Anil Kapoor, the forever young, handsome, charming and gallant hero of the mainstream Hindi movies for over two decades since the 1980s, did not appear to be the least bit perturbed when his daughter Sonam decided to making her debut in 'Saawariya', a nebulous film which bombed at the box office. Nine years later, history has repeated itself with his son Harshvardhan entering Bollywood with 'Mirzya' - a dangerously arty film that has opened to near empty theatres in Auckland and elsewhere around the world, apart from making a hardcore cineaste like me sleepy-eyed. But father Kapoor does not seem worried. So 'Mirzya' too seems to be headed for the box-office noose. Who said that fathers don't treat their daughters and sons alike?
To add insult to injury, 'Mirzya's concept is not new. Top director Selvaraghavan's Tamil film 'Irandam Ulagam' (2013) featured fate-crossed lovers crossing worlds between an ancient fantasia and the modern boring one. Alas! It had left me reeling at the one-hundred-and-sixty minute fecklessness of it all.
The otherwise excellent director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra has not learnt any lessons from Selvaraghavan's pitfalls. However, he is amply helped by Pawel Dyllus's superior cinematography with its elegant compositions, smooth gliding shots and beautiful colours, further enhanced by Tubby-Parik's mood-enhancing background score.
Mirzya has two parallel story tracks - one in a vast visually dazzling valley where horses and arrows fly while two lovers try to bravely escape amidst the clan's disapproval. Another transpires in the current-day picturesque Rajasthan where an initially thrilling story of a tiny duel, stumbles into a standard Romeo-Juliet yarn.
Gulzar is not getting any younger and while this does not reflect in his lyrics, it is glaringly evident in his screenplay, which caroms between anaemic stretches, sporadic highs, flaccid jerks and near paralysis. The story track set in that valley of yore is thin enough to pass through a needle's eye. Once you brush aside the CGI fluff (good but not world-class) like skyward arrows piercing fiery asteroids, there is nothing more to witness other than a pair of young lovers eloping on horses and a lot of slo-mo shots which lull you into slumber.
Similar events transpire in the story set in the current era but there is no artistry or smarts in this symmetric act of interspersed narration. The start, however, is inspired. Mehra is an open critic of the Indian education system and it appears he does not dig corporal punishment either - both threads of thought are used to launch a scandalous incident in school corridors. A jazzy humour-laden song is then used to cleverly advance the narration as a small boy plots to escape his fate.
But once girl and boy grow up, the script goes down. Mehra could still have used his sheer directorial exuberance to compensate but such touches are rarely seen here. There is one inspired scene of revelation involving Munish (Harshvardhan Kapoor) and Suchitra (Saiyami Kher) in a stable pierced by blasts of sunlight to compliment the enlightenment. There's another one as Suchitra cozies up to a newcomer while her childhood sweetheart watches in the dark driving rain. If the whole film was packed with soaring arias like these, there would have been no need for music.
At first, I was unable to see Harshvardhan's face clearly, hidden as he is under his moustache, beard and tousled mop of hair. He can act no doubt, but if he has to prove that he can succeed without his father's help, he'll have to do much better. Saiyami Kher gets similar pass-grades for her performance, but she has what Harshvardhan does not - looks to make heads turn.
But 'Mirzya' should not be forgotten. It, along with 'Irandam Ulagam', should be made compulsory lessons at the iconic Film and Television Institute of India so that students of cinema can take note of the narrative mistakes and sluggish pacing, how an ambitious screenplay can be poorly developed, and then learn how all of it can be improved upon.
Rating: 2/5
Director: Rakesh Omprakash Mehra
ISSUE
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