Celebrating the music of Dil To Pagal Hai

I heart this movie. Live with it. And one of the reasons it´s that absolutely wonderful soundtrack. I am NOT a fan of Lata Mangeshkar, it took me some time to get used to her voice, but as soon as I did there was not a single flaw in the musical part of DTPH. And since it clearly claims to be "Yash Chopra´s MUSICAL" there is a LOT of music. The film opening credits are one of the cutest ever, from the main message to the last couple shown, which incidentally is Yash Chopra himself, huging his wife.

And then we are given something about love too, but it definitely is nothing fluffy! Make way for energetic Karishma Kapoor and her - possibly best and most famous dance number ever!

Next there is Shahrukh sharing his fantasy about a girl with an innocent face, who has mischief in her eyes and shies away. It was his favourite song from the film by the way.

A song that set a trend of heart-shaped baloons for a Valentine´s day. I must admit some of Shahrukh´s choreography (left arm up, right arm up, left arm forward, right arm forward....) reminded me of some silly school dancing we did as kids, but in the end it´s SRK and nobody really cares, because even with silly moves he looks sexy. If you have not seen the film yet - no, Madhuri and Shahrukh don´t knoweach other yet. It doens´t stop them from singing songs about each other though. I love Bollywood.

The title song - favourite track for both Madhuri and Karishma. Shot in Germany, which I find terribly cute (and a relief after all the Swiss Alps Yash Chopra was serving us for years). Only Akshay´s ridiculous haircut spoils a bit the perfect picture.

But happy times do not last forever, do they? And so Nisha is injured and Rahul in need of a new dancer.... And then she just appears - like an illusion in a moonlight. Like a beautiful dream. Fortunatelly for us all, she is a human being, in real life going by the name of Madhuri Dixit.

My own personal favourite - Koi Ladki Hai. I already featured her on this blog in my "rainsongs list". Except for the "Maya´s dance" (right above) it has the best choreography in the film, and the one responsible is Shiamak Davar. But yeah, I never knew it is possible to dance like this with a broken ankle! Seems Lolo is capable of nearly anything.

By now Shahrukh and Madhuri are in love. But they don´t know it yet. Not even Karishma knows it, but she REALLY doesn´t like somebody like Madhuri dancing on HER stage. And so she decides to give her a lesson. People have been endlessly arguing about which of the ladies out-danced the other. My reply is: none. They both were amazing - and completely different. Madhuri as Pooja was full of grace and joy, simply enjoying the dance, while Karishma was more energetic, less graceful and full of anger. Both were superb.

They still don´t know they are in love. But to show the viewer they really are, Yash Chopra presents his favourite song Arre Arre. Brilliant picturization full of tender SRK/Madhuri moments that make my heart melt. And Madhuri just looks divine in white.

And the same melody is used to show us a moment when Madhuri realizes..... she is in love!

Guess what! Rahul knows he is in love too! And we have a PERFECT excuse for a absolutely delightful song with an amazing picturization!!! No words needed....

And in the end - a little sum up of the main songs, this time "live"! Long live DTPH!

Darr

Directed by: Yash Chopra

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Sunny Deol, Juhi Chawla, Anupam Kherr

Released: 1993

C-c-c-c-could somebody make Shahrukh Khan to play more villains? Don´t get me wrong, I usually adore his lover-boy image. But he is also the only one, who can play a villain and you´ll still end up rooting for him! Except for one case, but that´s not what we´re dealing with right now.

What we are dealing with is a girl named Kiran, who has (at least I think so) just finished her university studies. She is all that you can expect from a typical Bollywood heroine of the 80s/early 90s: wonderfully beautiful, angelic, nature-loving and sweet, and she wisely leaves all the action to her lover, army officer Sunil. He is all that you can expect from Sunny Deol: muscular, Rambo-ish, muscular, macho and muscular. And to make it all more obvious, his entry to the film is on BIG scale. He, completely single-handed, kills a group of terrorists (who really need a lesson on how to shoot a person who is completely uncovered with a machine gun) to save a little girl, while the rest of his team only joins him so they can raise a big „Hurray!“ when he hugs the child. The sheer naivity and the stolen music make that whole sequence one of the most ridiculous action scenes I´ve witnessed. But then again, this is SUNNY DEOL and we all know that he doesn´t need a commando behind him to annihilate a bunch of childish terrorists.

The presence of the guys in the background indicates there is nobody left to kill on board.

But even Sunny sometimes needs a breather so he takes a leave for few days and together with Kiran they enjoy some quality romance time together, dreaming about their future house that just might have magical door leading straight to the Swiss Alps. And from time to time Sunil, like any other guy, thinks it is funny to either 1. fake his own death or 2. to scare Kiran to death with fake murder attempts. But their personal paradise, just like any other paradise, does have a snake. Kiran gets startled by weird phone calls and even night encounters during which an unknown person is aiming a flashlight to her face, while stammering her name and something about loving her. And he also plays a harmonica under her windows. Yes! That is where our dearly loved villain SRK steps in and makes all the bubble-gum fluffiness interesting.

Perfectly beautiful. I expected talking animals to appear any second.

So who is this only interesting character of the film? Since Yash Chopra was always quite lazy when it come to names, he is called Rahul. He loves K-k-k-kiran, but has always been too shy to tell her when they were in college. So now he calls her every day several times to tell her, plus to make bigger impact he is haunting her steps, threatens Sunil, projects her photos on the walls of his room, tells stories about her to his dead mother and let´s not forget he carves her name into his own chest with a knife. I´m not a psychologist, but is Yash Chopra trying to imply that Rahul is mentally disturbed? Maybe he really is. And maybe he will befriend Sunil to get closer to Kiran. Maybe he will be helluva mad if Sunil marries Kiran. Maybe he will decide to kill Sunil. Maybe he will kill some more people in the process. And God only knows - maybe he will dream of having his own song with Kiran in the Swiss Alps.

"I´m too sexy for my shirt."

The film terribly drags at times and it would have been better if it lasted 2 hours instead of 3. It attempts to bring together romance and thriller, but only the thriller part somehow works – and that only because of Shahrukh Khan. Sure, we all loved Amrish Puri whenever he turned out to be bad (which was like 99,5% of the films he did), but did you actually want him to throw those kids into the acidic bath under his feet? No. But with Rahul you want Sunil to remain lying dead in the woods and you want Kiran to realize Shahrukh Khan is much more loveable then Sunny Deol. Plus even though they are paired as a jodi in only one, dream sequence song, Juhi has better chemistry with Shahrukh then with Sunny in the whole film. Sadly the filmmakers did not emphatize with my sentiments and we were forced to witness Sunil literally rise from the dead, without any information whatsoever to localize kidnapped Kiran, then swimming (!) several hours to reach the boat and finally killing Shahrukh, while Juhi is screaming “Kill him! Kill him!” (that alone indicates something is just wrong with the film – and it the look on Shahrukh´s face will break your heart).

This is just so wrong :-(

And just as his character is the only interesting one, Shahrukh´s is the only performance worth some serious praise. Sunny Deol comes off as stiff and cold, way too perfect to be real and way too macho to be loved. Juhi is one of the actresses who cannot act bad. Not ever. But her roles in the commercial cinema were never powerful, meaty ones and as Kiran all she has to do is to be scared and beautiful. She does both superbly, but there is nothing more to her. Special mention goes to Anupam Kherr in his comical role as Kiran´s cricket-obssessed brother. In this film he is genuinly funny without embarassing himself (which is always a relief in Bollywood films).

Not a bad watch, but no Magnum Opus either. After viewing you might feel a sudden urge to pack and immediately go to Swiss Alps.

Dil To Pagal Hai

Directed by: Yash Chopra

Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Madhuri Dixit, Karishma Kapoor, Akshay Kumar

Released: 1997

It was my fourth Bollywood movie and also the one that confirmed my love for Bollywood forever. It was the last step that I took in my obsession with Madhuri Dixit, Shahrukh Khan and Indian cinema in general. It is for me what Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge is to many others – the ultimate romantic Bollywood movie. It doesn´t have much of a story. It has a rather slow pace. It has kitschi things like running on green meadows and feeling each other´s presence, even while you don´t know the other one exists. And it is primarily not about twists of fate, but about a feeling.

Rahul (who else then Shahrukh Khan with that name, right?) and Nisha (Karishma Kapoor) are the best of friends and together with a bunch of other friends they form a famous dance troupe. Rahul is a director and choreographer, Nisha, as it would seem, the best dancer for miles and miles around. Nisha loves Rahul, but never told him. After all, Rahul is one unromantic and cynical guy, who hates all the lovy-mushy stuff. He loves only one girl, but she unfortunately exists only in his mind and resembles more of a fairy then a human being. And Rahul wants to make a new play based on this illusion, which he lovingly calls Maya. After everyone around him makes it clear they do not understand her character, he still sends them all to blazes and is adamant. Rehearsals start. And as soon as they do the nightmare of all directors strikes – Nisha injures her feet and is unable to dance. Depressed and angry, Rahul stays in the rehearsing hall till the late evening and without much of a thought he starts playing the drums. To his great surprise the gentle, rhythmical tinkling of somebody´s anklets comes to him in return from the neighbouring hall.......

Pooja (Madhuri Dixit) is an orphan raised by family friends, whom she affectionatelly calls uncle and aunty. She spends her time with day-dreaming, for which her friends make fun of her. But nothing can shake her belief that God has created everyone as a part of a couple, and only left it to people to find each other. She stubbornly believes she will eventually meet the man of her dreams and they will live happily ever after. Therefore she is nothing less then shocked when Ajay (Akshay Kumar with a rather ridiculous haircut), her best friend and son of „aunty“ and „uncle“, professes his love for her and asks her to marry him. She hastily agrees, still much shocked and not certain at all, but after a while she makes peace with the prospect and tries to convince herself that Ajay is the one. But then one evening she stays late in her dancing school. And once she hears somebody playing the drums nearby, she gives into the rhythm and starts dancing......

She´s beautiful, she´ s cute, she´s sexy..... Why doesn´t he love her?

Oh yeah...... right....... that´s why.

It is obvious, what will happen next, right? In fact, it is quite obvious what will happen since the first minute. The original message by Yash Chopra (for the first time ever not a cringe worthy one) is „Someone, somewhere, is made for you“ and it completely reveals the whole plot. The question here is not „what“, but „how“ and „when“. While the first half of the film moves really slow, introducing the characters and the relationships between them, it builds up the expectations that are fully satisfied in the second. The film sure does have several weak points, But I will get to those later. I found it fascinating that finally there is a film with no negative character at all – and still negative things happen. There is no need for a person to intentionally create problems, because there is love love love everywhere and it makes enough mess by itself, tormenting these nice, but still flawed people. 

Absolutely mesmerized and not believing his eyes. Why?

Oh yeah....... righ........ that´s why.

There is more to the characters than meets the eye, especially the leading pair, but one has to admit it is because of the sensitive and excellent handling of the roles by the actors more then because of the script. Many people feel that Rahul in DTPH is an extension of Raj from DDLJ. When I saw the movie for the first time, I could not make any comparisms as I had not seen DDLJ yet, but today I can surely agree. Rahul is however, a step ahead of a half-childish Raj. He is more mature in thinking, more aware of his aim, and he is more real in a sense that he is more possessive of the girl he loves. He even doesn´t hesitate to say things that he knows will hurt her, but only in hope that she might feel bad after that and come to him. He is selfish in his love, and yet so giving, offering her all his devotion. He is the character that goes through a development. Not exactly a stereotypical love-hater, but not convinced about romantic feelings, up until the moment he finds himself in love, he accepts this new feeling without fighting it. He is still as bratty and with an air of arrogance in the end, but love enriches him and really shows his depth. Shahrukh Khan is a brilliant actor, and even though I do not consider his performances in DDLJ or DTPH as award winning, he is as convincing as only he can be.

Then there is of course Pooja. Rahul´s fantasy about Maya is nothing else then Yash Chopra´s eternal fantasy about an ideal woman clad in white. But once illusionary „Maya“ takes the real shape of „Pooja“ right in front of Rahul´s eyes, dancing in a ray of moonlight, she is not at all a flawless creature herself. She is naive and seems to be all sweet and sugary, she could very easily be rejected as completely unrealistic. But one look into Madhuri´s eyes and Pooja becomes a real character. There is an unspoken, but strongly felt strength in her. What makes Pooja different from stereotypical heroines is not only her decision not to pursue her desire on cost of hurting people who raised her (which up until that point was not the trend in Bollywood movies), but also the way she carries herself. When she decides to give up her dreams, she does so with tremendous dignity. Her silence, smiles, pauses and eyes all emote without much dialogues. She does not speak too much, but you still know she is there, that she is feeling, thinking, longing..... Rahul represents passion in their relationship, while she is dutiful, with a great self-respect, but never cold or proud. Her drawback is her indecisiveness in the first part and her inability to clearly face Rahul in the second. What made me love the character is also the fact Madhuri got to play yet another completely different person. Pooja is like no other of her roles, it doesn´t resemble any of them.

Everyone who knows me also knows that Madhuri/Shahrukh are my favourite jodi. I love their chemistry that is simply burning the screen. They don´t have to eat each other´s head to show you they are in love. One word, one look or just being in the same room creates magic. In a way they are a mature jodi with a great depth and it was also great to see them falling in love bit by bit. There was a slow development of the relationship, which I always welcome in Bollywood films in opposite to „saw-you-in-the-mall-once-will-you-marry-me“ types of romances.

CHEMISTRY!

CHEMISTRY!

CHEMISTRY!

The „main cast“ is complete with Karishma Kapoor and Akshay Kumar. There is not much to talk about when it comes to Akshay, except that he looks somehow nerdy and keeps his OK level of acting. His buddiness with Madhuri was cute though. Karishma, whom many are praising for her performance, was also good, but did not blown me away. While both Shahrukh and Madhuri are so effortless in their craft, that it might almost seem they are not even acting, Karishma does have a sort of Bollywood OTT-ness, which is most apparent in her emotional scenes. She also looks a little out of place at times among Shahrukh-Madhuri-Akshay, who are all in the same age-group, while she is much younger. Still, her and Shahrukh´s friendship looks very natural on screen.

The awkward moment when alcohol makes you tell your best friend you love him.

As I have mentioned earlier there are some flaws to the film, which I wouldn´t label as perfect or the best ever. The first part holds some „teenage“ silliness in some of the dialogues, for example all that Valentine´s day and full moon explanations were very cheesy and one can only curse Aditya Chopra for it. Similarly Karishma´s confession to Rahul on the bank of a lake (in Baden Baden :) )is way too long and on the verge of boring. Another scene that needed more editing was the whole Khandala bussiness and visit to Pooja´s teacher. But the rest of the film makes up for these. For every Valentine´s day crap we have Shahrukh Khan without pants, for every Karishma´s boring crying by the lake we have her excellent drunken scene, for every Khandala visit we have the „Aur pass“ moment (the most sensuous, romantic, gentle, beautiful and at the same time erotic scene of the world cinema). Visuals are beautiful, and I could not care less if there is not a one as clear market place in real India. If we can have superheroes flying through the air and babies delivered by a vacuum cleaner, can´t we have clean markets and studios too? I loved the idea of two people being so close to each other and yet never meeting.

Aur pass......

Aur pass...................

Aur pass...........................................................

The great part of the film is musical score – and what a score it is! Every song is beautiful to say the least. My personal favourites are Koi Ladki Hai and Dhoolna, but every single track makes you want to dance or at least hum along. I was not excited about choreography at first. In fact it looked more like an aerobic training, but once I accepted it, it fitted well. It was different from what we usually see. The picturization of two songs is especially beautiful: Arre Arre is wonderful in showing at the same time Rahul and Pooja bonding as friends and collegues, and their „inner selves“ being very much in love. And Dhoolna is simply a song that you need to see in a Chopra movie. Madhuri looked ethreal in all the outfits and colours and Shahrukh´s loving gaze was, I´m sure, not difficult to pull off at all!

The only problem of this picturization is you don´t  know where to look!

It is also important to realize that Dil To Pagal Hai together with Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge were very different from the rest of the films at the time of their release. HAHK was celebrating family values, DDLJ connected those with romance and finally DTPH was nothing but a tribute to love. It never promised to be anything else. Not perfect. But definitely a classic. Enjoyable, relaxing, touching, uncomplicated in narration but rich with emotions. A film about a feeling.

Someone, somewhere...... is made for you.....

Silsila

Directed by: Yash Chopra

Starring: Amitabh Bachchan, Jaya Bachchan, Rekha, Sanjeev Kumar, Shashi Kapoor

Released: 1981

Shekar (Shashi Kapoor) is an army officer. Brave and disciplined while in uniform, unruly and almost childish out of it. He loves to spend his days with his head resting in the lap of Shobha (Jaya Bachchan), the girl he loves, planning their future together. And in the evening he likes to drink and be merry. Meanwhile his brother Amit (Amitabh Bachchan), a play-writer, actor and poet falls under a spell of Chandni (Rekha), a fresh and beautiful girl whom he saw dancing at his friend´s wedding. Sending her flowers and cassetes with his own voice, expressing all the gentle feelings she has woken up in his heart, he slowly wins her over. Just like his brother Amit now plans to get married. But then like a bolt out of the blue comes devastating news: Shekar has perished while on army mission. And it also turns out Shobha is pregnant with his child.

Amit decides to sacrifice his love for the sake of his brother´s fiancé and marries her, sending a message to Chandni that she better forget him. But even though he has the best will to make Shobha happy, neither him nor her are capable of being so. After they are involved in a car accident Shobha looses her unborn child and not both she and Amit are really desperate, because they find themselves trapped in a marriage without love and reason. While in hospital Amit meets Chandni again. She got married to a nice, honest doctor (Sanjeev Kumar), but does not really care for his feelings for her. On the contrary – the old love between her and Amit is rekindled and after a while they both succumb to their desires. However together with their passionate and secret affair comes carelessness and neither Shobha, who has learned to love her husband, neither Chandni´s spouse are blind. . .

Amitabh and Jaya. Falling asleep just seeing them.

I must admit that had it not been for the controversy related to this film I probably wouldn´t be even interested in watching it. Silsila, translated as „Affair“, came to the theaters at the time when the rumours and gossips were on about the alleged secret relationship between Amitbh Bachchan and Rekha. But not even this tidbit managed to lure enough audience and the film flopped. But this is Yash Chopra film and box office collections are not important for those, and just like Lamhe that flopped ten years later, Silsila is today among the revered classics.

The greatest strenght of the film is really powerful starcast. All the actors put a really honest work into their performances. Amitabh Bachchan, who has the meatiest role, is completely natural. Jaya an Rekha both compliment him. Sadly, even though Rekha is unarguable better actress, she does not have much to do except for looking sad and beautiful. Still her presence is strongly felt in every scene, and she does not even have to speak. Her dark gaze is enough to do the magic. I have never been a Jaya fan, she still yet has to convince me, but yes, she was good here, though not lovable despite being „the good one“. Interestingly enough there is much more on-screen chemistry going on between Big B and Rekha then Big B and Jaya.

Amitabh and Rekha - hell yeah!

The script deserves a credit for presenting well the points of view of all the characters and making one feel the pain they all go through. Silsila telling a story about extra-marital affair could have easily become a hysterical, sobbing and whining cliché with evil mistress and poor wife, but it did not. The story is told very sensitively and in the end you feel sorry for all the characters, which is quite rare. The most interesting message is that as long as something is forbidden, it may seem sweet and desirable, but as soon as it is permitted, it looses the charm and problems, not perceived before, emerge from the shadows.

My greatest problem with Silsila was incredibly slow pace of the film. It really gets boring at times. Not even several exciting-ish moments (will they catch them together/ will they not ) do not help and I kept staring at the timeline wishing it was finished already. And when the message at the end appeared – I wanted to die. „Love is faith and faith is forever“. Really? Like seriously? What the..... Songs are good and beautifully picturized, all bearing the uncanny Yash Chopra signature. Throw some plus points in for Amitabh Bachchan reciting poetry truly beautifully. When you´re in a mood for not-that-typical romance without much excitement, you can watch Silsila, even though you will, like me, probably only look for some secret signs happening between Big B and splendid Rekha.