I had never seen a Bollywood movie before so this was a real eye-opener for me. The form is melodrama of a type deserving of a place in a daytime soap timeslot and every word, glance, eye movement, head turn, and gesture is laden with a tonne of signification. The muscles in the faces of the main actors, and even their neck muscles and nostrils, are given full workouts here.
Nothing is left to a scheme as uncertain as the kind of nuance that top-rank Hollywood actors are renowned for and the best Californian scriptwriters pride themselves in, and there is no subtlety in the action at all. For this reason the actors’ faces are given a lot of work to do. The gorgeous Alia Bhatt (she has the most amazing eyes you can imagine) as Roop and the rugged Varun Dhawan as Zafar, especially, are given plenty of screen time as the director navigates his way through the complexities of modern Indian history.
Everything you see and hear is jam-packed with meaning, truly laden down with it, in fact, and so there is not a chink (not the merest sliver) of time that is not fully exploited by the director in his effort to entertain you. This is pure kitsch of a type that Hollywood would consider itself to have weaned itself away from in the 1960s.
Despite these reservations the feelings that the audience experiences are completely authentic and so the movie works in a way that most Hollywood dramas simply do not. The physical thrills that you have when watching it are rare in conventional cinema. There are other things, to do with the storyline, that differ drastically from the ways of traditional Hollywood romantic comedy, where true love always wins out, but to say too much on this score would ruin the movie for anyone who has not seen it and wants to.
The story is hideously complicated and for English-speakers who do not know Hindi the challenge is to grasp all its twists and turns at the same time as watching the action unfold. To make things harder still some of the subtitles are a bit dodgy. To simplify the plot to the point of excess: men die and women cry.
It starts when Satya Chaudhry (a mournful-looking Sonakshi Sinha) asks a childhood friend named Roop to come to her house to be a companion to her husband, Dev (Aditya Roy Kapoor’s permanent four-o’clock shadow I highly suspect is anachronistic given the period that is the subject of the movie, but it is necessary to enable him to compete with Varun Dhawan for our esteem). Satya is sick and has only a year to live. Roop refuses to go unless Satya convinces Dev to marry her, and the marriage duly takes place. Once she is ensconced in the gigantic Chaudry mansion, Roop is asked by Satya to cooperate with the family in its daily routines, and even to go to work in Dev’s office (the family owns a newspaper). Roop agrees to this last item only on condition that the family will allow her to take singing lessons from Bahaar Begum (Madhuri Dixit), who runs a brothel in an insalubrious part of the city called Hira Mandi. The city is a place named Husnabad that is located in what today is called Pakistan but which at the time the move takes in, 1945, was part of what was known as British India.
Roop wants to use her role as a reporter to write stories about Hira Mandi and on one of her forays to the ghetto she bumps into Zafar who is a blacksmith. A relationship develops that is diametrically opposed in nature to the sterile one Roop shares with Dev. The plot becomes dense when it emerges that Zafar has links to Dev’s family that Roop doesn’t know about. To make things even more convoluted, Bahaar Begum also turns out to be intimately linked with Dev and his father, Balraj (Sanjay Dutt). The plot, as the saying goes, thickens further after the intermission when it becomes clear that Roop and Zafar are in love.
There is also a secondary thread that relates to the attempt by the Chaudhry family to promote industrial modernisation. Against this push in the community are ranked Abdul (Kunal Khemu) and Zafar on the side of the metalworkers who they say will be thrown out of work if the modern British steel mills arrive in the country. Dev is staunch in support of the steel mills with his editorials, just as he is staunch in support of a political settlement that allows both Hindus and Muslims to live together in one nation.
When it comes to communicating these things, some critics will be repelled by wooden dialogue, blocky sentiments, and inauthentic stage settings, but no-one who is remotely human can ignore the charm of the dance scenes. These function something like punctuation does in a novel or poem, providing dramatic release and helping to build suspense. The ways that the dances are mixed with and involved in the scenes that surround them is very fine work indeed, and you find yourself engaging with the whole production in a very positive way. I cannot find any fault with this kind of fictionalising except to remark that it is a shame it doesn’t happen more often.
The political and religious themes that animate this film are woven in very intimately with the family story that lies at its centre. This, in turn, is tied closely to the love story that characterises the relations between Zafar (who is Muslim) and Roop (who is Hindu). So much is happening you can be forgiven for missing a beat here or there but one thing is for sure: for Indians marriage is a very important institution indeed. The film allows its director and producer to examine marriage in detail. What makes a good one? What is the role of love in marriage? What are the obligations that marriage places on those involved? How does a modern marriage differ from that of one’s parents?
The ending is all of a piece with the entirety, and somehow here you find yourself feeling that you are watching a story made for children, where everything becomes personal and has a direct connection to you. The emotions and ideas possessed in these final scenes by each of the characters – Roop, Dev, Zafar, Abdul, Balraj; even Satya and Bahaar Begum are included despite the logical impossibility of that occurring due to the exigencies of the plot to that point – have all the bright colours and staggering force of classical mythology.
It’s like a chorus line of minor deities in an Indian’s emotional pantheon and it is singing a song with a melody and lyrics about good and bad, true love and legal marriage, Muslim and Hindu, rich and poor, working class and middle class, revenge and tolerance, friendship and sectarianism: as each dichotomy is explored, included, mixed in with the emotions the viewer is experiencing throughout the film, sides are taken (the film’s title translates as “stigma”). I found this brilliant film to be fully satisfying in a way that I had not felt since I watched Disney animations as a child. Here you have a whole universe of interlocking ideas and feelings that are elucidated in an intelligent and comprehensive way. It is mesmerising and beautiful.
One other thing that struck me as being an important element of the film is the place of revenge in Indian history. Is it good or bad? What are the licit limitations that should be placed on people who seek it? What does this emotion tell us about India and Indians? Such as these seem to be existential questions for people living in the subcontinent, you would have to say.
A secondary theme that is given fair play in the movie is the education of women. It highlights just how different is the intended audience for this film, compared to that of a typical American product.
Nothing is left to a scheme as uncertain as the kind of nuance that top-rank Hollywood actors are renowned for and the best Californian scriptwriters pride themselves in, and there is no subtlety in the action at all. For this reason the actors’ faces are given a lot of work to do. The gorgeous Alia Bhatt (she has the most amazing eyes you can imagine) as Roop and the rugged Varun Dhawan as Zafar, especially, are given plenty of screen time as the director navigates his way through the complexities of modern Indian history.
Everything you see and hear is jam-packed with meaning, truly laden down with it, in fact, and so there is not a chink (not the merest sliver) of time that is not fully exploited by the director in his effort to entertain you. This is pure kitsch of a type that Hollywood would consider itself to have weaned itself away from in the 1960s.
Despite these reservations the feelings that the audience experiences are completely authentic and so the movie works in a way that most Hollywood dramas simply do not. The physical thrills that you have when watching it are rare in conventional cinema. There are other things, to do with the storyline, that differ drastically from the ways of traditional Hollywood romantic comedy, where true love always wins out, but to say too much on this score would ruin the movie for anyone who has not seen it and wants to.
The story is hideously complicated and for English-speakers who do not know Hindi the challenge is to grasp all its twists and turns at the same time as watching the action unfold. To make things harder still some of the subtitles are a bit dodgy. To simplify the plot to the point of excess: men die and women cry.
It starts when Satya Chaudhry (a mournful-looking Sonakshi Sinha) asks a childhood friend named Roop to come to her house to be a companion to her husband, Dev (Aditya Roy Kapoor’s permanent four-o’clock shadow I highly suspect is anachronistic given the period that is the subject of the movie, but it is necessary to enable him to compete with Varun Dhawan for our esteem). Satya is sick and has only a year to live. Roop refuses to go unless Satya convinces Dev to marry her, and the marriage duly takes place. Once she is ensconced in the gigantic Chaudry mansion, Roop is asked by Satya to cooperate with the family in its daily routines, and even to go to work in Dev’s office (the family owns a newspaper). Roop agrees to this last item only on condition that the family will allow her to take singing lessons from Bahaar Begum (Madhuri Dixit), who runs a brothel in an insalubrious part of the city called Hira Mandi. The city is a place named Husnabad that is located in what today is called Pakistan but which at the time the move takes in, 1945, was part of what was known as British India.
Roop wants to use her role as a reporter to write stories about Hira Mandi and on one of her forays to the ghetto she bumps into Zafar who is a blacksmith. A relationship develops that is diametrically opposed in nature to the sterile one Roop shares with Dev. The plot becomes dense when it emerges that Zafar has links to Dev’s family that Roop doesn’t know about. To make things even more convoluted, Bahaar Begum also turns out to be intimately linked with Dev and his father, Balraj (Sanjay Dutt). The plot, as the saying goes, thickens further after the intermission when it becomes clear that Roop and Zafar are in love.
There is also a secondary thread that relates to the attempt by the Chaudhry family to promote industrial modernisation. Against this push in the community are ranked Abdul (Kunal Khemu) and Zafar on the side of the metalworkers who they say will be thrown out of work if the modern British steel mills arrive in the country. Dev is staunch in support of the steel mills with his editorials, just as he is staunch in support of a political settlement that allows both Hindus and Muslims to live together in one nation.
When it comes to communicating these things, some critics will be repelled by wooden dialogue, blocky sentiments, and inauthentic stage settings, but no-one who is remotely human can ignore the charm of the dance scenes. These function something like punctuation does in a novel or poem, providing dramatic release and helping to build suspense. The ways that the dances are mixed with and involved in the scenes that surround them is very fine work indeed, and you find yourself engaging with the whole production in a very positive way. I cannot find any fault with this kind of fictionalising except to remark that it is a shame it doesn’t happen more often.
The political and religious themes that animate this film are woven in very intimately with the family story that lies at its centre. This, in turn, is tied closely to the love story that characterises the relations between Zafar (who is Muslim) and Roop (who is Hindu). So much is happening you can be forgiven for missing a beat here or there but one thing is for sure: for Indians marriage is a very important institution indeed. The film allows its director and producer to examine marriage in detail. What makes a good one? What is the role of love in marriage? What are the obligations that marriage places on those involved? How does a modern marriage differ from that of one’s parents?
The ending is all of a piece with the entirety, and somehow here you find yourself feeling that you are watching a story made for children, where everything becomes personal and has a direct connection to you. The emotions and ideas possessed in these final scenes by each of the characters – Roop, Dev, Zafar, Abdul, Balraj; even Satya and Bahaar Begum are included despite the logical impossibility of that occurring due to the exigencies of the plot to that point – have all the bright colours and staggering force of classical mythology.
It’s like a chorus line of minor deities in an Indian’s emotional pantheon and it is singing a song with a melody and lyrics about good and bad, true love and legal marriage, Muslim and Hindu, rich and poor, working class and middle class, revenge and tolerance, friendship and sectarianism: as each dichotomy is explored, included, mixed in with the emotions the viewer is experiencing throughout the film, sides are taken (the film’s title translates as “stigma”). I found this brilliant film to be fully satisfying in a way that I had not felt since I watched Disney animations as a child. Here you have a whole universe of interlocking ideas and feelings that are elucidated in an intelligent and comprehensive way. It is mesmerising and beautiful.
One other thing that struck me as being an important element of the film is the place of revenge in Indian history. Is it good or bad? What are the licit limitations that should be placed on people who seek it? What does this emotion tell us about India and Indians? Such as these seem to be existential questions for people living in the subcontinent, you would have to say.
A secondary theme that is given fair play in the movie is the education of women. It highlights just how different is the intended audience for this film, compared to that of a typical American product.
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