I was tempted to name this blog Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna. But it being the movie people love to hate, I did not want this blog to turn out the same. Though I feel even people who love me are gonna hate me for having written this.
KANK is movie that has received a lot of brick bats. KJo managed to get good reviews for the movie though it was lampooned by the general public. I am not a KJo fan and I feel he degraded love by making a movie as crass as Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. I am also not a believer in the concept of soul mates which he touted in KANK. In spite of all this, I liked KANK.
I can hear some say what? Come again. Well I liked Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.
I found it the first and the most mature movie made by KJo.
Be it the highly uppity Preity Zinta or the self deprecating Rani Mukherjee, the child-man Abhisekh Bachchan or the utterly bloated and repulsive Shahrukh Khan - I found each character real. The fact that the audience found SRK irritating or Rani Mukherjee a schmalz I think just proves that they delivered the character they were supposed to. But in KANK we had stark reality.
The couples in the plot were the most ill matched ones personality vise, but I think that’s how life is very often. It’s a different matter that we rarely see them in candy floss cinemas.
In Indian marriages we have an unwritten code of honor “Adjust”. But the characters in the movie were not taught that I suppose. And that made them jarring and aberrant. And that made sense to me.
The audience sympathy was with Preity Zinta and Abhisekh Bachchan, because they had not erred. They were the ones wronged against. Again I felt that’s a very human trait to cling to the first support one finds. And that’s the characters of Rani Mukherjee and Shahrukh Khan did. They found support in each other and broke the sacred vows. I am also an Indian to the core and don’t corroborate what they did, but on a logical after thought, I would say what they did was attuned to the concept of one making relationships rather than having relationships thrust upon oneself.
I simply loved Shahrukh Khan in the movie. Being an ardent admirer of his, I hated his character; which just proves how very convincing he was. Usually as one of my friends says, “his performance has layers”. It’s not a simple one track depiction of a character. He makes it realistic and puts a lot of zeal and feel into the depiction. So every time you see his work, it’s like a different and new perspective of the character being unraveled each time. And KANK I feel had the multi dimensional SRK at his very best. The first time I watched the movie, I detested him. He seemed as a term goes – an MCP (Male Chauvinist Pig – for the uninitiated). I found him weak and loathsome. But the second time I saw, I was hit by the pathos in his character. And the third time around I was gaga about his perfect timing of comedy. He just gets better at reinventing himself with each movie :).
[I know when my friend Ashma (an Aamir Khan fan) reads this, at the above line she would have the best frown a girl can put on her face.]
Some characters were redundant and not so well etched out like that of Amitabh Bachchan. And the ending could of course have been a bit sleeker. But I think KANK would have been much better received with out the prevalent multiplex culture. Because I feel in a multiplex one is too affected by group behavior. You see one person letting out a yawn and fidgeting and your attention level drops. It’s so easy to get influenced by the person seated beside you. And matters just get worse if you have a big group along with you. Under those circumstances the movie has to fight for an equal footing with the pop corns and colas moving between the chairs. KANK on the other hand deserves ones undivided attention else or none at all. I being one who watches and not sees movies, felt the small screen does more justice to the script of this movie.
I hope with this blog I might have opened a lot of debate gates :). I also hope some will give KANK a dekko again.
