Mausam

Pankaj Kapur is 1 of those people in the industry who have played almost every kind of role with perfection-be it the commoner Mussadi of office- office or Liaqat of Roja.From Tarneja in the evergreen classic Jaane bhi do yaaron to the menacing Abbaji of Maqbool,he has played every role with sincerity & has always provided quality entertainment. With Mausam,he goes behind the camera & directs his 1st film.When people like him assume directorial responsibility,expectations assume gigantic proportions.So did it turn out to be a great film.With a grief in my heart ,I would have to disagree.Its no more than an average affair. The story begins in a small village called MALLUKOT where a fun loving Harry(Shahid) falls in love with A kashmiri girl(Sonam).However,unexpected circumstances leads to their separation only to meet in Scotland a few years later.(Shahid,by the time is serving in IAF while Sonam has become a ballet dancer).Again circumstances lead to their separation only to be searching each other till the end.

The initial 45 minutes of the film are like a whiff of fresh air where a carefree village life is depicted in a realistic,heart warming way.Its really wonderful to see such tender romantic moments between Harry & Aayat which automatically melt your heart like butter.But the real problem begins when the story shifts to Scotland.The film loses its steam & drags on continuously for 3 hours.The logic is thrown out of window & film presents the monotony of deja vu(meeting & separation again & again & again).

One more problem in the film (which is unpardonable considering a person like Pankaj Kapur is at the helm of affairs) is Factual errors.The Punjab Roadways bus model shown in 1992 didn't exist then.It came much later.Moreover,we see a Whirlpool refrigerator cover in the film in the year 1992(The company entered Indian market in 1995).Such errors take away the appeal & seriousness of the film.

The director saddles this film's narrative with some important events like 1992 Babri demolition,1999 Kargil infiltration,11th September to Ahmedabad riots,which don't actually appeal.The intention was noble but execution isn't upto the mark.

In this world of multi genre films,(Action comedy like Singham or Rom Coms),Pankaj Kapur sticks to a single genre of romance which doesn't connect with audience somehow.Moreover,Shahid being a pilot in the IAF,it provided ample opportunity to Pankaj Kapur to explore some fine action sequences of aerial combat,but its just a little more than "BLINK & YOU MISS" sequence!The director takes himself too seriously-which ultimately works against the film.

Shahid Kapur's performance as the village brat Harry is fantastic but somehow misses the mark in his Air force avatar.His appearance seems misfit for this.Sonam Kapoor needs to take some acting lessons,she just misses to portray this complex character well.While Anupam Kher is wasted in a thankless role,Supriya Pathak plays her part with great deal of precision.

The climax sequence involving a horse,a ferris wheel & a child with Shahid's "heroics" is unintentionally funny & serves as a final nail in the coffin.

One thing has to be admitted that while most film makers today find an easy way of plagiarizing hit foreign films,Pankaj Kapur tries to rekindle the old age romance which had been overshadowed by plastic emotions portrayed in movies today.There is honesty in its music(Rabba main to is a very nice song,so is saj dhaj & ik tu hi),the way the film is made with devotion & passion.The only sad part remains that it doesn't click.But Pankaj Kapur has lot to learn as a director,he has shown flashes of brilliance in this film,& I'm pretty confident that when he makes his next film,it 'll be as awesome as he is.

I have said everything in above line, still i need to write 10 lines to qualified it as a valid review. Most importantly initial 40-45 minutes are awesome, movie is worth watching just because of this part. It clearly shows how a simple straight story can be so entertaining and heart touching, it was pure delight to watch that. Actually I was under the impression that it is going to be my best Hindi movie but then comes the real Bollywood in action: meaningless struggle, irrelevant side stories and all that crap you find in most of Hindi movies. But one again, I would suggest to give it a try, specially because initial part is better so you can leave the cinema anytime you want after that.

" Mausam "could have been an artistic beauty but it ended up being an erratic Screenplay binding sequence of events which never looked in direct connection with the Characters in the movie and could well have been avoided. The only good thing about the movie is its Art Direction/Camera Work but when it comes to integral concepts of Script & Screenplay it fails on all notes. The other weak point in the movie is the Editing part and painfully slow pace with absolute no beauty in the dialogs & the chemistry between the protagonist & his beloved.

The first 40 Min's in the movie displaying the rural Punjab was the best part in the movie which will impress most of the audience with bunch of light moments of humor and the art direction as well. But when there should have been raising the bar & intensity , movie falls apart on all accounts. Pankaj Kapur has been one of those greatest actors which not only Indian cinema has been blessed with but he has equally stunning with his roles in TV Serials as well. But as they say " Not all Great Players make for Great Captains the same way Not all Great Actors make for Great Directors " although this is TOO early to say. Great Players or Actors always have Great concepts but what remains is the execution of those concepts in practical world.

Concept behind "Mausam" was to show how the chronological sequence of disasters all over world influences the bonding between two people in love .

Riots in Kashmir brings the girl (Sonam) to Punjab at his aunt's place where Shahid falls for the girl. Sonam teases Shahid to meet her in the morning at aunt's bakery to know her YES or NO. Now suddenly Babri Masjid demolition the same day makes entire family to move out of Punjab to Mumbai without notice which i believe was not in connection at all . I mean you can be seriously hurt with your sentiments but there was NO impact in the place you are living then WHY you need to move out of that place which looks much more safe for you then any other place in the country. And this was first bizarre change in "Mausam" rest of the movie from here on brings very erratic & irritating changes in "Mausam".

Suddenly next frame camera location changes to "Scotland" 1999 where both meet again , alas ! destiny my lord has all the privileges reserved for the movie characters !! Shahid is in air force now & Sonam family has settled in Scotland. Sonam calls Shahid to meet her father for marriage and the same day Kargil war breaks and Shahid leaves without notice. Girls's father dies & she moves to Punjab to check for Shahid with no luck and then moves to Ahmedabad and then back to Scotland. In the meantime Shahid calls her sister to meet Sonam and convey his message when Sonam is not there. And this Hide & Seek continues with frequent changes in Mausam like next 9/11 World Trade Centre and finally with 2002-03 riots in Gujrat . I seriously thought this movie will go till recent Delhi Blasts .

Climax looked be in shades of Maniratnam's "Bombay" with Gujrat riots in backgrounds and finally Shahid meeting Sonam but again looked unnerving and nothing intense to get in your minds , in fact that riot looked to have no effect on the ongoings between Shahid/Sonam. Movie fails to build connection with the audience and after such series of drastic events you do not even feel sympathy for any character in the movie and WHY should you ? Were any of them really affected by those events ?

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.....

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.