Jahreszeiten der Liebe - Mausam

Pankaj Kapur is a really talented actor. Even though direction is not his forte, its not unreasonable to have high expectations from an artist of such caliber. The movie starts really well making you feel its a winner. Then comes the feeling that plot is moving bit slowly. You brush it aside as minor flaw and look forward. Finally, after long wait, you expect and want the movie to wrap up soon and you see an intermission flashed on screen. What???? And then follows strings of impossible coincidences. Not once but again and again and again. Topped by desire to have Shahid in every frame of movie and including all depressing religious flashpoints from Kashmir to 9/11 to Gujarat, into a love story finally killed it completely. I felt sad not from the movie but from the fact that it could have been such a good movie. The idea of showing important world evens in the backdrop of a love story is not new. I have seen it executed well in many movies. Can't recall which one was the first and best. But this is the worst. You got to know when to stop. Also, the idea is to write love story and then fit world events that could be plausible. This script decided on sort of unconnected events scattered around the world and then tried to fit the love story around it throwing logic and common sense out of window!!! You got to know that you are losing the grip over logic. Well, lack of common sense is indeed common. In the end despite all the money and technology the Bollywood is really short of basic ingredients of art and originality. There is kin promotion everywhere including Hollywood. However, if kins are only ones everywhere around in almost every Bollywood movie, you know it has really gone too far.....

Let's just cut to the chase here (something I WISH the movie had done): Mausam is a never-ending borefest. I will never be able to recover the 3 hours I spent on this movie, but I will use the next 5 minutes to help you save yours.

The movie tried too hard to be an epic. Other movies that tie together themes of romance and religious / political conflict (Bombay for example) do so with force and passion -- Mausam tries to be subtle, which is all well and good, but when you repeat the subtle message for THREE HOURS it begins to be less subtle, and terribly boring.

Mausam is an epic case of boredom. If I wrote that sentence 2000 times, and forced you to read it, you will get an idea of what this movie is like. Please save your loved ones from this gigantic wastebasket of a movie.

The only redeeming factor in this movie was Sonam Kapoor, who is quite beautiful and does her best to look good while playing an insanely boring character. Shahid Kapoor remains an average actor, but my wife tells me he's very good looking too.

Despite the fact that I am a die-hard fan of the Living Legend, Pankaj Kapoor from almost two decades, I am sorry that I am unable to praise his first film as a director with the same spirits.

The major reason for my dissatisfaction from MAUSAM remains its unexpectedly weak script having such strange sequences of co-incidences where the lead couple, suddenly meet each just like that both within India as well as abroad. And the most bizarre sequence among these was the foreign one (Switzerland), where Shahid is sitting in a train and he discovers Sonam standing there alone in the middle of snowy mountains with her packed bags and she is not even standing on the exact Station platform in a very questionable way. In fact throughout the film, they both keep bumping into each other, as if there is someone truly desperate to write their eternal love story from the sky above. At first they meet in Punjab, then Scotland, Switzerland and then towards the end, finally in Ahmadabad again. Particularly the shift from Punjab to Scotland puzzles the viewer hugely as there is no explanation given for that in the film itself.

The second big factor which works against the film is its near 3 hours long duration which is too lengthy considering its unimpressive story build-up. The whole first hour of the film says nothing except showing the culture of Punjab with some childishly executed comical moments focusing on a particular sect. Truly speaking, I never expected Pankaj Kapoor making fun of few SIKH characters in his self-directed film quite purposefully. As I felt the entire first half of the film could have been easily wrapped up in only 30-40 minutes which eventually could have saved it from getting so uninteresting and even boring. Post intermission too the story has nothing new to say other than the usual plot of misconceptions and gap of communication between the loving couple which becomes the only cause of their separation.

Frankly, in a romantic film, there is a basic requirement that the viewers must feel the love flowing between its lead couple and everyone should be able to relate with their heartbreaking departure from each other. But here, either the proceedings are too dead slow or they just jump from one point to another which never lets the viewer connect with its emotional storyline in the desired manner. MAUSAM is a pure love story of two innocent characters coming from distinctive religions, that's fine. But the entertainment factor remains completely missing throughout the film, which really becomes painful after a while. Neither the AIR FORCE PLOT insertion (which is only included to bring in the KARGIL event), nor the reference of various communal riots, suffered by different countries is able to pull the viewer in. However, the music does give you some soothing moments in this tiring never ending saga but sadly the soundtrack is again not "anything exceptional" from Pritam. As usual I also felt traces of the song "Om Shanti Om" from KARZ in the track "Tashan Mein Rehna".

The film is hugely over-length and tends to go on and on with more deliberately created situations in the plot (within a span of time of a decade), where the lead couple meets repeatedly after many long gaps. And one of these absurd co-incidence comes right in the end where they both meet each other once again in the middle of "Gujarat Godhra Riots" all of a sudden. This weakly written and unconvincing climax is also one of the major drawbacks of the film which tries to bring in Shahid as the only Savior Hero to save the Girl in the end and it simply doesn't justify their decade long love story from any angle.

Performance wise, both Shahid and Sonam have really worked hard for their respective roles having various shades and character transformations in the script. Shahid is surely better in the second half and looks like overdoing it in the Punjab part of the film. But Sonam is the real winner here since she perfectly underplays her role, exactly as required by the script. Probably this is her best performance till date, contrary to her fashion Diva image in the Industry. From the rest of the cast only Supriya Pathak and Manoj Pahwa register their presence impressively and Anupam Kher simply remains wasted.

In the end, I would like to share, that it strongly seems Pankaj Kapoor had only a one line idea before writing the script of MAUSAM, which must have been "A Love Story written around all the major Communal Hatred Events happened in India and abroad in the last two decades." Since he couldn't start with the Sikh Riots in 1984, so he begins from PUNJAB itself, with his Hero mentioning the BLUE STAR movement and its aftermaths in his dialogues. Talking about the homeless issue of Kashmiri Pandits, he then moves into the Babri Masjid Issue, followed by Mumbai Riots, Twin Tower Attack in America, Kargil Warin India and then ending it all within the Gujarat Riots on a positive note.

So, giving an extra star for this brilliant thought alone, I wish to give my best wishes to Pankaj Kapoor for his next directorial project, moving ahead of this forgettable first attempt called MAUSAM.

The story line was boring to say the least. The acting did not connect with the audience on any level.The immaturity of Shahid and Sonam Kapoor was evident from the onset of the movie. Even the content wasn't captivating to keep the audience remotely interested. So much so that I even heard a few snores in the theatre. Pankuj Kapur is a good character actor but direction isn't his forte. One irritant is that the movie abruptly jumps from one end of the world to another losing the flow that should have been there. Veteran actors like Anupan Kher have been side lined and under utilized.Except for a couple of musical scores its been a dull affair. I wouldn't advise watching this movie unless you looking for some shut eye.

The positives: Shahid Kapoor - one of his best performances; Sonam Kapoor: definitely her best performance; Cinematography: remarkable visuals; Music: some beautiful melodies; Dialogues: some wonderful lines, especially between Shahid & Sonam

The negatives: Editing: especially, in the second half - the film could have easily been cut by 30-40mins; The captions of each place really distracted from the movie & made it feel disjointed; Writing: could have been much tighter

I'd recommend it if you're a true blue romantic, who would want to invest time & emotions in a film.