Mela
India 2000
Reviewed by Rachel Dwyer
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
India, the present. The policeman brother of a young woman named Roopa returns to Chandanpur to arrange her marriage. A politician is murdered by outlaws during the village carnival and, in the ensuing carnage, so are both Roopa's brothers, deaths she vows to avenge. The gang leader, promising she will never enjoy the love of a brother or a lover, kidnaps her, but she escapes by throwing herself over a waterfall. Roopa washes up down river where she steals the clothes of the bathing Kishan Pyare, a nautankiwala, or performer in lowbrow theatre. Kishan tours with his friend, truck driver Shankar Shane. The romantic Kishan wants to make Roopa a partner in his show but Shankar argues she will bring trouble.
Roopa travels with them. She tries to escape but returns when chased by the gang and by her intended husband, a drunk who tries to rape her. Roopa feigns love for Kishan, who wants to marry her, and the two men agree to help her return to Chandanpur. When Roopa's sham is revealed, she tells them her story. Shankar becomes her ritual brother while Kishan, heartbroken, leaves in disgust. Roopa and Shankar return to Chandanpur, where Shankar mobilises the village. Another carnival is arranged. The villains attack as planned. Kishan returns but Roopa is kidnapped. The friends give chase and are captured. Eventually good prevails and the outlaws meet a gory end. Roopa is united with Shankar, her brother, and Kishan, her lover.
Review
Several years in the making, Mela is the second film of Dharmesh Darshan, whose Raja Hindustani/King of India was one of India's biggest hits in 1996. With its convoluted plot and mix of melodrama, romance, action and songs, this film has all the ingredients of the Bombay masala ('spicy') movie or formula film. Darshan takes on board the recent production refinements in Hindi cinema, making dizzyingly spectacular use of colour, action and camerawork in the title song, unfortunately marred by appearing to have been shot on video. However, for Mela's target audience technical sophistication is of less importance than whether essential Hindi-film features such as songs are given a fresh treatment. The unimaginative way they're presented here is Mela's key weakness.
Darshan is not one of the brat pack of young film directors (such as Aditya Chopra and Karan Johar) who make romantic teen comedies about urban sophisticates, reworking traditional elements by borrowing themes and styles from Hollywood feature films and sitcoms such as Friends. Instead, Mela seems like a throwback to the 70s with its old-fashioned story of villager-oppressing bandits and avenging private citizens who become heroes in the process as the state and its police fail to contain lawlessness. The polished and dramatic fight sequences make muscular male bodies the film's major spectacle, rather than the young lovers' reconciliation of romance with Indian family values, a common theme in mainstream Asian films. This physicality and mostly crude comedy (although Johny Lever is excellent as the stupid policeman) are likely to reduce the film's appeal to the general family audience where the big money lies.
Hindi movies rarely succeed at the box office unless the soundtrack has a hit song, and apart from the title song, the music here is lacklustre, unremarkably 'picturised'. Much of the film's appeal will hinge on the superstar quality of Aamir Khan, once again playing a street guy made heroic through love. The film reintroduces Aamir's younger brother Faisal and together they make a well-matched pair of action heroes, reminiscent of the buddy movies of the 70s.
Even by the conventional two-dimensional standards of most masala movies, the characterisation here lacks depth. The gender politics are particularly regressive: although the heroine is central to the story, she has little to do but weep, mostly to voiceovers calling for revenge, and perform the occasional song scantily clad. Overall, Mela's lack of freshness and innovation makes it stiff and unwieldy, less carnival than fiasco.
Credits
- Director
- Dharmesh Darshan
- Screenplay
- Neeraj Vora
- Sanjeev Duggal
- Robin Bhatt
- Dialogue
- Neeraj Vora
- Dharmesh Darshan
- Story Idea
- Suneel Darshan
- Director of Photography
- Rajan Kinagi
- Editor
- Bharat
- Art Director
- Nitin Desai
- Music
- Anu Malik
- ©none
- Production Company
- A Venus Records & Tapes film
- Executive Producer
- Umed Jain
- Production Executives
- Rajnish Saincher
- Sanchita Chatterjee
- Production In-charge
- Salim M. Deraiya
- Production Controller
- Balwant Singh
- Production Managers
- Hari Khirade
- Ashok Kadam
- Rakhi Guha
- Associate Director
- Raksha Mistry
- Assistant Directors
- Tilak Ayyengar
- Hadi Abrar
- Junior Artiste Supplier
- Tinu Devraj & Co.
- Steadicam Operator
- Sujit Sen
- Live Effects
- Lala
- Karan
- Rajnikant
- Special Effects
- CMM
- Trimurti Gimmicks
- Effects Matching
- Sadanand Shetty
- M. Ravi
- Debraj Biswal
- Associate Art Director
- Nitin Kulkarni
- Costumes/Look
- Manish Malhotra
- Wardrobe In-charge
- Lawrence Cardoza
- Kautuki Mantri
- Make-up
- Hement Satem
- Harish Jadav
- Background Music
- Surendra Sodhi
- Lyrics
- Sameer
- Dev Kohli
- Playback Singers
- Alka Yagnik
- Udit Narayan
- Abhijeet
- Kumar Sanu
- Anuradha Paudwal
- Roop Kumar Rathod
- Sonu Nigam
- Mohd. Aziz
- Kavita Krishnamurthy
- Nitin Mukesh
- Jaspinder Narula
- Shankar Mahadevan
- Hema Sardesai
- Sadhna Sargam
- Sapna Awasthi
- Sonali Bajpayee
- Arvinder Singh
- Music Arranger
- Bipin Panchal
- Songs Recordists
- Tagore
- Shakeel
- Songs
- "Mela Dilon Ka", "Chori Chori", "Kamriya Lachke Re", "Aare Aare" "Tujhe Rab Ne", "Durga Hai Meri Ma", "Dhadkan Mein Tum"
- Choreography
- Raju Khan
- Farah Khan
- Audiography
- Pradeep Suri
- Background Recording
- Ashok Shukla
- Mixing at Empire
- Anup Dev
- Action
- Abbas Ali
- Cast
- Aamir Khan
- Kishan Pyare
- Faisal Khan
- Shankar Shane
- Navneet Nishan
- Bulbul, the post woman
- Twinkle Khanna
- Roopa
- Veeru Krishnan
- Ghungroo, the dance master
- Asrani
- Baniya
- Tiku Talsania
- the sarpanch
- Archana Puransingh
- Vidyavati, the village flirt
- Ayub Khan
- Roopa's brother
- Kulbhushan Kharbanda
- the minister
- Tinu Verma
- Gujjar
- Master Omkar Kapoor
- Gopal
- Johny Lever
- policeman
- Tanvi Azami
- Aishwarya Rai
- Parmeet Sethi
- Subi Raj
- Anirudh Agarwal
- Viju Khote
- Harish Patel
- G.P. Singh
- Anil Upadhyay
- Razak Khan
- Indira Chowdhary
- Gurcharan Singh
- Sanjay Batra
- Sanjeev Siddharth
- Rajiv Verma
- Chitresh Ranjan
- Charlie
- K.K. Azad
- Jamdade
- Ashraf Ul Haq
- Arun
- Narendra
- Nilofar
- Certificate
- 12
- Distributor
- Eros International
- 14,051 feet
- 156 minutes 7 seconds
- Dolby digital/Digital DTS sound
- In Colour
- Subtitles