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Jodhaa Akbar (2008)

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If you dialled 1300-FILM EPICS in India, I’m sure you’ll get a direct line to Ashutosh Gowariker. The man seems to have a penchant for making big epics. Note his body of work – Lagaan, Swades, Mangal Pandey. His most famous work outside of his home country is the nearly 4 hour long Foreign Film Oscar Nominated Lagaan. So what is he offering this time with Jodhaa Akbar, a historical epic set in the 16th Mughal empire?

I’m … (read more)

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Devdas (2002)

You watch Devdas and you hear it’s the most expensive film made and you can see where the money’s gone. It is one of the most opulent films I have seen in a long time. No longer do we care about the masses, but instead we focus on the big people who live big lives in big mansions – who love big and lose big.

Basically everything about Devdas is big.

The movie has an operatic air about it where … (read more)

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Straight From The Heart (1999)

What can you say about 3 hours of musical melodrama? “Ick” might be the response of some of you. “Yippee!” might come from others. Me, I can say that I survived, but it was a close thing.

This was my first Bollywood experience, and I hadn’t realised that it was so melodramatic. One minute the characters were emoting their eyeballs out, the next they were singing and dancing with joint-cracking vigour. And while some of the singing was quite beautiful, … (read more)

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