A film with a difference - Review of movie Padmavat
Amidst of controversies about the role of Rani Padmavati Devi, after censors and intervention of courts, the much awaited Hindi movie 'Padmavati' with a title change 'Padmavat' finally hit the theatre screens all over India. A classic film of recent times, the movie steels the show and a brief review is presented in this article.
Introduction
Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali is an efficient Director and Movie Maker in handling historical movies with good screenplay. His movies – Devdas, Black, Bajirao Mastani and Ramleela are the showpieces of his caliber and were big hits at Box office.The controversial film 'Padmavat' at last seen the light of the day and released all over India in 4800 theaters on 25th Jan'18. As expected the Karni Sena continued its fight not to screenplay the movie and reports are coming in from some states about incidents of violence. Keeping that aside, the movie is doing well and wrote another success story of the Director.
The movie revolves round three main characters Padmavati lead role portrayed by Deepika Padkone, Alauddin Khliji role acted by Ranveer Singh and Rajah Ravat Ratan Singh played by Shahid Kapoor.s
The portrayal of the characters Padmavati, Khilji and Ratan Singh is really marvelous and the creativity of Director is well displayed in the screen play.
The story line
Padmavati is the young princess of the kingdom Ceylon. She is fond of hunting and a very good huntress herself. One day she goes for hunt very far and one of her arrows hit the king of Chittorgarh Ratan Singh. The king gets wounded and Princess Padmavati tries to help him by giving first aid. The beauty of the princess made King Savant to forget his pain and soon both of them fall in love. Love at first sight leads to their marriage and both of them leave for their kingdom Chittorgarh. Everything goes very fine till their rift with Rajguru Raghav Ketan. He was expelled by the king at the behest of the new queen Padmavat.The Rajguru takes asylum in the court of Alauddin Khiliji , the Sultan of Delhi. There he plays all his tricks against Ratan Singh and praises the beauty of Padmavati. Allavuddin declares war against Chittorgarh and captivates rattan Singh and brings him to Delhi. The story starts here how the brave Rani Padmavti fights with Khilji and tries to save her husband and what were the conditions laid by Khilji, whether accepted by the Rani and the final crusade are to be seen only on the screen.
A cinema making with difference
As we all are aware of the controversy about the picture and the row that has created about the characterization of Rani Padmavati, our attention goes towards the sequel of events in the picture. But it has its values with commercial elements that goes with flow of events and makes it beautiful picture of modern times. Credit goes to Bhansali for giving such neat and clean movie to the audience. The dialogues bring applause from audience and the background score is quite good.The portrayal of the character of Alauddin Khilji with the ambition of expansion of his Sultanate by conquering other kingdoms and his affinity towards women makes him to be a villain in the picture. Ranveer Singh performed very well in this role.The romance and love between Padmavati and Ravat Singh added commercial element and the song 'Ghumar' by Shreya Ghosal and Swaroop Khan is a highlight to the cinema. It was already a hit song and it was more impressive with the action of Deepika and Shahid on the screen. The first half runs very smoothly with all these factors well screened and the second half takes you into the real action and motto of the Director of the movie. The fighting spirit of the Rajputs and the sacrificing nature of their queens were well depicted. The 'Bahubali' movie has created a trend in the showing the 'war' scenes and this particular movie lags behind it while establishing the war episode.
Sum up
The controversy that raked up about the movie and the role of Rani Padmavati in some states particularly in Rajasthan makes the audience more curious about the film and actress Deepika for her role. But nothing against the pride of Rajputs and queen Padmavati can be pointed out and we are not aware whether the scenes were existing or removed after censor. In fact, the picture enhances the glory of Rajputs and the valour of Rani Padmavati. More of it, Khilji well known for Tax reforms which were followed by the succeeding emperors was totally projected as a villain and Rajputs as real heroes. It can be concluded that Bhansari did justice to all characters and this is definitely one of the neat and clean films in recent times.Star cast: Ranveer Singh,Shahid Kapoor, Deepika Padkone, Aditi Rao and Raja Mura
Music: Sanjay Leela Bhansari and Sudip Balhara
Producers: sanjay Leela bhansari, Ajay Andhare
It's a film by Bhansali productions.
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Nice that the author has written this with an unbiased view and not given out how the movie ends. After the initial ban, out of interest, I watched and found no obvious derogatory parts that justify the violence and riots we had earlier. It is obvious that the controversy helped in generating more crowds to watch the movie just to find what the excitement was all about. This has certainly improved the revenues.
People who have watched Bhaubali, should not expect the same here in Padmavati. A great deal of attention has been paid to the sets and clothes. All three lead artists have done well. I liked Ranveer who has yet again managed to sink into his character very well with intensity.
I think, from the incidents around this movie right from the making to the final release, it has important lessons for all, the movie industry, the pro-faith outfits and importantly the public. A great deal of maturity and common sense from both parties would have saved all the trouble for us.