DDLJ...revisited

Next week Kabhi alvida ... is coming out. For a change me planning to go to PVR this time rather than my favourite hall in Bangalore ( Kamkhya @Rs 35). One thing I need to do is take one of my buddies to the movie. Last shahrukh movie he saw was DDLJ. Anyway DDLJ; I wrote this thing few months back, thought I would push it here. A review for DDLJ...

Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge aka DDLJ....landmark would be too petty a word to use for it. In first look it looked a follow up to the previous year 1994 Super Duper hit Hum Aapkein Hain Kaun. But its predecessor could at best be titled an extended shaadi video this remains a classic. Well 1995 remains a landmark year also another trendsetter and one of my all time favourites Rangeela took to screen. But so strong were the winds of change that DDLJ brought that swept all.
Economically DDLJ is right up there but what it did was the opening up of now prevalent (and sometimes the only existing) NRI markets for movie. This movie tapped a market the second third generation Indian in foreign countries. They hungry for DeshPrem(not loving me:P) and our movies getting the much needed globalization push.

Now coming to the movie. In true sense story remains the same old one...the boy girl affair with the girl’s dad as the tingling factor. But what was different was the packaging. Girl loves boy but not in the age old silly gardens of Mumbai but those of Europe. Love on travel was a concept which was new to Indian cinema and so was the coming back to India and all the melodrama associated with it.

The director sure did milk Punjab the most showing the great and shining India (please some one remind the Chopra’s that this is the state with the most skewed sex ratio in India) and thus evoking the melodramatic intensity necessary for such a big movie.

More than anything the movie belonged to Shahrukh Khan and Kajol. This was one of the best from the pairings whom we loved in Baazigar and after DDLJ in KKHH,KKK...blah blah blah....Supporting casts was great especially Amrish Puri, Anupam Kher(as the father of RAJ) and Mandira Bedi(without her noodle straps ;))...hehe

Raj and Simran are unforgettable and so is the music of the movie. Though I should mention that out of the 13 which DDLJ won (filmfares) they didn't win the one for best music which went to Rangeela instead. But music remains as good as it can get with each song a super hit.

Also this began the start of marketing skills being put into the movie. I mean this was the first one of which we saw "the making of"...never before we did hear of anything similar.

Boss none can argue its presence among the best in Indian Cinema. I have watched it 40 odd times....still not bored of it...still very much DDLJ...And a change that DDLJ brought that every time a get onto a train I stand on the door and wait so that a nice girl comes running up to me and I extend my arm and.......obviously nothing would happen. If I am lucky enough she would rather miss me and don’t misunderstand me for a beggar or something :)

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