Banaras (2006)

Director:

Pankaj Parashar

Writers:

Javed Siddiqui (dialogue)
L.C. Singh (written by)

Release Date:

7 April 2006 (India)

Genre:

Musical | Drama

Tagline:

No matter what you believe... no matter what you have learnt... Setu Creations presents... from the oldest living city on the planet... the truth so powerful... that it will change the course of your life... forever.

Plot:

A mystic love story... between two people of different castes... set in the oldest living city on Earth...

Plot Keywords:

India | Buddhism | Ganges | Hinduism | Benares

Cast

Urmila Matondkar	...	Shwetambari M. 'Shweta' Nath
Naseeruddin Shah	...	Babaji
Dimple Kapadia	...	Gayatri M. Nath
Raj Babbar	...	Mahendra 'Mahen' Nath
Ashmit Patel	...	Soham
Akash Khurana	...	Dr. Gopal Bhattacharya
Arif Zakaria	...	Inspector Satpal Shukla
Javed Khan	...	Gunjan Juari
Rajeev Mishra	...	Mahamaya
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Chetana Das
Meenal Patel	...	Dadi
Aditi Pratap	...	Anjali G. Bhattacharya
Tara		(as Tahra)

Also Known As:

Banaras: A Mystic Love Story (India: English title)
Ek Dhun Banaras Kee (India: Hindi title) (working title)

Country:

India

Language:

Hindi

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:PG

Filming Locations:

Banaras Hindu University - BHU, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, India

Company:

Setu Creations

Trivia:

On 2 March 2006, a five-hour long puja (prayer) was performed for the success of the film. The puja was conducted by 16 Pundits, and occurred on the banks of the River Ganges at the holy Dasashwamedh Ghat. It was attended by the film's producer and writer L.C. Singh and director Pankaj Parashar. The next day, another puja was performed inside the Vishwanath Temple.

Goofs:

Factual errors: The "grandmother" tells Soham that Kabir was an orphan found on the banks of Ganges river. In reality, Kabir was found by a water-well in Lahartara, a suburb of Varanasi.

Glossed-over Message

Is it merely a cultural thing that did not allow me the illusion that this film seeks to portray? Having visited India I know that this movie displays a very tiny facade of what Indians think would be appealing about their fascinating country. The Bollywood film _Ek Dhun Banaras Kee_(qv) never leaves the realm of comely mass entertainment.

So in great wonderment I saw only the most beautiful facades of the oldest holy city on river Ganges, a sadly polluted river shown here as clean as a mountain stream. There is no reality street life in this movie, we are forced into the unreal world of a film as if ordered by the city's Tourist Development Agency.

'Ashmit Patel'(qv)'s pretty-boy face is directed like a south-American music video with all smiles and no substance. There was no acting demanded of him. He would do well selling deodorant in France.

The story wants to be spiritually deep and socially conscious by juxtaposing two stylized lovers from different castes. The potential conflict are undramatically produced, after we are given about twenty minutes of showing the couple at Banares' famous temples and river banks, looking at each other in unspontaneously staged settings that really irks everyone who want to be swept away by a movie's illusions instead of watching a long toothpaste or chewing gum commercial. This is a good travel promotion or a boring music video, and one can only wonder what audience it was made for. If it is shown to Indians, they must be proud of a movie of aesthetic beauty that shows their country without problems, except the unfortunate castes system. Shown to western audiences it become a romantic travel film, and as we have seen, accepted both quite favorably by IMDb users of Indian decent and Westerners alike.

Besides a cast of pretty people --even Babaji the spiritual teacher floats about with the neatest beard and most perfect robes in white and red-- the film wants to teach basic Hindi and Buddhistic values. It even forewarns its audiences at the beginning that it does not want to promote superstitions, but in almost every scene the accoutrement of superstitious beliefs are shown: ornaments, mystic sculptures, flower petals strewn about, chants and incense. Even the character played by the beautiful 'Urmila Matondkar'(qv) indulges in dreamy superstitious rituals. I respect all belief systems, but if a director forewarns of something he is supposedly not wanting to promote, and we see it all over his film, we have a choice to either believe that he does not notice ritualistic superstitions any longer due to his cultural blindness, or that he really beliefs that his message has transgressed superstition. And it is exactly this message that one would have liked not to see running into sturdy road blocks.

Namely the endeavor to transgress a banal and forbidden love story without careful exposition, and fall into the trap of cinematographically created ambiance that actually overpowers the actors. Pretty pictures are nice if you can not travel to the heart of the holy city, but in this case the story suffers and certainly takes away from the filmmakers ambitions.

And the story is the age-old apparent conflict between science and religion. Do we get enough information and exposition to learn something new, or even care to contemplate this important topic? No. Is Banares well photographed? Yes, the parts that are devoid of real street life and real people, who normally bring life to the temples. Is there a tension between the lovers? No. Are we happy for them falling in love because we feel their hearts? No. Is the parent-child, castes conflict melodrama powerful enough to move us? No. Are age-old chants well produced like a music video? Yes, excellently. Does the movie do justice to the promos and hype about the alleged conflict of religious beliefs and modern science, or its presentations of the philosophy of love or even as found in romantic love? Nothing deep there. Is the storytelling moving the film forward? No, it stops too often to dwell on its on pretty pretensions.

It's eye candy at best, and the two protagonists do not connect except as another daft acting job. The dying dad at the beginning gives much story away, but even he looked pretty healthy as if there was no make-up designer on duty that day. Melodrama, yes. Sizzling love and real drama over the lingering castes system and parental cultural fossilization, no.