Raja Sen, I think your review is as bad as the movie is. And this is a perfect case of "Emperor's New Clothes" for Mr. Chopra. Your review only seems to be an ego massaging trip for Vidhu. The narrative of Eklavya is so flawed, and the energy in the film is as much as a 95-year old grandma's - thank god this wasn't a 3-hour movie! Tell me, Raja Sen, what exactly were you going gaga about??? The naarative was so extremely linear with 80's style flashbacks thrown in every now and then (Remember the Sharmila Tagore scene with the little boy?). And the action was disjointed to say the least. Though the scene where Ekalavya takes aim was interesting, it appeared like it was stuck forcibly into the story - and it needed a whole unnecessary scene - Sanjay Dutt's character came-in only to initiate that particluar scene. BTW, did you see the great Chinese film "Hero"? The scene in which Eklavya steps into the pool of water was ripped off from there! There were so many such flaws! Last but not the least, you were tom-tomming about Natarajan's cinematography - I agree it made a bad film look glossy, but what about the logic behind the lighting..? Saif's character arrives in a chopper in the beginning and the next scene cuts to an interior shot of the palace where everything is lit with candles! Ditto throughout the movie. There was absolutely no indication of the time period for the audience. If it was present day, then did the Maharajah's forget paying the electrical bills, or, did Mr. Natarajan decide to go ahead with the candles because it looked fancy? Do you guys take such issues into consideration while writing your reviews, or, do you simply get carried away by all the fanfare and dole out some fancy reviews?
RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by AJ Singh on Feb 17, 2007 08:55 AM
Raja, quick question, have you seen any of these movies?? Ek ruka hua Faisla, Suraj Ka Saatwan Ghoda, Ek doctor ki maut, Jyotishi ?? These are some great great movies by Shyam Bengal , and Nihlani, but they are not known by the majority of Hindi viewers , 'cuz this genre is ignored among hindi audience itself. So its not only work of Telugu, Tamil or malayali directors, but hindi directors too. My point is Vinod Chopra's movies are trying to strike a good balance. Not easy in our industry and very few people can do that. At least give credit to someone who is trying. And Scorcesses never said in his interview that The Departed is a copy of Hing Kong movies, but of course he doesn't deny it. Which people like Mahesh Bhatt, criticse people like him , who don't even bother changing any scenes of the movies.
RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by usman khawaja on Feb 17, 2007 10:05 AM
AJ SINGH WELL SAID ID ADD GULZAR AND MRINEL SEN TO THE LIST MRIGYAA ANS 27 DOWN , BUT ELKAVYA IS A FARCE U CANT SIT THRU
RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by ava desh on Feb 17, 2007 07:21 AM
Most of the Hollywood films are much better than Bollywood films .. Also actors act much better in Hollywood ... In india we have 2 actors currently Big B & Aamir khan ..rest of them are very poor .
RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by blue wrox on Feb 17, 2007 09:51 AM
Kyon bhai.south indian mathlab chu- hoten hain kya?aur north indian mathlab stud.chotte mugh chotti baath.Naukri milegi neeche bangalore,chennai main pahoonch jaavo petti wetti baandke.
RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by Raja Subramanian on Feb 17, 2007 02:28 AM
South Indian origin but I'm a pucca Mumbaiyya. I know what you are trying to dig at! This has nothing to do with being a North or a South Indian.
RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by Indian on Feb 17, 2007 02:50 AM
I am sorry, I would not had asked that question and I have found you have very good understanding of movies. Give me a list of 10 movies (regardless of their language) you liked the most.
RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by AJ Singh on Feb 17, 2007 02:52 AM
Well granted that you are not doing that North/South thing, you are trying to do what Raja Sen is accused of doing often, like comparing it to other Masterpieces, given the shoddy standard of Bollywood movies, this much standard is much much welcome breath of fresh air. While going gaga about movies like "Hero" and "Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon" , don't forget that they show lot of crap, about guys just running vertical walls and duels over bamboo leaves?? Yes I know you like it 'cuz some white guys, loved the creative liberty the director took, 'cuz they didn't wanna be cynical. Well in reality those scenes are BS, and trust me I am a fanatic for Kung Fu movies, also about the linear story line, is a story only cool, if its done backwards or hap-hazard like memento?? C'mon, you are falling victim to preconcievd notions here, don't be cynical just for the sake of being cynical, be greatful that once in while (more often now) a decent bollowood movie comes along.
RE:RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by Raja Subramanian on Feb 17, 2007 03:54 AM
BTW, I saw the trailer of "Talisman" another film from Vidhu Vinod Chopra. The highlight of the trailer was a battle scene - as much as I would not like to speculate - that particular scene is an exact rip off of some of the scenes from the Lord of the Rings series (in terms of compostion, costumes - to the nearest helmet, sets - note the engravings on the sword, and finally even the color grading!). Originality? Hah!
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by ajay singh on Feb 17, 2007 07:04 AM
While you might have managed to earn a few browny points with your naming obvious marsterpieces from very obvious Masters, my suggestion would be STOP watching Hindi films, then. iF you still haven't come out of the Apu Trilogy, 81/2 or Wild Strwberry (which honestly is not the best Bergman though most hyped one), then you need to. Otherwise for you and us Tarkovsky will be the only option left .
Do you mean to say Peter Jackson has never ripped off anything from anywhere. Hasn't hollywood borrowed heavily from Kurosawa. Haven't people ripped off Seventh Seal so may times.
And by the way, wasn't Star Wars - the very pinnacle of Hollywood story telling - borrowed heavily from our own Mahabharata....
Think over it maybe... Though must say I love the movies u mentioned. May I also implore you to explore a few lesser known masterpieces of the above mentioned Directors.
But I'd not even mind a Vidhu Vinod Chopra any day.
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by Sheel Majumdar on Feb 17, 2007 08:20 AM
People like Raja (Subramanium), constitute an important segment of Indian Film Watching Fraternity...the so called master analysers, who jump at the first possible opportunity to throw in some of the famous names of western or "phoren" cinema, to rip Indian cinema off. I agree we see some of the most blatant rip offs in our cinema, and i.e. becaus we see most of our cinema. Whereas we limit ourselves only to the best of world cinema and end up seeing the best or probably the most famous ones. I dont find such long lenghty COmments section when there are films like Omkara, are being reviewed. Agreed that people like Raja Sen do tend to go overboard (too much on either sid eof number line), but lets undrstand there have been some classics that have been made in India off late, and only if we can poke our head out of that perpetual cloak of "Bash" Indian Creations, we can appreciate such things. Otherwise, every Tom Dick and harry, pretending to be a connoisieur will keep doing so(by quoting a few classics - to prove that he knows all). Why do they even care to see Indian films? Causing so much paint to themselves and also clinical waste of money and time.
RE:RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by Indian on Feb 17, 2007 03:02 AM
I agree with you AJ. Sometime, our focus is way more critical so we tend to see flaws instead of appreciating things specially if they are are from big people/directors. What happened with Guru and now this one.
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by Raja Subramanian on Feb 17, 2007 03:42 AM
AJ and Indian, I wasn't generalizing that the Hong Kong genre is a standard for our kind of storytelling. I was only referring to some of the iconic moments in cinematic history, which are blatantly ripped off by our directors and passed off as original fare. As a result, our reviewers overlook these and paint a merry picture of "originality" in our films. Everyone from Coppola to Wang Kar Wai have been influenced by some film or the other, but at least they have acknowledged it. Not just that, they went ahead and improvised it for the better in most cases (Scorcese's Departed being an adaptation of one such film). I work in the entertainment business and it is extremely frustrating when much anticipated (and hyped-up) films such as "Ekalavya" fall short of expectations! And even more frustrating when there seem to be so many factual errors in storytelling. In the end, all I'm asking Mr. Raja Sen is to delve deeper into all other aspects which also make a film.
Indian, some of my favorite films: Kurosawa's films - Best example is Rashomon (multiple point narrative, asynchronous timeline), Ingmar Bergman's films (Wild Strawberries), Fellini's films (Luna, 8-1/2), Wang Kar Wai's films and of course Mr. Satyajit Ray's trilogy to name a few. I also enjoy watching the works of several talented filmmakers from Kerala, TN and Andhra whose work goes unrecognized because of our lack of appreciation of that genre.
RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:A Big Yaaawwn!
by AJ Singh on Feb 17, 2007 05:28 AM
Raja, You mean movie like Ghazni in Tamil, whose first half is a blatant rip-off of Memento. I agree that good amount of work in Tamil and Malayalam is of high grade , I like them too. But they also churn out lot of mediocre crap too. Telugu, majority of them are crap. This is the problem, lot of South Indians, they will compare Mani Ratnam's movie with Karan Johar's. We all know that Karan Johar's movies are total crap, I wish some would shoot that guy. So by doing such comparisons, you are stating the obvious. And by going to Kurusawa, you are climbing way to high, not many movies get to that level. Then you should compare Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihalani's movies to them not these commercials. Definitely I'd love for the standard to go up, its improving, its gonna take some time.
NOw that Ralph Fiennes has given this movie a thumbs up , Every critic is going to be scared to say otherwise. If a western person likes it , it must be good. I haven't seen the movie, but Mr Raja Sen's reviews are always opposite of what is the truth. He put down a movie like Guru so who knows. And if he liked Kank and Dhoom 2, I really don't know what to say because they were crap movies.
