Movie review: Silsila Hai Pyar Ka, starring Karisma Kapoor, Chandrachur Singh

Film: Silsila Hai Pyar KaDirector: Shrabani DeodharStars: Karisma Kapoor, Chandrachur SinghBuzz: A spring romance that has a modern-day Cinderella story. Cool is the operative word here. As in hip, cool, happening. Seven studs dressed to kill in leather jackets, earrings, bandannas, dark glasses and boots are strutting their stuff. Fuelled by high-testosterone attitude, they roar down the dusty road on motorcycles. It looks like a Hell's Angles' convention in rural America. Except that this is Vasco, a small town in Goa, created by director Mansoor Khan and art director Nitin Desai in Film City, Mumbai. Khan is filming Josh, a West Side Story-inspired Goan love story in which the brother and sister of rival gang leaders fall in love. "I'm struggling to get the right level of cool," says the 39-year-old director, laughing, "that's why I keep really young assistants.""It's cinema by young people for young people," says art director Sharmishta Roy, whose name has become synonymous with highly stylised, yuppie chic sets. Youth is Bollywood's new elixir. Even the old guard (read Yash Chopra, Subhash Ghai, Inder Kumar) are going young with a vengeance. And Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan are the favourite lover boys of the '90s. Scriptwriters too are sweating to create the perfectly balanced, trendy, yet traditional movie. As the Hum Aapke Hain Koun and Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge-inspired feel-good film wave crests, the buzzwords are fresh, frothy, fun-loving and romantic. Love is inch-thick in the air in Mumbai's film studios. But there are few takers for mature or intense romance. Last year, Yash Chopra with substantial inputs from his son, the award-winning director Aditya, turned away from his trademark romantic explorations (recall Lamhe or Kabhi Kabhi) for the candy floss confection, Dil To Pagal Hai (DTPH). Despite dire trade predictions, DTPH, an Americanised Broadway-style musical, made the box office sing. .preferred-source-banner{ margin-top: 10px; margin-bottom:10px;}As writer Sutanu Gupta points out: "The big makers set and reinforce trends." Bollywood's dream factories are working overtime to churn out spring romances, which range from the breezy Silsila Hai Pyar Ka, being directed by 30-plus Shrabani Deodhar, and writer-director Sanjay Chhel's Khubsoorat, in which Sanjay Dutt plays "a colourful character", to 28-year-old Sohail Khan's Pyar Kiya To Darna Kya, described as "a cool love story"Some move beyond the breezy mode: Mani Ratnam's Dil Se is a love story set against a contemporary backdrop, Kundan Shah's Friends is about a young girl who decides to have a baby out of wedlock, Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam is a love triangle examining "the pains and glories of finally falling in love". Click here to EnlargeBut all are striving to achieve an exuberant romance that spells youth, freshness, gloss. "It is totally youth-oriented," says Rishi Kapoor, who turns director this year withAa Ab Laut Chalein, an immigrant love story set in New York. "The heroes and heroines are boys and girls. But it's not the running-around-trees stuff I did. It's a more confident, outgoing, turn-of-the-century romance."The mood is impossibly cheerful. Love hurts but not piercingly so. Not surprisingly, the romantic comedy has emerged as a favourite genre. Even Ajay Devgan, best known for his action stunts, is looking for an image change with his home production,Pyar To Hona Hi Tha, rumoured to be a remake of the Meg Ryan comedy,French Kiss.Says a young director: "It's the age of pop music, pubs and discos. Even Asha Bhosle wants to be young. Film-making is no longer an art. It's just fun and directors think, 'let's give them (the audience) a good time'." So topics that tax the mind are avoided. Action, once a safe bet, has been sidelined. Says Kapoor: "Even television is full of violence and the audience is fed up of seeing cars blow up. Today, the audience doesn't want anything serious or preachy. They just want good popcorn and a good time." It's all gorgeous people, gorgeous locations, catchy music and presentation. Says Chhel: "The director's conviction has been taken over by the art director and the costume designers." Gupta too laments the loss of storytelling: "Youth is so much in demand that it's difficult to convince actors of a mature subject. Even the 30- and 40-plus heroes want to play college boys in Oxford shirts."Why? For one, the box office. Pundits believe that young people (14-25 years) constitute a major chunk of the audience, especially in A-class urban centres. Veteran distributor Ramesh Sippy estimates that today almost 60 per cent of the audience are youngsters compared to 30 per cent 10 years ago. Says he: "Young people have become crucial consumers. I can't think of any major success in the last three or four years that has worked without them." As attitudes towards mainstream cinema change - Hindi movies are no longer infra dig - the school and college crowd, who once swore by Hollywood, are becoming masala patrons. Says director Karan Johar: "Hindi movies are up market now. Urban youth identifies with a Shah Rukh, Aamir, Salman or Bobby Deol."But it isn't just the "Clearasil" crowd that is looking for contemporary cinema. Distributor Shravan Shroff believes older age groups reject dated films too. "Even the 40-plus people are receptive to young, trendy films." Besides, as writer Kamlesh Pandey points out, "the national mood is young". "India is slowly and certainly discovering its youth. Somehow, we always thrived on our oldest-nation image. But we are now becoming a forward-looking nation."Cinema is reflecting this. Whether Bollywood's love affair with youth translates into a more cutting-edge cinema full of zest, or just simplistic shot-in-Switzerland Mills & Boon romances, remains to be seen. "Mainstream cinema today is slicker, smarter, more glossy,"says Khan, "but complexities and gradations haven't come in." Perhaps they will. That really would be cool.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Feb 9, 1998--- ENDS ---

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Movie review: Silsila Hai Pyar Ka, starring Karisma Kapoor, Chandrachur Singh

Youthful themes are the order of the day as Mumbai's dream factories and directors turn trendy. The new formula: fresh, frothy and romantic.

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