Eklavya : A Royal Farce

A starcast that can be envied by any other film maker.....
Performance exactly showing us the view of the film maker.....
Wonderful settings in a Royal fort....
A plot that has a potential of being a mind tickling thriller.....

What More could you ask for?

I know what more to ask for.... I ask for a good story telling skills, a good direction, a good screenplay and a script that could reveal itself in bits and pieces.... I did not get it.

Eklavya (which was earlier titled Yagna) is a story of a royal guard of a fort, for whom the dharm is to safeguard the people living in the fort, above all his Rana - the King. Though the Kingdom of the kings have been lost and the royal family lives in the modern day India in the same old royal fashion. Let me tell you the story briefly in a different way....

In the land of Modern India, there was a King and a Queen, who happily lived with their 2 children, a prince and princess who are twins. The Prince is very intelligent and smart, the princess is mentally challanged, but the love between the two is definitely there. The Prince grows up and goes to a foreign land for studies. There is a Father-son duo of King's brother and nephew who wants the wealth of the king. There is a Deputy supritendent of Police, who wants the royal family to get in trouble for all the atrocities that they have done towards the subject in the name of Untouchability. And there is a Royal Guard, who is the only one out there to save lives.

The queen dies, no one knows why? The King wants to kill the royal guard. The Prince wants to save the royal guard. The brother of king and his son betrays the king later and the prince helps them. The Royal guard wants to protect the life of the prince even after knowing that he has betrayed the king.

Motives for each of the character in this case is unkown and you want to know more why a character is behaving in the way that he is... and the plot slowly unfolds itself, giving you the reason of Queen's death, then the reason of Prince betrayal of the king, then for the betrayal of King's brother, then for the Royal guard's secret and finally everything fits into its place.

This could easily have been the most intriguing and thrilling plot of our times, but just think if you knew the motive of each character at the time of sequences as they happen on the movie screen infront of you.... It kills the complete thrill and unexpected turns of the story telling.

This is exactly the issue with the movie. Without developing the characters, the story gives us the motives that each one has, and the characters' responses to the situation absolutely predictably runs in your mind before it comes on the screen.

Amitabh Bachhan (as Eklavya) acts very well, without letting the Bachhan persona getting mixed up with the character.... But... I wish director could have done it. The revelation that the royal guard is the center of the story and the royal games are played because of some secret of his, if it would have come at the end would have made the movie interesting. But that would reduce AB's role drastically which i am sure the director might not like. So what do you do... you tell the secret first and then describe the royal games. A good performance gone waste.

Jackie Shroff as (JyotiWardhan, King's brother) Looks sinster but does not find the chemistry with Jimmy shergill which was very important for him in the movie. Jackie shroff has acted fairly well, and being VC's favourite gets one of the most important roles.

Do you remember Ajit Wachhani's role in Hum Aapke hai Kaun ? .... I know i have caught you thinking .... that is exactly what will happen when after 2 years some one would ask you about Raima sen's (as Nandini, the princess) , Jimmy Shergil's (Udaywardhan), Parikshit Sahani's, Sharmila Tagore's (the queen) role after 2 years. The short duration of the movie, does not allow you to understand the minds, motives and personalities of any of these characters.

The rest, Sanjay Dutt (as DSP Chauhar), Saif Ali Khan ( as the Prince) and Vidya Balan (As Rajjo, Prince's Love Interest) have performed very well. Sanjay Dutt and Vidya Balan shines in absolutely unimportant roles.

So, if we forget all these short comings of the movie, there were a few good things in the movie.

• Firstly, the cinematography by Nataraj Subramanian was definetely note worthy
• Abhijat Joshi, the writer of the movie should be applauded for the concept of the movie (earlier too he had written movies like Mission Kashmir, Kareeb, and above all Lage raho munnabhai (along with Rajkumar Hiranandani)
• Performance by Boman Irani as a "Not so Manly" King is amazing. He captures the nuances of the character very well.



• Saif Ali Khan and AB did the best they could possibly do for the movie.

The music of the movie by Shantanu Moitra was just average. "Chanda re... Chanda re..." is a nice composition, but picturising it in the bright daylight with some kite flying did not seem to be the best idea.

The Costumes by the real Kings of today (Raghavendra Rathore) are good. Creative producers Rajkumar Hirani and Vir Chopra does their work well. Action sequences by Tinnu Verma are strictly OK.

Sets By Nitin Desai are the best part of the movie. Though there is no favourite scene for me in this movie, but the cottage of Eklavya designed by Nitin Desai and team to me was the best thing in the movie, a nice place for a modest person to live with lots of candles in the house.

But the movie, which is essentially story telling is not made of characters but of an overall impact of all the pieces of Jigsaw.

First time i felt that the movie was shorter than what was required. The movie is 1 hr. 50 Min in length. I would have loved a little elaborate effort of building up of suspense at every step.

Direction of Vidhu Vinod Chopra after a break of 7 years (last being Mission Kashmir) disappoints. Though the effort for collaging on such a huge canvas of 2 hrs is not an easy task.

(Trivia : Vidhu Vinod Chopra's short documentary "An encounter with Faces" (1978) was nominated for Oscars)

I have a strong feeling that the movie is going to work well overseas for the overall royal treatment of it. EROS International, the worldwide distributor of the film are going to profit at the end of it.

So A good concept gone waste deserves not more than 2* for the some of the pieces of jigshaw.

Maa Sunao Mujhe wo Kahani.... Jisme Raja Na ho Na ho Rani.....

Just close your eyes and think for a moment, How do you want your world to be?
Think yourself enjoying all the good things of life that you want with the people you love....
Think of the days full of smiles.... Nights full of fairy tale dreams.....
A world where everyone loves you... adores you... respects you..
Where you are independent to live a life the way you want to.... Think of a place like that....

And you have entered "Parzania"

Parzania is the world of little "Parzan" (Cutely played by Parzun Dastur), which he has built for himself and his little sister Dilshad (Pearl Barsiwala), where the mountains are made of icecreams, where cricket comes before anything else and where the teachers have faces of donkeys to make the class interesting.

Parzania is a world of innocence.

Rahul Dholakia, true to his roots sees the land of Ahmedabad as Parzania, a world of innocence that he might have built in his mind for all the times when he lived away from it. The utopia was broken when the dark phantoms of hardlines fundamentalist opened their ugly feathers to cast shadow of darkness on Parzania. One event that changed many lives, created hundreds and thousands of tragic stories which will be written in histories black book.

Parzania is a story of one such family of Cyrus (Naseerudin shah) and Shernaz (Sarika) who were neither a part of problem nor the solution but were simple victims of the situations created around them. Its a story of butchering of innocence for unreasonable acts of crime. The story moves as a third person view, as seen by people who were victims but did not belong to any of the religion that were involved. The story is basically told in 3 parts, first dealing with the land of Parzania, second with the phantoms of fundamentalism and third the aftermath.

Land of Parzania

The story is told from eyes of a Parsi Family and an American, Allan Webbings, who is on his dissertation studying Gandhi, in the land of Gandhi. Corin Nemec acts well as a person who believes in the principles of Gandhi and who understands the difficulties of following him. The prelude to the main event shows the happy family with their new found friend Allan in a way that makes them look like our next door neighbours. The dialogues between the two kids, Parzan and Dilshad takes you to the land of Parzania. Along with them are a few characters which sets an overall context, there is the lewd "chhagan" who deals in everything that is illegal, there is a Gandhian who is helping Allan for his work, there are the neighbours of the chawl in which Shernaz and Cyrus lives, there is Chai wala who works hard to earn a bread for himself and his old father and there is a chhotu.

The character of the chhotu i fealt was a very well thought one. A young teen, who knows not what his religion is, is born on roads and have been exploited and abused by Chhagan, one who works in the chawl and plays with the kids of chawl. He helps Shernaz and her daughter, becoming one amongst the riot makers. To me chhotu represented the crux of the story, Just like chhotu, niether Gujarat, nor India is a region that is for one particular religion, however torned and pitiable is its condition, it is secular and should do the things that are "right" and "just".


The phantoms of fundamentalism

Then comes the part of riots, which i think was very well shot, creating the horror around the whole event that is depicted in the movie.

The scene makes you run along with Shernaz, Dilshad and Parzan in all the parts of the chawl making you pray for the safety of the family. Parzan is lost in the riots and Shernaz and Dilshad have to run for saving their lives. The whole chawl is dead, blood and fire seems everywhere.

Cyrus is not allowed to reach his home because of the curfew and is helpless to learn that one of his kids is lost in the riots. The whole horrifying scene of terror with the chants of "Jai Shri Ram" at every killing, paints your thoughts with the unreasonable saffron, depicting the thoughtless behaviour of a mob driven on someone else's malign plan.

I feel the scene where Allan watches a lady burnt alive by the rioters makes you understand the helplessness of the victims. The idea of innocent people getting butchered for nothing hits you hard and even without any Gory scenes makes you feel short of a free space and air around you. The story is about the one of the most brutal attack on humanity that happened at the time of Gujarat Riots and the movie makes it look so.


Aftermath

The story as it moves makes you feel that the story is not just about one family but there were many many families that were affected. You feel the pain of loss that a victim of riots goes through. On a different level it asks many philosophical questions about religion, about beliefs, about justice, about politics, about social setup that we have in our country.

The story is told as it is, and lives the analysis entirely to you, it does not take a stand but shows you the gruesome reality which makes you take a stand. There are many scenes which makes you feel the hard hitting facts reality come in your face, which makes you feel choked and leaves you heavy hearted. This is not because of great acting, great direction etc., though it is there, but this is because the truth itself is so hard hitting. The truth itself is so harsh to except that you dont need a dramatization of events to make it feel more tragic


Naseerudin shah, has acted wonderfully as a god fearing man who even after the riots( when you are questioning religion per se) feels that being religious will bring his son back from the unknown. The kids have acted really well, Nemec is good as a person with a lot of termoil within himself. His angst, his reactions, his disgust, his blabbering sprinkled generously with the loathsome, painful abuse of words, makes him real and understandable. Raj Jutsi has represented the reactions and reflections of a victim turning criminal himself very well. Asif Basra shines in his small role as "chhagan", a bad man with a good heart, who finds himself guilty of getting others killed for his survival. When a mob moves towards you to kill you and asks to say where does their prey lie, what would you do? and how would you feel after that?

But above all this in a superlative performance comes Sarika, you live the movie from the eyes of Shernaz all by arguably her best performance till date. The last scene where she, in front of the NHRC yells at police, politicians, governance and system for being responsible for her son's loss, you feel like adding some words to her speech abusing all of them.

My favourite scene in the movie is the one where Naseer is thrown in to backyard of a police station which is full of heaps of deadbodies, bruised, burned, torned, lying there lifeless, without anyone to accept them. The task for him is to find his son's dead body out of the heap. Hoping at every step that he does not find him and still hoping that he gets some evidence of him from somewhere. A helpless father thrown in the valley of death for no reason at all, he sees a body of a child lying with his head on other side, wearing a shirt like his lost son. The trauma of removing the other deadbodies from his way and getting to see the face of the child is evident in his eyes and the relief of not finding his son seems natural. The relief is immediately followed up with a realization. Realization of the fact that the child lying there is someone else's "Parzan" and they might or might not find him. The whole scene without a dialogue could not have been done in a better way. Hats off to Naseeruddin Shah.

The music of the movie by Zakir Hussain keeps the tragedy aggravated in your mind for a long time after you have finished watching the movie. The direction by Rahul Dholakia (Only other movie that he directed being "Kehta hai dil Baar Baar" ) is good as an almost Debut film. I thought he missed the point at 2 places which could have made a great impact on the film, one being the lesser usage of Gujarati in the movie that loosens the connection you can find with the characters a bit, secondly, i would have loved to see him dwell in the minds of rioters who did all that happened, their motives and view of issue. But it takes a lot of courage to make a movie like this and Rahul wins all accolades for this.

All in all first 4* movie of the year.