mann jaane jaan-e-mann.
Sooo, I saw Jaan-e-Mann. Lengthy, detailed & spoilerous write-up below. If you're looking for a non-spoilerous sum-up of the film, here you go: It's good. It's funny (and the best kind of funny to me, too; self-referential & mocking of filmi clichés), it's emotional, it just works. It's not flawless but what debut direction is? It's a movie that speaks for the awesome of all of its main leads.
--
“Me and Salman will make people cry in Jaan-e-Mann,” Akshay Kumar said in an interview around the release of the movie. Now, I love Akshay and his occasionally goofy interview blurbs so excuse me if I wasn't fully willing to take him seriously. The trailer of the film seemed to underline the comedy porportions in such a way I didn't imagine this would be a film I'd actually get teary-eyed while watching.
Well, nearly three hours went by and surely enough, there I was, tears gathering in my eyes, watching all of the three principle characters weep all over town with the angst. Karan Johar, why does this never happen when I watch your movies? Take lessons from Farah's guy, seriously!
So yes, I loved Jaan-e-Mann for its emotional impact that was surprising to me. Especially the scene where Akshay's character realizes that while he's been following Salman's plan, Preity has fallen in love with Salman again and in reality she doesn't know the real Champu at all. And the scene that follows, where he hands her the letters. Oh heart breakage. Those scenes made sure I was crying at even the happy ending (the yellow drapes falling, nice visual).
And then there was the comedy. Maybe I'm just easy to please. I'll admit a lot of JEM's excellent innovativeness hit particular kinks for me - self-referential humor is one thing I love (Anupam's rewinding of Jaane Ka Jaane Na, Salman's “It's my flashback!”), parody elements are another (Preity Zinta & Preity Zintakova talking too much in the end, Salman's character only being accepted as a hero when he takes off his shirt). There was some definite whacky comedy moments that're almost straight from the Book of Things Sanni Loves in Movies, like many of Salman's costumes (he IS Elvis!) or Akki's laughter (hehehehe) or the morning they wake up with popcorn everywhere. But there's also just a lot of slightly more subtly funny moments, such as Salman's “I can't help it, it's just the way I am.” comment on his charm to Akki on the airplane, or Akki's monologue to himself while Salman's buying costumes (“So he took my credit card.. That's okay. I'll get Piya..”). Also loved every dwarf-joke in the film, Akki's “Bon ...voyage!” being one of the stand-out ones.
Well, this seems like one movie I could sit all day fangirling. Songs? Oh yes, give me. Humko Maloom Hai was one I'll surely be re-watching, as I loved its play on Bollywood cliches and yet it feels like this really beautiful, emotional song (especially on the second watch, man I was tearing up). Udh Jaana - rocking! I love nerd!Akki and how he “flies off” every now & then. The long hair is so not Salman's thing, but he does rock the song otherwise. Jaane Ke Jaane Na - oh, more self-referential humour and an otherwise groovy song. Ajnabee Sheher was beautifully shot - okay, so is the rest of the film but this song especially and I loved the combination of the dancers while the characters just wander around the park. Kabuul Kar Le was great in that it showed Piya's family pressuring both her and Agastya in a very amusing fashion. And of course then cutting to Salman at the diaper party partying Irish style worked well. Though given the nature of the other picturizations, the song doesn't exactly stand out. Sau Dard was a good example of a song where the character just angsts around town all friggin' day - and yet you don't roll your eyes but feel with them.
Isn't it kind of obvious this is Salman's movie? I'd heard praise before I saw the film and couldn't help but agree with it all after seeing the film. This is a great performance for him, and he rocks for not taking acting or himself so seriously he can't mock both in a movie. He's brilliant with the comedy as well as the drama in this film, and he looks good, too. This is, after AAA, my favourite film with him (while fully acknowledging that I've not exactly seen a wide selection of Salman movies). So maybe it was because of the hype that I was more surprised at Akki's awesomeness than Salman's.
Or maybe it was the geeky character of Champu that made me love Akki in this film or the fact I like supporting the underdog. Either way, he was totally awesome. Again, while recognizing I've seen criminally little Akshay movies, this is my favourite film of his. I could list about a million scenes where I'm full of love for him but I think the previously mentioned sums it up pretty well.
Preity's role was slightly thankless but she manages to have some stand-out scenes, like in the college classroom with Akki and when she hears Salman sniffing over the inter-com and immediately knows it's him. Or her precious moment of self-mockage when she manages to out-talk Salman and Akshay with the help of her Russian carbon copy. Yeah, good stuff. Preity is the kind of actress who I find somehow impossible to dislike - she ends up always convincing me somehow.
I went in open-minded over who Piya would end up with, especially since I soon discovered I really liked both male characters. Still I thought it was great that it's very clearly shown it's Suhaan who's her one true love and even her love for Agastya comes from him doing everything as Suhaan would do it. The moment Suhaan arrives at the appartment and starts pre-empting what Piya will do next, I instantly realized he was still badly in love with her. It was very nicely worked with, and I didn't even get the feeling that Agastya was getting screwed over - probably because it takes Suhaan such a long time to figure out that he wants Piya back and when he does, his first instinct is to tell Agastya everything. Also, the moment when Agastya tells Suhaan “It's a scientifically proven fact!” about the seven-same-faces-in-the-world thing, I thought, “Yay so he can end up with a Preity as well!” - and when he did, I was giddy with joy.
Sadly, no film's perfect, especially those that're by debuting directors so there naturally have to be some downsides to the otherwise wonderful JEM. After the film comes off the fast-paced first half, I thought the more traditional way of telling the story didn't work entirely in its advantage - it began to drag on the second half. Thankfully it picks up at the end with some of the best scenes in the whole film. Another thing I didn't like was the whole diaper thing - amusing at first, and I can see how it ties together with Suhaan discovering fatherhood etc but it ended up being somewhat detached. It could've easily been tied in with Piya catching one of his adverts but such a thing amazingly didn't happen (they run the ad on Times Square and yet she never gets to see it). Oh, and I got so tired of hearing Aussie accents in New York. Such a thing kind of hampered the otherwise good film. Also, this is more a pointing finger at the releasers than the film makers, but c'mon, can we get some subtitles in here? I heard that even in theaters there were some parts left unsubtitled. Thank God my Hindi comprehension is okay-ish by now.
2006 being the amazing year of Hindi cinema that it has been, Jaan-e-Mann doesn't quite reach the title of my favourite film of the year, but it doesn't come far and might very well make my top 5 Bollywood films of '06 should I want to form one. It ended up just the kind of weirdly funny movie I was hoping it would be and yet it turned out to be so much more than that. I definitely agree with GreenBear's evaluation that it's a film for a Bollyfanatic and that the way the emotionality of the film sort of creeps up on you is wonderful.
--
Hmm, reading through the spoiler topic on Bollywhat now, one thing I'd like to address:
carla said,
in fact the ending was the weakest part of the film for me as it was too damn facile. Agastya made the sacrifice, as in the "typical" love triangle plot. The fact that he ended up with someone else is nice, because it's better than pining away his whole life over someone he lost. The fact that the person he ended up with looked exactly like Piya was, in my opinion, just stupid. It reduces his love for Piya to a shallowness that it really didn't deserve.
Being slightly in love with the character of Agastya myself, I really wonder why I saw this differently. Either way, I think the fact that Agastya himself admits he's an idiot and doesn't understand how he got in the middle of Piya and Suhaan's love speaks volumes. It shows that Agastya realizes Piya's love was not his to take - it wasn't in fact even for him in any shape or form. And the fact he cannot even talk to her without Suhaan speaking in his ear is another thing that shows that yes, sad as it is, his love is shallow. It's sincere and he may think it comes from his heart but it's not based on knowing Piya as a person, not even after he spends time with her. Agastya has elevated a hot girl in high school, giving him some attention, into “love”, which it isn't. I can see why he does this - mainly because it's the only time a girl he's been into has shown any care at all towards him - but it doesn't really mean that he's right to consider it love.
As for Champu getting it with a Piya clone, here's how I look at it. I don't think he gets with the clone because she looks like Piya alone - I think he's taken home some lessons from the whole con thing and approached the Russian version of Preity Zinta completely as himself, an awkward geek and found that with her, unlike with Piya, he could actually be himself. Now this is of course off-camera and so I can't really base this on anything, but I think that the growth and realization of Agastya is shown in the scenes where he narrates the story and where he praises Suhaan to Piya. He knows that he can't become Suhaan and that gaining love by pretension is not the way to do it, so his love for Preity Zintakoff(or kova - both sound okay to my ear) probably starts off as shallow infatuation (when he realizes he's found another person who looks like Piya) but as she falls in love with the real Agastya (no pretension, no Suhaan around to make him act “cool”), he also falls in love with her, the real her.
Of course, that may be all my tendency to read too much into films I like. But I also think GreenBear has a point about the Russian girl being more Agastya's type in that she must be all science-geeky to have become an astronaut, or cosmonaut or whatever. And naturally one cannot ignore all the possible poking fun of BW clichés that the scenario contains - and naturally just the opportunity to have two Preity Zintas chattering away at each other.
Like I said earlier, I didn't really feel any huge cheating or tricking done on Agastya. Compared to this one other film with a love triangle, also shot in NYC *cough * * cough*, this was really wonderful.
--
“Me and Salman will make people cry in Jaan-e-Mann,” Akshay Kumar said in an interview around the release of the movie. Now, I love Akshay and his occasionally goofy interview blurbs so excuse me if I wasn't fully willing to take him seriously. The trailer of the film seemed to underline the comedy porportions in such a way I didn't imagine this would be a film I'd actually get teary-eyed while watching.
Well, nearly three hours went by and surely enough, there I was, tears gathering in my eyes, watching all of the three principle characters weep all over town with the angst. Karan Johar, why does this never happen when I watch your movies? Take lessons from Farah's guy, seriously!
So yes, I loved Jaan-e-Mann for its emotional impact that was surprising to me. Especially the scene where Akshay's character realizes that while he's been following Salman's plan, Preity has fallen in love with Salman again and in reality she doesn't know the real Champu at all. And the scene that follows, where he hands her the letters. Oh heart breakage. Those scenes made sure I was crying at even the happy ending (the yellow drapes falling, nice visual).
And then there was the comedy. Maybe I'm just easy to please. I'll admit a lot of JEM's excellent innovativeness hit particular kinks for me - self-referential humor is one thing I love (Anupam's rewinding of Jaane Ka Jaane Na, Salman's “It's my flashback!”), parody elements are another (Preity Zinta & Preity Zintakova talking too much in the end, Salman's character only being accepted as a hero when he takes off his shirt). There was some definite whacky comedy moments that're almost straight from the Book of Things Sanni Loves in Movies, like many of Salman's costumes (he IS Elvis!) or Akki's laughter (hehehehe) or the morning they wake up with popcorn everywhere. But there's also just a lot of slightly more subtly funny moments, such as Salman's “I can't help it, it's just the way I am.” comment on his charm to Akki on the airplane, or Akki's monologue to himself while Salman's buying costumes (“So he took my credit card.. That's okay. I'll get Piya..”). Also loved every dwarf-joke in the film, Akki's “Bon ...voyage!” being one of the stand-out ones.
Well, this seems like one movie I could sit all day fangirling. Songs? Oh yes, give me. Humko Maloom Hai was one I'll surely be re-watching, as I loved its play on Bollywood cliches and yet it feels like this really beautiful, emotional song (especially on the second watch, man I was tearing up). Udh Jaana - rocking! I love nerd!Akki and how he “flies off” every now & then. The long hair is so not Salman's thing, but he does rock the song otherwise. Jaane Ke Jaane Na - oh, more self-referential humour and an otherwise groovy song. Ajnabee Sheher was beautifully shot - okay, so is the rest of the film but this song especially and I loved the combination of the dancers while the characters just wander around the park. Kabuul Kar Le was great in that it showed Piya's family pressuring both her and Agastya in a very amusing fashion. And of course then cutting to Salman at the diaper party partying Irish style worked well. Though given the nature of the other picturizations, the song doesn't exactly stand out. Sau Dard was a good example of a song where the character just angsts around town all friggin' day - and yet you don't roll your eyes but feel with them.
Isn't it kind of obvious this is Salman's movie? I'd heard praise before I saw the film and couldn't help but agree with it all after seeing the film. This is a great performance for him, and he rocks for not taking acting or himself so seriously he can't mock both in a movie. He's brilliant with the comedy as well as the drama in this film, and he looks good, too. This is, after AAA, my favourite film with him (while fully acknowledging that I've not exactly seen a wide selection of Salman movies). So maybe it was because of the hype that I was more surprised at Akki's awesomeness than Salman's.
Or maybe it was the geeky character of Champu that made me love Akki in this film or the fact I like supporting the underdog. Either way, he was totally awesome. Again, while recognizing I've seen criminally little Akshay movies, this is my favourite film of his. I could list about a million scenes where I'm full of love for him but I think the previously mentioned sums it up pretty well.
Preity's role was slightly thankless but she manages to have some stand-out scenes, like in the college classroom with Akki and when she hears Salman sniffing over the inter-com and immediately knows it's him. Or her precious moment of self-mockage when she manages to out-talk Salman and Akshay with the help of her Russian carbon copy. Yeah, good stuff. Preity is the kind of actress who I find somehow impossible to dislike - she ends up always convincing me somehow.
I went in open-minded over who Piya would end up with, especially since I soon discovered I really liked both male characters. Still I thought it was great that it's very clearly shown it's Suhaan who's her one true love and even her love for Agastya comes from him doing everything as Suhaan would do it. The moment Suhaan arrives at the appartment and starts pre-empting what Piya will do next, I instantly realized he was still badly in love with her. It was very nicely worked with, and I didn't even get the feeling that Agastya was getting screwed over - probably because it takes Suhaan such a long time to figure out that he wants Piya back and when he does, his first instinct is to tell Agastya everything. Also, the moment when Agastya tells Suhaan “It's a scientifically proven fact!” about the seven-same-faces-in-the-world thing, I thought, “Yay so he can end up with a Preity as well!” - and when he did, I was giddy with joy.
Sadly, no film's perfect, especially those that're by debuting directors so there naturally have to be some downsides to the otherwise wonderful JEM. After the film comes off the fast-paced first half, I thought the more traditional way of telling the story didn't work entirely in its advantage - it began to drag on the second half. Thankfully it picks up at the end with some of the best scenes in the whole film. Another thing I didn't like was the whole diaper thing - amusing at first, and I can see how it ties together with Suhaan discovering fatherhood etc but it ended up being somewhat detached. It could've easily been tied in with Piya catching one of his adverts but such a thing amazingly didn't happen (they run the ad on Times Square and yet she never gets to see it). Oh, and I got so tired of hearing Aussie accents in New York. Such a thing kind of hampered the otherwise good film. Also, this is more a pointing finger at the releasers than the film makers, but c'mon, can we get some subtitles in here? I heard that even in theaters there were some parts left unsubtitled. Thank God my Hindi comprehension is okay-ish by now.
2006 being the amazing year of Hindi cinema that it has been, Jaan-e-Mann doesn't quite reach the title of my favourite film of the year, but it doesn't come far and might very well make my top 5 Bollywood films of '06 should I want to form one. It ended up just the kind of weirdly funny movie I was hoping it would be and yet it turned out to be so much more than that. I definitely agree with GreenBear's evaluation that it's a film for a Bollyfanatic and that the way the emotionality of the film sort of creeps up on you is wonderful.
--
Hmm, reading through the spoiler topic on Bollywhat now, one thing I'd like to address:
carla said,
in fact the ending was the weakest part of the film for me as it was too damn facile. Agastya made the sacrifice, as in the "typical" love triangle plot. The fact that he ended up with someone else is nice, because it's better than pining away his whole life over someone he lost. The fact that the person he ended up with looked exactly like Piya was, in my opinion, just stupid. It reduces his love for Piya to a shallowness that it really didn't deserve.
Being slightly in love with the character of Agastya myself, I really wonder why I saw this differently. Either way, I think the fact that Agastya himself admits he's an idiot and doesn't understand how he got in the middle of Piya and Suhaan's love speaks volumes. It shows that Agastya realizes Piya's love was not his to take - it wasn't in fact even for him in any shape or form. And the fact he cannot even talk to her without Suhaan speaking in his ear is another thing that shows that yes, sad as it is, his love is shallow. It's sincere and he may think it comes from his heart but it's not based on knowing Piya as a person, not even after he spends time with her. Agastya has elevated a hot girl in high school, giving him some attention, into “love”, which it isn't. I can see why he does this - mainly because it's the only time a girl he's been into has shown any care at all towards him - but it doesn't really mean that he's right to consider it love.
As for Champu getting it with a Piya clone, here's how I look at it. I don't think he gets with the clone because she looks like Piya alone - I think he's taken home some lessons from the whole con thing and approached the Russian version of Preity Zinta completely as himself, an awkward geek and found that with her, unlike with Piya, he could actually be himself. Now this is of course off-camera and so I can't really base this on anything, but I think that the growth and realization of Agastya is shown in the scenes where he narrates the story and where he praises Suhaan to Piya. He knows that he can't become Suhaan and that gaining love by pretension is not the way to do it, so his love for Preity Zintakoff(or kova - both sound okay to my ear) probably starts off as shallow infatuation (when he realizes he's found another person who looks like Piya) but as she falls in love with the real Agastya (no pretension, no Suhaan around to make him act “cool”), he also falls in love with her, the real her.
Of course, that may be all my tendency to read too much into films I like. But I also think GreenBear has a point about the Russian girl being more Agastya's type in that she must be all science-geeky to have become an astronaut, or cosmonaut or whatever. And naturally one cannot ignore all the possible poking fun of BW clichés that the scenario contains - and naturally just the opportunity to have two Preity Zintas chattering away at each other.
Like I said earlier, I didn't really feel any huge cheating or tricking done on Agastya. Compared to this one other film with a love triangle, also shot in NYC *cough * * cough*, this was really wonderful.