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Agnivarsha gets rave reviews in US
IANS [ SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 07, 2002 12:25:09 PM ]
NEW YORK: Panned by critics and rejected by audiences in India, director Arjun Sajnani's Agnivarsha, based on a subplot in the epic Mahabharata, has won rave reviews from two leading US dailies.
A Los Angeles Times review by Kevin Thomas said of the film: "Sophisticated direction elevates a Hindi genre film with timeless themes and plenty of spectacle."
And in a New York Times article titled Heaven and Earth at Violent Odds in an Indian Epic, critic Stephen Holden said: "The volcanic passions that rumble through Agnivarsha: The Fire and the Rain, a dense, colourful dramatisation of a portion of the Indian epic Mahabharata, are literally earthshaking."
Holding remarked: "The relationship between heaven and earth throughout the movie is volatile, as the human characters, who imagine they have more power than they do, find themselves at the mercy of divine forces.
"Even though Agnivarsha is set in ancient times and rooted in Hindu traditions, the questions it poses about morality, faith and destiny transcend culture.
"Generally speaking, hubris is punished and devotion and humility are rewarded."
Agnivarsha is the first of a series of art films being released in North America by the Los Angeles-based firm Cinebella with the theme "Beyond Bollywood". The event was prompted by the positive reception of Indian films like Lagaan.
Cinebella hopes to build the same kind of niche market for Indian art films in North America that Chinese and Iranian movies have.
Holding said that like mainstream Bollywood films, Agnivarsha includes elaborate song and dance sequences, but here they have a deeper ritualistic and musical weight than in typical Indian movies.
The film is based in a "timeless era centuries before modern technology during a drought that has lasted a decade. Water is sacred, and when it is spilled, there is usually a price to pay. The characters' goal is to persuade the gods to bring rain, but politics, class divisions and bitter family rivalries intervene."
Much of the film's action revolves around a fire sacrifice presided over by a priest, Paravasu (Jackie Shroff), who has abandoned his adoring wife, Vishaka (Raveena Tandon), after only a year of marriage.
She seeks solace in the arms of his cousin and rival Yavakri (Nagarjuna), who "returns earlier than expected from a frustrating 10-year retreat in the jungle, where he sought divine wisdom but received no clear knowledge," Holding said.
"The story's climax, echoing (William Shakespeare's) Hamlet, is a play within a play.
Holding felt Agnivarsha has a lavish ceremonial gloss.
"It is also a very erotic movie. The characters have voracious sexual appetites, and as they exchange steamy glances and fall into passionate embraces, the camera admires their glistening bodies and luxuriates in their desire."
The Los Angeles Times review is titled "The Fire and the Rain is Bollywood for the Rest of Us".
In it, Thomas said: "Like the recent Lagaan, this is a splendid example of contemporary Bollywood in which a director's sophisticated style and vision have been brought to bear on the beloved conventions of popular Hindi cinema.
"As in Hamlet, its climactic sequence involves a troupe of travelling players staging a play that confronts the villain with his perfidy.
"It has intricate plotting and the overheated emotions of silent movies, with literate English subtitles that read like silent (film's) inter-titles -- eg, 'The sight of my luscious daughter-in-law is enough to keep me in good shape!'"
Thomas said though the film might be "lurid and campy at times but (it) also manages to be powerfully moving, exploring such timeless themes as the conflict between love and duty, the subordination of women, the evils of superstition, the folly of revenge and the curse of India's caste system."
The film's strong cinematic quality stands in sharp contrast to the old-style, technically crude Bollywood blockbusters that ran on interminably and continually came to a grinding halt for obligatory production numbers, he said.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/arti ... d=21451582
  
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