Shobhayatra (2004)Date Released : 17 June 2007
Genre : Comedy, Drama
Stars : Divya Dutta, Prithivi Sankhala, Vinit Kumar, Denzil Smith." />
Movie Quality : BRrip
Format : MKV
Size : 870 MB
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Review :
Too much art-house
Shobayatra (procession) is a movie based on a play also called Shobayatra. The storyline is only partially relevant to the message the movie wants to put across: several unrelated people are blackmailed or otherwise forced to play historical Indian characters in a procession celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Indian republic. One problem: the cart they're supposed to be standing on is delayed. So the characters wait around for the cart in an abandoned warehouse. What follows is an "interesting" piece where the characters shift in and out of the role they're supposed to play, whilst on the outside, the world is going mad.
Recurring theme is the ways in which Indian heritage these days is corrupted, confused and forgotten: Indian history is felt as a burden, not a source of pride. The movie shows kids celebrating Independence Day getting drunk in stead of truly remembering, and it also shows homeless kids who are left forgotten by all, except by the woman who is supposed to be Rani Laxmibai, who in real life in this movie is a history teacher.
This movie is quite a failure. The main reason: it tries too obviously to be a smart social commentary. The problem it wants to tackle (Indians squandering their heritage away under the influence of Americanization and internal strife) and the analysis of it's causes might or might not be spot on, but it just fails to interest. It pulls every arthousey trick k out of the hat in a very clichéd and all too obvious manner. Some examples which were excruciating to watch: 1) blurring character-delineations, confusing "what's real and what not", in for example the man who plays Subash Chandra Bose, who actually starts behaving like a one-dimensional interpretation of the INA-leader.
2) the scene where Rani Laxmibai/the History teacher finds a phone to call her son, whom thereupon doesn't recognize his mother's voice, is too obviously an allegory for 'today's youth not recognizing the loving voice of Mother India' that it just becomes ridiculous - what should have been an excruciating moment (any mother whose son doesn't recognize her voice will be heartbroken, which, in Bollywood, would and SHOULD in this case have lent itself to some beautiful tear-jerking moments) loses all the intimacy, emotion and power because the moment is too obviously a vehicle to communicate the message.
3) The scene where Babu Genu is suggested to have sex with the American journalist girl who inexplicably prances around the warehouse too, is also too much of an allegory to be taken seriously.
The only slightly interesting moments come when the character playing Gandhi is actually trying to kill someone - it's so completely idiotic to see this emblem of ahimsa, non-violence, attempting to shoot someone, it becomes, well, not hilarious, but, compared to the rest of the movie, almost tolerable cinema.
Then again, I can't blame the actors for their bad acting. It's the producers of this monstrum that made Sbobayatra the ugly mutt of a movie it is, and for one simple reason: It was the famous English writer John Gardner who gave a very important piece of advice to any writer, a piece of advice that should the makers of Shobayatra should have heeded. He admonished authors to respect their characters, and to care for them deeply, even if they would be bastards. The makers of Shobayatra cared not an inch for the characters in their movie, and use them shamelessly to portray their own smugly smart social commentary on modern India.
The movie is pretentious, too cerebral and arrogantly smug. Don't watch it.
Title : Watch Shobhayatra Online
Description : Shobhayatra (2004) Date Released : 17 June 2007 Genre : Comedy, Drama Stars : Divya Dutta, Prithivi Sankhala, Vinit Kumar, Denzil Smith....