Raavan (India 2010) (spoilers only behind cut)
I have just got back from Mani Ratnam Raavan and I am still in shock.
It was amazing - brutal, bleak, gorgeous, passionate. Like a dark, fevered dream you have and are half-sad, half-grateful to wake from.
Raavan is a modern-day take on the story of Ramayana - it starts when, in a nameless lawless South province, a local thug leader named Bheera (Abhishek Bachchan) kidnaps Ragini (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), a wife of the local police inspector Dev (Vikram), setting forth a cycle of violence and revenge.
First off, this is probably the most visually arresting movie I have ever seen - the colors (black, grey and yellow for Bheera, red and ochre for Ragini, kahkee and green for Dev), the visual images, the contrasts. It really does not even need a story or performances, it is that amazingly shot.
But luckily for me, it has both. The three leads - Abhishek, Aishwarya, and Vikram, ably supported by secondary characters' actors, all hit it out of the park. Abhishek's Bheera is the center of the story - violent, unhinged, magnetic. Just as Ragini, I was repelled and drawn to him simultaneously. I don't think Abhishek is a good traditional Bolly star - he doesn't have the wattage Hrithik Roshan or SRK can provide with a single smile in the most barebones movie. But I think that he is a very good actor when given the chance - and that chance is there for him in Mani Ratnam movies (or Ram Gopal Varma ones). I could not tear my eyes from him in this role (and could not imagine more traditional Bolly stars in it at all). He takes a character which is rather extreme, in some ways more animal than man (though it becomes slowly apparent in the second half that he was not always like this and we see him in extremis) and makes him as one you ultimately root for.
If Bheera is the center of the story, Aishwarya's Ragini is its soul. She has always been beautiful, but here, wet, disheveled, bruised, with minimal make-up, she shines. More importantly, her character is fierce. I can totally understand why Bheera ends up falling in love with her - she is just as fierce and fearless as he is. More. And her chemistry with Abhishek is insane. I have always thought that Abhishek was one of the very few actors Aishwarya had chemistry with (just as well, as they are married :P) but I have never seen it quite like this before - the screen almost pulsated with it - I was never sure whether they were going to kill each other or have ridiculously hot dirty sex right there in the rain and mud.
I have never seen Vikram in anything before (I am not that familiar with Tamil movies), but I really want to watch more of him now (starting with Raavaana - the Tamil version of this, in which he plays Abhishek's role). He is magnetic and scary - so scary - just as Ragini, I started the movie rather loving his stern but righteous inspector/loving husband combo (ha!) and ended up disgusted and terrified.
Which leads me to the next point - I loved the story and the reversals. We start the movie with a quick intercut of seemingly unconnected images - a man diving of a cliff, a bunch of policemen being killed, a beautiful woman boating in a peaceful lake - and that really is a preview for what we'll see in the next two-and-a-half hours - seemingly unconnected yet actually connected events and our piercing what has really happened. I started the movie rooting for Ragini and Dev to reunite and wipe out the evil Bheera and his gang and by the end I was on Bheera's side and could not believe how someone like Dev would end up with someone as amazing as Ragini - I kept praying she'd pick Bheera so she'd never have to face the disappointment/darkness of Dev.
Both Bheera and Dev are dark characters, capable of horrible violence, but it's Dev that is the true monster between them. We learn the reason for Bheera's murders/rampage in the second half of the movie (about it more below) but even before that, there are hints that not all as it seems with the righteous inspector Dev - his violence, sudden and total, is equal to Bheera's, and the scene where he twists the stump of someone's bleeding arm to get a confession - my God.
But despite these troubling signs, I was still rooting for Dev to find and rescue Ragini by the time the first half ended. But then came the reveal. It was pretty clear from the start that Bheera was not just kidnapping/murdering cops for kicks but as a revenge plan. But I assumed that his revenge was for the cops trying to take his power away (he is a local thug leader - he basically rules the area and Dev is determined to break his power) but it turns out not to be really the case - the reason Bheera is so bent on revenge (and the reason he is rather unhinged) is because shortly before the movie started, the cop squad led by Dev burst into the wedding of his little sister. Dev wounded Bheera who got dragged off by his supporters, unconscious. The sister's husband turned coward and ran away leaving his new wife alone and defenseless. So the cops took the woman, on her wedding night, to the police station, and proceeded to gang-rape the whole night long (nothing was shown or even explicitly talked about but it was one of the most horrifying scenes I have ever seen). His little sister could not cope and killed herself.
The cops he has been killing were his sister's rapists. And even though he kidnapped Ragini and plans to kill her as revenge on Dev (I found it significant that the movie never explained whether Dev was one of the gang-rapists or just let it happen in his station because he does not care - because does it really matter which one it was? He is just as horribly responsible), I found it significant that he never plans to rape her - just kill her. And ultimately he finds himself unable to kill her, either.
Just as you realize, as the movie progresses, that even though Dev is dead-set on retrieving his wife, it is not about his love for her but about his hate for being worsted by Bheera, about his hatred to lose - he gets a perfect chance to get her back in exchange for letting Bheera go (a deal offered by Bheera's brother) and he just shoots the brother in the back - getting his wife is of less importance to him than winning.
It's not all simple black-and-white in reverse, of course. Bheera is not a misunderstood blameless woobie but more a portrait of fractured, vulnerable darkness - he does plenty of horrible things (though you get the sense that in the movie he is at his most unhinged, unbalanced, grieving - normaly he is tough and violent but rational) and on some level Dev does care for his wife (the flashbacks indicate that). It's just his bedtalk with Ragini proves prophetic - she asks him about whether he is a cop or a husband and he says when he is one, he is not the other. But here the two irretrievably collide and the cop triumphs. He is willing to give up everything, including his wife's life, to succeed.
And utlimately it is the illiterate low-caste thug who proves the better man of the two - he does not kill Ragini, he lets her go. But that is fine, he has fallen in love with her. What is remarkable is that he lets Dev go - for Ragini's sake he lets the man who is responsible for the rape and death of his sister and who has murdered his brother, go. He actually saves him and reunites them because he is so shaken by Ragini's purity and devotion, and because he is capable of putting what she wants above what he wants.
But the thing, Ragini's devotion to her husband is wasted - one of the tragic things in the movie is that there is no way the marriage can continue after the closing credits. It's not just the things she has learned about her husband (I can see her mentally handwaving it, hard as it would be), but the way Dev treats her after the reunion - accusing her of sleeping with Bheera, lying to her Bheera told her they did, telling her to take a lie-detector test. All for the purpose of her running to Bheera demanding to find out what he has told her husband so he could track her down and track Bheera down.
And then the last shots - where she is shielding Bheera with her body and Dev does not lower his gun, it does not waver - killing his enemy is more important than his wife. It is Bheera who pushes her out of the way even though that means (and he knows it) he will be shot.
The thing, Bheera falls for her, but for Ragini it's latent attraction (you can see the exact moment she first registers him as a man, actually - during that victory dance; also when she offers to stay with him forever in exchange for him not killing Dev it's not 100% martyrdom either, but a very physical raw attraction), but by the end you see her realize that the man who kidnapped her is a better man than the man she has married and given her faith to and that latent attraction is so close to the surface - when she gently imitates his 'blah blah blah' gesture to him or when she hears what he really told Dev (that she is amazing and pure) or as she sees him shot, his blood spraying her white outfit and she desperately stretches her hand to him. Dev may have defeated the man who defied him but he has also lost his wife. The horrible thing is, I do not think he cares.
OK, this is a discertation, you get a medal if you finished it.
It was amazing - brutal, bleak, gorgeous, passionate. Like a dark, fevered dream you have and are half-sad, half-grateful to wake from.
Raavan is a modern-day take on the story of Ramayana - it starts when, in a nameless lawless South province, a local thug leader named Bheera (Abhishek Bachchan) kidnaps Ragini (Aishwarya Rai Bachchan), a wife of the local police inspector Dev (Vikram), setting forth a cycle of violence and revenge.
First off, this is probably the most visually arresting movie I have ever seen - the colors (black, grey and yellow for Bheera, red and ochre for Ragini, kahkee and green for Dev), the visual images, the contrasts. It really does not even need a story or performances, it is that amazingly shot.
But luckily for me, it has both. The three leads - Abhishek, Aishwarya, and Vikram, ably supported by secondary characters' actors, all hit it out of the park. Abhishek's Bheera is the center of the story - violent, unhinged, magnetic. Just as Ragini, I was repelled and drawn to him simultaneously. I don't think Abhishek is a good traditional Bolly star - he doesn't have the wattage Hrithik Roshan or SRK can provide with a single smile in the most barebones movie. But I think that he is a very good actor when given the chance - and that chance is there for him in Mani Ratnam movies (or Ram Gopal Varma ones). I could not tear my eyes from him in this role (and could not imagine more traditional Bolly stars in it at all). He takes a character which is rather extreme, in some ways more animal than man (though it becomes slowly apparent in the second half that he was not always like this and we see him in extremis) and makes him as one you ultimately root for.
If Bheera is the center of the story, Aishwarya's Ragini is its soul. She has always been beautiful, but here, wet, disheveled, bruised, with minimal make-up, she shines. More importantly, her character is fierce. I can totally understand why Bheera ends up falling in love with her - she is just as fierce and fearless as he is. More. And her chemistry with Abhishek is insane. I have always thought that Abhishek was one of the very few actors Aishwarya had chemistry with (just as well, as they are married :P) but I have never seen it quite like this before - the screen almost pulsated with it - I was never sure whether they were going to kill each other or have ridiculously hot dirty sex right there in the rain and mud.
I have never seen Vikram in anything before (I am not that familiar with Tamil movies), but I really want to watch more of him now (starting with Raavaana - the Tamil version of this, in which he plays Abhishek's role). He is magnetic and scary - so scary - just as Ragini, I started the movie rather loving his stern but righteous inspector/loving husband combo (ha!) and ended up disgusted and terrified.
Which leads me to the next point - I loved the story and the reversals. We start the movie with a quick intercut of seemingly unconnected images - a man diving of a cliff, a bunch of policemen being killed, a beautiful woman boating in a peaceful lake - and that really is a preview for what we'll see in the next two-and-a-half hours - seemingly unconnected yet actually connected events and our piercing what has really happened. I started the movie rooting for Ragini and Dev to reunite and wipe out the evil Bheera and his gang and by the end I was on Bheera's side and could not believe how someone like Dev would end up with someone as amazing as Ragini - I kept praying she'd pick Bheera so she'd never have to face the disappointment/darkness of Dev.
Both Bheera and Dev are dark characters, capable of horrible violence, but it's Dev that is the true monster between them. We learn the reason for Bheera's murders/rampage in the second half of the movie (about it more below) but even before that, there are hints that not all as it seems with the righteous inspector Dev - his violence, sudden and total, is equal to Bheera's, and the scene where he twists the stump of someone's bleeding arm to get a confession - my God.
But despite these troubling signs, I was still rooting for Dev to find and rescue Ragini by the time the first half ended. But then came the reveal. It was pretty clear from the start that Bheera was not just kidnapping/murdering cops for kicks but as a revenge plan. But I assumed that his revenge was for the cops trying to take his power away (he is a local thug leader - he basically rules the area and Dev is determined to break his power) but it turns out not to be really the case - the reason Bheera is so bent on revenge (and the reason he is rather unhinged) is because shortly before the movie started, the cop squad led by Dev burst into the wedding of his little sister. Dev wounded Bheera who got dragged off by his supporters, unconscious. The sister's husband turned coward and ran away leaving his new wife alone and defenseless. So the cops took the woman, on her wedding night, to the police station, and proceeded to gang-rape the whole night long (nothing was shown or even explicitly talked about but it was one of the most horrifying scenes I have ever seen). His little sister could not cope and killed herself.
The cops he has been killing were his sister's rapists. And even though he kidnapped Ragini and plans to kill her as revenge on Dev (I found it significant that the movie never explained whether Dev was one of the gang-rapists or just let it happen in his station because he does not care - because does it really matter which one it was? He is just as horribly responsible), I found it significant that he never plans to rape her - just kill her. And ultimately he finds himself unable to kill her, either.
Just as you realize, as the movie progresses, that even though Dev is dead-set on retrieving his wife, it is not about his love for her but about his hate for being worsted by Bheera, about his hatred to lose - he gets a perfect chance to get her back in exchange for letting Bheera go (a deal offered by Bheera's brother) and he just shoots the brother in the back - getting his wife is of less importance to him than winning.
It's not all simple black-and-white in reverse, of course. Bheera is not a misunderstood blameless woobie but more a portrait of fractured, vulnerable darkness - he does plenty of horrible things (though you get the sense that in the movie he is at his most unhinged, unbalanced, grieving - normaly he is tough and violent but rational) and on some level Dev does care for his wife (the flashbacks indicate that). It's just his bedtalk with Ragini proves prophetic - she asks him about whether he is a cop or a husband and he says when he is one, he is not the other. But here the two irretrievably collide and the cop triumphs. He is willing to give up everything, including his wife's life, to succeed.
And utlimately it is the illiterate low-caste thug who proves the better man of the two - he does not kill Ragini, he lets her go. But that is fine, he has fallen in love with her. What is remarkable is that he lets Dev go - for Ragini's sake he lets the man who is responsible for the rape and death of his sister and who has murdered his brother, go. He actually saves him and reunites them because he is so shaken by Ragini's purity and devotion, and because he is capable of putting what she wants above what he wants.
But the thing, Ragini's devotion to her husband is wasted - one of the tragic things in the movie is that there is no way the marriage can continue after the closing credits. It's not just the things she has learned about her husband (I can see her mentally handwaving it, hard as it would be), but the way Dev treats her after the reunion - accusing her of sleeping with Bheera, lying to her Bheera told her they did, telling her to take a lie-detector test. All for the purpose of her running to Bheera demanding to find out what he has told her husband so he could track her down and track Bheera down.
And then the last shots - where she is shielding Bheera with her body and Dev does not lower his gun, it does not waver - killing his enemy is more important than his wife. It is Bheera who pushes her out of the way even though that means (and he knows it) he will be shot.
The thing, Bheera falls for her, but for Ragini it's latent attraction (you can see the exact moment she first registers him as a man, actually - during that victory dance; also when she offers to stay with him forever in exchange for him not killing Dev it's not 100% martyrdom either, but a very physical raw attraction), but by the end you see her realize that the man who kidnapped her is a better man than the man she has married and given her faith to and that latent attraction is so close to the surface - when she gently imitates his 'blah blah blah' gesture to him or when she hears what he really told Dev (that she is amazing and pure) or as she sees him shot, his blood spraying her white outfit and she desperately stretches her hand to him. Dev may have defeated the man who defied him but he has also lost his wife. The horrible thing is, I do not think he cares.
OK, this is a discertation, you get a medal if you finished it.