Movies I Love: July 2011

Sunday, July 31, 2011

HUM DIL DE CHUKE SANAM (1999)

Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam is a 1999 Bollywood film directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali. It was released in the English-speaking world as Straight from the Heart. The film stars Salman Khan, Ajay Devgan, and Aishwarya Rai. The story is adopted from Maitreyi Devi's Bengali novel Na Hanyate, and is based on a love triangle.

It was filmed throughout the Gujarat-Rajasthan border region, in addition to Budapest, Hungary, which was used to represent Italy.

PLOT :
Nandini (Aishwarya Rai) is the daughter of Pandit Darbar (Vikram Gokhale), renowned proponent of Indian classical music, living in the Rann of Kutch. Nandini has been brought up with more freedom and education than her siblings, as she is the most beloved of Pandit Darbar.

Into this carefree life enters Sameer (Salman Khan), a boy of Indo-Italian parentage who wants to learn Indian classical music from Pandit Darbar. Sameer stays with the Darbar family, and Nandini is asked to vacate her room to give the guest the nicest room in the manor. Nandini takes a dislike to Sameer, and the two keep playing pranks on each other, but soon realise they are in love. Their love blossoms in the Darbar household around weddings, festivals and family get-togethers.

One day the pair are caught rehearsing their wedding vows and dreaming of their future together by Pandit Darbar, who becomes furious with them. He has already planned Nandini's wedding. Sameer is kicked out of the house and asked never to contact Nandini again. Sameer does not leave India immediately. He stays in town and writes letters to Nandini asking her to join him, but his letters do not reach her in time.

Nandini's parents have arranged to get her married to Vanraj (Ajay Devgan) — who had fallen in love with Nandini during her cousin's wedding. On the wedding night, Vanraj realises that Nandini is not herself and tries to ask her why she is not responding to his love. He asks her for the truth, promising he will help her no matter what. Nandini stays quiet but is later caught reading Sameer's letters. Vanraj is very angry at first as all he had asked was the truth from her.

When he realises that his wife is in love with another man, he shows the ultimate love by taking Nandini to Italy and help her search for Sameer, much to the dislike of his own parents.

Nandini and Vanraj arrive in Italy and start searching for Sameer but always come up against dead ends. During their search, they face many problems and dilemmas and slowly Nandini gets to see what Vanraj really is like. She sees Vanraj selflessly devoting himself to caring for her during her stay in hospital after an incident.

Eventually they get news about Sameer through his mother (played by Helen), and Vanraj arranges for Nandini to meet Sameer on the night of his debut concert. His job done, Vanraj says goodbye to Nandini and walks away. Nandini and Sameer meet, but the matured Nandini's feelings for him have changed. She reflects on the unwavering love and devotion that Vanraj showed her throughout their whole relationship, and realises that Vanraj was her true soul mate. She leaves Sameer and catches up with Vanraj.

RECEPTION :
Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was well received by most critics. In particular, Aishwarya Rai was lavishly praised in her role, which many critics considered to be sensitively played by the actress.The film was a hit at the Indian box office, becoming the third highest grossing of the Bollywood films of 1999. It also did well in the foreign box office, which was mostly credited to Aishwarya Rai's box office draw among NRIs. As such, the film is considered to be a breakthrough role for her, not only winning her critical acclaim, but also cementing her box office stature.

SOUND TRACK
The music was composed by Ismail Darbar, with lyrics by Mehboob. It received nine Filmfare Awards nominations in the music and singing categories, and produced some winners as well.

Track listing

#	Song	Singer(s)	Length
1	"Aankhon Ki Gustakhiyan"	Kumar Sanu and Kavita Krishnamurthy	05:00
2	"Albela Sajan"	Ustad Sultan Khan, Shankar Mahadevan, Kavita Krishnamurthy	03:20
3	"Chand Chupa Badal Mein"	Udit Narayan and Alka Yagnik	05:46
4	"Dholi Taro Dhol Baaje"	Kavita Krishnamurthy, Vinod Rathod, Karsan Sagathia	06:16
5	"Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam"	Kavita Krishnamurthy, Mohammed Salamat, Dominique	06:45
6	"Jhonka Hawa Ka"	Hariharan and Kavita Krishnamurthy	05:46
7	"Kaipoche"	Shankar Mahadevan, KK, Damayanti Bardai, Jyotsna Hardikar	05:03
8	"Love Theme"	Kavita Krishnamurthy, Shankar Mahadevan	02:11
9	"Man Mohini"	Shankar Mahadevan	02:25
10	"Nimbooda"	Kavita Krishnamurthy and Karsan Sagathia	06:20
11	"Tadap Tadap"	KK and Dominique	06:36

NAMASTEY LONDON (2007)

NO ONE KILLED JESSICA (2011)

No One Killed Jessica is a 2011 Bollywood film starring Rani Mukerji and Vidya Balan, produced by UTV Spotboy and directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, who had earlier directed the acclaimed film Aamir (2008).

The film has music by Amit Trivedi, who also composed the soundtrack for Dev D (2009). Vidya Balan plays the character of Jessica’s elder sister, Sabrina Lal, Rani is set to play a reporter.Upon release, the film met with positive critical and box office reception.

The political thriller, set in New Delhi, is based on the media coverage of the controversial Jessica Lal murder case. The director clarified that the title and the script are actually inspired by a headline carried out by The Times of India in 2006, when the accused in the infamous murder case were acquitted by the lower courts, leading to nationwide protests, reopening of the case and subsequent sentencing of the accused, and not the case per se.

The film, No One Killed Jessica is based on the true story of Jessica Lall, a Delhi-based model, who was shot in 1999 at a New Delhi restaurant by Manish Bhardwaj, alias Manu, the son of an influential Haryana politician.

Jessica, along with actor and model Vikram Jai Singh, was closing the restaurant's bar for the evening when approached by Manu and two friends. Infuriated by Jessica's refusal to serve them drinks after the bar closed, Manu fatally shoots Jessica. The powerful family connections of the accused intimidated witnesses. It then became an uneven battle between Jessica’s family, especially her sister Sabrina and the politically-backed and influential family of the accused.

In February 2006, the court acquitted Manu and other accused due to lack of sufficient evidence setting off a public outcry and widespread protests. The backlash from the initial acquittal forced the re-opening of the investigation. In December 2006, Manu was found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The film was released on 7 January 2011. It received positive reviews from critics. No One Killed Jessica opened quite well and got positive feedback from audience.The film recovered its cost before release through satellite and music rights.

No One Killed Jessica received a number of positive reviews. Nikhat Kazmi of the Times of India gave the movie four stars out of five stating, "No One Killed Jessica is a film that unleashes a myriad emotions in you. The hard facts of modern India's most written about case are well known by almost everybody but the director Rajkumar Gupta's (he'd already displayed his talent in Aamir) dramatic handling of the crime, the criminals, the crusaders and the victim creates a storm, once again."Taran Adarsh of Bollywood Hungama also rated the film 4/5 and described it as "a remarkable blend of facts and fiction inspired by a series of real-life episodes, which has thankfully not been presented as a tedious biography or in a mind-numbing docu-drama format." Anupama Chopra of NDTV while rating the film three stars out of five wrote, "No One Killed Jessica is several notches ahead of the tripe we’ve been subjected to in theatres lately." Rajeev Masand of CNN-IBN gave the film two and a half stars out of five and wrote, "With the exception of a few powerful scenes that leave you with a genuine lump in your throat, Gupta goes for full-on melodrama that doesn't always ring true." Mayank Shekhar of the Hindustan Times gave it three stars and argues, "Can a feature film, in a couple of hours flat, ever detail an entire truth about anything? Possibly not. But it can entertainingly dramatise it. That’s what the fine director-writer and a consummate raconteur here (Rajkumar Gupta) manages to do." Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan wrote that this film is a "pertinent, media friendly and brave effort by the makers. The performances living up to the title and story of the film."