Raavan-neeti

Old stuff since I started writing this last month, but dint manage finishing it...

A couple of months back I was finding it difficult to decide which movie I was more excited about, Bihari Babu's Rajneeti or Anna's Raavan. I eventually realized it was the madness and eccentricity of Beera Munda, which was getting the better of Prakash Jha's political ploy. Mind you, all these anticipations were before I had watched either of the movies.
4th June, I caught the first day last show of Rajneeti and trust me, I was indeed overwhelmed. That very day I wanted to blog down the movie, but I decided to wait for Raavan before jotting my views down. 18th June, I once again caught the first day last show of Raavan, but before we talk about the Mani Ratnam flick, let's get back to Rajneeti.
Rajneeti was surely a masterpiece. Yes, all the talk about it being a mix of Mahabharata and The Godfather, arguably the best literary works ever produced. But then, it indeed takes skill to weave a common plot out of two such collosal pieces. There is a very thin line between inspiration and imitation, and Prakash Jha made sure that his foot was well inside the line while making Rajneeti. For a person well versed with Mahabharata and The Godfather, the movie was definitely a treat to watch. The subtle references to them both were brilliant indeed. My favourite being the scene where Bajpai offers party membership to Devgan, depicting a Duryodhana and Karna. Probably Ajay Devgan could have got some more footage, with Karna being THE most powerful character of Mahabharata. Manoj Bajpai was terrific, his speech in the 2nd half being literally mindblowing. The movie could have been better probably with the "jyeshta putra" scene being done away with. And personally, I would have loved to see Ajay Devgan's father kill Ranbir Kapoor in the end. But overall, a must watch, the movie being so gripping that you actually do not wish to watch Katrina, her sequences surely interrupting the flow of the movie.
And now Raavan. I am a pretty big Mani Ratnam fan, Nayakan, Roja, Bombay, Guru, I have loved them all. Add to it, Raavan's promos were indeed mind boggling. There was a certain air of madness which I felt in the trailers. Plus AR's music, Behene De and Beera. V. Manikandan and Santosh Sivan are the best cinematographers we have, and Raavan had them both. OOOOOOOOOOOOOH...I had every reason to be excited about Raavan. But the movie....what SHIT direction man. Was it actually Mani Ratnam ?? The first half seemed to be NGC/Discovery, with nothing but the beautiful forests to look at. The kidnapping of Aishwarya, supposedly the turning point of the story, happens in the first scene, without any proper build up. And the sequencing of the songs, Beera could have been so beautifully used, and Behene De... Aishwarya attempts suicide and Abhishek has Behene De playing inside his head. And what exactly was Beera Munda supposed to be, evil or eccentric ?? Yes, he could have been both, if acted and directed well, but he ended up being neither, rather just a complete disaster (does that rhyme ??). This I think was more Mani's fault rather than Abhishek's. But for me, the parts that stood out in being disastrous were the scenes were Abhishek expresses his love for Aish. What fucked up dialogues... Abhishek trying to produce a scary voice and saying, "agar dev se pehle mai tumhe mila hota to......". Reminded me of Ramu's Road, where Bajpai says that to Antara Mali,...hahahahahaha. And how does Aish manages to return and find the deadly Beera Munda's hideout towards the end, when the whole police force failed to do so. Beats me. I was so bloody disappointed with Raavan that I have even stopped listening to its music. I can actually go on and on criticizing this flick, but I would rather stop and pray that this is not the death of yet another director in Indian Cinema.