My Name is Khan: Emotions in motion.

SRK aka king Khan, Karan Johr, Kajol in second innings, I was bit sceptical, as from my own experiences I’ve seen that lots of hype is not a necessarily a healthy thing. But the K-team (Khan, Kajol, and Karan) has lived up to the expectations, (at least of the masses)
My name is Khan is a smart script, it’s blend of Hollywood three-act structure with typical Indian love story minus Karava-choth, and wedding songs. Karan is matured in terms of screen play/ script writing. He successfully awakens the emotions of common people. I bet lots of wet handkerchiefs in Indian theatres!
There were few post 9/11 films came and gone, but what different in MNK is, the post 9/11 atrocities stays in background without getting loud and making film boring. Lover boy SRK travels back and forth between real world and surreal world.

Here are the highlights of the script.

• Journey of protagonist to achieve his goal. (Straight from Hollywood’s formula)
• Make protagonist miserable (Asperger’s syndrome) to gain sympathy from the audience (Thankfully those extended dance sequences are out of equation)
• Concept of Hero: where a Hero helps to save the world, lives and comes out as winner in the end. (Hurricane in Georgia)
• It’s all about SRK: This script is specifically written keeping SRK in mind, and nothing wrong in it, but I do believe that good scripts are characters based and not actor based. An actor should be able to slip in to the character not the other way round.
• Influence of western cinema is flashing/flagging in this script, starting from three act formula structure to the story idea, cinematography, back ground score and so on. I hope this does not a step forward to loosing originality of art of story telling the Indian way!

SRK is brilliant as Mr Khan, Kajol welcome back, still I’m not big fan of your voice culture, but it does not matter. Jimmy is OK, so are the others. Many Hollywood actors got important roles - a new beginning in terms of collaboration between two giants of cinema.

Direction I’m sorry but too predictable, Karan tried hard and he is successful to some extent in awakening feelings in the audience’s minds, but nothing outstanding. A typical Bollywood job if I must say. Sometimes I wonder why they don’t dare to be different, do you have to have dialogues for everything, can’t you few emotions without saying? Do you have to have a fat lady in your film as good omen ( and for that matter few other irrelevant characters such as Dr. Rahman just to prove a point)? Do you really have to stab protagonist and then show him in and out of death? Do you have to take inspiration from Forrest Gump including mannerisms of Tom Hanks? I personally know this is very hard for a director not to indulge in to the stereotypes but at Karan Johr’s level, he can afford it I suppose.

Music good. Cinematography and VFX are cool. American landscape has been captured luxuriously. Editing could be tighter.

The film grabs and looses the viewer few times. At times melodramatic and loud at times really strong. In short it’s not gripping from beginning to the end. SRK carries film on his shoulder throughout and saves the day in the end.

My Rating: Three and Half/ Five.

A Script..

My relationship with creative arts is kinda love hate, at times i hate to write, or create anything. At times I just indulge and immerse myself passionately in to creative processes.

the script posted here was written on the date and mood i can't remember, but I'm sure after watching Quentin Tarantino movies for a week i cameup with the idea of this mystery plot.

Have a read...

EXT. A QUITE PARK. DAY

it's an early morning. the bicentennial park is not
crowded yet. the air is chilly suggesting that the winter
is at the door step. it is also a windy day, tree tops
are dancing at the tunes of wind. somewhere in this quite
park a woman is knitting something from her yarn. she is
also humming along suggesting that she is very happy,
content and productive in whatever she is doing.
camera slowly retracts after establishing an early
morning, a quite park and a knitting lady.
in the next shot, which starts at the entrance of
bicentennial we can see an elegant and sophisticated old
man coming out of his car. he is elderly but agile. the
old man is dressed in three piece suit. he also has a
smoking pipe in his mouth, a golden watch in his pocket
and walking stick in his hand. The old man also has a
packet in his underarm. he locks his car and quickly
looks at the time. he briskly starts walking towards the
bench, where that knitting lady is still busy knitting
and humming.
the scene end here with wide shot, where we can see an
old man walking towards the lady in a quite park.
INT. KITCHEN. DAY
The scene starts with a close up a frying pen, somebody
breaks an egg in to the frying pan and camera slowly
zooms out. Now, we can see that a young lady is preparing
break fast, the camera does a haphazard reconnaissance of
kitchen. apart from messy kitchen wares what stand out is
the photograph of humming lady in a frame, on the top of
refrigerator. a man is his thirties walks in to the
frame, opens the door of freeze and gets a bottle of
juice out. he is in pajamas. he looks at the young lady,
who is bit conscious of the presence of the young man.
the young man, grabs the lady from behind and start
kissing on her neck. she tries to get way from man but
unsuccessfully. camera moves out the kitchen with gentle
moaning sounds in back ground. in the last of this scene
we can see that an retarded teen ager is laughing
violently while playing play station in the lounge room
of the same house. he has blood all over his shirt and a
slit in his wrist. camera also takes a quick note of a
disposable razor next to him.
fade out.

INT. BEDROOM. DAY

A heavily pregnant teenager girl is laying on her back
on the bed. she is starring at the ceiling. she looks
really depressed. she turns on her side after a while and
gets the coke powder out of her beg, grabs the framed
picture frame of the old man, who we have seen in the
park. she puts the powder on the frame and start
sniffing. we can see that she is on high and her mobile
is buzzing with a name on it, Rick calling. after a while
she stops drug abuse and runs to the toilet, the door
closes, we can hear flush of water. she comes out, picks
up the picture frame stares at it, and then starts
kissing the frame. after a little while she is crying,
with the same frame in her hands. in the last shot we can
see the saliva dropping on the frame. a close up of the
old man smiling in the photograph. camera leaves the
room.

EXT. BUSY STREET. DAY

Another old man, starkly opposite in appearance and
clothing then the old man we have seen in the first scene
is seen pushing a shopping trolley on the street of
kogarah. the trolley is full of all the imaginable
rubbish in it. this a moving home of the old man. she
picks up rages from the garbage bin. He is dirty, filthy
and melancholiac. the saliva is dripping from the corner
of his mouth. he parks the trolley at the end of the
street, sits next to the trolley on the ground. the train
passes by in the back ground. he grabs his wallet and
stares at the picture of the lady. we can hear the
humming of the lady in the park in the back ground. it's
her photograph though she is few years older now.the old
man neatly combs his hair, takes a pack of disposable
razor out of the trolley. hides the trolley and walks way
from the camera. the scene ends with another train
passing by.


EXT. A QUITE PARK. DAY

Camera is back to the park. however things have changed a
little bit now. the first shot is out of focus, with a
somebody is gulping from air in back ground. when camera
gets in to the focus we can see that the knitting lady is
off the bench, on the ground. the needle is in her
throat, and blood is flowing freely. she is dying and
gasping for air. camera without showing any sympathy
moves to the other end of park. it find the old man in
three pice suit on the ground with smashed face. the
packet next to him has a framed photograph in it. we can
see only half of the photo with old man in suit and
knitting lady. there is a hand around the shoulder of
knitting lady. a man's hand! the camera moves away
quickly from the crime scene. we can hear noise of
ambulance in the back ground.
EXT. STREET. DAY
the dirty old man is walking on the street with his
shopping trolley. soon after establishing this we can see
the young lady who was preparing break fast in second
scene is walking behind him. they don't notice each other
and keeps walking. the camera zooms in on the traffic
light which changes from amber to red.

finis

copyright- parth nanavati 2010

Gulaal- Khwhish Main Lipti Zarurat ki duniya

Anurag Kashyap Has done it again! After DEV-D, this talented film maker has embarked on a journey which might be remembered as Neo-Bollywood era. THe Bollywood has matured with age.
Story writers and directors have a better access to the world cinema. The sphere of expressions has expanded. Writings and story lines are more organized. Revelations are more provoking! Dynamics of those buried bad relationship, Concept of Kept and Ragging are blown away right on the faces of audiences. Here is the reality and face it! There is no escapism, no symbolism, just plain naked truth. Thats What GULAAL is all about.

As tons of reviews written about the film, characters, story line, actors etc. I'm not gonna to ponder in all those aspects. What I want to high light is a complete new style of film making, in Bollywood. Unconventional by Bollywood Standards Gullal draws a very thick line between Mediocrity, Melodrama and Realistic story telling. Protagonist is not Immortal , The lead girl is not next door dancing singing girl and life is not at all simple in this part of world. Skin and Sensuality are on surface. Dirty games and shifting loyalties are the buzz trends. Politics is a lot more than just contesting in elections![polldaddy poll=1725627]

The most remarkable style in this film is small, short scenes, sometimes totally irrelevant to the narrative, still successfully pushes the overall narrative. Another cool stuff is characters who have nothing to do with the main story line. Mix this with Piyush Mishra's Music, Lyrics and Excellent dialogues by AK, the product is Gothic Mystic eStyle of Bollywood noir.

" aage se right mat lena kyu ki hay hi nahi"
" aek bansuri wala rehta hay, aap bhi reh lo"
" tera bhai padayshi ullu hay usne koi course kiya hay"
" abe tu itna lamba jkaise ho gaya, isme kanoon ka hath hay"... The treat goes on and on.. The narrative travels in one trajectory, the visuals in other and film itself in third! Still everything comes together nice and intact.

Kudos to talented AK, Piyush and all actors. Music a different genre, Lyrics like " Angday lete Kabutar ki duniya O duniya Re" and "Khwahish main lipti Zarurat ki Duniya" Blows you away in the world oblivion.

Carry on Guys, We need a lot more than just a looser Hero!!