Movie Review: Bajirao Mastani, And The Rest Is Not History, Alas

It has that 'swachh' touch,alright. Thank you very much to a fetish for washing up before antique basins, stomping across swirling ponds and trotting past gushing water fountains, the braveheart here is clean, lean and full of beans. Quite a visually spectacular scene.

That's Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bajirao Mastani, a quasi-historical pageant which boggles the eyes, but alas leaves you as cold as a cocktail bucket of ice cubes. Okay, so at the very outset a disclaimer announces the lack of historical authenticity (fine, fine, dramatic licence is excusable), and a series of dedications ensue including a nod to one mysterious Lady Popo.Huh?


Next: you're thrust into a whirligig of sound and flurry signifying precious little than an account of 18th century tittle-tittle tattle punctuated with a special-effects-aided battle or two. How your head rattles.

To be honest, you enter Bhansalipur armed with high hopes but nopes, you're disappointed. You want to be grabbed by the collar with a gripping story. After all, the writer-director-music composer can be a super stylist and nifty narrator, even if originality hasn't exactly been his best suit. You've hooted-'n'-rooted for his Goliyon ki Rasleela: Ram Leela, the romantic rhapsody Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and especially his career kick-starter Khamoshi: The Musical. Sorry,but this endeavour leaves you without a speck of fervour. 

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And it's surely no point in just raving about the sumptuous sets, designer costumes, the thousands of diyas glittering away busily, a shopping mall-full of chandeliers and of course, the elaborate dance set pieces ranging from the warrior general's martial arts boogie woogie to the Pinga pinga lavani in which the leading ladies can't quite match up to the super moves of Bhansali's Dola re dola mehboobas. In any case to rave about the surfacial details would amount to condescension. So there you are, a wannalike Bajistani, afflicted by a serious case of disappointment. Sob.

The fatal snag is that the passion play between Peshwa Baji Rao I (Ranveer Singh) and his amorata Mastani Begum (Deepika Padukone), never really crackles. At most, the Peshwa heals a deep wound on the feisty begum's bare back with a piping hot knife, dips into heavy-duty talk about her beauty. And eureka, he's hell-'n'-heaven-bent on making her his second wife. They even wed, by the way, courtesy a quickie ceremony which involves gifting her a lethal dagger and whaddya know? Now the Begum is as smitten as a baby kitten. Purrr.


At the risk of being humiliated, repeatedly, repeatedly and repeatedly, the Begum - born to a Muslim mom of a Hindu raja - won't give up her faith, her daggerwalla patidev or her penchant for ignoring jibes on the lines of, "You don't seem to be aware of the line between Durga and a durgah." Ouch. No go. Woe. 

Meanwhile, the Peshwa's first wife Kashibai (Priyanka Chopra) who's clueless for the longest time about his basic instincts, grins on and on and yawn. Oddly, a forerunner to Skype - a magic curtain -- reveals the Peshwa in a polygamous clinch which looks straight out of the poster of Mughal-e-Azam. Finito. As for the man's widowed mother (Tanvi Azmi), lensed in the tightest of close-ups, she keeps darting baleful glares when the script can't organise dialogue of the sarcastic lime chutney variety. Shiver your timbers, this old lady is incredibly unkind.


Moreover, a litany of grouchies who can't dig the errant ways of ishq do their own number. The dramatugy getting dumber and dumber. If Bhansali intended to serve the Bajistani liaison as a plea for tolerance, it emerges as a mere gesture of tokenism. Say what has to be said about the need for communal harmony boss. Why gloss? 

Admittedly, there are fleeting asides about high-caste priests breathing fire and brimstone, plus metaphorical allusions to communities appropriating green and orange as colours of their religion. Truly the sub-text of secularism could have been amplified, instead of wandering away into gee-whiz footage showing forts, vaadis and if you please, a very befuddled Nizam seated beside a Life of Pi-style tiger. Wazzat?

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Technically admirable yes, but the influence of K Asif's Mughal-e-Azam (an Aaina Mahal stands in for the Pyaar kiya to darna kya..Sheesh Mahal). Additionally, the dark interiors and night shots recall the TV series Game of Thrones. Sudeep Chatterjee's cinematography is moody and low-key but at several points, stubbornly hazy. How you cheer up to say, "Good morning" when there's a rare day shot.

Overall the performances are sufficiently expert. Deepika Padukone excels in indicating her vulnerability despite a steely exterior. Ranveer Singh is endurable, but the effort to be a lovelorn warrior shows. At most, his is a credible act, not a lacerating one. As for Priyanka Chopra, her role is calculated to garner sympathy which it does. Her diction, with a touch of Marathi, is remarkable. Throughout, your heart goes out to her for playing second fiddle, with grace and gumption.

All seen and heard, should you rush to the multiplex? If you're a tracker of what's hubbling, bubbling, toil and troubling Sanjay Leela Bhansali's mind, yes. Otherwise, flip a coin. Heads, you go. Tails, you save 158 minutes of your life.

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