On 7/19/2008 6:10 PM India Time, _Indmov Buff_ wrote: > Rawat, I think if you were following JA from the very beginning (ie when > AG announced the movie), you'd see clearly how AG has stressed that it > is NOT going to be another MEA. Same genre maybe but completely > different films. He's always stressed that it's his take on the > relationship between Jodha andAkbhar. It has always been a love story > and surprise surprsie, the title happens to be Jodha Akbhar too! He has > said that all along and both Rahman and AG have said that they wanted to > give the music a contemporary feel.
music indeed had a contemporary feel, no doubt about that. > Pick any JA related interview before > the release of the music/movie and you'd know what he was saying all > along. It takes a lot of craft to be able to deliver a JA and I don't > think we should take any credit away from the creators of a great piece > of cineme. Nopes, here I don't agree. AG is established now after Lagaan and Swades and he could call the shots now and find any amount of money that he asked for, so he asked and wasted it. The money was wasted endlessly and vulgarly in cheap displays without adding essence to the film. The countless camels, elephants and horses reminded me of thousands of British armymen running and crowding the field in the same uniform in the last scene to arrest Aamir. No purpose of such shows. Money is a national resource, should be used wisely. It was not the music that was not contemporary but it was the storyline that was not contemporary. The storyline was very short and shallow, it suited a village based film likes of what they used to make last in 60s. The film was disproportionate at several places. Entire starting 1 hour was just stretching and drifting. JA could have carried a great message of interreligious and intercommuncal harmony that is so much required in the tense situation of current times, and that is where JA failed. There was just no message there and such a lovely topic got wasted. Blame it on AG. That reminds me of the initial half an hour of Akbar Khan's Tajmahal (Naushad's last film). That starting story would appear totally unrelated to the story of Tajmahal, but that had a very effective message. Aurangzeb going all out to grab the kingdom, killing his real brother and crown Prince DaraShikoh, ditching his real brother supporter Murad, arresting his own real father, killing the authors and poets, getting the commander of the opposition Army killed by intrigue - I mean so much blood, murders, deaths, intrigue, manipulation, greed was shown there that the viewers were just fed up and were ready for the message of love that Akbar Khan then delivered. That is what vision is. That is what effective and impressive and wise use of scarce resources is. That is what story writing and film making is all about. subtle - elude. Kudos to Akbar Khan. And in comparison, AG comes out as a school student staging a drama on stage. And JA ends abruptly. There was no point that it should have ended there. No milestone was reached. Nothing great has happened to leave a lasting impression on viewers. It just ended because AG ran short of script. In the review of BOSE, some critique had written that Shyam Benegal's style of filmmaking is as if Shyam is ticking of a list of what he wanted to show in the film. he makes individual sequences for each points and ticks off that point as done. And then he puts all those individual sequences together and calls that a film. It is not a feature film making, it is documentary film making. And I find that AG in JA followed exactly the same method of film making, ticking of a list of points he had decided to show, individual sequences put together. Calling JA any "great piece of cineme" is giving undue credit where there is none. It is one of the most mediocre film ever made in India - vis a vis the publicity and popularity it achieved. > I am sorry if you went into the cinema expecting to see a > 2008 version MEA. I never had any great expectations from AG. I have assessed his mental level in Lagaan and Swades. Remove Aamir/ Shahrukh/ ARR from Lagaan and Swades and you wouldn't find anything worth mentioning in those movies. Nobody could make another MEA in last 48 years, so it was definitely not AG who could have make it again. And I knew I was not going to find a Ben Hur or Lawrence of Arabia. so I went to JA to see ARR's music. That is all. BTW, JA is the last film I have seen in cinema hall. Didn't saw any other one since. Yet to see JTJYN. > It was never going to be that, as stressed by the > creator from day 1. He was aware of his limited capability. -- V
