Cast: Deepika Padukone, Shahid Kapoor, Ranveer Singh, Aditi Rao Hydari, Jim Sarbh
Director: Sanjay Leela Bhansali
Rating: 2 Stars (Out of 5)
The first thing that strikes you as "Padmaavat" unfolds on the screen is how tepid the opulent, overwrought film is in spite of its visual flair and technical wizardry. Its beauty, as is usually the case with a Sanjay Leela Bhansali extravaganza, is skin deep. It is magnificent but overly manufactured.
Female lead Deepika Padukone - after whose character the film was named until censorial intervention shaved off the 'i' from the title and diluted its upfront distaff emphasis, is an eye-catching epitome of elegance. She is a sight to behold. So, as some SLB fans might assert, is the film.
There is pizzazz aplenty in this overlong horses-and-swords yarn, but it is all so superficial - if not wholly superfluous - that nothing that the excess-obsessed filmmaker throws into the boiling pot can rustle up a broth sizzling enough to keep crackling over a runtime of nearly three hours. What's worse is the dubious ideology it peddles to uphold notions of history favoured by the nation's current political dispensation.
In one scene, Rani Padmavati (Padukone) is blamed for the capture of her husband Maharawal Ratan Singh (Shahid Kapoor) by Sultan-e-Hind Alauddin Khilji (Ranveer Singh). You allowed him go to the enemy camp alone and unarmed, she is berated by the King's first wife. She is harangued for her beauty too. Padmavati replies: shouldn't you be blaming the male nazar (gaze) and neeyat (intention) instead?
All this is supposedly taking place in the 13th century, but the nazar and neeyat contention has an instant contemporary ring to it. So the argument that the way women are generally treated in this film reflects the period the story is set in does not hold water. Not much later, the Queen asks her husband for permission to perform her "jauhar ka haq" (the right to commit jauhar). I cannot even die without your say-so, she tells Ratan Singh.
"Padmaavat" Movie Review: A still from the film.
Despite the pre-credits disclaimer that "<i>Padmaavat</i>" does not intend to support the practice of sati, the ideas about a woman's honour and place in the world that are woven into the screenplay by Prakash Kapadia and Bhansali are hugely troubling. The female protagonist, in the company of many other women, including a child and one who is heavily pregnant, jumps into fire to avoid being violated by enemy soldiers - the act is brazenly glorified. It is difficult to fathom why anybody in this day and age would want to make a film that suggests women should embrace death when the 'sanctity' of their bodies is imperiled unless he is out to push a larger agenda.
"Padmaavat" Movie Review: A still from the film.
This film's antediluvian attitude to sex and morality are obnoxious to say the least. Even more out of line is the petty and manipulative manner in which it feeds into popular prejudices against those that do not belong to the 'pure' Hindu universe. The Muslim ruler of half of India, Alauddin Khilji, is presented as an unprincipled brute, likened to the asuras (demons of Hindu mythology), and even Yamraj (the god of death). The Rajput king, in contrast, is genteel, upright and governed by a strict moral code.
Prettiness overload runs "PadmaavatPadmaavat
