Dev Anand dies at age 88

Dev Anand died at age 88 on December 3 in London (December 4 India time).

Source: cinemachaat.wordpress.com via Julie on Pinterest

I had to include this because my husband had a crush on Tanuja.

Jodhaa Akbar

I admit it: I have not seen Jodhaa Akbar. Still, I believe that banning or boycotting a movie is ultimately counterproductive, as people will become curious and want to see the movie, rather than let it die a natural death. Besides, the movie will be made available through YouTube or Google Videos: for example, the Bachchans successfully got the kissing scene between Aishwarya Rai and Hrthik Roshan in Dhoom 2 removed, after a PIL was filed and Rai was engaged to Abhishek Bachchan. However, the scene became freely available through YouTube.

From what I've read, the mainstream Indian media believes that the issue is the dubious historicity of the woman Jodhaa Bai. Anything beyond that is simply anti-Muslim sentiment, given that the story is a romance between the Muslim Akbar and the Hindu Jodhaa Bai: follow the line of questioning that interviewer Anuradha Sengupta puts before Jodhaa Akbar director Ashutosh Gowariker.

About the lack of reference to Akbar's harem, Gowariker says:

... the story in my hands had reached a length of three hours and 20 minutes. There are many more things in Akbar and Jodhaa's life that I would have loved to bring to the screen but I cannot because it goes beyond the scope of the film.

On the other hand, he says:

When I looked at the scope of the film, I realised I cannot bring it in because I think this kind of film needs the tehzeeb, the salaams, the duas, the announcements of an emperor coming into court. Because it is due to these that the right ambiance, the right atmosphere is created.

The main problem, as I see it, is that the film denies Akbar's persecution of Hindus, the abduction of Hindu women into his harem, and the Jauhar of women when defeat of the Rajputs at Akbar's hands was inevitable.

Anuranan

Rahul Bose as Rahul and Raima Sen as Preeti in Anuranan

It's not often that one finds Bengali language films playing in movie theaters in the U.S. (unless it's a retrospective of the films of Satyajit Ray), so on a lark, I persuaded my husband to take me to see Anuranan.

Anuranan is about two couples: the dreamy/poetic Rahul (Rahul Bose) and his wife Nandita (Rituparna Sengupta) and driven businessman/domineering husband Amit (Rajat Kapoor) and his repressed wife Preeti (played by Raima Sen, granddaughter of Bengali cinema legend Souchitra Sen). Gradually, Preeti finds that she can find expression for her interests in literature and nature with Rahul. The relationship has tragic consequences.

As with many Bengali offerings, Anuranan is replete with quotations of songs and poems of Tagore. In the way that Anuranan deals with a woman who finds (non-sexual) self-expression through a man other than her husband, it recalls Satyajit Ray's films Charulata and Ghare-Baire, both based on stories by Tagore.