Jodhaa Akbar: Two hours of thrills and an hour and half of yawns
Posted on Friday, February 15, 2008 (EST)
The first half of Ashutosh Gowarikar's 'Jodhaa Akbar' is such a delight that we
told ourselves -If we have to sit the whole damn day to watch such brilliant
stuff we will gladly do it - What is three hours and twenty minutes.
15 February 2008 (Sawf News) - The first half of Ashutosh Gowarikar's Jodhaa
Akbar is such a delight that we told ourselves -If we have to sit the whole
damn day to watch such brilliant stuff we will gladly do it - What is three
hours and twenty minutes.
The film blends Gowarikar's spin on Mughal history with his take on love after
marriage.
It starts from the time Akbar was crowned Mughal emperor by Bairam Khan in the
midst of a war against Sikandar Shah at the tender age of 13.
It then fast forwards to the period where he matured as a ruler and began to
assert himself over his advisers.
Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan in a still from 'Jodhaa Akbar'.
The main focus of the film is the political alliance that Akbar forged with
Rajput ruler Raja Bharmal by marrying his daughter, often referred to as Jodhaa
Bai. It also covers other important events of his formative years as a ruler
such as the Second Battle of Panipat in which he defeated the Hindu king Samrat
Hem Chander Vikramaditya and the repealing the jizya tax on non-Muslims.
Jodhaa Akbaris not a historical even though Gowarikar has claimed it is part
history. It is a period film with a historical backdrop.
There are a lot of things that are delightful about the film - the direction,
cinematography, performances, sets, music but most of all it is Gowarikar's
willingness to grapple with details.
The battle scenes were very well done, for example. The repealing of the jizya
tax was also convincingly shown, albeit with a lot of artistic license.
The film consists of two distinct storylines.
Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik Roshan in a still from Jodhaa Akbar.
Akbar's formative years from 13 to 28 years, during which he matured from an
overawed young boy to a brave warrior and a astute ruler who dabbled in the
arts, science, architecture and engineering. This part of the story is based on
well documented history
Akbar's use of marriage as a political alliance, which too is based on
documented history, and how the arranged marriage blossomed into romance, which
is entirely fictional.
The problem with Jodhaa Akbaris that it attempts to blend two stories, both of
which warrant a full length feature film. Worst, one story is history the other
fiction. But that is not all. Sequences in the film belong neither to history
nor the fiction. Unfortunately they are long sequences where the director's
penchant for details generates yawns not thrills.
The two song sequences come to mind. We are not complaining about the songs,
which are brilliant, just their insertion into an already long film.
The sword fighting sequence between Aishwarya Rai and Hrithik was pointless and
stretched credibility very thin.
The love scene between Akbar and Jodhaa which leads to them finally
consummating their marriage. It went on and on going nowhere. After almost ten
minutes Hrithik's lips came close to Aishwarya's but the audience knew there
would be no kiss. If Hrithik had come any closer we are sure Amitabh's
voiceover would have interrupted him telling him to behave with his bahu.
The fight between Akbar and Sharifuddin Hussain (Akbar's sister's husband) was
pure Bollywood masala that had no business to be in the script.
We are stumped. Why did Gowarikar have to include these sequences in the film?
We liked the performance by Aishwarya, loved the background musical score and
the performances by Raza Murad (Shamsuddin Atka Khan - Baba Khan), Nikitin
Dheer (Sharifuddin Hussain - sister's husband) and Sonu Sood (Rajkumar
Sujanmal).
Ashutosh Gowariker's story telling was expectedly impressive.
The film of course belongs to Hrithik Roshan - he was brilliant!
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