Jaan-E-Mann. Quite late. I know.

I´m cleaning up my drafts list once again, and found a post that I started writing over 6 months ago. I guess that everybody has seen J-e-M by now, but if you resisted so far, maybe this piece can convince you to finally give it a chance.

When I was a little kid, my favorite picture books where books of the kind like the "Where´s Waldo?" series. I could sit for hours and look at one page and still find some new details and invent stories about the drawn characters.









Jaan-E-Mann is the grown up, moving pictures version of a "Where´s Waldo" book. The first time I watched the movie was last year´s Diwali and I liked it somehow but could not quite make up my mind about it. I decided to wait for the DVD release and give it another go. And I was right. Jaan-E-Mann is a movie that needs to be watched at least a second time. Every time I watched it since I found some new totally crazy details.









Sirish Kunder doesn´t offer a very new or exciting story. Sirf woh purani kahani about ek ladki aur do ladke. Here boy no.1 is Suuuperstar Salman Khan, the ex-husband of former college beauty Preity Zinta. Since the Suuuperstar thingy does not quite work the way he planned it, he has trouble coming up with the alimony Preity´s lawyer demand.









Luckly former college geek now astronaut Ahkhay Kumar shows up on the search for his college dream girl Preity and Salman and his chachu Anupam Kher come up with the idea of marrying off Akshay to Preity to get rid of the alimony demands. Kahani khatm? Naah, there´s a bit more. Former geek still has a problem with "tha´ ladies" so Suuuperstar and Chachu decide to send Salman along with Geek to New York to play a little "Cyrano" and make sure the fixing up works out. So far - so hilarious and there are, from a totally girly point of view, I have to confess, pretty convincing moves our man Salman comes up with.









The bad thing about Jaan-E-Mann: You clearly see that this is the director´s debut movie. He goes overboard on style-over-substance at times. He doesn´t manage a narration that is fluid throughout the film. After a totally hyper first half, the more conventional narrational path he takes in the second part feels almost a bit slow.









The good thing about Jaan-E-Mann: It´s the directors debut movie. He goes overboard with some of his ideas, visuals and his editing. He actually caters a devil may care attitude about many of his visual ideas, especially in the first half, that one seldom finds with more experienced directors. And that is what I loved about Jaan-E-Mann.

Oh and after watching OSO I can now clearly state that Farah and Sirish are a match made in heaven. May their combined insanity live long and prosper.