Vishesh
Actually i was planning to come up with “Bollywood in 2000’s” soon.
I know many people will not agree with me , but I dont rate Kiron Kher to be a fine actress. I somehow find her very hammy and irritating.(I hve not seen Bariwali or Khamosh pani).
‘
Just look at her movie graph- Dostana,Singh is king,OSO,Apne, KANK, Fanaa, RDB, VEER Zara, Hum Tum, Main hoon naa, Devdas. She is playing the same role again and again ie.Punjabi,highly emotional, high-decibel mummy or aunty!Above all very hammy!(except in Devdas where she plays bengali with equal ham!)
She has become a punjabized, parodied version of Rakhee.
@ Bharat u aint seen anything yet. Watch Karz:The Burden of Truth, where Sunny is her illegitimate son, born after she was raped by Ashutosh Rana, her high decibel act began from then.
And how could you forget her Lolo Bibi act in The Rising, just made me want to puke.
@Ratnakar Sadasyula – 44
Subhash Ghai identifies with all his movies post Taal..problem is the audience doesn’t identify with them
And horrors! Ghai mentioned in an interview that Yuvvraj will be raved and talked about in the future..this tops his earlier stand of calling Yaadein ahead of it’s times !!!
You write very well Pragya..me thinks that when KJo talks about pushing/tearing envolopes he must have some different intepretation of that expression..
@Ratnakar- U watched Karz:The Burden of Truth also!! U r really great!
is karan johar really gay?? i mean i just want some sort of confirmation. has anyone seen something? has anyone been linked with him (apart from srk)? wish we had paparazzi snoopers
thanks for reading sudhir
@sanjeev and @ratnakar i completely agree with the theory that our filmmakers are not versatile.i mean there is more to film than form and format. there is a sense of aesthetic and emotional intelligence and maturity involved which may be crucial to telling a story. maybe thats why when sudhir mishra makes a khoya khoya chand after a hazaron khwahishein one is disappointed but never tempted to vomit! maybe thats why most others should stick to what they are comfortable with. but was karan comfortable with kank and dostana? i think he was only comfortable with the format and not the idea of saying something ‘meaningful’ which he aspired to do.
@vishesh KANK was flawed. what was shahrukh’s character about?ok he was frustrated by his handicap.but beyond that?and why did rani marry abhishek?i mean there has to be some layers to relationships that are so old?some graph to them? again Karan started with an idea and did not have enough confidence/patience/maturity/research to develop it.
@vishesh i think one tends to refer to all films produced by karan as ‘his’ (as it is with yrf) because they seem to operate in the old studio format with their interference and stamp visible on the product. and they seem to take responsibility likewise. ofcourse technically we shd only be talking about tarun..
but seriously he is privileged and succesful. why waste a 50 odd crores in making a shoddy statement about something he can personally stand up for?
@rambo and @movie fan. if karan is gay and if i may be a little judgmental then he shd take up the cause of gay rights by coming out first. lead by example. what better?
Dostoevsky’s said “Is it possible to talk of revoution without being a revolutionary?”:)
@ Pragya
If you take 2 pathbreaking movies “KANK” and “Nishabd”, both Kjo and RGV claimed they were breaking shackles here. But the fact is that they started out trying to do something brave, then in the middle, suddenly realized that the Indian audience might not really accept such a radical break, so tried to turn it around. I know there r many who like Nishabd, but honestly i was not impressed with the movie at all.
See in KANK, the Preity-SRK track was well established, SRK had this ego and inferiority problem, considering Preity was more succesful than him, and in fact she was the one running the house. But Rani-Abhi angle was not at all established properly. Abhi was caring and loving, so one did not really understand why she was not satisfied. Now if KJo wanted to do a Bridges of Madison County here, where Meryl Streep has an adulterous liasion with Clint Eastwood, though she seems happily married, and her husband is nice, well in Bridges, the fact is Clint leads a life, which maybe Meryl wanted to lead, and could not. Its like both come from different backgrounds, and so you have that attraction for opposite kind here. But as far as in KANK is concerned, one does not see any major difference in Rani and SRK’s background. My issue with KANK is not that it deals with adultery, but KJo treats it like a Raj meets Simran angle or Rahul meets Anjali angle. For me the only good thing i found in KANK was Preity and Abhi. SRK did what he did before, while Rani’s weepy eyes act, just got me irritated.
@ Pragya & movie fan:
as i like to put it: “Is KJo GayJo?”
@ Ratnakar Sadasyula – 57
Talking about KANK, u r right. Most of KJOs movies don’t establish tracks and explores depths of characters. I too felt that while watching KANK. If Rani had vehement objections to Abhi’s intimate advances then why did she opted to get physical with Shahrukh. It isn’t the track between Preity-Shahrukh or Rani-Abhishek but the track between Rani-Shahrukh that didn’t fully explore the depths of characters.
Coming from KJO i can understand his narrowed versions of relationship which he can safely presumes from his cocoon. But I thought he might humanise the theme of Gay bonding in Dostana but instead he re-inforces the stereotypes trying to make a movie out of Kantaben’s jokes…
@ratnakar, i think that depth and greatness have to be a by product of the substance of your expression. you cant set out to do something ‘great’ or ‘pathbreaking’. you set out to do something you have firm belief in and it becomes great or pathbreaking if it has to. that explains why ppl like rgv or kjo lose conviction midway, because their goal is to do something ‘ekdum great’.nishabd was worse than kank man. i mean that was the stuff sansani on ibn7 and india tv is made of!
I somewhat agree with Ratnakar on KANK. Most of us had problem with Rani’s character as to why she chose Dev Saran over Rishi. I assumed that Maya agreed for marriage because she could not say no. Because Rishi’s family took care of her since childhood. Not a great reason but I grudgingly accepted it.
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I think once I got past that thing, the rest of it is still interesting barring for cope-out in terms of comedy and length and final DDLJ moment.
Yup agreed on Nishabd being worse.
Except for Company and Satya, the rest has been pretty ordinary fare, IMO. In both the cases above, the script reigned supreme. That made his job easier.
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I don’t think RGV is a great film-maker. Or I really don’t like his style of film-making. The problem may be with me. But that’s OK, I can live with that.
@ 54, @ 58,
I know you meant in good humor.
But in general, I don’t think a film-maker’s sexual orientation should matter for his choice of genre, right?
Does that make Onir gay and incestuous person?
That’s certainly an identity crisis:-)
Sorry Onir bhai
No offense, it was just a reference to drive home my point.
Bryan Singer( X Men, Usual Suspects) is one of the famous Gay directors i know.
@vishesh certainly noone could say that scorcese is a criminal or onir incestous. nor do we expect aditya chopras marriage to work because he makes love stories. neither of these filmmakers have claimed to support a cause through their film (if onir was giving any message it was about AIDS, homosexuality was incidental).
but when a filmmaker decidedly and vocally espouses a cause should his first step not be to make a personal statement to the affect?IF and ONLY IF karan is gay he should know the value of his endorsements simply by looking over his Timond and Vertu accounts. If he is only supporting the cause like a concerned straight citizen it is perfectly alright.
having said that, i do not support speculative jokes over sexuality either. i know that activists through cinema or any other art get targetted by very insensitive jokes in bad taste. feminists are routinely labelled lesbians. when bryan adams took on AIDS they said he is a patient. When a lot of people i know rally for street kids they are called child abusers. and when Karan stood with Richard Gere for HIV prevention people said ‘arre uski to le raha hoga’. this is in real real bad taste.
The biggest issue I have with Dostana is the fact that Karan Johar being 3 films old as a director and 3 more as a produces references his own films as if he was visiting his Greatest Hits album. The moment Priyanka says Kuch Kuch Hota Hai is my favourite film , it takes self promo to a different level. Even the use of Suraj Hua Madhyam in KANK was so unnecessary !!!
Its as if he himself is proclaiming his greatness. Only RGV stands ahead of him having remade his own films and made worse verions.
@prasun if they had the ability to look beyond themselves they might just have achieved the greatness they proclaim
I don’t know why Karan Johar is taken seriously.He is basically a commercial film maker who wants to make a profit.I also do not think that if Karan Johar made a film in which gays are sensitively portrayed it would make a difference.The role of films in social reform is grossly exaggerated.In fact I feel it is exactly opposite,films in general create more harmful traits in society than
anything else.An example being Rajnikant with his
cigerate smoking style inspired many youngsters to take up smoking
There’s one thing I liked about the movie, though. It’s that last scene where the duo are challenged to kiss in public. And they fail to do so. I kind of felt like it was trying to say that being gay is a courageous decision, it takes courage to be gay in our milieu, and it’s not what it’s made out to be through most parts of the movie.
and it slighly redeemed the movie for me.
Maybe, that’s too heavy a take-away from the movie, but that’s what I walked away with