Raanjhanaa shows a tragic tale of love which begins on the streets of Banaras in the heart of little Kundun childishly sprouting at the sight of a girl during her prayers. This was not a mere childhood infatuation and turns out to be a lifelong unquenched desire for Kundun who is ready to go to any extremes for the fulfillment of it.
1. Stalk, Love and Grief
Kundun stalks Zoya across the town, in her school, on the terrace, in the markets and almost anywhere you can imagine and the shots where she notices him creates an obvious question as to what her reaction on all of this is. This is not left to much guessing as Kundun confronts her by holding her hand and confessing his love. Zoya's reaction i.e. slapping and laughing is not very clear but clearly she is enjoying all this attention. But 16 slaps later when the 9th grader slips her hand inside the shirt of her prospective lover only to discover his religion her consciousness comes knocking to make her realize of the communal divide between them, this gives a felling that the film is going to be about how religion divides two lovers and its going to be pretty predictable but the film builds upon more serious questions about love in general and mutual compatibility in particular. Kundun in his childishness slashes his wrists and ends up winning the girl on the backseat of an auto-rickshaw. Zoya is reported at home and is sent off to her relatives leaving Kundun hanging on brief memories of the little love that they shared. The final shot when Kundun follows Zoya's train and she looks at him while he promises to wait for her creates the similar doubt in our minds of the future when she returns.
2. Love Lost
Zoya returns and everything about her is changed. She doesn't even remember her childhood lover. This part of the film is particularly interesting as it builds up the relation between Zoya and Kundun. Kundun is the same, has lived in the same place, among the same friends and still the same child that fell for Zoya 9 years back and he confirms this by again slashing his wrists when he discovers about Zoya's college love but Zoya is all grown up now and she doesn't hug him this time confessing her love but calls his actions stupid and intolerable. Kundun agrees to help her get married to Jaswant aka Akram but promises a kind of revenge on her by marrying someone else on the same day. This is not digestible as Kundun can clearly see that Zoya doesn't even care. Kundun's intention are not very clear as to what exactly he wants to achieve by breaking the marriage he helped set up and his spur of the moment religious reveal lead to a dead Jaswant and a forlorn Zoya.
3. JNU Student Politics
The student political scene of JNU is poorly filmed. The politics and the activists seemed childish. Abhay Deol's character was all too positive and fairy tale like, it was like we were seeing him through the eyes of Zoya and are suppose to love him too. Sonam Kapoor was pathetic in her dialog delivery and was nowhere near to either a street play artist or a student leader. The whole political scenario seemed gullible in the way they carry out their protests i.e. wearing black and pulling and pushing, convince people in a charming way with quotations and smiles and give humdrum speeches.
4. Kundun grows up or not
Kundun confesses his actions by taking Zoya to her love in Punjab only to find out that things are worse and he is responsible for the death of blameless and ever exemplary Abhay Deol. We think this might effect Kundun in a big way and being the religious man that he is, he visits various religious establishments is search of confession. Many things were perplexing here as to why he stays in Punjab and tries to help the family of the deceased when Jawant's sister very well knows that he is the one responsible for her brothers death. He goes back to JNU, still following his childishness or maybe its madness that is often associated with love, trying to win over Zoya.
This film like Kundun's love is inexplicable and resorts to childish logics at various points. Morari's role was acted really well and seemed to me a much real character. Also the other girl who loves Kundun is rarely given much attention and we hardly care for her feelings but she might have a Raanjhnaa-Esq saga of her own going by the side, she was in real pain clearly and felt betrayed like the audience.
1. Stalk, Love and Grief
Kundun stalks Zoya across the town, in her school, on the terrace, in the markets and almost anywhere you can imagine and the shots where she notices him creates an obvious question as to what her reaction on all of this is. This is not left to much guessing as Kundun confronts her by holding her hand and confessing his love. Zoya's reaction i.e. slapping and laughing is not very clear but clearly she is enjoying all this attention. But 16 slaps later when the 9th grader slips her hand inside the shirt of her prospective lover only to discover his religion her consciousness comes knocking to make her realize of the communal divide between them, this gives a felling that the film is going to be about how religion divides two lovers and its going to be pretty predictable but the film builds upon more serious questions about love in general and mutual compatibility in particular. Kundun in his childishness slashes his wrists and ends up winning the girl on the backseat of an auto-rickshaw. Zoya is reported at home and is sent off to her relatives leaving Kundun hanging on brief memories of the little love that they shared. The final shot when Kundun follows Zoya's train and she looks at him while he promises to wait for her creates the similar doubt in our minds of the future when she returns.
2. Love Lost
Zoya returns and everything about her is changed. She doesn't even remember her childhood lover. This part of the film is particularly interesting as it builds up the relation between Zoya and Kundun. Kundun is the same, has lived in the same place, among the same friends and still the same child that fell for Zoya 9 years back and he confirms this by again slashing his wrists when he discovers about Zoya's college love but Zoya is all grown up now and she doesn't hug him this time confessing her love but calls his actions stupid and intolerable. Kundun agrees to help her get married to Jaswant aka Akram but promises a kind of revenge on her by marrying someone else on the same day. This is not digestible as Kundun can clearly see that Zoya doesn't even care. Kundun's intention are not very clear as to what exactly he wants to achieve by breaking the marriage he helped set up and his spur of the moment religious reveal lead to a dead Jaswant and a forlorn Zoya.
3. JNU Student Politics
The student political scene of JNU is poorly filmed. The politics and the activists seemed childish. Abhay Deol's character was all too positive and fairy tale like, it was like we were seeing him through the eyes of Zoya and are suppose to love him too. Sonam Kapoor was pathetic in her dialog delivery and was nowhere near to either a street play artist or a student leader. The whole political scenario seemed gullible in the way they carry out their protests i.e. wearing black and pulling and pushing, convince people in a charming way with quotations and smiles and give humdrum speeches.
4. Kundun grows up or not
Kundun confesses his actions by taking Zoya to her love in Punjab only to find out that things are worse and he is responsible for the death of blameless and ever exemplary Abhay Deol. We think this might effect Kundun in a big way and being the religious man that he is, he visits various religious establishments is search of confession. Many things were perplexing here as to why he stays in Punjab and tries to help the family of the deceased when Jawant's sister very well knows that he is the one responsible for her brothers death. He goes back to JNU, still following his childishness or maybe its madness that is often associated with love, trying to win over Zoya.
This film like Kundun's love is inexplicable and resorts to childish logics at various points. Morari's role was acted really well and seemed to me a much real character. Also the other girl who loves Kundun is rarely given much attention and we hardly care for her feelings but she might have a Raanjhnaa-Esq saga of her own going by the side, she was in real pain clearly and felt betrayed like the audience.