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GRAHAN.... |
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Movie: Grahan
Cast: Jackie
Shrof, Manisha Koirala, Anupama Verma and
others
Direction: K.
Shashilal Nair
Music: Kartik Raja
Producer: AvinashAdik, Prakash Jaju
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Grahan promised to be a sensitive and
sensible movie about the traumatic experience of a rape victim and the lawyer who drives
her to insanity. Critically speaking, everything seemed to be working in its favour; a
talented cast and director being supported by a first-time star producer who claimed he
wanted to |
make the audience think rather than talk during his movies. Only
the Lord knows what went wrong? |
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The tale centres around Paro (Manisha Koirala), a happy-go-lucky,
lower class woman who teaches dance to young girls. Sanjay Acharyaa (Prasad Parundare),
the conniving son of the Chief Minister, spots Paro at a dance recital and arranges for
his men to abduct her the following night, when he brutally rapes her. A month later, a
bystander journalist sees Paro�s near lifeless body thrown from a moving van, and
apparently convinces her to take legal stand against her rapist. Sanjay�s dad does not
stop the case, but dies silently of shame during a political rally. When Sunita (Anupama
Verma), Sanjay�s sister and interim leader of her dad�s political dynasty, learns of the
accusations, she is |
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convinced that it is the opposition�s ploy
and elicits the aid of her lawyer fianc�e Jaggu (Jackie Shroff) to serve as her
brother�s defence. Jaggu goes all out and convinces the court that Paro is a prostitute,
driving her to insanity and schizophrenia. When he later realizes she was telling the
truth, Jaggu goes back to try and help right his sins. |
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You will most certainly agree that the story
has considerable potential and would contribute to a most thought-provoking end-product in
the right hands. We had all thought that K. Shashilal Nair, the man who brought us both
Falak and Angaar, would be that person. What a faulty assumption! Nair is clearly lost as
captain of this ship, accepting the most inane screenplay and dialogues for the
proceedings. A director should be responsible for accepting and vetoing all components to
his/her movie and Nair is clearly not up to the task this time. He allows Paro�s
character to be drawn as a mix between Sridevi�s Sadma performance and Tabu�s
Sazaa-E-Kaala-Paani act. If inspiration was necessary, wouldn�t Rekha�s character in
Ghar be a more suitable reference? Koirala tries her best to |
infuse likeability in to Paro, but droopy
eyes and a sullen look is not always enough. She sometimes hams and overacts, particularly
in the pointless and inappropriate choreography and unfolding of the film�s songs. (Poor
Karthik Raja would probably cringe viewing the buffoonery taking place during the videos
to his awesome tunes.) |
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Anupama Verma and Prasad Parundare appear
quite capable of long innings in the film industry, but again, the film fails at providing
them any clear character traits to make them memorable in the audience�s mind. Sunita is
far too akin to Suchitra Sen in Aandhi and Prasad�s villainy seems to be semi-inspired by
Nana Patekar�s old villainy acts. The screenplay writer clearly pulled from too many
external film sources. |
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The editing further mars the
film�s appeal, by jumping from one abbreviated scene to the next. There is little
character development and therefore no chance for the audience to relate to, or sympathize
with the protagonists. For those unaware, let me finally add that Subhash Ghai (Jackie�s
mentor) was brought on in 1998 to view the final product at that stage and make
recommendations. He felt the mood was far too consistently dark for an audience and
changed the original ending to something more uplifting. (Since the film is unlikely to
find many fans, I doubt the eventual DVD release will contain any alternate endings.)
Some fingers will point towards Ghai�s intervention as the cause for much of Grahan�s
failings, but there are far more fundamental problems with the flick. Honestly, it lacks
enough conviction and cohesiveness to be taken seriously by either the intelligentsia or
the masses. Whether it is the producer, director or writer�s fault is hard to say that we
are just peeved I wasted so much time awaiting the release. |
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