The lesson for the weeks is this:
"Release yourself from expectations."
PAHELI was the movie sent to the Academy of Motion Pictures as Bollywood's entry for the "Best Foreign Film" category and I don't know why. I admit that I had high hopes for this film. I came to it expecting it to be good. Anything that India felt would be worth an Oscar should be magical, or at least pack a social punch.
PAHELI completely let me down. It's well shot, has actual special effects, beautiful costumes, nice songs, and is utterly irrevocably shallow. Based on a novel by Vijayadan Detha, it's supposed to be all folk tale and lovely-quaint. Instead it's a Sha Ruk Khan movie. You can tell because he's shirtless. Add a pretty girl with green eyes and a complete lack of moral/emotional depth and it's a hit!
I'm going to go back to high school English here, but isn't drama based on personal growth? Isn't that why we watch it, to experience the struggles of a character's choices and consequences? We enjoy seeing people learn, watching folks make decisions, sitting back and looking at people fight though the mess of their lives, be those lives real or imagined. PAHELI dosn't have any character development. No one learns anything. Really. I would explain the story to you but there's no point.
I do have to admit that if you watched PAHELI fully expecting it to be lousy, you might like it for the oversaturated visual beauty that defines the film. Unfortunately, I couldn't. Next time I will seek to release myself from all expectation and perhaps I'll actually enjoy myself.
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