[Diese Review ist Teil des "Bloggers meet Director"-Projekts (mehr dazu unten) und deshalb auf Englisch verfasst, falls jemand eine deutsche Übersetzung will, bitte melden, dann kann ich schon noch eine schreiben. Kommentare dürfen natürlich auch in Deutsch verfasst werden, wem Englisch zu anstrengend ist.]
Ok, but now switching over to English: Welcome to my little contribution to our wonderful international blogger-project, I hope you enjoy my review.

What´s This?
This review is a part of this year´s big project “Bloggers meet Director”, initiated by Michael. 10 bloggers from 4 different countries will review Sanjay Jha´s debut “Praan Jaye Par Shaan Na Jaye”, and hopefully, Sanjay will comment come of our points. For more information, please check the main post on Bollywoodbloggers.com. And here are the other reviews of the participants:

Babasko
Beth
Bridget
Kaddele
Maria Giovanna
Marco
Michael
Mirie
Oliver

Director: Sanjay Jha
Music: Daboo Malik
Actors: Aman Verma, Raveena Tandon, Vijay Raaz, Divya Dutta, Namrata Shirodkar, Rinke Khanna, Shweta Menon, Mahesh Manjrekar, Sushmita Sen
Crew: Mahesh Manjrekar (producer)
Release: 2003

STORY
The builder Praveen Seth (Sachin Khedekar) wants to buy a chawl to build a huge complex on that spot – but the occupants of the chawl are not willing to vacate their homes and they know how to fight back. While Praveen retreats, a new occupant moves into the chawl: Aman (Aman Verma), a journalist who writes about chawl-culture. He meets many of the inhabitants, gets to know their lives and problems, helps them out and finally makes friends with everyone. But Praveen is still plotting to take over the chawl…

REVIEW
Sanjay Jha apparently tries hard to create a new and different film with his debut – but unfortunately, his concept does not always work out the right way. On the one hand, PJPSNJ is a very funny comedy, especially on the field of filmi insider-jokes and on the meta-level. On the other hand, PJPSNJ is an obeisance to the indian middle-class and to the chawl-culture, discussing many serious aspects and social problems. Sanjay Jha tackles both parts of his film quite well and with a lot of commitment – the comedy-part is hilarious, the social-problems-part is touching and agitating – but regrettably the both parts clash bitterly and just won’t work together, annihilating the impact of both parts.

Most of the time, the changeover from comedy to drama and back is just too fast, you have not stopped laughing about one scene and the next one confronts you with tragic moments in the life of the middle-class – but you have no chance to really feel for them since your still amused by the funny scene. Viewers are just not able to change over so rapidly – well, at least I am not. And this is really, really sad, because the scenes about social problems are well done and quite touching – and of course very courageous – but suffer from the overwhelming comedy part.

But don´t get me wrong, I would not want to miss the comedy, because PJPSNJ offers some extremely funny moments. I especially liked all the satiric side blows against the film industry and the (admittedly quite silly) Bollywood conventions. And I loooove, love, love all the wonderful allusions to other Bollywoodfilms. That is one thing that always makes me happy, partly because they´re just plain funny, partly because I am always so proud of myself if I can recognize them (and even more proud if I recognize them at first glance and later there is an explanation of the allusion and I can go “Whoa, I knew that WITHOUT the help!”). Of course I am still not able to get all the filmi jokes, but there were still enough to keep me laughing most of the time - I especially liked the Deewaar-Scene, the Sholay-Light-Scene (Ha, I recognized the song on the flute instantly! Yay me!), the short “Yeh Dosti”-song-moment, the Company-allusions and of course the Josh- und Lagaan-Songs. And many more which I cannot recall right now.

The cast is good – no real big stars, but a delightful and strong ensemble. And so many actors worth mentioning that I definitely will overlook somebody so please forgive me that I will just write about a few of them.
Sushmita Sen has a small role as “glamorous” narrator and lights up the screen, Vijay Raaz (whom I always love to see) takes the more story-related narrator-part and introduces us to the chawl – a marvellous performance. Raveena Tandon, Divya Dutta, Namrata Shirodkar and Shweta Menon all play strong women roles and deliver intense and moving depictions of their characters. Mahesh Manjrekar has a funny guest appearance while Sachin Khedekar (always accompanied by a Mission-Impossible-Sound) is a bit too weak as villain.

Since there are so many likable characters in the film, it is really a pity that the main hero (well, perhaps not “hero”, but at least the character the viewer will relate to the most) is such a boring figure. Aman Verma lacks the speciality that he would need to appear interesting. While all the other persons have a differentiated, elaborate characterization, Aman is just alarmingly one-dimensional and his development is terribly stereotypical.

And I did not like the change from ugly-Saundarya to pretty-Saundarya – just put off your glasses and wear a short skirt and all the men are after you? Well, perhaps that was meant a bit satiric, but I still was slightly annoyed by it. After all, Miss Asia-Pacific portraying an ugly woman? Ehm…no, sorry, that is just not working.

Oh, and one small notice: The worst part about the DVD has to be this little sentence in the blurb that reads “What happens next??!?!!!” Eeeek. I really can´t stand multiple exclamation marks and this exemplar is particularly disgusting, especially in combination with that silly question. Uargh. But then again, blurbs are always quite moronic and so I´ll pardon that.

PJPSNJ has great moments, both comedy- and drama-wise, but in whole does not succeed to carry away the viewer and has some annoying lengths. Still, the film is fun to watch and the courage of Sanjay Jha to seize such an ambitious project is remarkable. So PJPSNJ gets good 6 points and I am quite interested in what Sanjay will do with his next project.

MUSIC
The music by Daboo Malik isn´t very exciting, but the soundtrack has some funny moments and the few songs fit quite well into the film. There are a few more short songs in the film that are not listed in the song-menu, but they´re all just there for comedy reasons (like the “Sailaru Sailare”-Version), so I am not including them either.

Boond Boond Mein – funny parody of “Ghanan Ghanan”, the rain-song from Lagaan. This song introduces us to the chawl and its occupants, the picturization is nice an full of life – and of cours it is always a great idea to start a film with an A.R. Rahman song *g*

Mujhe Isse Pyar – Mona gets her own song, so that all the men may stare languishing at her behind. The Song itself isn´t too brilliant, but still it´s nice to look at.

Loan De – mediocre song about, well, loans. Quite unnecessary and unspectacular, but not exactly bothering either.

Hum Tere Sanam Na Hote – did I say “Loan de” was unnecessary? Well, it is still far from being as unnecessary as this song! This is “the song that has nothing to do with the movie”. But it is really funny. Sush and Mahesh Manjrekar are dancing a silly choreography to the credits and Sush´s face in the last freeze frame is just great *g*

[tags]Review, Sanjay Jha, Sushmita Sen, Praan Jaye Par Shaan Na Jaye, Vijay Raaz[/tags]

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