Ram-Leela_1

Umm..passion. It is about  to peak for Ram and Leela in a lodge called Madhu Chanda (literally translated..Honeymoon). In a room where everything is white and wispy, including the moonlight and there is a big mural or picture of goddess Lakshmi  on one of the walls, there is a balcony overlooking the twinkling town the duo have eloped to. Leela clad in white is swirling in incense smoke and her eyes look longingly at Ram who meanwhile poses in the  balcony as if he were shooting for a fashion magazine. And you remember the terrace scene from Guru Dutt’s Pyasa where a poet is contemplating issues of life and existential angst while, the woman in love with him is wrapped in  “hriday ki peeda, deh ki agni.” Both pour out of her face  even though you don’t see an inch of her  skin.  And here as Leela orchestrates  passion, Ram struts towards her and  all you can think of is, “And when did he get the time to use a bronzer?”

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Both are in mourning for their loved ones but there is very little to convey the tragedy. It is just another overstated moment in Bhansali land in Goliyon Ki Rasleela Ram-Leela. A film that is a little like Ranveer Singh’s torso. Overworked and self-conscious and preening  to itself in smug satisfaction.  And that finally is the issue with the film. It never stops  being  in love with itself and is too busy and in too much of a hurry to hurtle from one overloaded moment to another…  to breathe, let a moment grow and come to fruition like Gulzar saab once entreated, “kacche lamhe ko zara shaakh pe pakne dete..

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Take the moment for instance when Ram and Leela meet for the first time. There is an explosion of colour, an eyelock that is soon  followed by a liplock and a song begins to play and love arrives like Ram in Leela’s magical haveli. Really? Even when  Leela sneaks  a visit to Ram’s porn movie parlour (how romantic), the two barely exchange an insult or two before they burst into a song harking back to the Karisma and Govinda era and celebrate the Dishkiaon and the Ishkiaoon in their love.  A few furtive meetings and a blood bath later, the lovers elope and then spend the second half of the film in severed realities. She mooning over him. He posturing under a don’s turban. For a love story, the lead pair spend precious little time with each other.  And there is the Priyanka Chopra item song  where she is fiddling with her blouse and lungi  just at a point when Ram and Leela are supposedly most in pain.

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An epic must stir more emotion that fatigue but Ram Leela is a film where everything is a beautiful prop, even the lead pair, even their passion. And nothing becomes real or cuts really deep even though the actors give everything to an impossible story decked with fake flower spangled balconies, traipsing peacocks, a ghagra  that supposedly weighs six kilos or more, mirchi mounds (Oh, how I longed for Ketan Mehta’s Mirch Masala and its spectacular narrative), turbans, lavishly mounted songs, double entendre and gunfire..endless gunfire.  Remember JP Dutta’s Batwara and Kshatriya? You get the picture but only just.

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And just how much reinvention of Romeo and Juliet can we take in the span of a few years? There was Ishaqzaade and then Isaak and now this, the most overwrought version of all.  On the plus side, there is always a visual sweep in the way Bhansali conceives his frames. They look like paintings for most part with night skies and lamp lit havelis and bombastic processions . The music by Monty Sharma and Bhansali has full-bodied melody and  layered orchestration. Ravi Varman captures Bhansali’s limitless imagination  in lush , larger-than-life  compositions.

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A love story works primarily if the lead pair can convincingly express impossible to quench passion. At this the two leads succeed. Deepika Padukone is an inspired, uninhibited Juliet, throwing herself into volcanic love  for a boy she barely knows. Her eyes and face can inspire sonnets. Unlike many actresses of her generation, she knows what to do with a piece of dialogue and infuse spirit in it. There is grace and power and playfulness and lust in the way she channels Leela and Ranveer Singh lives up to the promise of Band Baaja Baraat and Lootera with a crowd pleasing, effortlessly self-assured portrayal of a seemingly shallow Romeo who has depths that we see in moments when he is quiet  and in pain. Watch him in the scene where Leela is ruthlessly striking a deal like a Godmother among a group of disbelieving men and he is both proud of her and hurt that there is a distance between them that cannot be erased. He impulsively snaps a cell phone  picture with her because there should be something to remind them both of what they once shared. His eyes like Deepika’s  say a lot. Whether the actors are glowering at each other from a distance or being brave and foolish children or dancing or fighting, they seem to react to each other with an almost primitive intelligence.

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Sharad Kelkar,  Gulshan Deviah, Barkha Bisht and Richa Chaddha are not bad at all but the top honours have to go to Supriya Pathak who plays a wise-cracking, finger snapping (in more ways than one) Godmother with a fondness for English one-liners. She is jovial and dangerous, warm and cold-blooded and everytime she is on screen, there are whistles and hoots of laughter and ofcourse a sense of menace.

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But yes, Bhansali after all these years of operatic cinema, refuses to learn restraint and to know just when to stop adding to a story…scene..a moment. If only Ram Leela had been just a love story and not an , “I will outdo Baz Luhrmann..just you wait’’ trip down the streets of Ranjaar, maybe we would have seen more sense and less pretense in the film. But knowing Bhansali, maybe less is too much to ask for.

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Reema Moudgil has been writing for magazines and newspapers on art, cinema, issues, architecture and more since 1994, is an RJ, hosts a daily Ghazal show, runs unboxed writers, is the editor of Chicken Soup for The Indian Woman’s soul, the author of Perfect Eight (http://www.flipkart.com/perfect-eight-9380032870/p/itmdf87fpkhszfkb?pid=9789380032870&_l=A0vO9n9FWsBsMJKAKw47rw–&_r=dyRavyz2qKxOF7Yuc ) and an artist.