Sunday, January 27, 2008

Looking forward to Jodhaa Akbar

I had seen the teaser for Jodhaa Akbar while watching the atrocious Bhool Bhulaiya, and have been looking forward to it since.

And today I found the theatrical trailer for it on IndiaFM. And I like what I see :-).



I like how the desis are making good period movies that _look_ the part. Looking forward to more.

For more info, including how perhaps the name Jodhaa was a historian's mistake, check the wikipedia article.

For listening to the songs, check out Dhingana. My favorite is "Azeem-o-shan Shehanshah".

On a different note, give the controversy-creating nature of our media, and the rise of religious nutjobs in India, it will be interesting to see how this muslim-hindu love story is received :-).

3 comments:

  1. Good post. :)

    However, I'm somewhat skeptical if the movie will go beyond glorifying Akbar's glorious reign on India and be critical about some of his mistakes. [Remember the filmy climax of Mughal-e-Azam that was tailor-made to suit Indian sensibilities!] Given the duration of his rule and the size of his kingdom I'm sure that not all of Akbar's policies were par excellence. [A small trivia: Did you know that Akbar had one of the biggest harems of all Mughal rulers and any woman whom the harem's caretaker deemed pretty, was abducted for the king's lusty merriments. Apparently, she never returned to her family or respectable society! Interestingly, none of the great Mughals who followed Akbar corrected this practice till the much denounced Aurangzeb abolished the practice during his reign.] Highlighting such things would be crucial lessons in good governance. However, surprisingly I never came across any detailed research on such mistakes so far (may be I should look deeper!)

    Moreover, in a country where three of the major Bollywood stars have spouses from other religions (SRK, Aamir and Hrithik) and nobody has any issues with that, I don't think Jodhaa-Akbar is going to ruffle any feathers. So instead of waiting for Jodhaa-Akbar's release date, I would rather wait for the day when we can make honest documentaries openly critical of the ruling government [remember Fahrenheit 911?] without any fear of backlash. Till then, the right to free speech in India is limited to excluding Bal Thackeray from the list of India's Villains (Outlook August 15, 2007 issue)!

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  2. Anonymous10:30 PM

    I am still not impressed by the action sequences. I expected movie Braveheart/Gladiator type shots since Bollywood
    has all the technical skills for that.

    I amy be wrong since its just a trailer.

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  3. @sharad: Valid points. Will be interesting to see such hard-hitting movies.

    @GS: I am looking forward to the movie, and hoping to be pleasantly surprized in front of the big-screen. Lets see.

    @all: The first protests have begun. Read this for more.

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