...that didn't make it into my Bollyspice review, for a variety of reasons.
1. The tone of the film was set perfectly by Boman Irani's opening narration. I love Boman Irani, and it was nice to hear his voice.
2. The opening chase, where Aladin (Riteish Deshmukh) runs through the streets of the fictional town of Khwaish, reminded me of the opening of Slumdog Millionaire. We're immediately thrown into the action along with him, we get to see snatches of the environment in which the story is set, and we identify immediately with Aladin.
3. The subtitles were interesting -- am I remembering correctly, did director Sujoy Ghosh tweet something a couple of weeks ago about working on subtitle design? Again, they reminded me of the subtitles in Slumdog Millionaire, which were crafted to be part of the experience of the film. I don't think they worked as successfully in Aladin -- I found them a little jumpy and large and ill-placed at times. Also? There were moments where they were missing or didn't quite match what was being said, and that was a smidge annoying.
4. I really loved how the story was doled out, bit by bit -- it was hard to comment on the plot in the review without giving spoilers, and there are so many plot details that we discover little by little that I considered them true spoilers. There are so many small, delightful discoveries in the film, that I didn't want to reveal them in the review. Case in point (and this, I believe, is a spoiler. You are warned.): this is an Aladin that doesn't believe in magic; he does, however, believe in magic tricks, or at least the one he can perform, taught to him by his grandfather. I was delighted to find that the trick obeyed my Sacred Rule of Three -- for some things to truly work, like a running gag or a plot device like this one, they have to occur three times so that they are truly effective. Fewer than three times and it's not a gag or a device -- more than three times is tedious and overkill. That little magic trick ends up being the key to the film's ending, too. I couldn't, in good conscience, give it away.
5. When the rumours surfaced last week that Sanjay Dutt was barely in the film, I was a little worried. I found it hard to believe that the villain could only be in the film the rumoured 8 or 9 minutes. Thankfully, he was in it longer than that. And he was there just the right amount. More important than the villain himself is the threat he represents, and that's there, looming in the background as the film progresses.
6. That said, I was of two minds about the villain's raggle-taggle group of henchmen. They called to mind other creatures from other films. I'm pleased to see the directory Sujoy Ghosh referencing his own film influences/watching in his movie. I didn't find them derivative. However, there were moments when I wished they'd just been totally new evil henchmen. But that's nothing to fault the film for.
7. And *that* said, I totally loved the reference to Cyrano de Bergerac. In the song "You May Be", the genie sings and performs moves, and Aladin pretends to sing and copies the moves. It's all rather delightful.
8. I loved the ending of the film. No, I won't give it away. But I loved it.
9. I'm of two minds about the music and picturisations. Of course, they had to be there. It's a Bollywood film. And if you removed them, you'd still have to deal with what they carry of the narrative in the film anyway, so better they are there, and mostly good and fun (though maybe too many of them). I loved the score and additional music, I think it added much to the overall feel of the film. The songs are not the best we've heard from the team of Vishal-Shekar, but they are decent and much better than many of the soundtracks to come out recently. They fit the feel of the film. But I did feel that the songs interrupted the flow of the story a little -- not that they were badly placed. And it may reflect something more about the pacing of the film, which I did find was a bit of a flaw.
10. I loved, loved Aladin's parents. They were so cute. There was no place for more of them in the film, but oh, do I wish there had been.
11. I am plainly in the minority. Many, many people do not like this film. In all honesty, I did not love it. I was a little disappointed that it just missed the boat here and there and as a result, it never ended up being a deliciously wonderful film that made me want to gush about it. But I liked the film -- or, rather, I liked what Sujoy Ghosh tried to do. There was evidence of some thought and effort in the film, and although all of that thought and effort fell short in the end, I don't think the film was the awful disaster some people are making it out to be.
12. And that reminds me of another film: Roberto Benigni's "Pinocchio" from 2002. As I recall, Benigni used the profits from his very successful film "La vita รจ bella" to finance his dream of taking Collodi's classic of Italian literature and turning it into a movie. It was generally excoriated in the press. "Horrendous" is a word I've seen attached to it. I won't argue the film has flaws (I found it awfully noisy, to say the least, and felt that Benigni was trying so earnestly that he ended up giving us a Pinocchio who was rather annoying, never infused with Benigni's own trademark charm), but I did think it was beautiful and intriguing, and at the time I saw it, thought maybe it might end up being one of those "flawed masterpieces*" in Benigni's filmography. I should probably re-watch it, to see if I've changed my mind seven years on.
13. *Okay, maybe "masterpiece" isn't quite the right word.
14. But what I'm getting at here: I think that films that cause polemics, that throw up deep divides amongst film-goers -- well, I don't think they are inherently bad films. Often, I think the problem with them lies in the baggage we viewers bring with us into the cinema -- our prior knowledge, our expectations, amongst other things. My experience of Aladin is different from everyone else's, and my response to the film is my own, no more, no less. A review like the one I wrote for Bollyspice reflects only my opinion about what I saw, based on what I expected, whether those expectations were met (or not), and how I felt about that. Oh, sure, I try to be as objective as I can when it comes to the details and the nitty gritty of the thing, but still, the bottom line is, every film experience is biased, and if you didn't like the film, your experience is just as valid as mine was.
15. Provided you can construct a thoughtful argument/discussion about it. Seriously. "The film is stupid" doesn't cut it, frankly.
16. Though I'll grant you that a Twitter discussion about the film is likely to boil down to just that.
"yaad Sajan"
Buy at 
Buy at 
Buy at 
Recent Comments