I have a confession to make. I am a snob. I don't like being in company of people I don't like/respect. I also don't like being with people who keep poking their noses in my business when I haven't given them that right. Being so picky about my friends, cuts me off from main desi stream here. I usually don't have any idea about latest bollywood releases or cricket series going on. True, I can catch everything on internet but since these things don't come up in daily discussions so I don't bother.
My only passage to desi front is through my friends back in India. Orkut provides a great platform for that. And as all of you using Orkut know, it has a lot of new cool features now. So one of my cousin (bless him) decided to add few trailers/songs from recent movies as Saawariya and Om Shanti Om. And thats where I found this.
You can't imagine my shock. How long have I been out? When did this start? Display of male body on a big screen, that too in a song! I am really interested in knowing about audience's response. With my, now limited, knowledge about Indian audience, there has to be a pin-drop silence in the theatres during the opening scene of the song. No one must have moved or coughed. The moments when you know everyone is holding their breaths by ample amount of oxygen present in the crowded theatre. I always thought, they want to think that they are invisible in those moments so that person next to them wouldn't know that they actually watched that (Guilty Pleasures?). Rest of the times, they would make their presence known to the whole theatre at large, by shouting, whistling, laughing or just talking very loudly on their cell phones or to their neighbors.
But may be none of this happened. May be I have been out for too long. Someone please enlighten me about latest reactions given by theatre audiences.
P.S.: 1. Its a nice song. Shaan has rendered it beautfully.
2. Excellent cinematography as well. Typical Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Its just the subject of emphasis shocked me.
First things first - being cut off from Bollywood is never ideal..you need your recommended dose of laughter :o) !
ReplyDeleteSecond - happened to be one of those victims, having watched the movie in theatre for sake of SLB. It was a let down..too much of a fantasy and in my opinion an exact reproduction of the novel(White Nights) which makes the movie lose it's essence. He could have rendered it a play rather than choose celluloid, lending some perspective to the whole venture.
Third - Male nudity ~ RGV is more the starter of such a trend with his Rangeela. I was more shocked then and less surprised now.. :). Yeah..the theatre went silent those few moments, so you are still a desi at heart after all.. :o)
me too...i am not at all big fan of movies....I follow cricket it with passion. Last hindi/Bollywood movie i saw was "Guru" way back....Sorry i am not sure whats the reaction on this..:)
ReplyDelete@ Viji:
ReplyDeleteFirst: Agreed, but its too much work for me.
Second: Thats the first time I heard this complaint. People usually complain that they didn't like movie as it WASN'T an exact reproduction of novel. Why would being exact reproduction be a let-down? I am sorry I am at loss here..
Third: I don't remember any male body exposure (well it wasn't nudity actually) in Rangeela. May be it was just to compliment Urmila's scene somewhere so it didn't matter. They obviously didn't have any exclusive male body displaying songs like this one. Here the whole emphasis was that guy (Ranbeer, is it?. That never happened before..You know a song exclusively for pleasure of female/gay audience. Thats such a role reversal. Interesting era we are entering in...
@KP: Your cricket enthusiasm is clear from your blog but I haven't watched a cricket match or kept scores for past 5 -6 years now so I am usually at complete loss reading those posts. I can imagine you must have felt the same reading this post..
Second: I beg to differ. Fiction can be easily made into a movie, but Non Fiction is not an easy job. The biggest drawback is time.. can you imagine squeezing Atlas Shrugged onto a 3hrs on screen flick ?? Or Howard Roark's speech from Fountainhead delivered verbatim in a movie ?? Both make me cringe equally !
ReplyDeleteIMHO, Saawariya as a play would have better suited SLB's ambitious plan because it was so surreal.
Third: Time again..!! Coming from my era, Rangeela's Shroff shocked me the way none ever would..but a lot of water has flown under the bridge since then..
@ Viji: Agreed and thats why people don't like movies based on novel. But if someone does capture the magic of that novel in movie, I am not sure I will dislike it. May be I need to see the movie.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember Shroff in Rangeela being exposing. All I remember is Urmila... May be I need to watch Rangeela again, closely this time. May be I have been out too long that I don't remember anything like this except few nice upper body shots of Salman/Hritik..nothing exclusive though. Or may be they were under my tolerance level so that I don;t remember..this one went beyond my expectations of a bollywood movie.