Watched the movie a couple days ago, but only just getting around to reviewing.
[[Fatty 🤗🤗🤗Good to see you back from your self-imposed exile 😆 I was the odd case about my opinion for Lootera in the CC and Nur mentioned I should find you to gush with, so I stalked you, and here I am, making my debut appearance in this section of IF 😆 ]]
I was reading your posts along with my rushed morning coffee, and choked over it a couple times in surprise at odd common thoughts we had about the movie! Especially inconsequential things like your mention of The Great Gatsby - I thought I was being more than strange thinking of it in the aftermath of Lootera 😆 since they're... well, technically, such a far cry from each other. Or that thing you mentioned about Ranveer seeming like he realizes that the movie is bigger than the hero he is and acknowledging it - to which, WORD.
Anyway. I feel like I finally found someone I could have walked out of that movie hall from, with a concurrence of opinion! Not just in having enjoyed the movie as much as I did, but in how and why. Because it's not like I'm just on a different page with that part of the audience that found their expectations not entirely met; I'm also not on quite the same page with the popular class of critics who've just gone gaga about it in pretty words. Very frankly, majority of "critic reviews" I cursorily looked through (sometime yesterday) were all praise for a movie that was coming from the makers of Udaan... like it was something they had to say to be the "smart" ones who appreciate different cinema - or those, who were drawing constant comparisons with other movies that IMO are not categorically appropriate for comparison. This one review Nur posted on the CC mentioned how the ingredients of Lootera had everything right, so what could go wrong? A lot of the critic reviews were basically making a point of that. That the 'what could go wrong' here implicitly assumes that nothing is wrong with it.
Basically, until I came around to this thread, I was still trying to find someone who could nail what about the movie was such a standout. Because, like you said Fatty, I do see why a section of the audience are somewhat underwhelmed, or why the critics on the contrary are on a rave fest about it - but in the conflict between those sides, I found the point was easily misplaced.
There are stories with their strength in characters. And there are stories with their strength in the narrative. (Of course there are stories that might be a balance between the two factors.) Lootera happens to be the second kind of story, on which note also, I think any comparison with Raanjhana, in particular, which is an all out first category movie, is sort of futile, even if, sure, watching them in close succession as most people might are likely to, can lead to an obvious impulse of comparison. If the two movies had been released a significant period apart, I don't imagine people would have automatically picked up Raanjhana and Lootera in comparison since they are categorically apart.
Anyway. I don't know, or think, there is a rule book defining what a masterpiece is expected to be, but what is masterclass about Lootera in particular, is its narrative. When I think of The Last Leaf as a vignette, it is not a story where you latch on to characters. Or where you even ponder over, or discover layers to characters for that matter. Yet, in its very brief narrative, it is a profound piece, for the thought it portrays. The concept. The narrative. When you begin a movie on a note as they did with Lootera, in its telling of bheelon ke raja ki kahaani, they've already, at the very onset, revealed the plot of the story. With a narrative's tools, they have announced that there is no element of suspense or surprise to be expected in the story ahead. You know what its going to happen - whether or not you've seen the give away trailers, which it seems to me has been one of the issues for part of the let down audience. I say this because I personally went into the movie hall uninitiated by any spoiler trailers, but with the very start of the movie on the note of that kahaani, I did not find myself disappointed by the predictable turn of events, because to me, when a movie sets up stage in that manner, surprising you with the plot is not what they are aiming for.
It's not a fairy tale, again, like you said Fatty - even is the cinematography of it has gotten "fans of the movie/flowery mouth critics" raving about that "feel" of it. If I was going to strip down my opinion naked, it is not even a love story. It has the face of one. The convenience of one. The lead characters of this "love story" are not... well, not people bound by some never dying brand of love. They are shallow, they are fickle, they are wanting, and they are just people thrown into each other's paths in ways that tie them down. One of the best dialogues of the movie for me was where Varun tells Pakhi that she was his one chance of escaping the rut of this life style he was born and bred into. And that's who she really was to him. More than the woman he falls in love with, his one chance at change. And the reason he holds onto his time with her, his betrayal towards her, is - at a very fundamental level - because in ditching her, he ditched that one chance in plain cowardice. He did want a change, and the reason he's taken by Pakhi's earnest investment in him is that in it he can seek that hope. But he doesn't want it badly enough, apparently, since he throws it away at the very first sign of the unpredictability of its consequences. Perhaps, an escape would save him, but not knowing for sure that it will vs the certainty, even if perilous, of knowing his own life and ways - makes him choose familiarity over a gamble.
In Pakhi's protected, uneventful life, Varun is an adventure. An adventure that grows on her, because its not like she's meeting much resistance on his part. When the adventure turns into life altering tragedy, it binds her to him, not because her love was that deep, that hurt, that eternal, or that irreplaceable, but because the consequences of its fall outs have left her without a closure. Its that simple - or that one-dimensional, if you want to call it so. In her case, one of the best dialogues was when she tells the inspector that she doesn't want revenge, she wants to forget.
Which brings me back to the fact that there's is not really... so much a love story, as much as it is the story of two people fatefully tangled together. And I know, that can be one aspect of a lot of immortal love stories too, but it is the only aspect to the story of Varun and Pakhi.
The beauty of this narrative is how its stays TRUE to the definition of this bond, without getting tempted at any point to degenerate into something more... audience appeasing and deep/complex. At literally every moment of the second half, I apprehended it would happen, that Varun and Pakhi's bond would get elevated to something of a unique love story that it ought not to become, but that it was successfully resisted made me with a contentment of justified characterization.
The way the second half evolves to provide Pakhi with her closure, and to provide Varun with his escape was exactly the kind of culmination these characters and their story deserved. I LOVED the scene where Ranveer takes that fall from the tree towards the end. Not just for how beautiful it looked, which it undeniably did, but far more for the ironic symbolism of it, where a fallen man rises, the only time in his life that he does, in a literal fall of few several feet. The smile on his face is the smile of a man who has finally risen from his worst falling. The smile of redemption. I thought that was... magnificent, even just for a thought. That his redemption and her closure doesn't come in the form of requited love - because love what not what lay at the core of their bond - but that it comes in a form where she serves to be that change for him, even if only in this manner of finality, and he, gives her lost will and self doubts a closure, by showing himself to be something of the man she thought she had loved.
So yeh, I LOVED that scene of Ranveer's fall, and I loved the scene where Sonakshi looks up to the leaf and smiles, and I love the ingenious touch that Lootera gives to the "last leaf" by coming round full circle in the matter of painting pattiyan. To the extent, that I was, and still somewhat am, in a kind of debate over why his actual end comes after this scene of his fall, in getting shot by police. Somehow, I wish it ended there for him, just like that. But then, they had to show Pakhi's scene, where she comes and smiles at the leaf, and I suppose if there was a dead Varun lying beneath the tree, it wouldn't exactly come out as it did 😆 Pfft! I dunno how else they could have altered it, but yes, I do wish that falling scene was Varun's last.
Anywhooo. The best part about the narrative has to be this. I didn't walk out of the movie feeling moved by the characters. No. In agreement with majority opinion on that, because characters were NOT the focus of this movie. And they were not characters with scope for... layers. It was the narrative. I feel like if I watched a precise adaptation of The Last Leaf, it would not amount to half of what Lootera accomplished. For one, its not an obvious kind of story to adapt, especially in cinema. Theatre in general is far more inclined to such works, or say, European cinema. For another, I think its fantastic that the makers of this movie could weave a whole plot around the conception of Last Leaf. Which is so seeped into a context and setting that is entirely its own.
And this is where I was thinking of The Great Gatsby, Fatty. A novel that has had three movie adaptations now, and not one has really gotten the core of it right. Personally, I think there is a whole range of literature that is particularly difficult to adapt, because when you do it literally - as The Great Gatsby has been attempted thrice now - your adaptation is shallow, and if you weave its core into a new setting and context, then its a HUGE challenge and responsibility. There aren't enough movie adaptations in the world that have done justice to even the obvious works of literature, and I think the fact that Lootera gets the heart of something that is as character detached yet profound in thought as The Last Leaf, so right, is its greatest feat 👏 👏 👏
It's like a poem - not poetry in motion which I've found to be a fairly abused phrase in reviews for this movie - but precisely a poem. If there was a common concept relayed by a piece of prose, and a poem, there would be, without question, a greater majority of reception to the prose. Because prose has the luxury of exploring, going deep, spreading out, in making its point. A poem rarely sets context, forget characters, and conveys itself entirely, in the narrative of its theme. Which leaves so much scope for variation in interpretation to even the most famous and popularly known poems. Because a poem acquires character in perception. And what Motawane awed me out with is the fact that with his version of adaptation, he has rendered this vignette by O'Henry the flexibility of interpretation that is generally characteristic of a poem, and not prose.
It is not to say that I think the movie was perfect. In fact, it had some very basic, essential flaws. One, that Nur mentioned, the fact that the music interfered with too much dialogue space. I'm not sure if it was intended - and why, if so - or unintended - and how that could be missed in the final editing, if so - but it was a bother. Also, undeniably, on the matter of use of music alone, Raanjhana was better. I was pleased by the context placement of Monta Re and Shikayetein in the movie, but in general, I thought the songs could have been better used for how amazing the album is.
Finally, while I agree completely about the space and opportunity this movie provided Ranveer and Sonakshi, how they did it justice, and how this is a movie to go down in their acting resume, I also admit that there were points Ranveer seemed to miss out. I won't say a better actor could have done better, but I do think he could yet be better. As a zone that he wasn't comfortable with and hasn't ventured into before though, I think he had a fair start. Sonakshi was great, but she did have, as everyone has been saying, so much advantage from the script over Ranveer's Varun. Vikrant Massey without doubt was a delight. The actor playing Zameendar was great in his part. And everyone else was entirely wasted - which is quite sad. Because for a movie that is not character centric, as say Raanjhana was - but narrative built, EVERY presence should MATTER to the narrative. Its like every point of the story should MATTER to the evolution of primary character(s) of a Raanjhana like movie.
But since I was, and am, basically in awe of just the way this movie picks up and re-tells such a famous old vignette, the absolutely FANTASTIC narrative of it, the fall outs became lesser issues for me. Overall, I would give the movie a 4/5. And echoing you Fatty, on my list of re-watches! 😃
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