Raavan opens to rave reviews
Mani Ratnam's Raavan is getting rave reviews in the American media with the New York Times making it "a Critics' Pick", a distinction rarely if ever earned by an Indian film.
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Raavan has "Bollywood glamour aplenty, with the lovely if occasionally dramatically challenged Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, Bachchan's wife, playing the Sita stand-in," said the New York Times. "The real star, though, is Ratnam, a talented visual storyteller who directs action crisply and fills the screen with striking images."
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"Artful but not arty, Ratnam, whose films include 'Dil Se' and 'Guru,' delivers the goods," said the influential mainstream daily praising A. R. Rahman's "excellent score" and "an eye-popping climactic battle... on a teetering suspension bridge." "And that, folks, is entertainment," was the Times' verdict.
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Praising cinematographers Manikandan and Santosh Sivan, production designer Samir Chanda and editor A Sreekar Prasad for serving "Ratnam superbly with images, settings and vitality that take one's breath away," the publication thinks "success is inevitable throughout India and with expat audiences."
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"Consistently one of India's most versatile and exciting directors, Ratnam angles for one of his bigger commercial vehicles by mixing knockout action sequences, primal dramatic elements and superstar Aishwarya Rai Bachchan, who stays ravishing even as she's sent through the physical wringer opposite husband and co-star Abhishek Bachchan," says Variety.
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"Ratnam and his colleagues give Bollywood fans full value. Ratnam's pace is steadfastly brisk, and his film is replete with dizzying camerawork, myriad complications, violent mayhem, broad humour, usual musical interludes, a cliffhanging climactic confrontation and a finish that strikes a note of poignancy."
