Videsh -Heaven On Earth Post Review here

Videsh: Stark and unsettling

http://blogs.reuters.com/indiamasala/2009/03/27/videsh-stark-and-unsettling/


VIDESH: HEAVEN ON EARTH
ndtvmovies
Cast: Preity Zinta, Vansh Bhardwaj, Deepa Mehta, Yanna McIntosh and Gick Grewal
Director: Deepa Mehta
Producer: Ravi Chopra, David Hamilton
Anupama Chopra, Consulting Editor, Films, NDTV

Videsh: Heaven on Earth is a frustrating film. There are scenes here of marital violence that are so effectively horrific that you almost can't bear to watch.

Preity Zinta, playing Chand, a Punjabi girl who has an arranged marriage with a taxi driver in Canada, gives her career's best performance. Her haunted and fearful eyes convey the brutality and horror of her situation.

Within days of her marriage, Chand, an endearingly hopeful bride is transformed into a hollow wreck. She becomes a prisoner in her own home. But Videsh strives to show that Chand isn't the only victim here.

The alienation, loneliness and struggle of working class immigrants factors into the abuse that permeates Chand's relationship with her husband.

Vansh Bhardwaj, a theater actor, makes a confident debut as the abusive husband and Balinder Johal is superbly effective as the neurotic mother-in-law who is so insecure about losing her only earning son that she interrupts his honeymoon and actually goads him into beating his wife.

When her son viciously slaps Chand while they are still on their honeymoon, the mother advises her weeping daughter-in-law: Ro mat, yeh toh hota hi rehta hai ghar ghrahasti mein.

And yet, despite all of this, Videsh doesn't quite hang together. The weakest link in the film is a fantasy element, inspired by Girish Karnad's celebrated play Nagamandala.
Chand is so desperate for her husband's affections that she takes a magical root from a Jamaican co-worker and mixes it into her husband's milk, hoping that it will make him fall in love with her. The potion finds its way to a cobra in the backyard instead. The cobra begins to take the shape of a loving version of her husband and begins to visit Chand.

This is perhaps meant to suggest that Chand's determination to keep her dream alive is so strong that it actually manifests itself as reality and eventually gives her the strength to fight back.

But interweaving folklore into the grim reality of Videsh required deft writing. Mehta, who had earlier made a critically acclaimed documentary on domestic violence among Canadian Indian immigrants and has also written Videsh is unable to make the transition seamless.
With the introduction of the shape-shifting cobra, the film becomes contrived and confused. The sudden shifts into monochrome frames and Chand's constant muttering to herself only make the story more opaque. The dialogue is clunky and the metaphor too laboured to work.

Eventually then, Videsh is only partially successful. I recommend that you see it for Priety Zinta's heartfelt performance.

http://movies.ndtv.com/reviews.asp?lang=hi...Heaven+on+Earth




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Watch Videsh for Preity Zinta
Sukanya Verma


Preity Zinta in a scene from Videsh.



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March 27, 2009 11:56 IST

Ever known that blood-curdling sensation when you stand up for the so-called victim, unleashing a diatribe of verbal gunfire against the apparent offender, only to have the object of your blind support curtly nudging you, 'You're over reacting.'

Deepa Mehta latest does that to you. Videsh [Images] starts out as a disturbing account on domestic violence but loses all objectivity the minute it resorts to elements of mysticism, inspired by Girish Karnad's play Nagamandala. It's a dangerously incompatible mix and damages the possibility of a decent movie to an outright ridiculous one.

And that's really sad coming from Mehta, especially after demonstrating what fine filmmaking is all about in the poignant and profound Water.

In spite of the awkward dubbing from English to Hindi, it opens with enough promise. In Videsh or Heaven on Earth (its international title), Preity Zinta [Images] plays an unassuming, happy-go-lucky Ludhiana girl, Chand Grewal.

Cliches are gladly abandoned. Like there's no running around mustard fields or romping about colourful bazaars bargaining for glass bangles to establish the same. Instead her face lights up as she claps her hands in glee during a ladies sangeet/gidda or dabs talcum powder under her armpits inside an airport washroom (captured through Giles Nuttgens' discerning cinematography) providing ample evidence of her lively disposition.

Like most girls on the brink of marriage-hood, Chand too dreams of a rosy-hued future, doting hubby and affectionate in-laws. She's obviously a quintessential romantic who's hoping her life to turn into a Karan Johar [Images] brand of grand fairy tale, Made in Canada [Images]. But that's not the kind of fate Chand, married to Rocky (Vansh Bhardwaj doesn't impress with his lout-like stubble and grating grimace), an Ontario-based cabbie, meets.

Once inside a cold, unfamiliar foreign land, Chand finds herself isolated from all things humane. Exasperated by the ever-growing burden of his stiff-eye browed, conniving mum (Baljinder Johal), spineless dad (Rajinder Singh Cheema), jobless brother-in-law (Gourrav Sihan), indifferent sister (Ramanjit Kaur), their two kids -- a rebellious son and docile daughter, Rocky is least interested in having any conversation with, forget basking in the gentle affections of, his new bride. Depending on his mood, she's either his preferred punching bag or object for intercourse.

Needless to say, Rocky's revolting behaviour would make any self-respecting individual (on and off screen) clench his/her fist and give him a healthy dose of his own medicine. And that's exactly why a heavily-bruised Chand's desperation to lure him with some magical root potion strikes as particularly regressive. What follows from then on is just too bewildering to endure.

Without really getting into details, all I'll say is while I genuinely don't have any issue with mythological snakes falling in love with Bollywood's leading ladies, the purported twist in the plot seems most asinine and out of context. I mean, nagparikshas? Come on!

Besides deviating irrevocably from its original concerns, Videsh, despite its few 100 minutes duration and distressing assault scenes, is surprisingly slow and tepid, respectively. There are flashes of heartfelt anguish reflecting Chand's growing sense of alienation -- when she scribbles down her name and address on the walls of a public loo or makes whispered pleas to her beloved 'Wahe Guru' in a bid to get connected with her parents on the phone. But the impact of her appeal is diluted in the disjointed narrative crammed with suggestions of various sub-plots involving immigration, ambition, isolation and loss of innocence, to name a few.

Also pray, why does the film enter black and white mode at repeated intervals? It's neither a flashback nor symbolic. And it's certainly not stylish.

What Mehta truly succeeds at is extracting a landmark performance out of Preity Zinta. The actress immortalised in effervescence erases any trace of happiness she may have previously conveyed with her startling transformation into Chand. Known for her forthright ways and liberated views, Preity breaks away from her real-life image to effectively slip into the wounded soul of her character. Even when she talks to the camera, unexpectedly breaking into grim, trance-filled monologues, there's immense fervour in her convictions.

Despite the vagueness that ensues, the cast, besides Preity, including Baljinder Johal as the overbearing mother-in-law and Ramanjit Kaur as the silently sympathetic sister-in-law, fares well. If only the screenplay had not taken such a serpentine turn, under the pretext of imagination, in surfeit, that is.

Heaven on Earth is a cool title for a cocktail. Apply it as a concept in a script. And the result is as ambiguous, mixed up and convoluted as Videsh.

http://movies.rediff.com/review/2009/mar/2...reity-zinta.htm

Rating: ****
Preity plays Chand with a dignity and depth that take us by surprise.
Subhash K Jha

Rating: ***
The way her character is portrayed and the way she has carried herself throughout the movie, she deserves a standing ovation.
UB News

Rating: ** 1/2
Zinta's rendering of the abused new bride is heart wrenching. Especially in the difficult scenes when she is unable to tell imagination from real life.
Sify

Rating: **
Preity Zinta too puts in a powerful performances as the de-glamourised, disenchanted young bride…
TOI

Rating: **
What Mehta truly succeeds at is extracting a landmark performance out of Preity Zinta. The actress immortalised in effervescence erases any trace of happiness she may have previously conveyed with her startling transformation into Chand.
Rediff

Rating: * 1/2
What keeps you from walking out of the film mid-way is Preity Zinta's outstanding performance. Most often shown make-up less in the film, Preity has delivered her career best performance in Videsh.
thaindian

Rating:* 1/2
Preity delivers her finest performance to date. She displays the helplessness and pain that this character demands with gusto. It's at par with any powerful act by any international actor.
Taran Adarsh

Rating: * 1/2
Preity Zinta adds vulnerability, grace and poise to her character.
India Times

Rating: * 1/2
Preity Zinta emerges as the sure winner. The actress who till date, has been known for her cute, bubbly image adds life to Chand. She depicts the vanquished dreams of a normal girl with as much conviction as the real Chand would probably have done.
Buzz18

Videsh has standout performances by its leading cast. Preity Zinta shines in a very challenging role and she truly makes Chand's suffering and angst come alive on screen. This is undoubtedly one of her best performances till date. Vansh Bhardwaj makes a superb film debut and as he has been saying in the interviews, this indeed is a dream debut for him. He essays both the characters of Rocky and Sheshnaag (human form of king cobra) flawlessly. While Rocky requires him to be a frustrated, angry man, Sheshnaag has him in a romantic avatar. Performances of the supporting cast are very believable.
http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayReview.php?id=f032709090123



Pertaining to onscreen performance, doubtlessly it's Preity Zinta who has trenchantly spelled her characterization. Getting to watch a bubbly missy who often glued herself to glamorous appeals on contrastive grounds is mind-boggling. Nothing much to mark on other star-casts as Preity herself eclipses everyone around…

Giles Nuttegen's cinematography is honky-dory of its kind. Especially, in the frames where we get to watch the shots placed within the confined walls of Toronto's house is top-notching. Giles has been so keen on filling the screens with specified tones adapting to scenarios. Moreover, he treads applying the psychological-aspects of getting viewers adhered to screens. Nothing else to do with other technical aspects as musical scores could've been furthermore better and editing is simple sans innovativeness

Deepa deserves grand round of applause for her yet another approach towards feminism. But what stops us from getting ahead of appreciating her is dropping an inappropriate idea of fancy idea with a serious subject.

Certainly, it would have worked if Deepa had set out of her box and adapted some fantasy based stories like Cinderella. Why not? 'Alice in the Wonderland' and 'Cinderella' haps to be carrying strong female personas…

http://www.indiaglitz.com/channels/hindi/review/10987.html



The greatest triumph of Videsh is Preity Zinta's performance. Her slow death within and enthusiasm to do the right thing are heartbreaking. Bhardwaj is well cast as the chauvinistic wife-beate

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1243297


t's difficult to describe just how good Preity Zinta is in her role as a battered young bride in director Deepa Mehta's Videsh. So good in fact, you're almost willing to overlook the film's lapses.

thought-provoking film unquestionably, Videsh is slow in parts and indulgent too. You could argue also that like "Water", Mehta's last film, this one too serves up an image of India and the immigrant lifestyle that the West is happy to lap up. Two out of five for director Deepa Mehta's Videsh. It's hardly perfect, but watch it nevertheless for Preity Zinta's earnest performance; that is unquestionably this film's biggest strength.

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/masands-movie-review-videsh-a-thoughtprovoking-film/88864-8.html

Preity's dream man a snake

sounds a lot like Provoked........might watch it for Preity's performance.

thanks for the articles.

No matter what these critics say...

I watched the film and my review is as follows:

I see the Movie VIDESH its really nice movie preety Zinta performance is really very good she do really a difference Roll in the movie.

i think the story concept of this movie is same like provoked- the aish movie