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With all the hype surrounding its promos, and star cast and behind the scenes team that includes Sanjay Leela Bhansali as the set designer, Bhanu Athaiya supervised costumes and with Devdutt Pattanaik on the creative team notwithstanding, it panned out on the expected lines – a typical Indian soap opera that plays in the afternoon with all the ladies of the household huddled around the lone TV set with wet handkerchiefs.
It was expected to be better, a cut above the legendary B R Chopra's Mahabharat of the late 80s. It ends up looking just like a rerun of the erstwhile series, only this time with more lavish sets, loud make up, premier designer costumes, obscene displays of jewellery laden characters that disappoint us with their acting (or should we say overacting?!), endless sobbing, promotion of patriarchal nonsense and shoddy cover-ups of carnal facts that they still don't deem "safe" for viewing by the Indian audience!
B R Chopra's Mahabharat actually fared better in that respect despite its simpler set and cheaper props, because it had an amazing scriptwriter in Rahi Masoom Reza; yes, a Muslim!
It seems to have become a habit with the producers to forcibly push melodrama into every scene and create a needless suspense every 5 minutes into the show. Add to that the gawky and retarded dialogues, and clumsy looking modifications of the original text, especially the ones that relate to those facts that parents are still shy from discussing with their teenaged children.. Tada! We have a complete menagerie!!
The much visible discrepancies, such as fair complexioned royal members being served by darker complexioned ones as their sevaks, and the most glaring one – a fair complexioned Shri Krishna despite his mythical portrayal should definitely sting the anti-discrimination brigade. With the portrayal of women as denigrated beings, who are often abused and vilified for not bearing sons as the successors of kingdoms, one wonders why women empowerment has never been discussed in this context.
The story initially moves at a very rapid pace, jumping by several years around the birth of Shantanu's sons and grandsons before abruptly settling down to a snail's pace as the "main" characters gradually fill up the big picture.
The character of Shakuni, played by Praneet Bhatt does enthral with his acting and mannerisms, and his performance is laudable.
The narrator this time happens to be Shri Krishna, who happens to be the only saving grace for the show, because it is him who intricately connects the story with his teachings of the Dharm and Karm, and with his thoughtful choice of words, gives the intellectual ones something thoughtful to chew upon.
All in all, it's a flop show with its dumbness providing the odd comic moment. It seems that we still have a long way to go before we begin producing shows that are intelligently designed, sans the loud melodramatic music that creeps into every scene.
score 5/10
Greg-House 15 October 2013
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw2887576/ |
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24-2-2021 04:35:07