November 10, 2006

Paheli - khoobsurat, lekin...

During a long phone chat with a friend yesterday we started to talk about Rani and tried to find a movie that had her looking more beautiful then she did in Paheli. And came up empty handed. Talking about it made me realise that it has been ages that I last watched it. So guess what yours truly did last night?










Paheli somehow never made it to my top ten movies list. Mostly because of the giant climax screwup. I´ve seen it about 5 times yet and still the "dekh meri jaan, I´m back because all that happend during the last 15 minutes was fake" solution just does not work for me. Another thing that always bothers me is the fate of Kishanlal (the real son). Yeah I know, he´s spineless and inherited some of his dad´s greedyness but he seems to love his wife, missed his family terribly and now for the rest of his sad life he´ll be possessed by a ghost? Not fair, even for a fairy tale.











Still it´s a pity that I have not watched Paheli for so long. There is a lot to like in this movie. I love the visuals, the costumes. Oh and the baubles. There are some necklaces worth killing for. Also
the music or Farah Khan´s choreography. And in fact even the story as such.

Some moments still enchant me. Like
the rose petal scene.










Or the puppet song. So sweet.











I don´t even mind SRK´s facial hair.










On the whole the movie has a cool concept - story and execution wise. What spoils it is the ending. I know SRK always says in interviews that he thinks indian movies are to long for a global audience. And producing Paheli he might have opted for a more western
-oriented length. But another 5-10 minutes to explain or hint at how the ghost gets into Kishans body would have turned a nice film into an truly Oscar nomination worthy one...

PS: The Eros cardboard box DVD that I have is really really crappily encoded. Any tiny move and picture gets grainy and blury. Grrr.

EDIT: Maria suggests in her Paheli review that maybe Kishanlal´s soul did not vanish when the ghost took possesion of his body. Whats more, the ghost once states that he is in fact simply the love Lachchi longs for. And as such can live in Kishans body forever without destroying the original Kishan. Especially since Kishan loves her anyway.
Hmm, now thats a thought worth thinking through.

7 comments:

Maja said...

Beautiful screencaps, I love the one with all the rose petals!
Are there any other editions out there apart from the Eros DVD in the big cardboard box? I really want to buy this, but I don't like that packaging, and I think it costs much more than it's worth, especially if you say the image quality is not very good ...

Anonymous said...

I think the next time I watch this I'm going to hit the fastforward to the credits right after Kishanlal gets sucked into the water container and covered with sand...

babasko said...

the packaging is really not worth its money - there´s not even a booklet. and sorry no. so far I know of none other version. there is talk that there might be a proper german dvd (the company usually also offers a subtitled version) next year as its also announced for tv there.

babasko said...

the thing is i really love the final scene between kishan and lachchi its only not satisfying because of the stories hole before that scene

Lidia said...

I agree - Rani is absolutely gorgeous in this movie! But i also think she looks amazing in 'black' even though she has contacts - just because she's not so made up, she's got such a natural beauty! There was a girl at my uni who looked exactly like her.

babasko said...

Bollyaddict. Wow, now its gets interesting. If we fully take the parable fairytale story into account, one could also go so far as to say that:
Kishanlal start to fall in love with his wife on the way back from the wedding. That love is taking an own manifestation at the well (thanx to the ghosts there)and when he visits it for the second time the love he feels for Lachchi returns home, while he goes on. There after some years the feeling that he is missing something gets bigger and bigger and in the end the shepard is the one who actually unites the two parts again...

Thank you, thank you, thank you. You reconciled me with this movie.

Oh I love blogging.

babasko said...

@amy: i agree, rani looked great in black too, but as for glamorous - and that was what we were looing for - theres nothing like her look in paheli