Mate’s Exclusive on Saawariya
Love triangle is by no means an innovative story in Hindi cinema but Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s direction has given this story a new dimension which has never practiced here. “Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam” and “Devdas” were social dramas of love, Saawariya is not. The story is centred on the intensified emotions of a dreamer, Ranbir Raj (Ranbir Kapoor). The philanthrop-idealist falls in love with Sakina (Sonam Kapoor), a love-sick young lady.
The story is of love – that is not only timeless but also placeless. The young lover, Raj could as well be a Romeo or a Ranjha or Majnu. The set designs excellently convey this impact of quintessential love, stripped of the paraphernalia of time and place. The dreamy landscape of the movie is fanciful and strikes one’s imagination. Characters are real enough but the place where they move and the time in which they exist are not sharply delineated. It could be anywhere and everywhere.
In the movie based on characters, performances become the most important aspect to be assessed. The director’s role mainly in this movie, was to get his performers work according to how he envisioned this story. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been successful in making his cast do what he wanted. The new actors who have also played lead roles, have been handled magnificently by him. On the whole, Saawariya is and ingenious work of an intelligent director who has handled a worn subject in a totally new manner.
Many performances in the movie are stirring. But still the whole weight of the movie rested on the performance of Ranbir Kapoor. This character has been carefully planned and executed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and Ranbir has proved that Sanjay’s choice was not wrong. His expressions are perfect and his personality matches with the lover-idealist role that he was to perform.
Sonam Kapoor’s performance in the role of Sakina is rather controversial. In the first place, this character is not well-formed. She loves Eman (Salman Khan) and comes to wait for him on the bridge. Why she fell in love with him is quite incomprehensible, more so because the look of Eman is far from attractive. It can be explained in only one way: “ A love-thirsty should fell in love with the first object as soon as it came into view”, but this has not been emphasized in the movie. Moreover, Eman had promised here that he would come after a year, on the night before Eid. Her coming to the bridge every night and here overwhelming grief is thus out of place. Another paradox in this character is that she seems to have an unflinching faith in her love to the point that she interprets everything in his favour and disregards every thing that smacks of disloyalty on the part of her lover. But Eman is only some hours late from the appointed time and in the meanwhile she has shifted her fidelity assuming that he will not come. Her change from Eman to Raj is also sudden. If the story writer wanted to show that Sakina was all the time harbouring certain doubts about her lover, Sonam Kapoor has absolutely failed to convey this impression. On the other hand, if he did not then the moments of crisis i-e whether she should select Raj or remain loyal to Eman should have been more pronounced and prolonged. On the whole, Sonam Kapoor has done nothing except crying and laughing alternately and her performance is only average.
Rani Mukherjee in the role of kind-hearted prostitute has given an excellent performance. Soft-hearted whores have also appeared in Hindi movies from time to time but the new thing in here is that she is also a realist. It is notable in the song “Woh Pari” where the dreamer weaves a dream around himself and shares it with the prostitutes. Gulab refuses to participate in this dream, though amused by this young man. She loves him secretly but does not manifest it. She also knows in her heart of hearts that Raj is going to lose his game of love but hides it from him to spare him some of heart-aching. She expels him from the brothel when he comes there as a “customer”, and Rani’s expressions of mingled love and wrath are memorable in this scene.
Salman Khan has given only a guest appearance and he wears a strange expression in his eyes which is retained in all the scenes where he appears.
Zohra Sehgal in the role of motherly land-lady of Raj has given first-rate performance. Her expressions and dialogue delivery is more than excellent. Begum Para has also done justice to her character though her scenes are very few.
Monty Sharma’s music is faintly reminiscent of Devdas and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam. Overall it is pleasant to listen to though it does not have the quality of throwing the listeners into raptures. The title track is well-done. “Yun Shabnami” is also fine. While watching the movie, you sometimes feel that the movie is slightly over fraught with songs. Choreography is also finely executed. The “Title track” and “Chabeela” are worth-seeing.
The script of the movie is up to the mark. Each character has been given the lines according to his or her personality for example wrong English of Gulab (Rani), and foreign accentuated pidgin of Zohra Sehgal.
The awe-inspiring cinematography of Ravi K. Chandran is wholly in accordance with the scheme of the movie. It marvelously reflects the mood of the story of unreflected love.
Saawariya is thus an amazing product. But as this expressionistic format has been used for the first time in Indian cinema, the audience may find it hard to understand and enjoy.
Rating: 8/10
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Sheer Disappointment
m sad. 
Waiting for this one from SRK-farhan.. 
SRK cannot be compared with Super Star Rajesh Khanna and he no where nearer to Super Star Rajesh Khanna. ...
"It’s not just Bollywood, but the entire globe has been yearning to watch the sequel of Don as the remake ...
wow thats why i like SRK soooo much and thats why he is the best.. 
Comment by bolly_fan on 15 November 2007:
woho you seem to have loved sawaariya
Comment by mate on 15 November 2007:
Yeah Bolly_fan, i’m also one of those few who love Saawariya apart from its box office performance. And the expected failure of Saawariya commecially is quite understandable to me after watching it.
Comment by AksFilmi on 15 November 2007:
Excellent Piece mate - after long time - Finally u posted ur view
Comment by AksFilmi on 15 November 2007:
The director’s role mainly in this movie, was to get his performers work according to how he envisioned this story. Sanjay Leela Bhansali has been successful in making his cast do what he wanted. “”"
I thnk we never doubted SLB’s Work - One thing is it lacked global appeal - its not worth for our bucks
I agree Sakina Character was not well written - it looked SLB was more interested in Ranbirs performance, i thnk Script was big let down for saawariya it dint had anythng speacial
Comment by AksFilmi on 15 November 2007:
mate i have mentioned this earlier - its worth a watch for those who likes/apperaciate SLB’ work/magic
Is saawariya worth A watch ?
Comment by AksFilmi on 15 November 2007:
for me it look an avg movie - I thnk SLB lost the plot while chosing the plot, eVERYTHNG ABT THE MOVIE WAS ABOVE NORMAL MAY EVEN CALL EXCEPTIONAL WHAT IT LACKED THE CONNECTION - SAAWARIYA MAY BE THE BEST PRODUCT IN TERMS OF QUALITY BUT WE CANT SPEND 200 BUCK
Comment by mate on 15 November 2007:
Thanks Aks. n yeah u’re right the movie lacks the mass-appeaal. But i think SLB has a total command over his subject and he succeed to a great extent in what he wanted to convey through this movie. As i’ve earlier said that the movie is built in a timeless and spaceless era, it’s just like that all the characters and the environment created by the directer are just symbols. The idea of the film is just to depict human emotions. So it never matters whether the sets are real or fake, the world presented by Sanjay actually exist or not. And that’s the main reason why the movie fails to attach itself with a common cine-goer.
Comment by mate on 15 November 2007:
sorry i mean to say placeless instead of spaceless.
Anyways, my OSO review will be out tomorrow so stay tuned.
Comment by Maryam on 15 November 2007:
Mate
u r confusing me..in ur review u have said more good things about the movie than bad things n also gave 8/10 which is very good…but again in ur comments u r saying something like “Also i want to say that this movie undoubtly deserve a “Flop” tag.”…what do u mean??? i dont get it…plz tell me wehther u r taking SLB n saboriya side or actually u r totally agianst it????
Comment by mate on 15 November 2007:
Maryam, my review on ‘Saawariya’ is a review pure on critical basis, not involving any kind of commercial aspect and in my comments i’m stick to the commercial value of the film. That’s why my comments differ from my review.
Comment by rajeev on 17 November 2007:
well mate,
i believe a movie like sawariya do not have anything in it to succeed anywhere in the world.let alone bollywood.
I do not agree to the notion that audience of Hollywood are any different or any more intelligent than the bollywood buffs.Its only mere escapist route by some of the directors to term their medoicre work as International standard.
I firmly believe that if a movie is good its liked by people eveywhere.For human emotions are same for everwhere.
For movies like Sawariya,no smoking are bound to bomb because its lacked the very essence of filmaking i.e entertainment.Both the movies took the audiences for granted for pseudo quality work.
Its high time some of the dircetors understand that movies are a medium of entertainment and the paying public expects just that from a movie.
Let the intelligence stuff be shown at any other platform.For we the audience fimly believe that we are more intelligent than any of the movie directors.
Comment by AksFilmi on 19 November 2007:
Mate Excellent Piece Again
I thnk without no doubt SLB is one of the best directors of bollywood - Look at his past work - All his movies are next to impossible -
Comment by AksFilmi on 19 November 2007:
Saawariya is one of the best movie if u exclued Commerical aspects - Its pitty Movies whch lack commerical aspects never considered in india - In first few days it was thrashed by Media n Aamjunta
Comment by Varun on 19 November 2007:
AksFilmi: You seem to be playing it safe and may be are being pulled away by the so-called/pseudo ‘intelligensia’ who seem to have influenced/distorted your views about Saa-BORE-iya……. Hence trying to portray a ’safe’ stand by going with SLB.
I was actually very disappointed after seeing Saa-BORE-iya in spite of going to the multiplex with a positive mindset (blocking my mind from all the reviews - mostly negative - from media as well as near-dear ones). That’s because i had high expectations from SLB (especially after he gave us Black) but Saa-BORE-iya turned out to be his attempt to bring together HDDCS and Black, a mixture of sorts. He should’ve done something different than playing with sets, lighting, and costumes as he has done in HDDCS and more so, in Devdas. May be he wanted to play it safe given that there was a global production house (Sony Pictures) sitting on his head and was launching two kids of powerful stars.