Eklavya (SPOILERS)

[GreenBear]

I haven't read anyone's take on this yet, so these are purely my impressions.

OK, I am tired and about to take a nap, so all I'll say for now is...

DAMN.

Eklavya.

Saif, stop spoiling me with such awesome movies.

It would take a hell of a year to knock this out of my Top 5 for 2007.

And you know what? I lied after all. I really want to talk about Eklavya. Which is just...Shakespeare goes Rajastan.

There isn't as much Saif/Vidya as there was in e.g. Parineeta, but it's integral to the story, and you know what? The movie was so awesome, I didn't mind. 

Wow.

Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

Wow.

First off, this has to be one of the most beautiful movies I've ever seen. That is saying a lot, but the rich (but not garish) colors, the amazing art design (everythig is perfect to a little detail. Notice how consistently Harsh is the only one wearing all black), the way the flames light the fort: at once a beautiful palace and a harsh solipcistic prison, locking away any modernity, freshness outside. Notice the bright, spring colors of Rajjo's clothes: spring, hope, breath of fresh air. Everything is perfect, to the last thin string of peals on Raja's neck. 

And the movie has unforgettable images: Amitabh, blindfolded, walking in the pond, hand outstretched. The scene of Amitabh coming in to kill Jimmy, when there are only pigeons on screen from the movie Jimmy watching. Harsh, merely outline in the dark skyline, clothes ghostly white, sitting in front of the pyre of his mother. Or my favorite, Harsh leading Nandini to the room where their mother died, because Nandini says if the 'secret' escaped, their father will kill her. This is when Harsh finds out that Raja killed their mother, but you don't see this scene. All you see, is Harsh closing the room's door because Nandini insists the door is still open, and you just see the imprints of his hands.

This is paralleled to the scene where he confesses to Rajjo that he is the one who ordered the hit on the Raja, as a result of which, as an accident, Raja's driver, Rajjo's father, was killed. Once again, you don't see the scene of Harsh's confession (and how much do I love that he tells it to her, even though he loves Rajjo and she is his only line to sanity in that cursed place. I actually really loved Harsh, but about that more below), because this story is about so much repression: you see flashes of outbreak of emotion (Harsh and Rajjo's scene before that, where he basically confesses that if it wasn't for her and Nandini, he would kill himself, Eklavya's grief over his 'failure' in his duty of saving the Raja: he overturns furniture, and he burns the scarf that the Rani dropped years ago and he's kept. I wonder if it's some sort of penance for himself, as a punishment for his failure, as this scarf is the one memento he's allowed himself, the climactic scene with Harsh and Eklavya) but the emotion is repressed, forced into rigid lines of tradition and duty (Amitabh would win my heart all over again, if he didn't have it already for the amazing scene when he finds out Rani is dead and he still moves to fulfill his duty, though his heart breaks).

So yes, you don't see the scene of Harsh's confession, you just see the aftermath: Rajjo quietly and conclusively leaving: her love of so many years, killed forever (or so Harsh thinks at that moment).   

What a movie, period! I adored Parineeta from the previous team (and with largely the same cast) but this is so much (to use a poseur word) deeper, in so many words. And hey, much as I adored Saif's character in Parineeta, Shekhar was a boy. A boy who grows up, but still...Harsh is far from a boy. He is a grown-up. I think in a way, he is this story's version of Hamlet. My hat (if I wore one) would be off to Saif. Amitabh tears through that movie in a wonderful performance. It takes a strong, strong actor to be able to not disappear into wallpaper in his presence, but Saif more than keeps his own. I ended up loving Harsh, someone who is a good person trapped in some messed up circumstances.

By the scene of the final confrontation between him and Eklavya, I was literally shaking in my seat, and hyperventilating, clutching my pendant, I was so emotionally overwhelmed by the story (this moves at a great pace, very driving, probably because it doesn't even stop for songs. The lullaby Rajjo sings to the troubled Royal siblings is about the only song, and it fits into the story perfectly: a moment of peace before the further storm). I loved that he didn't back down from Eklavya. I loved that he admitted that he did order the hit on the Raja, no hesitation or excuses. That is the thing about Harsh: he is, to an extent, an outsider to the confused closed world (because he managed to escape to London for a time) and just like another outsider, the police inspector (played by Sanjay Dutt, in an awesome supporting role), he can see the falsity of the traditional structure, but he is trapped in it. Of course, I think at that point, part of his unflinching acceptance of the fact that Eklavya was going to fulfill his duty and kill him is probably because he is suicidal anyway. He told Rajjo earlier that if it wasn't for her and Nandini, he'd kill himself (and thus he shows himself an outsider yet again. Not only for his horrible Uncle and Nephew, but even for upright Eklavya, murder comes as a way of life, in that town. He, OTOH, cannot deal well with participating in murder). And then, he tells Rajjo the truth, and she leaves, as he assumes forever. When he sits in the evening, stroking the hair of his sleeping sister (who he knew would be cared for anyway, as she is no threat to anyone, even in that family of wolves), and then walking into his bedroom, I thought he was going to shoot himself anyway.

So there is a certain nihilistic bleakness in the way he faces Eklavya. But there is love and anger too. Because he loves Eklavya, his birth father, the way he never cared for the Raja, who he thought was his father (I find it interesting, that when he arrives for the funeral, he gets the letter from his mother, telling him the truth about his and Nandini's parentage, and he is so immediately accepting of it. His relationship with Raja must have been horrid, if you think about it, if he is even relieved to learn this. I mean, how distant was Raja, when child Harsh assumed that Eklavya was his father and had to be corrected? I bet he was relieved to learn the truth. You get the sense he loved his mother and he loves his sister, but the rest of the horrible family? No way). And he paid his Uncle and his Cousin to commit the hit because he found out that not only did the Raja murder his mother (how Hamletian), but that he was about to murder Eklavya. But I love how even then he doesn't expect Eklavya to move from his duty. And he tells him he'll make it easier for him, and pulls a gun out, and puts it to his forehead and is about to shoot himself, and then Eklavya throws his dagger...and it's to knock the gun out of Harsh's hand. (And the amazing thing is, none of this comes across as melodramatic in the least. The emotion has been genuinely bought). I will talk about the ending below.

But first I want to talk about the performances (other than Saif's becase I already rambled about his).

Amitabh is amazing as this noble person who has somehow repressed his humanity in the rigid adherence to artificial duty (his name takes a great symbolic importance in the story). I was so sure he was going to kill Harsh (the intercut between him throwing his deadly dagger and child Harsh running into his arms, would have been a perfect, if bleak way to end the movie). He has sacrificed so much, including his love for the Rani, in this outmoded service to an unworthy subject. And he just keeps repressing, his only outlet his letters to his son, who he knows will never read them (until his does, of course). I am thinking of the scene where Saif is sitting with his mother's funeral pyre and asks Amitabh to sit with him, almost begs him. And he confesses he wants to cry and cannot and he so much wants a hug, it's clear, but Amitabh, no matter how much he yearns to (and you can see he yearns) cannot do so. At the end, when he finally forsakes the artificial duty, and saves his son, and holds him...on one hand, it's a great break-through, but I wonder if it will make him think all the previous decades of his life have been a waste?

I am so impressed with Amitabh's range. During the intermission, we got a trailer for some awesome funny modern looking comedy, where he plays a chef who falls for a much younger woman, and I couldn't believe it was the same actor. (A sidenote. The same is true for Saif. A lot of Bolly actors are very good at one thing, and only one thing. I remain incredibly impressed that Saif can play Harsh, and Langda Tyagi, and Shekhar, and Karan from Hum Tum, all equally well. He can be loathsome, and funny, and charming, and everything. But the one thing I noticed is he always plays intelligent characters, doesn't he? I love that. OK, enough sidenotes).

Boman Irani is another actor with range. His Raja was both loathsome and pitiable. Half a man, really, always inferior to his bodyguard, obsessively in love with his wife (her pictures are everywhere), unable to cope with reality. Jackie Shroff and Jimmy Shergill were also excellent in both their amorality, and small-time greed.

I can't say enough awesome things about Sanjay Dutt. I really must watch more movies with him, as in every movie I've seen him in, I loved him. He was funny, but full of anger as a former untouchable, and just...I loved him. Interesting that he is the final contributor to 'justice' which is not legal in any sense of the word, but is 'just' and the best possible outcome.

Rimi Sen and Vidya Balan didn't have huge roles (no one did, except Amitabh and Saif) but they were exellent. I loved them both. Especially (but I am biased) Vidya. Here where the casting in the movie was so important. It was excellent throughout, but it was especially excellent in casting Vidya as Harsh's love. This movie was much more about the relationship between Harsh and Eklavya (how much do I love the scene where Harsh admits to Eklavya that he knows the truth? I have no words), than about Harsh and Rajjo, but I never doubted their love and connection with each other. Saif and Vidya's incredible chemistry was crucial to this, as their love was already in existence when the movie started (you got the sense they loved each other for years, before this, and you really bought it). I loved how she really was the one who brought peace and sanity to him. I love when he confesses to her that he cannot express his feelings to her (the same time he says that Nandini is the only sane person in the fort): the horrible place has warped even him somewhat into repression, though not s much as the rest of the 'insiders.' I love the scene in his room, before he tells her the truth about the hit, when she kisses his eyes. And when they remember when he kissed her when they were children, and she was crying not because she was going to get a beating from her father, but because 'I didn't get a chance to kiss him back.' Heeee. She is really Harsh's hope for the future (significantly, she is not from the Family, but outside the walls). I also adore the scene when Harsh comes to the hospital, where he mortally wounded father is, face set and grim, sort of falling apart (and later you realize it's because it's his fault, because the hit happened, and the man was collateral damage. Significantly, he doesn't care about the Raja: conscience-wise or to visit him) and tells him he wants to marry Rajjo, straight out, and asks for the man's blessings.

Anyway, the ending. I can see how it would have been a perfect Shakesperean ending, to have Harsh die by the hand of his father, Eklavya, who could ultimately not let go of the duty bred into him, could not let go. That would be Eklavya's tragedy. Killing his own son in the name of meaningless tradition.

But you know what? You know how they say an ending is 'crowd-pleasing?' I am the crowd they talk about. I don't care if this ending isn't as artistically apt (I admit it isn't). Because by that point, I was whimpering and shaking, and I loved Eklavya and I loved Harsh, and I don't care how unrealistic it is, I am still glad they both got to live, to start afresh, Harsh to win Rajjo's forgiveness and to marry her (that really makes sense. Not only was he, as she said in her voiceover, ready to pay for it with his life, death seems matter of fact in that place and she has loved him almost as long as she's breathed), and the peasants got their land back.

Yes, it's an artistic compromise, but here my attachment to the characters overwhelms any artistic integrity complaints I might have.

Btw, did I mention the gorgeous pidgeon motif throughout in the story? Or the scene where Harsh 'banishes' Eklavya temporarily (to put his house in order)? I better stop because I could go on forever.

Oh yeah, since it's my review, I cannot close without a fanigirl observation: SAIF. How come he just gets hotter with age? At the point of the movie where he is shirtless, I sort of temporarily lost my ability to follow the movie. And then the scenes of him in the black shirt, near the end, with the stubble and that intense voice, and the tortured eyes? I am dead.

GUHHHH.

This is a good year.

[annkittenplan]

I saw Eklavya last night (totally full house) and while it isn't my favorite movie ever I found it well-paced, beautifully filmed, and generally well-acted -- I was able to accept its flaws and stay fully engaged for its relatively short duration.  A rather stagy melodrama, with the overwrought vibe of a Shakespeare tragedy, but lightened up with romance, comedic characters/moments and a sweet and tidy ending -- maybe too sweet and tidy for what preceded but I found it satisfying enough anyway.

Is it just me, or did it suffer from LOSS (that's Lack of Saif Syndrome)?  Personally I know I can't be happy until I have access to a 24/7 Saif-cam, so I must be insane, but I think even reasonable people might have needed more Saif.  Having said that, Saif is obviously double-edged -- he looks so good, he acts so well, but his mesmerizing intensity is in danger of overwhelming all else.  So maybe the judicious underuse of Saif was deliberate.

Even with not enough Saif...not enough controlled, restrained, shirtless Saif...not enough masterful, angstily intense Saif...sigh...there were plenty of pleasant surprises to keep me mostly happy:

• Jackie Shroff -- so well utilized as the king's jealous and scheming younger brother, and the scene with his demise was awesome.
• Sanjay, OMG, the perfect unexpected gift.  The buzz cut, the moustache and stubble.  The casually unbuttoned uniform, the rakish tilt to his hat, the sweat, the funny and The Attitude.  I'm pretty much in love with Sanjay Dutt right now.
• I can't say I was eagerly anticipating so much Amitabh, but he played his character with restraint and dignity, and looked amazing/mind-blowing/out-of-this-world in his funky beard, turban and gorgeous costume.  His climactic scene with Saif was wonderful.
• Vidya, Boman and  Jimmy Shergill were all good/kinda OTT.  I was somewhat disappointed with the Vidya time -- it didn't approach the romance level of Parineeta, still I loved the scene where Vidya's doing her best to kiss Saif but he holds out.  It got a good laugh and was a nice reversal on the usual scenario.

The less said about Raima Sen's character, the better.  But her room:  the tiling, the gold leaf, the pink gauze -- I want that.

[annkittenplan]

Only Sanjay Dutt in a rather Munna Bhai like role felt out of place. Even that could have been forgiven, but his part at the end is the worst of them all. If the end had been right I’d have forgiven the Munna Bhai cameo at least.

I mostly liked Sanjay and thought he had a slightly menacing, loose-cannon feel but you're right about the ending -- he seemed very Munna Bhai at that point.  Saif was damn smiley at the end too -- the end was definitely treacly, I don't know why it didn't bother me more.

Amitabh shook me this time - it's seriously good to see him sink his teeth into a role that isn't patriarchal and God-like ( like the despicable Baabul ) and this was the most gloriously flawed character he's played since Black. I liked that Chopra added the little anecdote abt Eklavya in Mahabharatha in the opening credits, as a refresher course for everyone - for that also explains in a way, the current Eklavya's single-mindedness and bullheaded loyalty ( esply to the hands that want to strangle him ). And Amitabh played it to the hilt, with such exquisite, internal, unspeakable pain expressed so eloquently in his eyes.

I'm not a huge Amitabh fan, but I think this might be my favorite performance of his.  I thought he was fairly understated and subtle, even though the Eklavya character (haha, that wasn't a refresher course for me!) is OTT.

I read somewhere (Ranjeev Masand) that too much attention was given to Rajjo and Harsh's relationship and I was a bit unsatisfied after the film thinking I had not seen enough of them.  I guess we should toss that up to different strokes for different folks, eh?

I agree with you SS77, not enough Saif/Vidya. 

Amitabh is amazing as this noble person who has somehow repressed his humanity in the rigid adherence to artificial duty (his name takes a great symbolic importance in the story). I was so sure he was going to kill Harsh (the intercut between him throwing his deadly dagger and child Harsh running into his arms, would have been a perfect, if bleak way to end the movie). He has sacrificed so much, including his love for the Rani, in this outmoded service to an unworthy subject. And he just keeps repressing, his only outlet his letters to his son, who he knows will never read them (until his does, of course). I am thinking of the scene where Saif is sitting with his mother's funeral pyre and asks Amitabh to sit with him, almost begs him. And he confesses he wants to cry and cannot and he so much wants a hug, it's clear, but Amitabh, no matter how much he yearns to (and you can see he yearns) cannot do so. At the end, when he finally forsakes the artificial duty, and saves his son, and holds him...on one hand, it's a great break-through, but I wonder if it will make him think all the previous decades of his life have been a waste?

Anyway, the ending. I can see how it would have been a perfect Shakesperean ending, to have Harsh die by the hand of his father, Eklavya, who could ultimately not let go of the duty bred into him, could not let go. That would be Eklavya's tragedy. Killing his own son in the name of meaningless tradition.

But you know what? You know how they say an ending is 'crowd-pleasing?' I am the crowd they talk about. I don't care if this ending isn't as artistically apt (I admit it isn't). Because by that point, I was whimpering and shaking, and I loved Eklavya and I loved Harsh, and I don't care how unrealistic it is, I am still glad they both got to live, to start afresh, Harsh to win Rajjo's forgiveness and to marry her (that really makes sense. Not only was he, as she said in her voiceover, ready to pay for it with his life, death seems matter of fact in that place and she has loved him almost as long as she's breathed), and the peasants got their land back.

Yes, it's an artistic compromise, but here my attachment to the characters overwhelms any artistic integrity complaints I might have.

Oh yeah, that's why I didn't mind the ending.  Thanks GreenBear!

[Darshana]

  I came home from this and watched KKHH excerpts somewhat obsessively for a couple of hours.

  I don't think I hated it, but I didn't really like it, and I find it not good in a way I particularly don't like.  I find myself in danger of wanting to go at it in an arrogant kind of way, and if I think about it it's because I find it pretentious, which prompts a slashing or deflating kind of impulse, though in fact it isn't entirely bad.

  For the first half, almost, I did like it and was making a mental list of people to show it to - it's so beautifully photographed, that fort is stunning, outside and inside, and the situations laid out seemed to have promise: these people with no real status anymore living in some mess of a combination of centuries; the son coming home from a life in the totally modern world, London; a creep-o murder, a secret, some weird relatives. 

  And the thing with Eklavya and the pigeon, his having always been able to do that - to me, that following upon the dharma business, where Mother in her letter supplies the Sanskrit phrase for the faculty of moral discernment -- I took it to be a metaphor for what he would eventually be called upon to do -- his ability to use his faculties to make all these discernments about what's where, how it's moving, how it's going to move - the pigeon, the bells, the knife, the falling bells, the hand -- very promising.

  I expected engagement of all this, and I was disappointed.  I wanted to find out what it was like to be Saif in this situation, a guy who lives in London who comes from a 17th century semi-fantasy home scene;  dramatization of conflict about his official father when he learns of his true parentage; dramatizaion possibly of something about his reaction to what he finds out about how mom died; dramatization, rather than yammer, about Eklavya and Mother. 

  But - but but but - but what?  nothing!!!  -- to me.  It's as if the director saw some Shakespeare and was taken with something or other about it - all the people running around in a palace in costumes, being emotional and killing each other - without even an understanding that a Shakespeare play is, like, about something - in particular, about what goes on inside the people!!  The Shakespeare sonnet is used like a prop or window-dressing - the words of the particular one, about beauty, time, love - don't amount to anything, we're just told these people are Shakespeare-readers, and maybe clued to think about Hamlet (as the play that matches the setup the best).  The shyari of Aamir's charactrer in Fanaa, or ShahRukh's in KANK ("the days of grand love stories are gone/ now we have just small love stories") resonate throughout those movies, this doesn't do a thing.


  So we have Saif just acting on a revenge motive, with no suggestion of any emotional anything - and why does he hire other guys to do it, in any case?  Why doesn't he do it himself?  any inner turmoil about not doing it himself?  about doing it at all? 

   In a way it has the flaw of Rang De Basanti - an awareness of wrongdoing is met with nothing but the action impulse.

  -there's a jumble-in of Hamlet's killing Ophelia's father, in his accidentally getting Vidya's dad knocked off - but though he says he's sorry, there's not much emotion there either.  In Hamlet, Ophelia's father brings it on himself by being meddlesome, and Ophelia goes insane when she knows the man she loves has killed her father.  Here the sister is insane, and she's just like that, she doesn't get that way through something that happens in the story - and sorry, I find the CorrectSpeak phrase "mentally challenged" a hoot in this context  -- but so what? (what's she got, anyhow, and why is she like that, except so she can weirdly be in the room when Mom is murdered?).

  I don't feel any moral or emotional tension in Saif at all, and I don't feel any tension between the old century - 17th, say - and the present.   That grid is laid out, but nobody really walks on it.  I didn't really get engaged about Eklavya's sense of his 9 centuries family duty and I didn't really experience the story as one that engaged his conflict in a way I could feel.  More like, as someone said, cardboard: I Eklavya am supposed to protect the (non) King, and my conception of protection includes revenge.  Uh oh, his son knocked him off, yipes now what . . . .

   As I think about it, I think Eklavya was written/played too close to a dolt.  Massively better for me if he was shown to be very intelligent.

  Like everyone else I'd have loved more of Sharmila.  I can't really praise or fault the acting much, I don't think people were called upon to do much more than they'd do in a tv commercial.  They were absolutely all fine with what they had to work with.  I liked the use of the camels.

  The movie inhabits a limbo to me - it makes enough of a play at being artistic in a non-Bollywood way to engage a kind of expectation that I don't bring to, say, Jewel Thief.

  Oh - on a mean note - I was really impressed with some things about the interiors -- mostly with the success in creating these old historical piled-up accumulatively decorated spaces -- but also noticed than more than once in the palace, on the right side of the frame sometimes, there is this thing that's like a low pedestal made of a statue of a guy in a local costume and a hat, and I am sure it's a piece of Tourist Ware, not a family heirloom.  In the hands of someone else, we'd know that there was a mixture of junk and good stuff in the place and the family didn't know the difference, and it would mean something, too -- but that would take a kind of directorial authority that unfortunately for me is missing from Chopra's conception of his characters here.

PS there are flowers growing on a trellis and I am pretty sure you can tell they are plastic from the vivid green of their stems which doesn't match the leaves.  So - don't say I wasn't paying attention.

 
 

 

[carla]

I haven't read the thread yet - but here are my nascent thoughts about Eklavya.

*  Boman Irani is a truly fantastic actor.  Honeymoon Travels tomorrow will make three movies of his in a row for me and four in two weeks, and I swear I've never seen the guy do the same thing twice.  He slips into the skin of his characters with such skill and naturalness that I am completely astonished. 

*  The film was absolutely gorgeous to look at; truly outstanding and beautiful in both the interior and exterior shots.

*  The story, ultimately, was just too male for my taste - men scheming at each other, men challenging each other, men yelling at each other, men insulting each other, men praising each other, men killing each other - at some point I wanted to say just drop your pants and get out the rulers already.  Nevertheless, its themes of loyalty and duty are interesting and universal, and the film did an reasonably effective job of picking at them.

*  One thing I liked very, very much was the sense of timelessness inside the fort.  Outside, you have a few glimpses of modernity - the train, Saif's helicopter and SUV, Jimmy Shergill's home theater.  Inside, though, you are cut off from all of that - there is not so much as a television set, the characters wear traditional clothes and write with fountain pens, and so on.  Even the royal automobiles were of ambiguous vintage.  The excellent effect of this was to convey two things - the ancientness of the tradition, and the isolation and disconnect of the royal family from the rest of the world.  They are above society and apart from it, completely, not even beholden to the march of its time. 

* I did not like the ending at all.  Not the resolution - the resolution was fine - but the tone of the final two minutes was completely wrong.  The film had been so somber and grim; ending it with a joke was a very bad idea.  Instead of the junior police officer making the coy little comment about the handwriting and everyone smiling, it could have ended with a hopeful but somber tone, and that would have been appropriate to everything that had happened. 

* Another thing I loved was that Eklavya demonstrates that Bollywood studios can use modern filmmaking technology without turning into Hollywood.  Eklavya, despite its brevity and almost complete absence of songs, was still a very Indian movie.  It was melodramatic and magnified in a way that a corresponding Hollywood movie simply would not have been.  I enjoyed that very much. 

* The pacing was odd - it wasn't really slow, and yet I often felt that events were unfolding in slow motion.  I think that was due to the director's tendency to dwell on minute details - a tear dripping off Amitabh's face onto the train tracks; Sharmila's scarf billowing in the wind, the little bells teetering on the overhang.  I think the effect was to enhance suspense and tension; I did feel very tense through the entire film, and it's not a trivial task to put a viewer in that state and then sustain it for almost two hours.

[Poonam]

Agree with you completely about the endng, Carla. I couldn't pinpoint what I felt was not OK, but you have clarified it for me. I only remember thinking that Sunjay dutt had slipped into his Munnabhai skin during those moments. He sounded exactly like Munna.

[zippy]

*  One thing I liked very, very much was the sense of timelessness inside the fort.  Outside, you have a few glimpses of modernity - the train, Saif's helicopter and SUV, Jimmy Shergill's home theater.  Inside, though, you are cut off from all of that - there is not so much as a television set, the characters wear traditional clothes and write with fountain pens, and so on.  Even the royal automobiles were of ambiguous vintage.  The excellent effect of this was to convey two things - the ancientness of the tradition, and the isolation and disconnect of the royal family from the rest of the world.  They are above society and apart from it, completely, not even beholden to the march of its time. 

I never noticed this while watching it, you're right. At times I did think I was watching a period movie, but the trait of switching to old stuff in the castle was cleverly used.

*  The story, ultimately, was just too male for my taste - men scheming at each other, men challenging each other, men yelling at each other, men insulting each other, men praising each other, men killing each other - at some point I wanted to say just drop your pants and get out the rulers already.  Nevertheless, its themes of loyalty and duty are interesting and universal, and the film did an reasonably effective job of picking at them.

I can relate to you on this (though as a guy it didn't bother me as much ). It is a very typically Shakespearean thing to do again though - since women had little parts in his plays. Old fashioned, but that's the truth.

[Darshana]

I never noticed this while watching it, you're right. At times I did think I was watching a period movie, but the trait of switching to old stuff in the castle was cleverly used.
I can relate to you on this (though as a guy it didn't bother me as much ). It is a very typically Shakespearean thing to do again though - since women had little parts in his plays. Old fashioned, but that's the truth.

Wow, I see this very differently.  Eklavya is not based on a Shakespeare story at all, and I don't think Eklavya is "Shakespearean" except superficially, in having costumery, royalty, and conspiracy going on.  And in  most of the plays of his I've read both women and "the feminine" are more important than they are in much of world literature - Antony and Cleopatra, Macbeth, King Lear, Hamlet to some degree, most of the comedies, significantly As You Like It.  No to Julius Cesar and I suppose to most of the history plays - anyhow hard to think what you might mean.

[zippy]

Ahh. I forgot all the plays you mentioned. Actually I'm studying only on Hamlet right now and in that they have no parts - much like in Eklavya. But you're right, Macbeth, King Lear they do play important parts. Since Eklavya draws most from Hamlet though, I guess that's what I was comparing it to.

[Darshana]

I can see what you mean about Hamlet, Ophelia and Gertrude are very important but not as generators of the action; Hamlet's reaction to Gertrude's behavior is central, and Ophelia's reaction to Hamlet's.

[annkittenplan]

  But - but but but - but what?  nothing!!!  -- to me.  It's as if the director saw some Shakespeare and was taken with something or other about it - all the people running around in a palace in costumes, being emotional and killing each other - without even an understanding that a Shakespeare play is, like, about something - in particular, about what goes on inside the people!!  The Shakespeare sonnet is used like a prop or window-dressing - the words of the particular one, about beauty, time, love - don't amount to anything, we're just told these people are Shakespeare-readers, and maybe clued to think about Hamlet (as the play that matches the setup the best).  The shyari of Aamir's charactrer in Fanaa, or ShahRukh's in KANK ("the days of grand love stories are gone/ now we have just small love stories") resonate throughout those movies, this doesn't do a thing.

I thought the sonnet references were not out of place -- the lines about the sun dimming and fading and the end of summer -- recited before the deaths of both king and queen it seems meant to portentously signify the sun setting on a dynasty.  It tied in with the sun symbol in the palace and the death-at-sundown scene.

The Hamlet/Macbeth echoes -- for me they contributed to the mood of grandiose royal tragedy, where insane jealousy, ambition, resentment -- and inevitable bloodshed -- come with the high stakes of who inherits the throne.
 

   As I think about it, I think Eklavya was written/played too close to a dolt.  Massively better for me if he was shown to be very intelligent.

My understanding of the introductory story was that Mahabharata-Eklavya was so unquestioningly devoted that he would cut off his thumb -- making himself useless -- rather than consider going against dharma.  The film's Eklavya didn't seem unintelligent to me,  but with the same unquestioning devotion his struggle to adopt reason -- or moral discernment -- against duty/tradition seemed like a genuine conflict. It made me believe that Eklavya would kill Harsh -- that he wouldn't have the capacity to consider doing anything else.

PS there are flowers growing on a trellis and I am pretty sure you can tell they are plastic from the vivid green of their stems which doesn't match the leaves.  So - don't say I wasn't paying attention.

I noticed this too -- the stems were a much paler green than the leaves -- very plastic.

[Darshana]

here's the sonnet

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

  ##################################

 - what I think it's about is - a man to his beloved - you are more lovely than a summer's day; the sun/nature/time take "fairness" - fresh beauty -- away, but your beauty ("they eternal summer") will not fade, because I have memorialized it in this sonnet ("so long as men can breathe or eye can see/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.")

I think my reading is pretty conventional.  But anyhow - I still don't get a real connection between this poem and the story myself.  The last lines of the poem = the "point" of the poem, I don't read it as a poem about the sun, though it mentions it.

Also - do you understand the murders in the play as having to do with succession?  I didn't think they did, really, also I didn't think there was anything to succeed to in this situation. 

Another complaint of mine that crystallized for me today when I was doing something else was - at the outset we get it that Eklavya is going to be a guy ruled by adherence to a literal interpretation of a definition of a duty.  "Old-fashioned" or conservative in this regard.

Saif's character comes along in his modern clothes and his helicopter so - oh, here comes "the modern" - but there is not really any significant contrast (except on the level of clothes!!) developed between the two of them, is there?  Saif/Harsh's immediate reaction to finding out his mother was killed is - avenge it!!! it might as well be 1633, hai naa?   To me this was another set up that seemed promising but didn't amount to anything.

[annkittenplan]

- what I think it's about is - a man to his beloved - you are more lovely than a summer's day; the sun/nature/time take "fairness" - fresh beauty -- away, but your beauty ("they eternal summer") will not fade, because I have memorialized it in this sonnet ("so long as men can breathe or eye can see/ So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.")

I think my reading is pretty conventional.  But anyhow - I still don't get a real connection between this poem and the story.  The last lines of the poem = the "point" of the poem.

Maybe VVC means the film to be an immortal testament to everlasting tradition or royal heritage?  Or more likely he's taken the pretty words and been inspired to apply a few of them to the imagery of the film.

Another complaint of mine that crystallized for me today when I was doing something else was - at the outset we get it taht Eklavya is going to be a guy ruled by adherence to a literal interpretation of a definition of a duty.  "Old-fashioned" or conservative in this regard.

Saif's character comes along in his modern clothes and his helicopter so - oh, here comes "the modern" - but there is not really any significant contrast (except on the level of clothes!!) developed between the two of them, is there?  Saif/Harsh's immediate reaction to finding out his mother was killed is - avenge it!!! it might as well be 1633, hai naa? 

Agree that was not a reasonable modern response, especially since he grew up thinking Boman was his father.  I can accept it because -- once Boman realizes that Saif's birth father was not a holy man, but a low-caste guard, I think Saif's life is in danger, with his cousin Jimmy Shergill in a better position to inherit the throne.

[Darshana]

Do you think Saif's father was going to kill him, Saif?

And also - do you think these people are shown to want to inherit the throne?  is it made clear that there is anything to inherit?  I know it's made clear that the title is meaningless now, though it also seems a feudal setup of some kind continues.

[cheesetikka]

Re: The Sonnet,

I saw it as VVC explaining that the queen , instead of being attached to the refinements of royal life(such as a public school education, which presumably means Shakesphere sonnets), was more taken by the guy that stands guard .Why this particular poem? because everybody whose english educated in India gets to read this poem at some point in their education. (it's a sonnet, and not from a play and thus is a pithy sample of shakesphere's poetsy ).It's something like why they used "you are my sunshine" in primary colors.

The king was probably never going to kill saif. he would have killed eklavya and hidden his parentage from Saif.

What did Jimmy shergill/Jackie Shroff stand to inherit? All the personal effects/ trappings of royalty.

Also , this film did not remind me of Shakesphere. only of Indian/ greek myths which are full of parricide and fratricide.

[annkittenplan]

Do you think Saif's father was going to kill him, Saif?

Not necessarily Boman, but Boman's brother Jackie Shroff has a high level of jealousy and ambition -- if he finds out that Eklavya is Saif's real father, he might try to arrange for his son Jimmy to inherit. 

And also - do you think these people are shown to want to inherit the throne?  is it made clear that there is anything to inherit?  I know it's made clear that the title is meaningless now, though it also seems a feudal setup of some kind continues.

The fort and the land -- somehow the land has been taken away from the villagers by Boman -- and I got the impression there was a lot of money, maybe from the helicopter -- and the vestigial prestige.  Saif seems reluctant about fighting for it and taking it on, but I think the others have high ambition and greed.

[Darshana]

Re: The Sonnet,

I saw it as VVC explaining that the queen , instead of being attached to the refinements of royal life(such as a public school education, which presumably means Shakesphere sonnets), was more taken by the guy that stands guard .Why this particular poem? because everybody whose english educated in India gets to read this poem at some point in their education. (it's a sonnet, and not from a play and thus is a pithy sample of shakesphere's poetsy ).It's something like why they used "you are my sunshine" in primary colors.

I think what you mean is kind of like my take on it when I said it was like a prop, rather than having a meaning.  -- a status-establishing prop, this kind of person likes Shakespeare, or reads it anyhow.  At another point King Boman natters about Shakespeare intentionally in the presence of Eklavya by way of broadcasting his awareness of their class/caste difference.
[/quote]

[zippy]

Interesting cheesetikka. Please share some of these myths if you have the time, I'd be interested in some links/reading.

[amit]

Not necessarily Boman, but Boman's brother Jackie Shroff has a high level of jealousy and ambition -- if he finds out that Eklavya is Saif's real father, he might try to arrange for his son Jimmy to inherit. 

The fort and the land -- somehow the land has been taken away from the villagers by Boman -- and I got the impression there was a lot of money, maybe from the helicopter -- and the vestigial prestige.  Saif seems reluctant about fighting for it and taking it on, but I think the others have high ambition and greed.

I agree. The kings got a privy purse from the Indian government in exchange for joining India in 1947. They were allowed to keep their lands and manage their local affairs. So, it's quite possible that while they lost a lot of influence, whoever was the king got a hefty sum from the government, and worth killing for (motivation for Jackie Shroff and his son). The privy purse was abolished by Indira Gandhi sometime in the 70s.

~Amit

[Anamika]

Two remarks, before I write a short review:

1. I have waited for the release of Eklavya for over a year, and with anticipation. Maybe too much anticipation.
2. I won't forgive Eros Entertainment for not releasing this film in German theaters, as they had announced in January (before they screened Salaam-E-Ishq, which wasn't a success due to the total absence of publicity, but that's another story). Anyway, two days before its release date, Eros decided not to show Eklavya in Germany. So, as with most Bollywood films, I had to wait for the first DVD to appear in Indian shops. Pirated DVD, of course. So it may be partly due to the small screen and badly written subtitles, that Eklavya wasn't what I had hoped for.

Bottom line: Eklavya left me strangely cold, although I love all the actors in Eklavya's major roles, and I think they did a great job.
Saif is amazing, the Shakespeare-like drama stuff really suits him; Sanjay's scenes are short but pivotal; Amitabh is impressive (but he was never challenged as an actor, I think), and I only would repeat the attribute "great" when describing Vidya, Boman and the supporting cast. They are all flawless.

But for me there is a big problem in the overall perfectionism of this movie. It's just too flawless, too beautiful. Every single shot is like a painting. The landscapes, the palace rooms, the pigeons. Amitabh in the pool; the girls playing with kites; Sanjay in front of the massive gates of the fort; Saif in the sunrise besides the smoking ashes of the queen's pyre; Amitabh and Saif in the dark, candle-lit study; those running camels in front of the train; Jimmy in his home cinema watching Parinda; a teardrop on the railway track - I could go on for ages, because every single shot showed a lot of care, everything had been thought about, Vinod Chopra didn't let anything happen by chance, however small the detail.

And for me this became the biggest problem of the movie  A first I was caught in the drama, living with the characters for maybe 30 minutes of the movie, but then it sort of fell apart (don't know how to describe this) and I felt like in a picture gallery, watching something beautiful but artificial; not only timeless as Carla put it, but almost lifeless.
It's a masterpiece, no doubt, as Vinod Chopra painstakingly composed every shot of his film. But the story soon lost its grip on me. Even the characters became somewhat statuesque (with the exception of Sanjay's), not like humans but like legendary figures, and I could not identify with them.

The end was totally Bollywood, not Shakespeare, and it amused me very much, because it was (finally!) not perfect.

[carla]

Bottom line: Eklavya left me strangely cold, although I love all the actors in Eklavya's major roles, and I think they did a great job.

I am commenting on this particular portion of your very nice review, Ele, because a very similar thought has occurred to me several times over the past week. 

Eight days ago I saw Eklavya.  Then two days later I saw Honeymoon Travels.  Although Eklavya is a much heavier film, a serious piece of art, purportedly taking on primal aspects of the human condition like love, revenge, loyalty, and so on, it hasn't stayed with me.  It hasn't, as it's turned out, been the sort of film that rolls around in my head and pops up demanding reflection at random moments. 

In contrast, Honeymoon Travels, that light, silly, imperfect piece of gentle confection, has completely stayed with me, bits and pieces of it floating into my mind and making me smile, or making me feel a little sad. 

I'm not comparing Honeymoon Travels to Eklavya in any substantive way - that's comparing apples to orangutans.  But if it weren't for the stickiness of Honeymoon Travels, I might not have noticed that Eklavya lacked that stickiness.

[mainhoonemily]

I saw Eklavya almost two weeks ago, and I still haven't decided whether I liked it or not.  I had no idea what it was about when I went to see it (and I only saw it because they were actually showing a Bollywood movie here, not ninety minutes away in the nearest big city), and that might have actually helped me, since it ended up being nothing like the vague idea I'd had since seeing a couple of promotional pictures.

Anyway, I thought the movie was very beautifully made, and I liked that right up until Harsh's helicopter comes into the shot the story could be taking place at any time from the 1600s to present day.  In fact, up until that moment I thought it was a historical romance.    Seeing Saif and Vidya together was what I was looking forward to, and I was a teensy bit disappointed at their lack of screentime, but not enough to ruin the movie for me.  I guess what keeps me from saying wholeheartedly that I liked Eklavya is how little I cared about the characters, other than in a vague, "I hope the bad guys get what's coming to them and the good guys survive," sort of way (though even that doesn't sum it up entirely, since even the "good" characters all had shades of "bad" in them.

It's a good enough movie, in it's way, and I'm glad I watched it, but I'm not planning to buy it or watch it again.

[Darshana]

I think some of the problem might be is that it is definitely beautifully shot, and that the way it's shot clues you to believe that all the details mean something, as they do in the hands of a good director making an artistic rather than commercial film - but I say they don't, really, so they end up being just quality-advertisement-type decoration for a nothing-really-special story.

[Poonam]

I think some of the problem might be is that it is definitely beautifully shot, and that the way it's shot clues you to believe that all the details mean something, as they do in the hands of a good director making an artistic rather than commercial film - but I say they don't, really, so they end up being just quality-advertisement-type decoration for a nothing-really-special story.

Yes. I've thought over this movie quite a bit. Beautifully made as it was, it lacked a soul, notwithstanding all the talk about dharma. It did not appeal to the emotions, neither was the suspense/thriller element as edge-of-the-seat as it ought to have been. Carla is right, there are films less ambitious which stay with us for longer. Eklavya is beautiful but hollow.Got to add,  I still loved Saif in it.

[Anamika]

I think some of the problem might be is that it is definitely beautifully shot, and that the way it's shot clues you to believe that all the details mean something, as they do in the hands of a good director making an artistic rather than commercial film - but I say they don't, really, so they end up being just quality-advertisement-type decoration for a nothing-really-special story.

ouch, you're really hard on V.V. Chopra here! 

I don't quite agree. The story is good, too; like classical drama it could evoke strong emotions and reactions. But in me (and you, too) it obviously failed to touch the heartstrings.

I think it would be 'stickier' (lovely mental picture, Carla!) if the setting were less picturesque and more human. My impression was that Chopra had his priorities wrong. The 'decoration' could be just great - like with palaces or grand houses in other films, even V.V. Chopra's own Parineeta; or the Rajasthan landscape and temple in Dor - if it would take second place behind the characters and their story.

For me the problem with Eklavya is that the visual perfection seemed to have top priority, while many aspects that make a story work as a story (human expressions, interactions, development, emotionality etc.) became suppressed by the overwhelming grandness of the picture.

Another point I remembered only now is the lack of humor. I can't remember having laughed during the film, everything was very sinister and serious. Maybe the characters would have been more human and loveable, if they had made me laugh just once. Sanjay's made me smile, but all those other characters were totally serious all the time. Don't get me wrong, it suited the story, and I didn't miss the usual comic relief at all (beware!), but a little lightness or intelligent self-irony would have been nice.

_{(edited for spelling)}