Monday, February 15, 2010

Ishqiya--No John Galt

Saw Ishqiya last night. Didn't understand the movie till I was half way through, and then I realized that's what the director intended. But it was all very vexing. The actors were barely clear in their speech, the dialect was obscure. I cannot imagine any South Indian understanding any of it. Seems to me Hindi has evolved since I left Delhi in 1976, but on second thoughts, I think it WAS the speech delivery that was at fault. I am not referring to the Gorakhpuri--Nasiruddin Shah wasn't speaking that, was he?
To me, any gun is a bandook. Never heard of a tamancha before. Sign of the times--language has to include instruments of daily use.
The character of the leading lady as a seductress (Vidya Balan) was wholly unusual for a Hindi movie. I see one Hindi movie a year and I feel totally bewildered with all the changes. Its like progressing from 0 to 60 in 3.2 seconds.
Men wore more make up than women (woman).
The movie was disappointing-- it had so much potential for violence.  The jeeja is an ass; he should have killed when he had the chance and gone after Verma himself, unravelled a huge arms smuggling scheme and blamed his own bossy wife for it.  But the makers wanted everybody to look good (with infidelity being the only major flaw). Which reminds me...Hindi movies do harp on infidelity. Nowadays it seems accepted; sign of machismo. Hmmm. The movie came complete with kinky sex games.

I was hoping Verma would turn out to be a John Galt.

1 comment:

Giri Krishna said...

Hi Priyam,

Stumbled on your blog by accident. I also saw Ishqiya a couple of weeks ago and could not understand the movie at all. The dialog was extremely difficult to follow. I had blamed it on the drink I had before went for the movie. Now I know better!

I am also in the midst of meeting old DTEA classmates. We also have a yahoo group and the segregation is complete even here!

Look forward to reading more of your blogs!