It's difficult to come out of cinema-hall featuring Bajirao-Mastani without humming ji re..ji re...ji ji re baji, such is the captivating tune featuring wonderful representation of Bajirao's magnificent life. This post is not a review of movie but some thoughts around it. First of all, it's a huge shame that history-text books of Maharashtra causally mentioned one of the greatest warrior of Maratha empire.
The movie has a long disclaimer claiming it has taken artistic liberties to increase the dramatic appeal. When I have this in mind, I'm not sure how much of the movie is truth. Did Mastani seek help from Rao by storming into his tent and impressing him in process or she first met him while being gifted by King Chatrasal? With such basic doubts, I'm not sure how much to believe in Bajirao-Mastani's epic saga as shown in movie. But, it surely made me aware that this part of our history should have been better known.
There have been some protests against the movie since it deviates too much from actual events. I believe protesting against the release of movie is plain stupid since this is one solid attempt in a long time to tell the world about Bajirao-Mastani. But, at the same time I wish Sanjay Leela Bhansali should have been courageous enough to stick to the facts and possibly dropping a song or two, in order to bring more authenticity towards the story-line. In my view, the movie trivializes the great life of Bajirao to a 3-hr entertainment. Bajirao who took Maratha empire to great heights and fought orthodox line of thought to get societies' acceptance for his love, I feel deserves much more respect.
Agreed.
ReplyDeleteAshutosh Gowarikar would have given more justice to script is what I believe, one, by sticking to facts and, second, by reducing songs which script does not demand.
And protest for what? Everything shown in film is relevent in today's life and hence one can assume that whatever shown (the financial decline of peshwas, social unacceptibality of Mastani etc) would have happened, even without going to history books .
And it has worked for Shaniwar Wada as foot falls are all time high after release of this movie.