Guzaarish and the mixed virtues of restraint

[SPOILERS GALORE!]

In a way Bhansali over-learnt the Saawariya box office lesson in Guzaarish. The operatic instincts this director has struggled with throughout his career have resulted in a fairly uneven set of films where the blend of linear narrative and hyper-stylized visual form has usually been a work in progress. These efforts have seemed overwrought, featuring the atmospherics of grand opera without necessarily the passions associated with the genre. From his earliest Khamoshi through his transitional Devdas his meandering narratives often undid his signature strengths, with Black he perhaps found what is to date his best marriage between intent and form (though Bachchan’s triumphant and really over-powering presence here can scarcely be overlooked.. a star who could provide Bhansali’s operatic vehicle with grand presence and grand passion at one and the same time) but it is with Saawariya that the director really came closest to realizing the ‘logic’ of his concerns than anywhere else. The overt theatricality and ‘staging’ of the film’s dreamscape coupled with its Broadway musical time-scheme offers the best index of Bhansali’s vision despite its somewhat insipid narrative. Possibly the hysterically negative reaction the latter received in every sense forced Bhansali to back track quite a bit. Guzaarish is his most even narrative with the exception of Black, a film where the classic Bhansali tension is far less apparent. Regrettably, and ironically, the strengths of this work are also achieved at the cost of Bhansali’s usual formal elan. By his standards the director has made a quieter, much more restrained work but it is also one that seems starved of oxygen sometimes. Almost as if the director were constantly looking over his shoulder at Saawariya. Inasmuch as he perhaps tried to avoid the latter he should also have cast fresher eyes on Black. This in effect was the kind of film Guzaarish could have been but is not. To the degree that Bhansali has constantly sought ‘un-Indian’ inspiration in these last three films of his from Black (Miracle Worker) to Saawariya (Dostoyevsky’s White Nights but really Visconti’s film version of the same) to Guzaarish (The Sea Inside with an admixture of the Prestige) he has at least managed to create newer (albeit ‘neverland’) worlds with the material. Irrespective of the inspirations one could not really think these films looked like anything else. Not so with Guzaarish where Bhansali plays it safe. He borrows far too much and is not quite the magician to give it new life. For all this Guzaarish is actually one of his better films all round, certainly very accessible as a narrative but it is also less interesting that some of its predecessors, ultimately far less vital than it might have been. It is not a film to dislike even if one does not enjoy it. It is also not one that particularly stirs. Guzaarish is perhaps a Khamoshi-like effort Bhansali might have made with the experience of Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam and a great deal of the narrative fat cut out from both films but it is not the heir to Black or Saawariya.

There are definitely triumphant moments in Guzaarish. The magic sequences with the younger Ethan are superbly handled and even if derivative (Prestige, Illusionist) are still the film’s most entrancing ones, not least in a formalistic sense and including the staging of the ‘accident’. Similarly some of the ‘little’ scenes from the raindrops falling on Ethan’s forehead and his inability to avoid them to his insistence that his nurse smash a vase for his anger to find expression. There are such genuine instances of emotion in the film. Bhansali however never allows this sort of element to become the defining feature of his work and keeps getting distracted with major and minor subplots. The magician’s apprentice was simply not needed, nowhere is Ethan shown very interested in furthering his legacy except when the apprentice shows up. There is beyond this never enough of a relationship developed between the two. By the time a twist is revealed at the end that too seems absurdly forced. Along the same lines Ethan’s former assistant and love interest pops out of nowhere only to be cast into narrative oblivion as quickly. Sofia’s abusive husband weirdly decides to complicate things twelve years into his wife’s unusual lifestyle choice. The courtroom sequences though dramatically effective take up far too much time in this relatively short film and seem implausible. Ethan’s mother interrupts the proceedings from time to time without any very good reason. In general certain vestiges of a much more commercial format creep into this film from time to time. It is not that the narrative ever gets derailed but that with every such move a great bit of the film’s characterizations are lost and what could certainly have amounted to its cumulative emotional strengths is sacrificed. Most strangely and perhaps in another instance of Bhansali not being too sure about his audience the ‘suicide’ that is the very raison d’etre of the film is completely effaced at the end. Instead we are left with a happy family reunion of an ending with its parallel wake moment beyond which no one need see the messy business of mercy killing. There is some unintentional black humor here mixed with a more standard teary-eyed farewell. Bhansali’s indulgences in recent films have not been of this sort. He has not been distracted in quite this manner. Guzaarish hearkens even in this sense to his earlier films. But those works promised far less than this one to begin with. Here the director had a lot of elements in place and just needed to concentrate on the ‘basics’. With the choices he has made however even his leads seem to be at the head of a procession of characters as opposed to being the engine of his film. Once more to the extent one is disappointed with Guzaarish it is not because one does not like what is on display but one senses the far greater possibilities that were compromised, not least when one compares it to its obvious inspiration, the Sea Inside, a film it is inferior to by an order of magnitude.

But it is not only the detours that unhinge this film even if in almost imperceptible ways. Hrithik Roshan’s central performance is also a very scattered one where the actor is off key on several important occasions. Admittedly Roshan has always been more ‘star’ than ‘actor’ but he might have exhibited greater control and evennness than he does here. It is a very earnest effort in many ways and this unfortunately shows as does Roshan’s inability to enact many shades of this character. One is for example a bit surprised to discover intonations from his Koi Mil Gaya character in some of the introductory portions. In a different sense his attempts at anger and frustration seem quite over the top. In Jodhaa-Akbar Hrithik did far better because Gowariker established a correspondence between Hrithik ‘the star’ and the received, romantic image of Akbar the emperor. To be impressed by the star in the film was to feed one’s mythologization of Akbar. Of course Gowariker’s film for all its own narrative messiness was a historical romance. The decision therefore paid off. But here in Guzaarish just the star will not do. Bhansali rather consciously renders Hrithik as Jesus and this offers a clue to the difficulties of this character. Jesus remains opaque to the historical record and therefore cannot be an adequate model for any sort of performance or ‘character’ (a question incidentally that Dostoyevsky struggled with quite a bit). Unless of course the part is that of Jesus! It is as if Bhansali would sometimes like Ethan to be a Jesus-type, an ideal sufferer, and sometimes a real ‘secular’ flesh and blood character with lots of negative emotion. For all this Hrithik manages to be endearing for most of the film and somehow takes one through the narrative. This happens because the star’s greatest strength has been his ability to play off a more vulnerable self. His father has always masterfully chaneled this aspect of his persona. Elsewhere the star has far less interestingly resorted to preening. Guzaarish allows Hrithik for all his limitations to operate in that space of vulnerability and at least aim for a more ‘sincere’ performance. In effect the star does make ‘contact’ with the viewer in significant ways but this is not of the order of an adequate performance let alone the ‘great’ one many of the reviewers have imagined it to be.

As a contrast this is one of Aishwarya Rai’s most successful star turns. It might not even be hyperbolic to state that she is possibly the film’s most ‘authoritative’ presence. More in control of her skill set and her signature than Hrithik, more effective than anyone else in the film. The film might have sunk without her foil. Even as Hrithik is expectedly impressive as a magician and especially with the choreography where he arguably delivers some of his best career moments it is ultimately Aishwarya’s ‘mime’ and dance in ‘Udi’ that are even more mesmerizing. This is truly a star at the height of her powers.She has over time developed a formidable star signature and has deployed it with increasing potency in a number of films. Guzaarish adds an impressive chapter to a career which even if it is has never had the ‘infinite variety’ of the pure actress seems nowhere close to being ‘withered’ with ‘age’. It would not be too harsh to state that Aishwarya is what Hrithik has been unable to become so far.

The one decision that Bhansali gets absolutely right in the film is to use only snippets from his rather dull and meandering soundtrack and mostly as part of the background score. Except for the ‘Udi’ number. Yet he perhaps goes a bit too far by not allowing more than a moment or two even from the title track. All of this along with a greater reliance on ‘silence’ again makes for a quieter Bhansali soundtrack than any of his previous efforts where even in the otherwise admirable Black the score was simply ‘too much’.

Finally one could argue with the oddly ‘period’ setting of the interiors or the lack of interplay between the vast spaces of Ethan’s grand residence (which incidentally makes his condition seem far less claustophobic than it otherwise might have been.. again the oppressiveness of Bhansali’s past visual choices would have served this film well) and the almost non-existent ‘outdoors’ of this film (so much of the work is about the character’s inability to break free of his immediate surroundings and yet the viewer must have a sense of what the character has really been missing.. one of many things the Spanish film does extraordinarily well). There are other ‘trifles’ to be picked here as well but those do not get to the heart of this work’s ‘problem’.

This might seem like a very critical piece on a film that I actually liked quite a bit and believe to be one of Bhansali’s better efforts. But a film must be judged by the possibilities it misses out on based on the premises it has set up. I would hesitate to call Guzaarish an unsuccessful film even allowing for everything I have just discussed. However, it is certainly one that settles for far less than it might have. And more crucially Bhansali’s restraint though understandable in the wake of Saawariya has not led him to the optimal set of choices given his instincts and his history and equally the ‘needs’ of his subject. Guzaarish is still a film I would rather see than most others from this director but I also await a better compromise than this to follow up on Black and Saawariya.