Like the "...in bed" caboose that generally adds a jesty twist to an otherwise bland fortune cookie message, it is the sub-genre that is usually tasked with the responsibility of adding another dimension to the obvious proceedings. Rare in Indian movies, which move with a single-minded devotion of being utterly faithful to the main genre at hand, that an additional layer is tacked on, like in a multi-angle shot, to reveal either an undercurrent or a hidden facet of the main course. There is a subtle difference between adding a layer (or creating a sub-genre) and unknowingly wandering into a different territory.
Gowariker's 'Jodha Akbar' is one among many examples in Indian cinema of a central idea bitten by wanderlust wading into unchartered territories, sometimes to (uninteded) comic effect. On one end stands Akbar, one of the greatest emperors of India and the first of his kind with a pluralistic bent, on the other the end is Jodha, a Rajput princess who becomes an unwitting pawn in the raproachment game played at the royal level, two strong personas, two divergent beliefs and the movie, instead of dealing with this ripe material at hand, goes off into a saas-bahu daily soap mode, making such explosive material of how two religions coexisted under a single roof in such tumultuous times, irrelevant and rendering the rich setup, moot. This is a classic example of layering gone bad. 'Haider' almost pulled it off to a certain extent, setting the Bard's play, Hamlet, in the troubled region of Kashmir, with a son going mad torn between the loyalty to his mother and his hate towards his (step-)father, a telling parallel to the Kashmiri people's fate teetering between the warring neighboring nations. When this equivalent of the Counterpoint (in music) and Cubism (in art) really works, when the sub-genre reveals itself in the ruminations of main themes, it elevates the material from a seemingly terrestrial level to an ethereal plane. But the thought/act of adding layers and subtexts is a conscious one, unlike the regular genre picture which moves along on its own volition. And the trick is finding which two genres to mix and how the extra helping of the layer enhances or comments upon the primary one. Case in point, the ganster genre.
Martin Scorsese, the patron saint of mafia movies in the modern era, always used the gangster context to further explore the machinations of the system, amid the gore, guts and glory, be it Good Fellas (fraternity), Casino (corporate greed), The Departed (absolution of the soul). And there is no better example in this genre than "The Sopranos", a television series about a family, whose patriarch happens to be a mobster, stumbling, struggling and groping its way through life, while everything around it falls apart and the inevitable noose tightens around it, one season at a time. The aim of clubbing the two genres - gangster and family drama - is not merely to humanize the otherwise despicable characters, who are ruthless (bargain) dealers of death, but to heighten the family drama even more, knowing that the Grim Reaper is just outside the door waiting to be let in. At long last, Mani Ratnam takes on this layering business full time, after briefly dabbling in it every once in a while or dipping his feet in on occasion.
The infighting among brothers after the head of the family passes away, each vying either for their just share of the pie or for keeping the whole for themselves, is a theme that continues to play across times and generations, across different social structures, across a variety of work cultures (corporate, underworld, political etc), interestingly, to the same results. After Dhirubhai passes away, the feud that ignited between the Ambani brothers threatening to take down the mighty corporate empire that their dad had painstakingly built over decades, and which was saved at the last moment by their mother, Kokilaben, who publicly stepped on to the stage to bring them together and avert the crisis, is 'Nawab'. The more recent spat in the headlines about the erstwhile heads of Ranbaxy, Fortis pharma empire, the Singh brothers, whose family disputes led to a public falling out and mutual finger pointing, dragging down the credibility of their wellness group, is 'Nawab'. And the innumerable examples in the underworld of chieftains fighting for their share of fiefdoms after the iron fist passes on, from Taliban in Afghanistan to the Mafia scene is Mumbai, 'is 'Nawab'.....which goes on to show, power struggle remains eternal regardless of whether it plays out as hostile takeovers in boardrooms or as ruthless shootouts in broad daylights. And so the term 'turf war' applying equally well to sophisticated as well as the uncouth, the method of excision, precise or bloody, the weapon of choice, a pen stroke or gun fire. 'Nawab' is as old and as eternal as time.
'Nawab' is a very un-Mani Ratnam film, from the writing to the execution, leaning very gently this time on the standard technical excellence, leaving Rahman's score at the door, and depending almost entirely on the plot. Keeping the stylization to a minimum he keeps the proceedings raw and kinetic. How the sons pull each other back and drag each other down as the generational torch passes down to them is the crux of the story. As said, the sibling rivalry, as old as Mahabharata, when sited in different contexts (like Shyam Benegal's gripping retelling of Mahabharata in corporate houses in 'Kalyug') tends to add its own hue to the events, and when the context becomes a mob setup, the stakes become higher and prices are paid in lives. It is interesting how Ratnam remains ruthless and remorseless when dispensing of his characters, for the flimsiest of reasons (and at times, in cartoonish ways). While the obvious parallels to 'Nayagan' and 'Dalapathi' cannot be avoided, it is brave of Ratnam to strip 'Nawab' of the halo and high ground that's usually associated with heroes playing gangsters. His choices are deliberate, unapologetic and matter of fact, much like the women characters in the movie, who are not burdened with the usual suffering, saintly tags. Even though some of the sequences appear often amateurish (specially, the stunt scenes, and some of the editing patterns), specially for one of his caliber, what is heartening is the fact that Ratnam has resolutely stepped out of his comfort zone, stopped hiding behind the technical flourishes to mask the weak(er) content, and dared to completely do away with his 'style'. Now an interesting question would be, would the reaction from the audience to this threadbare style be consistent, if this was not a Mani Ratnam movie? Is the movie brave and interesting only because it is a Ratnam movie gone rogue or is there really something to this raw style? (Very much in the vein of, would 'Dirty Picture' have worked (equally well or at all) had it not been portrayed by someone with a wholesome image?). Sometimes, the allure is more in the intent than the content.
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