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My Name is Khan and my 2nd half will disappoint and frustrate you

I have already read quite a few reviews and many people have already hit on the most important points in more cogent ways than I can so this will most likely devolve into more of a rant which is what I’m best at anyway.  You’ve been warned…

As someone who watches a fair number of Bollywood movies, though I am still relatively new to Hindi cinema, I am much more likely to suspend disbelief than the mainstream American movie watching public.  That being said, even I was physically cringing about 5 minutes into the second half of this movie.

Wilhemina, GA, if you exist, I never want to visit because you now represent a black hole of disappointment to me.  From the first moment that funny hair Joel’s voice assaults you, I was squirming in my seat.  This boy? girl? (still not sure about that) was acting like he? was on stage in a warehouse and trying to get across to one audience member at the opposite end of the building.  Over-acting doesn’t begin to describe it.  The music that played when the door opened to Mama Jenny’s…is it a home or a Juke Joint out of The Color Purple? It just gets worse from there.

Hey KJo, if you can do English subtitles when the characters are speaking Hindi, why not have Rizwan (who speaks very good English) speak English in the church when he is having the big emotional scene talking about Sam and use Hindi subtitles on the screen?  The way it is now, I was wondering where all the residents of Wihemina learned Hindi since they all seemed to understand what he said.  Maybe Rosetta Stone has a radio program that they listen to on the wireless? 

The interrogator?! Really Karan?  He’s the best American actor you could find?  I happen to know that there are probably hundreds of thousands of members of the Screen Actors Guild who would have sold their grandmother for a paying role in a movie.  I’ll bet you a million dollars that 90% of them could have acted that part better than the hack you hired.  But, you do this all of the time so why should I be so surprised.  Did an American pick on you when you were a chubby kid or something because you seem to delight in choosing the worst actors you can find to play the American roles in your movies.

“Bloody Paki????”  The only time I have ever heard that is in Bend it Like Beckham which, guess what? Takes place in England where people actually say “bloody” and know that Paki is a derogatory term.  You’re right about one thing, most Americans know very little about the intricacies of relations between different factions in the Muslim world and relations between Hindus and Muslims, etc. thus they also have no idea what a “Paki” is or that that is insulting or that some people believe that there is a difference beween Pakistanis and Indians other than a national border.  Cut it out KJo!  You’re smarter than that.

Also, a lesson for you, though it should be common sense, if you can get into a hurricane/flood ravaged area, you can get out of it and that’s what we do.  We evacuate people when we’re able too.  We also still have a National Guard present for national disasters even when we’re fighting wars in multiple countries.  Just last week they evacuated people from highways in the East who were stuck in their cars during the blizzard.  Luckily those people didn’t have to resort to eating each other and trying to build fires in their glove boxes which is presumably what would happen in your world rather than removing themselves from the situation.

Don’t even get me started with the woman at the African Relief benefit.  I would have maybe let it slide if she had told him the event was for specific church groups only…still offensive but not as much as “for Christians only.”  If we made a film that had some similar sweeping generalizations about Hinduism or Islam, there would be rioting in the streets.  For an educated man, this makes Karan look like an ignorant bigot which is ironic since I think that was the point he was trying to make about some Americans and some Christians.

I’m sure there is more I could bitch about if I thought about it some more, dead floating babies comes to mind, but why nitpick when there are so many immense flaws to discuss?  Instead, let me now talk about what I loved about the movie, because I did love the first half and, of course, SRK!!  Shah Rukh’s performance was an absolute delight to watch. 

Now, I could watch Shah Rukh sit quietly and read a book to himself for 3 hours and be entertained but he really was even more wonderful than usual in this role.  You could see that he put a lot of study into what he was portraying and that he was trying very hard to be respectful in his performance.  He succeeded in spades in my opinion.  I don’t believe any other actor could actually make you fall in love in a romantic sense with this character.  I wondered going into it if they would deal with the physical aspect of marriage or just ignore it.  I have to give them props for dealing with it in a funny, sensitive, wholly appropriate and charming way.  I also have to say that even as a man with Asperger’s, Shah Rukh is so handsome and charming that he makes my toes curl. 

The first half of the movie that concentrates on the love story between Rizwan and Mandira is beautiful and I had a smile on my face the whole time.  I was totally taken in by all of it.  The scene where he shows her the view of SF at sunrise and it finally all comes together for Mandira was magical.  I read one review, written by a man, and he said it was unbelievable that a woman would want to marry Rizwan and take on another child.  Not even addressing how offensive that is since Rizwan was clearly very capable of taking care of himself and Sam and Mandira, the reviewer must have also missed the part about Mandira’s first husband being a slimy beast, idiot, bastard.  When your first marriage is arranged and he emotionally abuses you for three years, then abandons you for another woman with an infant in a foreign country with no means of support and never even sees his own child and then you meet this pure hearted man who clearly loves you though he may not be able to say it, puts all of his being into caring for you and your son and and wants nothing more than to be with you and your son, why wouldn’t you fall in love with him?  I don’t have a slimy beast of an ex-husband and I fell in love with Rizwan.

Kajol is my favorite Hindi film actress.  From the first dance in the procession in K3G, I have been in awe of her vibrancy and the energy of her screen presence.  I also happen to like that off-screen she doesn’t give a crap what people think of her.  I thought she was lovely as Mandira and I can’t imagine another actress who could be Mandira more convincingly.  That being said, she has a few moments where her talking too fast got on my nerves and was distracting from the scene and she had a couple of times where the lines just came out really badly.  Even so, the scene where she prepares Sam’s body was beautifully done and very powerful.  I read a review by someone who said she was too filmi in that scene but you really can’t be too filmi in a scene that deals with a mother losing her child.  I’ve seen someone very close to me go through it and there is just no way you can overplay that kind of anguish.  She was spot on.

There were some beautiful scenes in the movie.  I particularly loved the scene of Rizwan sitting under an enormous Joshua Tree at sunset writing in his journal.  These are the things that Karan excels at and his shots of San Francisco were likewise lush and beautiful.  Unfortunately, someone also needs to tell him that there are no Joshua Trees in Kentucky and Death Valley can only consistently be used as a backdrop for Tatooine, not the entire United States.

So, overall, a very flawed movie that frustrates me to no end because the ingredients were there for a huge crossover success but the second half was just too ridiculous for words.  Sadly, some important messages that maybe a lot of Americans should hear will get lost in the noise of preposterousness.  I was actually very affected by the scene in the mosque.  I thought it was well done without being too heavy handed but the mainstream American audience will miss out on it because no one involved in the making of MNIK could be bothered to fully commit and have some honest Americans on staff to tell them to cut out the bullshit.  If I sound angry it’s because I am a bit.  I respect and love SRK, Kajol, Hindi cinema and, yes, even Karan, so much that I want them to be successful with non-Indian Americans too.  I want the Western world to appreciate them as much as I do and this film could have done it if the second half had been as well done as the first.   Instead, it went off the rails and turned into melodramatic mishmash of offensive stereotypes, filmi overindulgence and slap dash filmcraft.  Shah Rukh deserved a perfect film for his perfect performance and he didn’t get it.

Heavy Sunday (or Watching Rang De Basanti and Born Into Brothels Back to Back)

Sunday is the one day of the week that I do not have to do anything I don’t want to do.  I don’t have to get up at any certain time, I don’t have to work, I don’t have to get dressed, leave my apartment or talk to another human being all day long if I don’t want to.  I, therefore, like to keep my Sundays light and uncomplicated.  Sunday is the “Romantic Comedy” of the week as opposed to the Docudrama the rest of the week usually is.  Then there was today.

I actually woke up in time to catch IFC’s Wake Up with Bollywood movie, Rang De Basanti.  I figured, “Hey, it’s Bollywood on American TV so it will be a nice, light, fluffy, musical with a happy ending.”  In the beginning it was.  A youngish English woman named Sue goes to India to make a documentary film about Bhagat Singh and other notable Indian freedom fighters who gave their lives at a very young age (23) for India’s Independence.  Much of her film is based on a diary written by her grandfather who was, through  his superiors, charged with overseeing the imprisonment, torture and, ultimately, execution of said freedom fighters.  Of course, he learned to respect the young men and hate his task.

Upon her arrival in India, she is greeted by her friend Sonia who assists her in several rounds of unsuccessful auditions for young men to play the freedom fighters in her movie.  It seems as though today’s kids just don’t get it.  Then Sonia introduces her to her core group of friends, four college guys that are cute, cool, Westernized and, of course, ambivalent about the state of affairs in India. Yes, India has its problems but nothing will ever change it so why even try, is their attitude.  They agree to be in Sue’s movie though they believe that they have nothing in common whatsoever with the freedom fighters who died over 60 years ago or the ideals they died for. 

What follows is an hour and a half of “Oh look how fun it is to be them” movie-watching, filled with music video-like sequences of afternoons spent hanging out goofing around, budding romance, carefree youth.  It’s fun, it’s fluffy, it’s exactly what I was hoping to watch early on a Sunday morning.  Then, disaster…Ajay, Sonia’s fiance, who was only in about 2 scenes prior to this, has died when his fighter jet malfunctioned.   Ajay is a hero, the jet malfunctioned due to faulty parts purchased as part of a corrupt government deal but the officials responsible, blame our hero in the media.  Suddenly, passion is ignited in our young posse of pretty but inconsequential youngsters.  They lead a peaceful protest march to India Gate that soon turns violent as the government tries to silence them. 

At this point, I’m still on board.  Maybe they’ll go on to become lawyers and journalists and live good, happy lives fighting the good fight.  Yeah…no.  Instead, they shoot the Minister of Defense down in the street as he takes his morning walk.  Then one of the group, who happens to be the son of a businessman responsible for brokering the government deal for the faulty plane parts, goes home, tells dad what he did, hugs him and shoots him dead in the living room.  They then take over All India Radio to confess that they are responsible for shooting the Minister and to explain why by taking calls from listeners.  They are drinking coffee, hanging out, goofing around as usual, with the exception that the military and police are mobilizing outside to annihilate them.

When the police breach the building and start picking them off one by one, we get flashbacks of Bhagat Singh and his merry band of freedom fighters living out their final moments as a comparison.  Then, what seem to be the ghosts of those original martyrs look on in seeming pride as these promising young men bleed their lives out on the floor of the radio stattion.

The movie ends with a shot of the five of them laughing, running through the fields of the place they used to hang out together as though there is a heaven of perpetual college life waiting for them on the other side.

Lest you doubt, I did enjoy this movie.  It pushed all the appropriate emotional buttons.  I laughed, I cried, I admired how good looking they all were, I wanted to be part of their group of cool kids…until they all went down in a blaze of glory.  What I didn’t enjoy is the message of this movie.  This film makes it look romantic for five beautiful, promising young men who should be India’s hope for the future not just to die for the revolution but to kill for the revolution. 

And, I have to ask, where is the revolution?  Unless your acts end up being a catalyst to real change on a  national scale, isn’t it just terrorism?  Ask the IRA.  If your “revolution” fails, history doesn’t call it a revolution.  What I know about Indian history could be written in the head of a pin but even I can see that the circumstances surrounding the actions of Bhagat Singh and his men were very different from the world the movie was set in.  In fact, the guys say this more than once as an excuse for why they find it difficult to connect to playing the freedom fighters.  It is a different world they live in.

I guess there is supposed to be some point in all of this about Indians needing freedom from the corruption of government which keeps the country mired in its problems of poverty, overcrowding, lack of resources, etc.  But to so blatantly romanticize obtaining that through violence…just wrong.  Maybe, in reality, violence is more effective…it’s certainly more interesting in the short term.  But cultures and nations will never evolve towards non-violent solutions until they start to believe that it is more tragic than romantic for young people to die for their country and that hope for the future lies in young people living for their ideals, not killing for them. 

After that, I should have turned off the TV or, at the very least, tried a new channel but I didn’t.  I was still trying to process it all when the next show came on and sucked me in.

Born into Brothels has been in my Netflix queue for 2 years for a reason, I heard it was very good but very depressing and I have been avoiding heavy drama and depressing in my entertainment choices for about 2 years. Lucky for me, it was on right after Rang De Basanti today.

It was as good and as gut-wrenching as I knew it would be.  If you haven’t seen it yet, you should.  The unconscious wisdom and resiliency of the featured children is heartbreaking.  The one moment that touched me the most was something one of the boys said after the death of his mother.  They said she died in a kitchen accident which turned out to be her pimp setting her on fire in her own kitchen.  Her son, Avijit, about 10 years old said, “There is nothing called hope in my future.” 

For so many children in the world, that statement is tragically true.  At the end of the documentary, we see that, for Avijit, it may not be true.  He may be one of the lucky ones.  It was, however, striking that these parents didn’t even have enough hope to have hope for their children even when opportunity was handed to them.

So, a very heavy, thought-provoking morning has given birth to this blog.  Most of the sadness from these movies stems from the loss or death of hope.  Hope has become one of those words that we overuse almost as much as love.  But, it’s important to remember what powerful forces both are in the world.  So, that is what I choose to take from these films rather than sadness…a renewed appreciation for hope.