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Thursday, March 20, 2025
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BOLLYWOOD GOLIYON KI RAASLEELA RAM-LEELA
EDITOR'S PICK
`Ram-leela`
- Bhansali`s genious explodes on screen
Rating: *****
Just when you think you have seen it all, there comes a film that reminds you of
how far the cinematic medium has come...And how far it can go in the right
hands. Let's face it - Bhansali is Bhansali. The visual imagery in all his
earlier films - from "Khamoshi: The Musical" to "Guzaarish"
is comparable with the best art from any field of aesthetics.
In terms of its free-flowing, unmeasured and operatic opulence, "Ram-leela"
(with or without the censorial prefix), comes closest to the giddy high-pitched
and yet miraculously controlled tempo and tenor of Bhansali's "Devdas".
That too was a steeply sensuous cinematic adaptation from a literary source.
"Ram-leela" goes to William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet"
and comes away with a marvel of a tale of love-at-first-sight. Bhansali tilts
his hat to mythology, folkore and the culture of community clashes with a blend
of spontaneity and brilliance.
What Bhansali does to Shakespeare's tumultuous saga of sudden love between
scions of two warring families, is beyond the imagination of all other living
filmmakers of this country.
The rigorous reworking of the Shakespearean classic required a certain sense of
recklessness. Earlier this year, we saw some of the same creative recklessness
in two other Bollywood adaptations of "Romeo and Juliet" - namely
Aanand L. Rai's "Raanjhanaa" and Manish Tiwary's "Issaq".
But in "Ram-leela", every image and frame tells a story.
Bhansali's Romeo and Juliet are unabashedly sexual in their body and verbal
language. None of that traditional coyness and hesitation that characterises
traditional courtship when Ram and Leela discuss one another's vital statistics.
He runs a porn video parlour. She comes from a family of gun-wielding criminals
helmed by a steely matriarch (Supriya Pathak, brilliant). He comments on her
'136 inch' chest, she talks about his, er, trigger. They are in love and they
know lust is an integral component of their relationship.
No two lovers derived from a classic romance have celebrated their mutual sexual
desires so frankly and fearlessly.
Gosh, these two are Romeo and Juliet on steroids! And this is as good a place as
any to tell you that no other two actors could have done to Bhansali's Romeo/Ram
and Juliet/Leela what Ranveer and Deepika have done. They don't play the two
characters. The couple owns their characters.
In his quest for the most visually invigorating shots, Bhansali is here assisted
amply by his cinematographer Ravi Varman. Varman uses the camera like Ustad
Amjad Ali Khan uses the Sarod. It's an instrument to converse with divinity.
Wasiq Khan's art work too unfurls a spiralling tapestry of kaleidoscopic colours
that find a place in the hectic frames without jostling or crowding the canvas.
Of the innumerable imperishable images that emerge from the film's tumultuous
tale of overnight passion, elopement, estrangement and reunion, I'd single out
two. The first shows Barkha Bisht as Ranveer's widowed sister-in-law running
away from a gang of attackers. As she runs through the rugged hinterland, her
brass vessel tumbles down-slope with her.
The sequence, caught in a desperately dying light, is probably the most vivid
image of impending doom I've seen in any recent film.
The other unforgettable image features Deepika, her hand bloodied after an
injury, lying on the wet ground in a streak of blood. It reminded me of
Aishwarya Rai's slashed wrist creating a pond of blood with her hand in
Bhansali's "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam".
Fire and blood are never far away from Bhansali's vision. Though there is plenty
of bloodied images in "Ram-leela", the fire this time rages in the
eyes of the characters.
The film's visual poetry is so eloquent that you wonder at times if the
filmmaker is a closet-painter. A closet-musician, Bhansali certainly is. His
self-composed songs assisted by Monty Sharma's evocative background score,
perfectly capture the film's impetuous mood.
The actors do the rest. Every performer surrenders to the tempestuous saga.
While Supriya Pathak leads the supporting cast with a stellar performance, Richa
Chadda, Abhimanyu Singh, Gulshan Devaiah and Sharad Kelkar are the portrait of
pitch-perfect emoting.
As for the Ranveer-Deepika pair, I finally know what on-screen chemistry means.
Their frankly erotic togetherness is comparable with Raj Kapoor and Nargis in
"Awara".
"Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-leela" is the most vital romantic musical in
the last five years. To experience it is to serenade the divine. To miss it
would be a crime.
Newlyweds Deepika Padukone and Ranveer Singh on Tuesday treated fans to a few glimpses of their wedding celebrations, which was held at the picturesque Lake Como in Italy last week.From haldi to mehendi and the wedding nuptials, Deepika and Ranveer, who kept their wedding images away from the public eye, finally took to social media on Tuesday to share some of their special moments with their fans.Read More
Deepika drools over Ranveer's latest Insta postRanveer Singh and his rumoured girlfriend Deepika Padukone have been inseparable since Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Goliyon Ki Raasleela', but the duo has always maintained a stoic silence over their relationship. Not just by holding hands at the airport or getting clicked on vacations, the two can also be seen expressing their love by constantly commenting on each other's posts on Instagram.Read More
Ram
: Born in the land of guns, goons and hardcore enmity, RAM - the local village
romeo, is a raapchik, cheap, dramatic vagabond. The lover who fights the whole
world for his Leela and yet the man who stands by his clan even at the cost of
his own love
Leela : In love with her enemy, a beautiful, young, spicy, fearless gujrati
belle, born to an underworld mistress and yet far removed from the violence
that surrounds her. Her life is only about her faith in her lover , her tireless
wait for him, her sacrifices for him and ultimately her'self' against him
When the two see each other for the first time, worlds collide, wars are fought
and destinies are written in blood, forever. The Jadejas and the Rabaris are
sworn enemies since the past 500 years and their own kin falling in love with
each other is worst than any storm that could have ever come by. Set in the
present day, magnificent vibrant landscape of Gujarat, woven with song and
dance, Ram and Leela fight the world to live their own dreams. What will happen
when they declare their love to the world? Will their families relent or will
Ram and Leela carve their own destiny?
