A tearful and regressive film

Every time Karan Johar's name comes up somehow it causes sudden activity in my dental region. It makes me grit my teeth in part anger, part dismay. He is everything I dislike in a film-maker. When I fulminate against Johar, I am often told that if I dislike the bloke so much, I should just stay from him and his films and I suppose that's true. I do make spectacular efforts not to have to suffer his talk shows and I certainly don't watch film award shows. The problem is that he seems to have become a subject of drawing room conversation and it's in that setting usually that my hackles are raised.

Recently I was visiting a close friend in another city and his wife was watching her favourite film. "I have seen it dozens of times," she said, "and I keep seeing it--great story, great music, great acting. Will you see it too?" Presently she revealed that the film is "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham" causing sudden activity in my dental region. However, polite that I am, I nodded and found myself unable to turn down her invitation to watch a "greatly entertaining film" with her.

And so, seven years after it was made, I made my acquaintance with Karan Johar's "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham". It's an acquaintance I could have done without and it certainly didn't strengthen my dental region.

Johar has become something of a celebrity film director in India and "Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham" is largely responsible for that status, though the equally preposterous "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" has a lot to do with it as well.

"Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham" is outrageously implausible and that at its core is unacceptably regressive. The whole film hinges on a telling comment made by Jaya Bhaduri, as the long suffering wife, to the domineering, ramrod-straight Amitabh Bachchan. In what is intended as the dramatic summit of the film, Jaya says to Amitabh words to the effect that for Indian wives their husbands are "pati parmeshwars" (husband who are their gods) but Amitabh is only pati (husband), not parmeshwar (god). That's supposed to be an ultimate put down. Amitabh stares shamefaced at his feet, shattered by this admonition.

I find it hard to believe that a young film-maker in the 21st century can peddle such regressiveness and is getting applauded for making a slick entertainer. For me it's an insufferable film with busy images that are utterly hollow. Designer clothing and expensive sets that fill the wide screen but do nothing whatsoever to lift the insipid drama doled out by Johar.

There have been a television serial done on the making of this film, on why Johar chose the actors that he did and how he shot key scenes in his film. The hype surrounding the film is fake. Even seasoned film reviewers in India have praised the film and called Johar among the brightest talents in Hindi cinema. Don't fall for it. Johar is a supreme fake. Almost as big a fake as Sanjay Leela Bhansali, whose sickly sumptuous "Devdas" and even sicklier "Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam"--not to speak of the cantankerous "Black"--redefine hopeless kitsch.

Until a few years ago the Rotterdam Film Festival used to have a section where they celebrated pot-boiler films which were made with such passion and panache that it lifted them above the level of run-of-the-mill films made in bad taste. When I attended the film festival many years ago, I recommended some Indian film directors working in Bombay whose oeuvre perfectly matched that description. Among the names I proffered were Ramesh Sippy, Rahul Rawail, Shashilal Nair and to some extent J.P. Dutta. When it comes to someone like Karan Johar (or Bhansali), the only special category that comes to mind is of films that are dressed up beautifully but are horrendously bereft of any dramatic or cinematic merit. Supreme fakes. Both Johar and his film.