Review: Lajja

Lajja
Stars: Manisha Koirala, Jackie Shroff, Anil Kapoor, Mahima Chaudhary, Madhuri Dixit, Rekha, Samir Soni, Ajay Devgan
Directed by: Rajkumar Santoshi
Released: September 19, 2001

Vaidehi (Koirala) runs away from a loveless marriage to Raghu (Shroff) and embarks on a journey that shows her more about life and womanhood than she ever anticipated. Raghu is not exactly the model husband, he's abusive and lecherous. When Vaidehi becomes pregnant, she decides that is enough is enough. As fate would have it, Raghu is involved in a terrible car accident which renders him unable to impregnate a woman. Upon realizing that the child Vaidehi made off with would be the only one he would ever have. This causes him to send his hired men after her to bring her back.

On her way she meets three strong, revolutionary women; starting with Maithili (Chaudhary). Maithili is a bride-to-be from a lovely middle class family. Her troubles stem from her groom's rich and greedy father who demands a large wedding and an even larger dowry; one that Maithili's father cannot afford.

Then there is Janki, my very favorite out of all the women. She is a theatre actress who is unwed and newly pregnant. She is not the submissive mouse that women are so often expected to be, but an outspoken beauty that wants to take control of her life and do what means the most to her. She is in love with a fellow acto and wants nothing more than to be with him.

On her way to her next adventure, she comes across Bulwa (Devgan),a Robin Hood type. He brings her to Ramdulari (Rekha). Her trouble stems from her son's forbidden relationship with the daughter of the head of her village. This struggle and the end result makes for a terrifying scene; one that will leave you shaken and disturbed for a while after you've seen it.

Manisha delivers a fine performance but is completely overshadowed by Madhuri and Rekha. This is my second favorite Madhuri character and performance ever, coming in only after Chandramukhi. It was my first full film with Rekha and Anil as well and I was impressed with both of them. Some of my friends insist that Anil cannot do comedy, but I disagree. Ding dong! Ajay Devgan's character was more or less... well, pointless, but I enjoyed seeing him on screen nonetheless. I believe that Jackie Shroff is one of those actors that cannot be bad and therefore he most definitely didn't disappoint. As for the music, the only song I walked away singing was Badi Muskil, which I still listen to regularly, almost a year after seeing this film.

Now... The movie itself was fantastic in that it showed the true hardships of women in India. Lajja itself means shame and you can see the 'shame' that these Indian women bring upon their family. The thing about this, however, is that the idea of shame is so incredibly backwards. Shame, honor and pride are all so trivial in life and I left this film wishing that the families of these women would have better understood their reasons for what they did instead of going home and crying about how much shame their daughters brought upon them. As for the main character Vaidehi, I was disappointed on her. Woman has husband, leaves husband, leans on thief, leans on bride, leans on actress, leans on Superman, leans on wise village woman, leans on... well, watch the film to discover that one. You get the point, though. She never really learned to stand on her own.

Watch this film, please, and the next time you consider putting a woman down, remember that in the end, they are the strong ones and that they are the ones that have the courage to make a needed change.

Rating: 7/10

Here's a bonus that I couldn't resist:

Chalo Manisha, let me show you how to dance to these steps so you can change your opinion on me completely.

Song Of The Week: The Kathak Dance

Kathak Dance
Dil To Pagal Hai

This weeks SOTW doesn’t focus as much on the music (although it its essential), but more so on the dancing that goes with it and the woman who brings it to life. As most people know, Madhuri Dixit is a trained Kathak dancer and she excels at it. It is something she enjoys immensely, and I would not be surprised if she loved Kathak and dancing in general more than acting. There are few times in her career where we have been able to see her true talents in this classical form of Indian dancing, but we get lucky enough in this film to get quite the treat. Madhuri makes her ghungroos sing with her every move as SRK accompanies her on the drums. Kathak with drums, the way it’s meant to be. There are a few different ideas as to where Kathak originated. In the myths, Shiva created the dance and when he did, I’m sure he had a woman like Madhuri in his mind. She is never more feminine and graceful in her dancing than when she does the dancing form that she has been trained to do since she was at such a young, precious age. So enjoy this Song Of The Week. Enjoy something a little more out of the box from the other 90s Indian masala films and songs. Enjoy beauty, in the best form possible.

Song Of The Week: Dreamum Wakeupum

Dreamum Wakeupum
Aiyyaa

The first song released from the upcoming movie Aiyyaa is catchy to be sure. It's different than most item numbers and the dance moves are something quite unlike anything Bollywood has ever seen. Rani impresses in the song. She's always been a good dancer and it's nice to see her be put in movie where she gets the chance to dance - even if it's some odd musical number. The words are catchy, the beat catchier. Because this film is due out rather soon, I thought it would be good for the first SOTW!

Review: The Dirty Picture

The Dirty Picture

Stars: Vidya Balan, Emraan Hashmi, Naseeruddin Shah, Tusshar

Directed by: Milan Luthria

Released: December 2, 2011

Entertainment, entertainment, entertainment. One of the main messages of this film is surely what it is. Some would say that this film was overhyped, that it was nothing groundbreaking and that Vidya Balan's performance was nothing special. Well, I would like to kindly disagree with them.

Reshma (Balan), a poor girl in India runs away from home the night before her wedding, forever damaging her relationship with her mother. She has big dreams to be in pictures and she falls into some luck. A dance director pulls her into a song with a whip and she uses it well. This is her big break into films and suddenly everyone wants to get a piece of Silk, as Reshma is now known. The actor Surya (Shah), which she has been in love with for years, gives her the time of day after some sexy convincing from Silk. Being in his movies only boosts her further into stardom. This, however, makes him a little upset since his thunder is being stolen away.

In the meantime, we run into Abraham (Hashmi) every once in a while who has a real chip on his shoulder and hates Silk. I feel like we never really got to understand why he hated her, though, and that bothered me. He hated her because she was vulgar? So what? That's no reason to hate someone. There seemed to be more there that was never really addressed or explained. As with many actresses, Silk hit her prime... and started to fall. She could no longer get roles as easily as she could before and this lead her to financial and emotional problems which led to her ultimate and final downfall.

There are things about this film that make me mad - but they're supposed to, I believe. For starters, The Dirty Picture does good at pointing out a serious flaw in people, which can easily be explained in this quote from Silk, "You make films about sex, you sell them, you watch them, you show them, you even present them with awards, but you're scared to aknowledge them." That's something I've noticed in my time of being a fan of Bollywood. It's alright for men to watch a woman dance around half naked but she is forever scarred and scorned for life. Then, those same men want to act as though they have done nothing wrong, like they are as pure and chaste as the day they were born. 

From the reviews I've read, it makes me laugh because so many people talk about how vulgar this film was. Did they not see the previews? The trailers? The title? It's The Dirty Picture, what do you expect? Of course this might be my American showing here, but nothing in this film shocked me that much. However I do understand that as far as Bollywood and Indian standards go, this was vulgar and dirty. Still, don't be surprised  by it and act like you had no idea what this film was going to be about.

Vidya deserved every single accolade and praise that she got from this film. Her acting was nothing short of spectacular. She became Silk. Watching her in Parineeta, No One Killed Jessica and now The Dirty Picture proves just how dedicated and versatile she is. She is one of the hardest working actresses today and I hope she continues to produce these fantastic films. And extra points to her for the curvy body she was sporting in the film. Her hips, thighs and larger stomach were all adorable to me and it was nice to see that she wasn't afraid to go there as well. Emraan was wood throughout his performance but that might be because he didn't really have much of one. Shah was fantastic and made me cringe, but for all the right reasons. Tusshar was cute, I thought. It was my first film with him and liked him well enough. The music is of course great. Ooh La La will forever be one of my favorite songs and there's no changing that.

The only reason I took a point off from it being perfect was because the second half dragged so much. Other than that, it was perfect to me, honestly. I enjoyed it so much and it lived up to its hype, me thinks. I will watch it again someday, for sure. 

Rating: 9/10