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Gulaab Gang(Hindi) Rating: * * ½ An unacknowledged contemporary real life
experience is given the traditional bollywood song and dance treatment replete
with vitriol spewing dialogues and fiesty exchanges between the two leads. But for Juhi’s stunning turn and Madhuri’s
effective one, this would have been a damp squib all the way!
Hindi Film
Review
Johnson Thomas
Film Review: Gulaab Gang:
Cast: Madhuri Dixit, Juhi Chawla,
Director: Soumik Sen
Rating: * * ½
The run-up to this film’s release has been mired in
controversies. The biggest being the creative teams’ culpability in brushing
aside a contemporary true life (Sampat
Pal and her Gulaabi Gang) inspiration. Giving credit where it is due, has
always been Bollywoods’ Achilles heel. We’ve seen borrowed ideas, straight
lifts from foreign films, true life impersonations, going a-begging because
Bollywood honchos dislike sharing their moolah the most. Sampat Pal of course
sought justice and got it(the stay order and subsequent arrangement preceding
the release) and deservingly so. No questions can be raised about her behavior
but many must be raised about the manner in which film makers and their
co-conspirators tend to take the general audience for a ride-and a fantasy
bedecked one at that.
If this was Hollywood, Sampat Pal’s crusade would
have garnered a befitting tribute it deserved, and with proud acknowledgement
too. But in Bollywood , all you can expect is a showy , glitzy reel fantasy cobbled
together as based on a real life incident - that is what you get here. By
spreading the credit around(listing out a number of unknown names whose
sacrifices have contributed to women’s empowerment), he seeks to minimize the
chances of association. But it’s not a trick that works in his favor. Right
from the opening sequence it’s quite clear what this film is all about and who
it is inspired from. Several months of publicity and a moniker that colors the
dramatics with Sampat Pal’s famed color ‘pink’ makes it impossible to believe
otherwise. Anil Kapoor’s voiceover narrates the struggles and turbulences
encountered by the protagonist Rajjo(Madhuri Dixit Nene) while seeking to
educate herself in Madhavpur, a village where women are expected to be housewives
rather than crusaders. The rest of the film is a guts and glory depiction of
the crusader who over the years , has
empowered a gang of women in pink sarees, her followers, and who now comes up against a wily politician
Sumitra/madam(Juhi
Chawla in a career redefining performance) while demolishing stereotypes of
gender, caste ,social oppression and some campy politicking with
Bijli(electricity) and pani(water). Narrative meanderings into Sub-plots
elucidate the raison d’etre for Rajjo’s huge and faithful following. The crux
of the film rests on confrontationist dramatics between Rajjo and Sumitra. And
that is when the film derives it’s most engaging meat.
Soumik Sen- the storywriter, screenplay writer,
music director and director of the film wears one too many hats and it shows in
the treatment and depiction. The narrative is unevenly paced, the plot jumps
around from song and dance to drama and vice versa without quite managing any
attention grab. Madhuri has to justify her
presence with dance moves that could well have been done away with. Her lathi
and sickle wielding dominance over the men folk was distraction enough. The
chief villains here are all women, so it’s not exactly an unequal fight. But the
action is as usual superficial. It’s more flight of fancy than real. Madhuri is
made to do what Ajay Devgan, Sunjay Dutt and a whole posse of Bollywood heroes
engineer in their action avatars. And therefore it’s doubly hard to take her
character seriously. It’s in fact an addled spectacle of ritualistic violence
heavy on symbolism that belittles the women’s lib movement.
There’s no doubting that Nishta Jain’s humanistic documentary on the same crusader, titled ‘Gulaabi Gang’ and released a few weeks ago, was far more entrenched in the true traditions of story-telling than this current film under review is. Soumik Sen’s cinematic take is actually akin to creating a plasticine model of the real life ‘hero!’ It goes through all it’s highly exaggerated, copiously romanticized, and fiercely voiced encounters with mechanical precision, fiercely brandishing fake high-points in the main character’s life but without quite touching your heart.
This film also
pits two former A list contemporaries Juhi Chawla and Madhuri Dixit (both
semi-retired ) as part of it’s exercise to garner eyeballs for this smartly
packaged International women’s day offering. Both actresses were said to be
embroiled in a cold war during their heyday and bringing them together in one
film could be considered a coup of sorts. Thankfully both actresses are in full
form and that’s probably the only reason to see this film. Madhuri, as the
protagonist has the lion’s share in terms of screen time but her role is not
written with any depth – so her assay suffers despite an all-out effort on her
part. On the opposing side, Juhi’s Sumitra Madam, is wonderfully nuanced and
rendered with supreme relish. She in fact does more for the character, with an
aplomb worthy expressiveness that helps keep you interested and surprised for
as long as her role lasts. It’s a fantastic turn- one that is likely to
redefine her career in Bollywood. Divya Jagdale(as Mahi), Priyanka Bose(as
Sandhya) and Tanishta Chatterjee also contribute generously to
the interest. Cinematography by Alphonse ( Aamir)
Roy and background score by John Stewart manage to engineer ritualistic fervor
and menace but it’s only skin deep. Unfortunately, the story, screenplay,
dialogues, music and direction don’t
allow for any empathetic intimacy with the characters and that is this trifling
feminist outpouring’s biggest deficit!
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