10-20-2015, 05:10 PM
Bollywood at its finest. India's entry for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards that year. And there really isn't much of a Bollywood dance number.
I was interested in this because it stars Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D'Cruz. Priyanka, a former Miss World, plays against type by portraying an autistic woman. And she totally nails it - almost unrecognizable with her performance. Ileana is of interest as she's rumored to be the starlet in the next Jackie Chan project, Kungfu Yoga. She reminded me faintly of Jessica Beals in her prime, only much hotter in that Indian masala spice way. The titular character, Barfi, is a deaf mute troublemaker played by Ranbir Kapoor. The threesome make for the oddest love triangle, for all great Bollywood films are about love - true love, risking it all for love, and most of all, love unrequited. Barfi! reminded me of Italian cinema, even down to the constant presence of a trio of musicians - guitar, violin and accordion - that appears surreally (I know, should be a word) between scenes, stitching this 2.5 hour masterpiece together with an Italian-esque melody. Kapoor is a comedian like Robert Benigni, who darts in and out of physical comedy and lovable melancholy, the underdog, the fool with the golden heart. Even without a major dance number, this film does everything I ask of a Bollywood film, spiriting me away to a cinematic fantasy that's funny, poignant, colorful and insufferably romantic. Full of lush landscapes and panoramas, the plot moves back and forth through time for an ultimately satisfying finale that's so sugary sweet, it can only be from India. So many scenes are poachable, or perhaps they've been poached from other films, but it all comes together beautifully. No sword fights but a quick sword waving scene in the almost dance number. No hallucinations, but the depiction of the world from the view of a deaf person and an autistic is altering.
T was diligently doing her homework and just rolls her eyes at her Dad's Bollywood obsession. S came home from work right during a scene that looked like a violent rape (it wasn't at all) and complained. She failed to recognize Priyanka, as she's also enjoying Quantico. I'm trying to get them to watch this, but they deny Bollywood because it's too long and melodramatic. Either you get Bollywood or you don't.
I was interested in this because it stars Priyanka Chopra and Ileana D'Cruz. Priyanka, a former Miss World, plays against type by portraying an autistic woman. And she totally nails it - almost unrecognizable with her performance. Ileana is of interest as she's rumored to be the starlet in the next Jackie Chan project, Kungfu Yoga. She reminded me faintly of Jessica Beals in her prime, only much hotter in that Indian masala spice way. The titular character, Barfi, is a deaf mute troublemaker played by Ranbir Kapoor. The threesome make for the oddest love triangle, for all great Bollywood films are about love - true love, risking it all for love, and most of all, love unrequited. Barfi! reminded me of Italian cinema, even down to the constant presence of a trio of musicians - guitar, violin and accordion - that appears surreally (I know, should be a word) between scenes, stitching this 2.5 hour masterpiece together with an Italian-esque melody. Kapoor is a comedian like Robert Benigni, who darts in and out of physical comedy and lovable melancholy, the underdog, the fool with the golden heart. Even without a major dance number, this film does everything I ask of a Bollywood film, spiriting me away to a cinematic fantasy that's funny, poignant, colorful and insufferably romantic. Full of lush landscapes and panoramas, the plot moves back and forth through time for an ultimately satisfying finale that's so sugary sweet, it can only be from India. So many scenes are poachable, or perhaps they've been poached from other films, but it all comes together beautifully. No sword fights but a quick sword waving scene in the almost dance number. No hallucinations, but the depiction of the world from the view of a deaf person and an autistic is altering.
T was diligently doing her homework and just rolls her eyes at her Dad's Bollywood obsession. S came home from work right during a scene that looked like a violent rape (it wasn't at all) and complained. She failed to recognize Priyanka, as she's also enjoying Quantico. I'm trying to get them to watch this, but they deny Bollywood because it's too long and melodramatic. Either you get Bollywood or you don't.
Shadow boxing the apocalypse