Wednesday, January 14, 2004

What went wrong with KHNH?

What Rediff - Aseem Chhabra: "The crime of mixing New York City's boroughs is a bad crime to be committed by Johar, Advani and company.
KHNH commits other crimes too. Johar has talked about spending a long time in New York observing how people move around and walk in the city. He captures a certain pace of the life, people picking up coffee at Starbucks, eating at fine restaurants and rushing to work (although I have never seen a desi singing songs in Central Park and on the Brooklyn Bridge).
But Johar and Advani's observation of Indians in New York and their mindset remains superficial, at best. There is no deeper understanding of what motivates these people or what drives them each day.
Instead, the filmmakers have carefully captured Bollywood's one-dimensional characters and placed them in New York City.
Most characters in the movie, especially the supporting cast, remain caricatures. From the bhajan singing friends of the grandmother, to the boy-hungry, overweight neighbourhood Indian girl and her over-the top sex-starved sister, to the desi deejay, who speaks with the most peculiar accent and the video-pirate-turned-potential-suitor.
The inner homes, the bedrooms and the living rooms in the film (other than Saif Ali Khan's upscale trendy apartment with a balcony overlooking the East River), whether in Queens or the suburbs of Connecticut, reek of Bollywoodised lives of the middle and the upper classes.
Then there are political and social problems with the film. There are countless jokes against homosexuals, which worked real well with the audience. That Bollywood has started to accept the existence of homosexuality is a move forward, but the mindless jokes take the issue several steps back right into the closet.
Then there is a more serious issue: a subplot about an adopted girl (subjected to the most crass"

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