Review: Veer-Zaara
Baradwaj Rangan
VEER-ZAARA
Baradwaj Rangan
(C) The New Sunday Express - Nov. 21, 2004
Samiya Siddiqui (Rani Mukerji) is a Pakistani lawyer whose client is
Veer Pratap Singh (Shah Rukh Khan), an Indian incarcerated in Lahore,
and a Hindu who happens to be... 'qaidi' No. 786. That's right, the
jail's sole non-Muslim is identified by Islam's holiest number.
Such a plot point can make you suppress one of two things: a sniffle,
or a shudder -- and Yash Chopra's 'Veer-Zaara', like most of his work
'Chandni' onwards, is unmistakably aimed at those who carry an extra
handkerchief to the movies. That this is a love story is a given --
the title itself echoes the likes of Heer-Ranjha and Laila-Majnu,
twosomes joined by a hyphen if not by destiny -- but Chopra is after
something more. When Veer first meets Zaara (Preity Zinta), he
observes, "Uska ek baal uski daayen aankh ko pareshaan kar raha tha."
This is _that_ kind of love story -- no mere 'prem kahani', but, in
Veer's own words, a 'Mohabbat Ki Dastaan'.
So you expect emotions that rage like forest fires, grand passions
that engulf everything in sight -- and what you get is at best a
flickering candle flame, because 'Veer-Zaara', really, is more the
work of a diplomat than a director.
Samiya wants to win her case not because, oh, lawyers generally like
to win, but because she wants to prove that A Woman Can Be As Good A
Lawyer As A Man. Zaara, a Pakistani, comes to India, meets Veer, and
leaves for home -- but not before traipsing through The Lush Fields of
the Punjab, experiencing The Festival of Lohri, and dispensing random
musings about The Need to Educate Young Girls. The film finally ends
after a posterior-numbing three-and-a-half hours, but only after a
climax where we learn that Pakistan Really Really Loves and Respects
India. Even the utterly unscrupulous lawyer played by Anupam Kher
isn't allowed to escape before being made to realise The Value of
Truth and Justice.
Almost everyone here is suffused with more goodness and noble
intentions than a truckload of missionaries -- and nothing's more
fatal to a love story. You want spirit, charm, mischief, defiance; you
get tears, sacrifice, tears, obedience, tears, honour... did I mention
tears? Rajendra Kumar and Sadhana, perhaps, could be expected to carry
off such old-fashioned values, such old-fashioned moviemaking -- but
Shah Rukh Khan and Preity Zinta?
Why is Veer in prison? What happens to Zaara? Where does Samiya fit
into all this? Why does this movie keep reminding us of 'Gadar' and
'Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge'? So maybe not the last one, but the
rest are questions the answers to which we're meant to breathlessly
anticipate -- and we well may have, had there been more moments like
the one where Veer declares his love for Zaara at a railway station,
or the 'Jaanam Dekh Lo' song sequence (the sole standout in a
soundtrack full of unused Madan Mohan compositions) where visions of
an absent Veer envelop Zaara, or the warm, funny rustic interlude
involving Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini. Every now and then, these
are glimpses of what 'Veer-Zaara could' -- _should_ -- have been.
It helps somewhat that this is one supremely good-looking movie, with
good-looking people in good-looking clothes in good-looking locations.
(When Zaara wakes up in the morning -- in a bed whose square-footage
could house a family of four in Mumbai -- there isn't a hint of
drowsiness; she looks all set to leave for Pakistan's equivalent of a
Page 3 do.) The three leads don't exactly blaze a trail with their
performances -- that's done by Manoj Bajpai, as Zaara's fiancé, the
most grey-shaded (and therefore the most fascinating) character around
-- but they do effortlessly radiate the sort of star-wattage so
necessary for this kind of film, which is, after all, about what's
missing in our everyday lives.
Yet 'Veer-Zaara' never quite becomes larger than life. It never
becomes the mythic romantic fantasy we seek, because, in trying to be
evenhanded to everyone, the movie reminds us of reality, of the
constraints and considerations that come into play when Indo-Pak
issues are involved.
The movie also reminds us of how pervasive Yash Chopra's influence has
become. At the beginning, wisps of cloud melt into golden sunlight,
sunflowers raise their heads in endless fields -- and this cheery
brightness abruptly cuts away to the depressing, blue-grey tones of a
prison cell. It's a visual coup, all right, but also one that reminds
you of how -- three years ago, in the far-more-entertaining 'K3G' --
the cheery brightness of the 'Bole Chudiyan' number abruptly cut away
to the depressing, blue-grey tones of the Raichand mansion. Sadly, it
appears that Yash Chopra isn't the best maker of Yash Chopra movies
anymore.