I was waiting for Bombay Velvet for almost two years, or
more than that I don’t remember. From the day I read that AK is making
something this grand with Karan Johar and Ranbir Kapoor and all other people I
was excited to hell. I wanted to watch it more than anything else. I have seen
all the AK films and patronize his work but one film which has a special place
in my heart and an experience which I can never forget is Gangs of Wasseypur
(GoW). In Faisal’s words, ‘Humri zindagi ka ekkhi maksad reh gya tha Bombay
Velvet ko bade parde pe dekhna’.
Finally I saw it on first day. And how did I like it. I
loved it. Nothing like GoW or like other great movies made by AK before but it
was an entertaining movie can be watched with family (which is generally not the
case with AK films). I usually read reviews before watching the film but in
this case I didn’t read any reviews. After watching the film I read all the
reviews and I was shocked. Critics just murdered the film maybe they were
expecting something like Scarface or Goodfellas and were disappointed. However,
I found out an interesting phenomenon, reviews paint our vision and we do not
watch the film honestly. Yes. We tend to like or dislike the film based on the
reviews we read. I mean I know it is not a great film and had some flaws but
still it is ten times better then what we watch on the name of commercial
cinema. It had great art work, engaging script and wonderful performances. I
loved the way Bombay is shown in the film. It takes you to the Bombay of 60’s
and 70’s without many noises. I remember having the same experience when I saw
Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris.
The performances by Ranbir, Satyadeep, Anushka, Kay
Kay Menon and all others were fantastic. But above all one person who
just blew my mind was Karan Johar. He was brilliant as Khambatta, I wasn’t
expecting anything from him and he was just terrific. I have seen many Hindi
films and I don’t remember a film with such an extravagant art work. You can
feel the subtle detailing in the work, it is surreal.
In spite of being such a good film why has it received so
much criticism both from inside and outside the industry. I can’t say much
about the people within the industry. They have their ‘personal reasons’. But I
will try to dissect the case for people outside the industry; there were two
kinds of audience for this film, first ‘Normal Cinegoers’ who went to watch an
engaging ‘love story’ (the way it was supposed to be as promoted by the makers)
and the other (pseudo) intellectual cinephliles who went to watch yet another
gem from the master.
‘Normal Cinegoers’ didn’t like it becoz (honestly speaking)
there was too much. I mean there was so much in two and half hour that people
were unable to grab what was actually going on. They were unable connect to the
love story. But it is much more than just a love story it is a tale of a city,
how it grew and became what it is today.
Well, similar was the case with GoW too but luckily it had
two parts. You might call me crazy but after watching Bombay Velvet I could
draw parallels between GoW and Bombay Velvet. I somehow felt AK has tried to
make GoW again in Bombay Velvet. I mean the soul of both the film is same.
Ranbir is Faizal Khan of BV and Karan is Ramadhir and they have done it to
perfection. GoW was a kind of film you could not watch with your family becoz
of excessive violence and foul language but here (with Bombay Velvet) AK came
up with a 'more presentable feature'. There is no foul language; violence is
also ‘within permissible limits’ and it have beautiful glittering sets with
jazz music narrating the tale of much more ‘familiar city’ than Wasseypur. But
I think intellectual cinephliles who loved GoW were not expecting this avatar
of AK. They somewhere felt he has sold out. They just can’t see actors with
make ups and well choreographed songs in an AK film. And they were
disappointed.
AK wanted to get all kinds of audience this time, trying to
make a more entertaining film, the fact that this is the first AK movie with a
U/A certificate (keeping aside Hanuman and short story in Bombay Talkies) says
many things. But maybe he missed it. Having said that one more very important
thing that I would like to mention here is, the way newspapers publish reports
about the business film is doing (practically) ‘each and every hour’ also kills
the film. They are all over the place. I mean my father doesn’t watch many
films and he is least interested with what’s going on in cinemas but when I
told him I went to watch BV, he was like, ‘….yeh toh flop ho gyi na pehle din
sirf chaar crore banaye h’. I didn’t know what to say.
I have always believed that box office success can never
judge the quality of a film but now I think even the reviews cannot judge it. I
have seen poor film getting better reviews and making loads of money. Whatever
it is I just want to thank AK for making Bombay Velvet. It was worth the wait
and I thoroughly enjoyed it.
From:
A stupid biased hard core AK fan.
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