Before Tulsidas’ retelling turned him into an infallible God, Rama was designed to be the first self-aware, doubt-ridden, painfully human avatar of Vishnu. In Valmiki’s epic, he makes many questionable moral choices, like the killing of Vali and the banishment of Sita. By contrast, Ravana, the king of Lanka, is a renowned scholar, lover and patron of the arts, and a great king, a civilized demi-god whose power blinds him to good advice at crucial moments.

The idea was to create a complex fable of good and evil; how they both can lurk in the same human being, and how circumstances can bring out surprising elements of our personalities, to our shame or pride.

Mani Ratnam takes that basic idea and weaves it into Raavan, a lush, atmospheric epic that plays similarly with the moral grayness that is the central trait of humankind. Beera (Abhishek Bachchan) is the jungle lord who rules his domain with a firm but just hand. After his sister Jamuniya (a lovely and husky-toned Priyamani) is assaulted by a group of policeman under the command of SP Dev (Vikram), he decides to take revenge by kidnapping and killing Dev’s wife Ragini (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). Other elements from the epic are randomly sprinkled. There is the forest guard, Sanjeevani Kumar (Govinda) who bounces from tree to tree, Jamuniya is obviously Surpanakha, but there is no cohesion or chronology to these allusions; they are placed at the will of the director, not Valmiki.
I won’t give away any more of the plot, but suffice to say that Beera is not the inhuman monster that he has the reputation of being, and Dev is not as morally pure as his name and position suggest. Only Ragini is created as a paragon-brave, fearless, and compassionate, with a luminous beauty that can drive men mad.

Abhishek hams it to the hilt as Beera; manic eyes invoke the rakshasa, and schizophrenic mumblings suggest the ten heads. Vikram as Dev is perfectly cast; there is a credible moral ambiguity in the typical cop get-up – aviator glasses, tucked in shirt suggesting the beginnings of a paunch. Aishwarya does quite well; she is not a great actress, but here she is the personification of Sita, a delicate vine with a core of steel.

But the real hero is the atmospherics, richly shot by master cinematographer Santosh Sivan (V. Manikandan began the movie, but left early on). The opening scene, where Beera’s large craft bores down on the Ragini’s fragile vessel, is stunning, and the visual gifts keep coming. The scenes in the jungle are a rain-sodden gray green, and set up a terrific contrast to the bright colors of the flashbacks to happier times. Spectacularly shot on location in parts of Kerala, Karnataka, and Maharashtra, the cinematography is a revelation of the many unexplored places in India that are still unspoilt and gorgeous.

Indian critics have been divided on the movie, but if there’s one thing Mani Ratnam can do, it is tell a story with style and panache. Raavan is a feast for the senses, and I highly recommend you watch it in the theater, where you can best experience the oppressive power and the thrumming beat of the jungle. Rahman’s music does not stand out on its own, but it sets a good percussive mood towards the inexorable cliff-top conclusion.

Every element of the movie is beautiful, but it is not an insubstantial beauty. This is a strong tale, well told.

My rating: 3.5 stars out of 5

It is often said that every story ever to have been told is in the Mahabharata. It is no wonder that the sweeping epic has been the inspiration for books and movies like Shashi Tharoor’s The Great Indian Novel and Shyam Benegal’s Kalyug.

Director Prakash Jha uses contemporary Indian politics as a setting for Raajneeti, his version of the Mahabharata, and it makes perfect sense. Despite the focus on the climactic 18-day war, the epic is more about the politics of kingship and the toll the quest for power takes on families and relationships. In this case we have the political family of the Prataps, two brothers who control the politics of a central Indian state. When the older brother gets disabled by a stroke, the delicate power equilibrium gets disrupted, leading to an all out war between the younger generation of cousins. Elements of the Gandhi dynastic rule are also woven in, with a foreign-returned brother being co-opted into the family business.

Many themes from the Mahabharata can be quickly identified; Raajneeti is not the most subtle of adaptations. Ajay Devgn’s character, playing Karna, is left as a baby in a basket on the river. He also wears the trademark kundalas (earrings), and has a riverside showdown with the mother who abandoned him.

Raajneeti is bolstered by a large celebrity cast, with some unlikely faces like Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif obviously signed on to give a touch of glamour to the project. They are supported by a commendable ensemble cast. Nana Patekar plays the wily Krishna and Manoj Bajpai is dependable as ever as the perpetually frustrated Duryodhana. Every actor has the opportunity to emote, given the drama inherent in this story of family rivalries, and they all do a good job. The one sour note is Arjun Rampal as Bhim (or Sanjay Gandhi, depending on which epic you’re referring to at the moment) whose Hindi accent is even worse than Kaif’s at times.

Where the movie stumbles is in its predictability. I could foresee nearly every plot twist before it occurred, and assassinations are telegraphed seconds ahead by ominous music and obvious setups. When Ranbir’s character, Samar, returns a cell phone to a traitor with the instruction to always pick up his call, you know that the device is going to be used to blow the guy up pretty soon.

Despite the strong and complex plot, courtesy Ved Vyasa (who, I think, should certainly have been given screen credit) Raajneeti ends up being more ho-hum that hoo-haa. The movie will leave you with nothing more than a faint regret of having spent 3 hours in the theater (yes, it is that long) and a slight trepidation when you unlock your car in the parking lot and put your hand on the door handle to open it.

If you have a hankering for a reworked epic, wait for Mani Ratnam’s Ravana, out on June 18.

Update: I wanted to mention that this movie gives you a frightening picture of law and order in central India. Desis planning to return should watch this movie and reconsider! ( though I believe the situation has improved tremendously these days. Or so I hear.)

Update 2: I hear there are several elements from the Godfather movie too. Not having watched the movie recently, I wasn’t able to catch the references.

Update 3: Watch the previews for upcoming Bollywood releases. Then notice how the odd one out is the mainstream, Dharma Productions rom-com I Hate Luv Stories with the big production numbers and the good-looking leads. It is a testimony to the maturing of the Hindi movie industry.

My Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars

Kid advisory: Not suitable for kids under 13 years.

Critics in India panned it; critics in the US have gushed with praise. What’s a desi to do? Should one assume that Kites has certain Western sensibilities that backwater hicks in the homeland can’t appreciate and fork over the 11 dollars in the theater? Or trust in the instincts of a billion people and go for the two-buck pirated version at the Indian grocery store?

Well, here goes – I hope this helps.

Kites is mostly a paean to beauty; the sculpted, six-packed fabulousness of Hrithik Roshan and the olive-skinned exoticism of Barbara Mori. To my Indian eyes she wasn’t a patch of any of our desi kudis, but I am willing to concede that this may be a cultural bias and that she may be, in fact, drop-dead gorgeous to any red-blooded male west of Mumbai.

The film therefore spends most of its time leisurely panning over the two lovebirds as they gaze soulfully at each other. Well, Hrithik does the soulful bit mostly; Mori just looks (again, could be cultural bias; I had a real problem with the Close-Up smile that didn’t quite reach the eyes). There is a story around this hazardous romance between English/Hindi speaking boy and Spanish speaking girl, but that story is just a vehicle to display the awesomeness of the two. Every scene moves at glacial speed as we contemplate the sheer physical perfection of the lead pair; they are displayed in the rain, on a train, in the desert, at the casino, in the pool, in the sea, each at various stages of undress. Even the chase scene, where the lovers are in immediate peril, feels like a weekend outing to the country, as a soft ballad plays in the background.

Director Anurag Basu has been a staple of the Vishesh Films/Bhatt family stable, churning out decent movies like Life in a Metro and Gangster and Murder. His forte is style, and Kites is a very stylish and stylized movie. What is lacks is pacing and drama. Perhaps that was intentional, but I think having a producer like Mahesh Bhatt would have made Basu haul up his socks and fix the problem double quick. Instead he has Papa Roshan, who probably has no problem with the many, many minutes devoted to the admiration of his gorgeous son.

Ultimately, cross-cultural romances work if there is a sizzling chemistry between the lead pair. Hrithik and Mori do look good together, but I didn’t get it (CB? Maybe?) The last one I remember was Ek Duuje Ke Liye with Kamalahasan and Rati Agnihotri, which worked because there was a charming awkwardness between the lead pair and you could believe that, as teenagers, they would do stupid and grand mistakes. But here both Hrithik and Mori are just too well put together. They are just not credible as down-on- their-luck deadbeats. Seriously, can anyone think of the six-foot, green-eyed Hrithik as a struggler?

There is a silver lining, though. As I mentioned, the key problem with the movie is pace. Now this Friday the English version of the movie, directed by Rush Hour director Brett Ratner, released. It is 40 minutes shorter than the Hindi version, which means a lot of the pacing problems may have been taken care of. It still won’t be a terrific movie, but it may be passable. If you are a fan of Hrithik, it might be worth checking out. Plus, the pirated DVD has awful subtitles! (And unless you know Spanish, you’ll need them.)

Prologue: Even in laid back Silicon Valley, the arrival of The Blue Mug was big news. Breathless emails were exchanged about the date, rueful regrets were broadcast about not being able to score tickets, and in general, a frisson of excitement rippled through the area, thanks to the amazing cast: Konkona Sen Sharma, Ranvir Shorey, Vinay Pathak, among others – the new wave of “actors” in an otherwise scorned Bollywwood pantheon.

So the lobby outside Malavalli Hall (India Community Center, Milpitas) on Saturday was packed to stifling, and I mean that literally. Asked to arrive at 7:30 for the show opening at 8, even typically tardy desis showed up punctually, only to wait..and wait..and wait. There was a crush at the ticket redemption tables, the sides of the already small lobby were lined with tables for vendors and non-profit organizations, and the doors to the venue stubbornly stayed shut. The good-humored crowd slowly became restless, and progressively uncomfortable.

As it turns out, the delay was probably because some good-for-nothing promoters were placing pamphlets of upcoming events and ads on the chairs. When the doors finally opened at a quarter to 9, the crowd’s boiling point had just about been reached, and the mood did not improve when we saw how closely the folding chairs were packed together. Worse than an airplane setup, our knees squeezed together, and butts cuddled, and necks craned in uncomfortable positions to find a vantage point to see the stage.

Let’s face it, Malavalli Hall is not meant for plays. ICC, stop hiring it out for events like these – it is a disservice to both the actors and the audience. Not having a slope means that any activities below eye level are invisible to all except the first few rows.

Despite the delay, the organizers decided to continue with the scheduled program, an opening act by Project Pulse. An idiotic decision, given the angry sentiments of the crowd at this point; the dancers almost got booed off the stage (sorry guys, but your performance was not up to par either, not that I can blame you). When the emcee came up to make more announcements, one could almost sense the vibration of pitchforks; my husband and I cast nervous eyes around for the nearest exit, in case of a riot.

Eventually the play began, and things settled down, even after the disclosure that Konkona was ill and could not be a part of the show.

The Play: The Blue Mug is an experimental sort of play. It does not have a story, being a series of monologual vignettes about remembering and forgetting. The existential question it asks is, “Are we a sum of our memories?” Actors take turns to reminisce, weaving in and out of the stage to tell their unique stories. There are enough autobiographical touches thrown in to seamlessly blend truth and fiction, till it feels that you have been invited into their lives. I found that their recalled memories fired up my own synapses, throwing up moments from my past, as I listened to the players.

It works beautifully, though for it to make the maximum impact the viewer has to be Hindi/English bilingual and have a distinctly north Indian background. Having grown up in Kanpur, I could instantly identify with the stories, though I am not sure how those south of the Vindhyas reacted to it.

Above all, The Blue Mug is a master class in acting. Though Rajat Kapoor, Shorey, and Pathak are the star names, the other actors do as fine a job. Each performance is pitch perfect and completely engrossing. The play is only about 75 minutes long, but every minute is a theater lover’s treat. This is a great touring play, since there are no props involved, and I believe there are more shows scheduled throughout the United States.

If yours is one of the lucky cities to stage it, be sure to check it out. And here’s hoping the organizers have a little more respect for their audience this time.

The play’s schedule can be found here.