Thinking KANK Ver 2.0

[Originally published in Passion for Cinema in a modified form- http://passionforcinema.com/iview-—-kank-ver-20/#comment-43731]

First things. I am not a fan of Karan Johar films. They are entertaining; Kuch Kuch Hota Hai was fun, but not memorable. Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham was strictly ok. However, I vouch for the man’s craft. He delivers. He gives his fans what he promises. It’s probably his mastery over the craft that gets me to the theatre to see his movies and keeps me seated till the end. And I really like his writings on cinema. His articles, the few I have read show an intelligent and aware person and filmmaker.

Branded for his candy floss romances and rose tinted cinema, he did try to come out of his comfort zone by making 'Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna'. Unfortunately, he failed to deliver. I saw the film. It bored me. But at the end of the show I felt sad rather than cheated or angry. I felt as if I had just seen a great opportunity being thrown away. ‘Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna’ could have been a milestone in Hindi cinema. Karan had tried to push the envelope. He had chosen to tell a challenging story with an even more challenging set of characters.

Think about it. Here we have a movie where a principal character is thoroughly unlikable. He bullies his angelic son, is jealous of his loving wife who is also his childhood sweetheart. Then he goes ahead and falls in love with a married woman, pursues her till she gives in. This woman incidentally is a bird of similar feather. She has a handsome, loving, and well to do husband and a caring father in law, in short, a comfortable life. Yet she can’t help cribbing. Because she does not love her husband, not the way wives are supposed to love their husbands. This feeling is like a thorn in her life. And she doesn’t take much time betraying her husband’s love. Karan Johar should be commended for not explaining away and cushioning the negativity of his characters. Shahrukh’s character Dev Saran has an unfortunate back story. He could have been super successful but has been reduced to a being a nobody through no fault of his, this has made him a very bitter man. To make matters worse his wife’s career is going from strength to strength. Which fuels his feelings of inadequacy. Though Karan Johar supplies all this information to his audience, he never tries to justify the rotten behavior of Dev. Ditto for Rani who has known Abhishek from childhood and just got married for the sake of it. They are similar to real life people. Their decisions and motivations cannot be justified by simple cause and effect. A tip of the hat to Rani and Shahrukh for taking up such roles.

These are characters arising out of an intelligent observation of life. Characters which have the potential to give birth to great cinema as well as literature, yet, the movie didn’t work. I don’t want to sound like a know-it-all. But probably it had to do with Karan Johar not going the whole hog. He took a step forward towards a new kind of subject. But was still looking backwards when it came to the storytelling. Perhaps the movie needed a smaller scale. It did not require the typical Karan Johar treatment. It did not require so much color and grandeur. It did not require all the principal characters to dance together. It should have been a more intimate character study. Fewer songs, less of Sexy Sam. Less of those grand sets and on your face Manish Malhotra costumes. All that took the focus away from what could have been a very thought provoking study of relationships. The bleak, cold and gray landscape of New York could have been utilized better to reflect the mindscape of the characters. Unfortunately it was used to make the already good looking stars appear more stunning. This was not the purpose of the story. The grand and beautiful treatment took the attention away from the warts which were what the story was about in the first place. These 'warts' were the unpredicatability of emotions. Their ability to overwhelm us and make us act against our better judgements.

The ending which was heavily criticized was actually quite profound. The lovers get each other but they are broken down. They got what they desired but they have had to pay a heavy price for their choices, their indiscretions. They played with fire and got burnt, along with their innocent partners. Both are weighed down with guilt. Johar does not indulge in moralizing; no one is categorized as right or wrong. Unlike the classic, ‘Arth’, which vilified the cheating husband and the other women. He does not come up with pat solutions either. Its life, some people can make the best of it, some don’t, and most languish in the dark grey space between less misery and more misery. Johar does not make his characters saints or sinners. It’s not an ‘everybody lived happily thereafter’ kind of ending. It’s real. It’s tough.

Karan Johar frequently mentions that he has always been a great fan of Yash Chopra’s ‘Silsila’ & ‘Kabhi Kabhi’. Perhaps therein lies the root of the problem, as ‘Silsila’ and ‘Kabhi Kabhi’ were themselves 'potentially great' films that were crushed beneath the weight of their stars, songs and treatment. But history has been kind to them. Let’s see how posterity will treat Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna.

We need stories like KANK because they address essential issues of our lives. Issues which every other individual is trying to grapple with. In this age of undeserved and pathetic remakes. I would really like to see a KANK Version 2.0 where the story dictates the form and style. And who better to do it than Mr. Karan Johar himself, this time going the whole way. Perhaps we will have an ‘Arth’ or something superior for the present and coming generations.

[Published in Passion for Cinema in a modified form- http://passionforcinema.com/iview-—-kank-ver-20/#comment-43731]