I'm not really sure why one instinctively asks these questions about substance. Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na was a fun film. Popcorn fare, but good popcorn, with lots of butter and just enough salt.
The salt is in two stories the film did not dwell on for long enough: the troubled marriage that Meghna's parents have and why Aditi's brother, Amit, is the way he is.
About Amit, we learn that the family has moved often (why? We're never told) and though Aditi has made many friends everywhere, Amit never has. Aditi is, in fact, Amit's only friend; his lifeline to the outside world, as it were. Because he doesn't work - he doesn't need to , being the son of rich parents - and seems to spend all his time in paint-bespattered clothing. His parents are slightly nervous about having him meet Sushant, the guy Aditi gets engaged to. Why? What in Amit makes him unfit for company and why does our one foray into his room - that ultimately private place that should reveal character - tell us nothing more than that he likes his pet mouse (we knew that anyway) and slanting light from windows?
About Meghna's parents we learn more: we know that Meghna thinks it's cute that they fight all the time; we learn that though she says they cannot live without each other, the truth is somewhat different. Her father drinks too much, her mother is hard and sarcastic and they are the kind of couple that make you cringe with the way they conduct their arguments in public. Yet Meghna is delusional about their relationship - deliberately, as it turns out, because she does not want to face the truth. She's not ready for it, she says.
We could say the same about the film. On a good day, it's popcorn, that well-buttered and lightly salted one I talked about. On a bad day, though, it's like a game of Meghna's 'What's this?': an escape into a fantasy that sets your teeth on edge, because you believe you see the world for what it is.
This may or may not be a justified interpretation. More often than not, it says a fair bit about one's own capacity for delusion. Perhaps I'm inclined to be charitable. Why do we believe that films, to have 'substance' must be gritty, hard or real (whatever that is) ? Why is it not acceptable for a girl, faced with a near-alcoholic father, uncivil parents in an unhappy marriage, to deal with it by escaping into a fantasy world?
And what else is Jaane Tu, with it's knight-on-a-charger end; kids who can leave college without actually having applied already for further studies, or a job, or anything; who can do foreign holidays on their parents' money; who can drop 500 bucks a head at sundry nightclubs and go on camping trips where food is supplied by the poor whose faces you don't even see properly, if not an escape? If the world it attempts to escape from is uniformly too hard to bear, we do not see that world at all.*
The alternate interpretation is a little scary to contemplate. That would be the one where the film is a true reflection of the world of college-going kids today. I refuse to believe that the 21 year olds of today are as empty-headed (though well-meaning and generally likeable in small doses) as this bunch in the film. I refuse to believe (if we consider that what the camera sees is an exact representation of what the characters see) that nobody sees beyond their little sad worlds of midnight 'surprise' birthday parties, college-leaving parties, drives in cars, cosy chats on beds, stairs, sea fronts, dining tables and on the manicured lawns of mansions.**
I prefer to think of a film as a muted manifesto for the escapist fantasy genre, where what is uncomfortable is glossed over, because to see it clearly would be to give up a carefully maintained jollity. It's an artificial jollity, but everyone knows that and can live with it or even because of it. We just leave it for the audience to know that this is the reason they go to the cinema: for the tinsel that makes the drabness of daily life bearable.
I think Abbas Tyrewala has immense potential. He's written the screenplay, after all, for Maqbool, the dialogues for Munnabhai MBBS and sundry other very popular and successful films. I just think that Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (though I enjoyed the film) it was an opportunity squandered. I'm hoping that now he's done testing the waters, he will do something one can chew over a bit. Popcorn is all very well, and it has its place in the food chain, i guess. But it kind of leaves you thirsty.
*Savitri, Jai's mother, also makes an escape - from Rajput machismo - quite literally. She makes out Jai's father to be an ideal, Gandhi-like figure; a complete fantasy, as it happens.
The film's take on marriage is actually quite interesting. Either it's an unhappy business or one that appears to have worked because one person represents it (in the permanent absence of the other) as something it never was. The third marriage - that of Aditi's parents - is another unbelievable ideal: where they play scrabble with each other and arrange another perfect marriage for their daughter.
**But I'm just delusional that way. Yes, Alok?
The salt is in two stories the film did not dwell on for long enough: the troubled marriage that Meghna's parents have and why Aditi's brother, Amit, is the way he is.
About Amit, we learn that the family has moved often (why? We're never told) and though Aditi has made many friends everywhere, Amit never has. Aditi is, in fact, Amit's only friend; his lifeline to the outside world, as it were. Because he doesn't work - he doesn't need to , being the son of rich parents - and seems to spend all his time in paint-bespattered clothing. His parents are slightly nervous about having him meet Sushant, the guy Aditi gets engaged to. Why? What in Amit makes him unfit for company and why does our one foray into his room - that ultimately private place that should reveal character - tell us nothing more than that he likes his pet mouse (we knew that anyway) and slanting light from windows?
About Meghna's parents we learn more: we know that Meghna thinks it's cute that they fight all the time; we learn that though she says they cannot live without each other, the truth is somewhat different. Her father drinks too much, her mother is hard and sarcastic and they are the kind of couple that make you cringe with the way they conduct their arguments in public. Yet Meghna is delusional about their relationship - deliberately, as it turns out, because she does not want to face the truth. She's not ready for it, she says.
We could say the same about the film. On a good day, it's popcorn, that well-buttered and lightly salted one I talked about. On a bad day, though, it's like a game of Meghna's 'What's this?': an escape into a fantasy that sets your teeth on edge, because you believe you see the world for what it is.
This may or may not be a justified interpretation. More often than not, it says a fair bit about one's own capacity for delusion. Perhaps I'm inclined to be charitable. Why do we believe that films, to have 'substance' must be gritty, hard or real (whatever that is) ? Why is it not acceptable for a girl, faced with a near-alcoholic father, uncivil parents in an unhappy marriage, to deal with it by escaping into a fantasy world?
And what else is Jaane Tu, with it's knight-on-a-charger end; kids who can leave college without actually having applied already for further studies, or a job, or anything; who can do foreign holidays on their parents' money; who can drop 500 bucks a head at sundry nightclubs and go on camping trips where food is supplied by the poor whose faces you don't even see properly, if not an escape? If the world it attempts to escape from is uniformly too hard to bear, we do not see that world at all.*
The alternate interpretation is a little scary to contemplate. That would be the one where the film is a true reflection of the world of college-going kids today. I refuse to believe that the 21 year olds of today are as empty-headed (though well-meaning and generally likeable in small doses) as this bunch in the film. I refuse to believe (if we consider that what the camera sees is an exact representation of what the characters see) that nobody sees beyond their little sad worlds of midnight 'surprise' birthday parties, college-leaving parties, drives in cars, cosy chats on beds, stairs, sea fronts, dining tables and on the manicured lawns of mansions.**
I prefer to think of a film as a muted manifesto for the escapist fantasy genre, where what is uncomfortable is glossed over, because to see it clearly would be to give up a carefully maintained jollity. It's an artificial jollity, but everyone knows that and can live with it or even because of it. We just leave it for the audience to know that this is the reason they go to the cinema: for the tinsel that makes the drabness of daily life bearable.
I think Abbas Tyrewala has immense potential. He's written the screenplay, after all, for Maqbool, the dialogues for Munnabhai MBBS and sundry other very popular and successful films. I just think that Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na (though I enjoyed the film) it was an opportunity squandered. I'm hoping that now he's done testing the waters, he will do something one can chew over a bit. Popcorn is all very well, and it has its place in the food chain, i guess. But it kind of leaves you thirsty.
*Savitri, Jai's mother, also makes an escape - from Rajput machismo - quite literally. She makes out Jai's father to be an ideal, Gandhi-like figure; a complete fantasy, as it happens.
The film's take on marriage is actually quite interesting. Either it's an unhappy business or one that appears to have worked because one person represents it (in the permanent absence of the other) as something it never was. The third marriage - that of Aditi's parents - is another unbelievable ideal: where they play scrabble with each other and arrange another perfect marriage for their daughter.
**But I'm just delusional that way. Yes, Alok?
19 comments:
I refuse to believe that the 21 year olds of today are as empty-headed (though well-meaning and generally likeable in small doses) as this bunch in the film. I refuse to believe (if we consider that what the camera sees is an exact representation of what the characters see) that nobody sees beyond their little sad worlds of midnight 'surprise' birthday parties, college-leaving parties, drives in cars, cosy chats on beds, stairs, sea fronts, dining tables and on the manicured lawns of mansions.
you are joking, right? you surely haven't met any 21 year old in quite some time it seems :)
Very nice, Dala!
(No one seems to have noticed, until you cleverly pointed it out, that it is, indeed, a narrative of escapism. Even the colour in the frames, the camera angles ...)
Sumana
Alok: Like I said (after you made your comment), I must be delusional about this. But I'm not sure you're right, you know. I know 21 year olds who are more cynical, more focused on their immediate future and the money they're going to make and the ladders they're going to climb than this lot.
sumana: I ought to have pointed to these two reviews in the post.
See, esp., Paromita's comment on Anarchytect's review.
The reality's probably half-way between what you and Alok believe.
What with greater global access, there are more young kids these days who are more focused, more willing to do things, etc.
But there are so many more who're just willing to indulge in the new found facilities and opportunities that the economy is providing. I even have friends who find it surprising that I keep ticking them off for being so 'partying'. Don't be so serious, they say.
Hmmm I agree with ?!!...and it's amazing how many times I get told to lighten up too...
Also, here I was thinking that that was *my* cope of The Beauty Myth in the movie!!
??!: in other words, despite all that 'work hard party harder' world view, they're still a pretty empty-headed lot? it certainly appear so, from the film.
a friend once said, and i found a lot of sense in it, that kids seem to want most to be liked. how that connects to what you said is a whole other post.
szer: no, i meant it more literally than that!
I guess you could argue that going out clubbing and coffee-shopping and mall-ing and party-ing is about a need to be liked.
But isn't it also largely about self-satisfaction and indulgence?
Off-topic:
I love the way Szer almost always gets my nick wrong. It's most cute.
We ARE told why Amit's family moved so often - there was a mention of the dad setting up new factories or something.
I too felt a bit surprised that none of them seemed worried about their future. But Jai does think a job is the means of income and self-respect. He does mention job interviews. Aditi has rich parents, and doesn't seem to be sure yet what to do. Meghna, of course, lives in an escape world anyway - she doesn't look like she's going to take her life into her own hands: she'll just drift along. We see little of the hopes and aspirations of the other characters, apart from in the romantic sense.
??!: Actually, the 'being liked' bit is a non sequitur in the present context. I will have to do explicatory post.
unmana: Really? I missed that. But as background character sketches go, that's pretty fleeting, wouldn't you say?
Sorry, but this film was imitation popcorn with loads of "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter" on top.
Look, I am often guilty of "if-it's-Saturday-night-we-should-watch-Virgin Spring-for-the-fourteenth-time" snobbishness but this film simply does not fulfill the genre's expectations.
(Which raises the question: what genre does this film belong to?)
Here's the ultimate test for a film about young people: if it does not make me want to be 21 again, I think it has failed fundamentally. At the very least, Jaane Tu should have made me HATE 21 year-olds :) This one left me cold and neutral.
you have got some testimonies from real 21 year olds here only. so may be I sound like a bitter man in his late twenties!
I know 21 year olds who are more cynical, more focused on their immediate future and the money they're going to make and the ladders they're going to climb than this lot.
Yes, but they are just like their partying counterparts, aren't they? both are ruled by Conformity and false certainties. Where are doubts, fears, anxieties, curiosity, genuine excitement, sense of possibilities, awkwardness - in short "individuality" that defines what it is to be young? purely from materialist perspective life has never been easier for young people as it is now, and that's one explanation. At least you don't have to really worry too much about things like a normal job or a normal career anymore.
and totally agree with KM's criteria of judging films about young people.
I haven't seen the film, obviously, and don't intend to (obviously), but since the film sounds fairly generic anyway, I may as well comment.
I'm not sure about your claim that films like this set our teeth on edge because they are 'unrealistic' or because we know better. It's not hard to believe that at least some 21 year olds are empty-headed and think of nothing but parties (and I don't think 'today' comes into it, I would argue that's always been true - remember Browning on Venice?) and it seems fairly likely that these airheads would hang out with each other so the fact that every 21 year old in the movie seems to fall into that category isn't surprising either.
What is surprising (at least to me) is that anyone would want to make a movie about these characters, at least one that takes their inane lives seriously. It's not that these characters are unreal so much as they're uninteresting; people like this do exist in real life, but in real life we make every effort to avoid them, which is why it's so annoying to find yourself in a movie theater spending hours with these creatures and being expected to take an interest in their trivial lives.
ah I feel much better now after reading falstaff's comment. I am not as bitter as I thought I was ;)
there are so many great films and books about young people who lead trivial lives. It all depends on the writer-artist and yes it also depends on how seriously you take them as characters and human beings. You will get to know of truths that even dramas about "serious" people wouldn't have... But yes that is like asking for a new Fellini and a new I Vitelloni in Bollywood!!
Ok, guys, I think you're missing this bit in the paragraph everyone's debating here. I (also) said, I refuse to believe (if we consider that what the camera sees is an exact representation of what the characters see) that nobody sees beyond their little sad worlds of midnight 'surprise' birthday parties, *snip* etc.
Which is to say, my refusal to believe (or not) what kids are like today is only one half of my ostrich act. The other bit has to do with representation. Films can be about loser types while being intelligent. Take Wong Kar-Wai, for example.
How is a director to separate the inner and outer lives of his characters if not cinematically? If there's anything else going on in these people's stupid heads, we're given no indication of it - not by a glance, not by a passing shot somewhere that says something else about their milieu, their city, or their place in a larger world. It's not just a myopic film, it positively celebrates blindness.
I'm reminded of this quote by Martin Amis in his The War Against Cliche. In a review of Pride and Prejudice, he accuses Austen of completely abandoning Lydia:
"And here, I think, the reader begins to feel that artists should know better than that; we expect them to know better than that. We expect artists to stand as critics not just of their particular milieu but of their society, and of their age. They shouldn't lose sight of their creations at exactly the same point that 'respectability'--or stock response--loses sight of them."
What I'm trying to say is, 21 year olds are (even the empty headed ones) more complex than Tyrewala portrays them. They may be unendurable in real life, but as a filmmaker, surely there is something he can say about even the most vapid character in a way that does not exactly mirror his or her vapidity?
(all of which leaves me wondering why I did enjoy the film. I can only conclude that it's like eating a large, calorific snack that you regret eating the instant you're done with it.)
spending hours with these creatures and being expected to take an interest in their trivial lives
Or having to read their blogs?
Alok:
Nobody is as bitter as they think they are, once they've met Falsie.
"The alternate interpretation is a little scary to contemplate. That would be the one where the film is a true reflection of the world of college-going kids today."
"...that nobody sees beyond their little sad worlds of midnight 'surprise' birthday parties, college-leaving parties, drives in cars, cosy chats on beds, stairs, sea fronts, dining tables and on the manicured lawns of mansions."
Jesus you're scary. First piece on the film that made me fundamentally insecure about myself!
"I prefer to think of a film as a muted manifesto for the escapist fantasy genre, where what is uncomfortable is glossed over... for the tinsel that makes the drabness of daily life bearable."
Shit. I think so. I sure hope so. Damn you all for ruining my sleep tonight.
Love,
Abbas Tyrewala.
Okay, okay, so I'm bitter and cynical. Like you didn't know this already (and yes, ??!, their blogs too).
The operative phrase in my last comment is 'at least one that takes their inane lives seriously', by which I meant (though perhaps not quite clearly) one that accepts their representations of themselves at face value, without trying to probe, question or expose it in any way. I'm perfectly aware that it's possible to create art out of the lives of the inane, but to do that you have to either delve beneath their surface to explore their inwardness, or place it in perspective and approach it at an amused / ironic distance. The film, based on everything I've read, does neither.
So, SB, I agree entirely with your second criticism - that the camera should do more than take these characters at face value - though I confess it wasn't clear to me from your post that you were making that point at all. In any case, I wasn't really commenting on that paragraph, but on an earlier paragraph where you talk about "an escape into a fantasy that sets your teeth on edge, because you believe you see the world for what it is". My point is that my teeth aren't set on edge because I believe I see the world for what it is, but because I find this particular form of escape - an escape, on the film maker's part, into cliche rather than into imagination - fundamentally uninteresting. Much of, say, Lubitsch or Billy Wilder, is an escape into fantasy too, but that doesn't mean it sets my teeth on edge.
Of course, the other solution to the problem is to start with a set of more interesting characters. Separating the inner and outer lives of your characters is a good idea, but as Alok suggests it may be a lot to ask. A potentially less demanding compromise is to start with a set of characters who are more original and interesting in the first place - that way you can not separate the inner and outer lives of your characters but still achieve something that is better than 'popcorn'.
I'm not sure how I took such an extreme position yesterday. That was not my intention at all. It's not a comprehensive review, after all, so I'm excusing my own patchily argued thoughts.
I'm doing another post.
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