Movie review: 'Rang Rasiya'

RangRasiya is a colourful triumph, director Ketan Mehta meriting applause for his portrait of painter Raja Ravi
Varma, skillfully blending a biopic, a period film, a love story and a social critique, within a tight frame. Arching
across the 19th-20th centuries, Rang Rasiya traces Raja Ravi Varma's growth from a callow youth to a citizen
of profound impact. Young Raja (Randeep) has several sensual encounters, by waterfalls, atop giggling swings,
wrenching jewels off lovers' bare skin with satisfactory elan, painting portraits for pleased royals - until he meets
the ethereal Sugandha (Nandana) in Bombay.
Sugandha first dismisses Varma's art as 'ladkiyon ko ghoorna' but eventually agrees to be his muse - and lover.
As Varma's growing passion - for Sugandha and for a nation he re-discovers through ancient fables and new
consumer energy - deepens his work, self-appointed custodians of culture drag him to court, blaming his art for
plague devastating Bombay. What is Varma's defence?

Rang Rasiya questions and answers with beauty. Its cinematography lovingly glides across Raja Ravi Varma's
now-iconic art - fabrics that shimmer with glossy light, jewels gleaming on paper, goddesses who pout in
plaintive love upon carpets of green grass - while portraying his sensual life sensitively.

RandeepHooda's performance is superb, maturing from a swarthy, 'swarthee kalakaar' to the first determined
defender of the freedom of expression in modern India. In a hilarious scene, as Lokmanya Tilak delivers a
speech, Varma breezily flirts with pretty journalist Frenny (Ferena Wazeir), later an ageing, wheezing man
dismissing critics arrogantly, guilt-struck when Sugandha's socially mocked.
Alongside, Nandana's portrayal poignantly brings alive the lustrous power of a woman - divinely - in love.
Paresh Rawal etches a characteristically sharp cameo as canny merchant Govardhan Das while Vikram
Gokhale and Darshan Jariwala drip spite at Varma's art which, via mass-printing, brings the divine home to all including those called Untouchable, barred from temples.

A fun sequence displays India's first cinema show leaving Varma so impressed, he backs a movie by his
protegee - Dadasaheb Phalke. Rang Rasiya portrays Varma as India's first cultural rock-star, adored, attacked,
commercial, inspired, excited and challenged by a new consciousness he sees - and shapes. Vitally, Rang
Rasiya emphasizes Raja Ravi Varma's commitment to the freedom of ideas which creates philosophy, science
and liberated love, ephemeral, yet lasting - like the pages of his calendars.

Imagine this scene. Someone's steps on a banana peel and slips and falls. His
friend is laughing so hard at this mishap that he slips and falls too. Funny? Not
really. 'Happy Ending' ends up in a situation somewhat like that.
It is sure disappointing that a film which gives you hopes of being an intelligent, witty satire, ends up being as
predictable and soppy as the film it intended to make fun of. Directors Raj Nidimoru and Krishna DK, who gave
us a laugh riot 'Go, Goa Gone' and also gems like '99', and 'Shor in the city', surprisingly come across as
confused and less sure footed this time.
Saif Ali Khan plays Yudi, a Los Angeles based lazy author, and his twin, Yogi. Yudi is just another typical man,
who likes the trappings of romance but wants to run away from the responsibilities of commitment. Yogi chases
women and romances them and then promptly vamooses when they utter the dreaded three words, I Love
You. Yudi finally meets a girl Aanchal Reddy (Ileana D'Cruz) he genuinely falls for, even when he is trying to get
out of a relationship with his bat crazy girlfriend (Kalki). This is also when he lands up an assignment to write
script for the Bollywood star Armaan's (Govinda) film.
Saif, who undoubtedly has excellent comic timing, however seems largely handicapped because of lack of a
plausible script. Yet, he makes the most of it as he plays the cool dude and his much wiser twin rather
effortlessly. Kalki and Ileana are pretty good as well. But its obviously Govinda who overshadows everything
and everyone whenever he appears on the scene (sadly not as many times as one wished he did). Govinda

doubles you up with laughter as he shows us the shallow and self obsessed world of a megalomaniac
Bollywood star. One scene where he is in the process of trying to get a six pack is laugh-till-you-fall-off-yourseat funny and shows us a glimpse of what the otherwise capable writers (Raj and DK) and the genius actor
could have done together.
So, not so happy ending for a film that must have looked great on paper.

Sandhira.com movie review rating - 3/5