Yesterday afternoon I got a text message from
Nirmala asking if I wanted to go see an Indian movie with her and the girlies. The last time we went to see an Indian movie, it was
Rang de Basanti, which you may remember contains this pivotal and hot scene of half naked boys jumping for an airplane:
Rang de Basanti taught me two crucial things. 1) Lose control! Be a rebel! 2) Movies from India are crazy because you’ll be watching the film, enjoying it and thinking you know what’s going on and all of the sudden the film does a complete 180 and goes in the totally opposite direction. In the case of
Rang de Basanti, it was all la la la friends making a movie, la la la la funny funny friends, la la la CORRUPTION DEATH AND DESTRUCTION. Really. It goes just like that.
This time we went to see
Fanaa, which stars the very handsome Aamir Khan (who was also in
Rang de Basanti), and I’m not going to lie to you guys, it was a major selling point for seeing this flick.
People. Trust me when I say this:
Fanaa is the best movie I’ve seen this year. It was AMAZING. And it was amazing in a way that no American movie could ever hope to be.
!Spoiler Warning! I am about to go into this movie Hard Core, and if you have any plans for seeing this movie at all (and you totally should) you better stop reading now, because I am about to ruin all major plot points.
OK, so it opens with our heroine, Zooni. She’s blind. And she’s sitting and talking with her parents about her future and stuff and her Dad says something to the effect of “To choose between right or wrong is simple, but what defines one's life is the decision between the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils.” This is the
theme to the movie guys. Anyway, Zooni decides that she’s going to Delhi to perform her music (she’s a singer!) at the Presidential Palace and she and her aunt/cousins/friends/backup singers/whatever hire this tour guide in Delhi to show them around. Our tour guide is the suave Rehan. Rehan is a big old flirt, but his heart is captured by Zooni. It’s love at first sight for him and he proceeds to try to woo Zooni.
Meanwhile, Zooni’s friends/cousins/backup singers try to dissuade Zooni from Rehan because he’s a big old playa and they don’t trust him. Plus whenever they talk about him crows caw! This is called
foreshadowing.
At this point Rehan breaks into a musical number for Zooni, complete with
whistling. I am only being half facetious when I say this is COMPLETELY AWESOME.
Like any red-blooded woman, Zooni melts at this, and agrees to let Rehan show her around Delhi one on one. So Rehan shows her around in a special way so that even with her blindness she can “see” Delhi. It’s really kind of sweet.
Zooni then performs at the Presidential Palace (another musical number – again, awesome) and Rehan sneaks in to see Zooni perform with some help from their friend Jolly Good, a security guard. Afterward, Rehan takes Zooni out again (after one last half-hearted warning from her friends) and he takes her to a temple (?) and blesses her eyes. Again, really romantic and sweet. By now, Zooni has completely fallen for Rehan’s flirty sexy jaunty man-scarf-wearing ways and she admits as much to Rehan.
The next day is Zooni’s last day in Delhi, and in a completely dick move, Rehan stands her up! So Zooni hunts him down, and finds him giving a tour or something and when she confronts him and gives him a special sweater she’s been knitting, he acts like a tool and tells Zooni that women are like cities to him – he likes to get lost in them for awhile and move onto another one. Ass. For whatever reason, Zooni doesn’t slap the shit out of him, but instead convinces him to spend her last 12 hours in Delhi with her. Rehan agrees and promises that her last 12 hours will be the most beautiful in Delhi.
So they go back to Rehan’s apartment where he makes her a candle lit dinner on his terrace, but they are rained out! So they dance and sing in the rain, and it’s all wet and sensual and Zooni feels Rehan’s face a lot and it’s quite hot. And then they bed each other.
The next morning Zooni says a tearful goodbye to Rehan and boards the train. The train leaves the station, and Zooni is heart broken and sobbing, BUT! There’s Rehan! On the train! He came back for her! They pull the emergency brake and he carries her off the train (cheesy and wonderful) and basically proposes to her.
So Zooni calls her parents to tell them the good news and they’re thrilled and say they’re on their way to Delhi for the wedding, oh and by the way, did you go to the eye doctor like we told you to?
So Zooni goes ahead to the eye doctor and the doctor informs Zooni that she can have retina replacement surgery and will be able to see. But they have to do it Right Now. So as Zooni is getting prepped for surgery, Rehan promises to pick her parents up from the train station and Jolly Good from the Presidential Palace because Jolly Good wants to come for the wedding too. Then he very seriously and meaningfully tells her that he loves her very much. Zooni goes into eye surgery.
When Zooni comes out of surgery, she opens her eyes and sees her parents! They’re standing by her bedside with tears in their eyes and Zooni mistakes them for tears of joy because she’s seeing for the first time, but they’re really tears of SADDNESS and DESPAIR because while she was in surgery there was a terrorist attack. At the Presidential Palace. Where Rehan was picking up Jolly Good.
I
know, right?
Zooni doesn’t quite get it though, because she keeps asking, “Where’s Rehan? Where’s Rehan?” And then her parents have to lead her down to the morgue where the doctor informs her that they can’t visually ID Rehan’s body because it’s in pieces and makes her use her sense of touch to ID things like his necklaces, a lock of hair, and that sweater she made him. So sad, people. Poor Zooni.
At this point I knew the 180 was upon us, and I thought it was going to change from a romance flick to a political piece about Zooni fighting for anti-terrorist measures or something. Because they start showing scenes of like, the Indian equivalent of the FBI offices and the female agent who is tracking the terrorists down and stuff.
But then.
In a great montage, it is revealed that the leader of the terrorist attack at the Presidential Palace was
REHAN. He’s still alive, he faked his own death, and the entire time he was showing Zooni Delhi he was really gathering info on Delhi’s security for the rebel bases. Now he’s all walking through the airport with hot short hair looking like a bad ass. For real. It goes from sappy romance to James Bond in like 3 seconds.
At this point in the movie, I seriously thought that Mazz was going to stand up in the theatre, point at the screen and scream, “NO WAY!” because we were so! Shocked! Reading through this, it may seem like this was obvious, but really when watching the movie you never see it coming. 180, I tell you.
So Rehan is a terrorist. Not only that, he’s like a leader for this terrorist group, the IRK or something. And it really gets all Ethan Hunt-like, because it’s now 7 years later and the Indian FBI has been tracking the IRK, who had stolen a nuclear warhead and it’s Rehan’s job to get the trigger from Kashmir to Delhi or maybe the rendezvous point or something, and along the way he’s jumping out of planes and blowing up helicopters, snowboarding, and taking out members of the Indian Army, all while posing as a dutiful soldier. It’s incredible.
But he gets wounded! And Rehan’s staggering through the isolated snow-covered Kashmir in the middle of the blizzard with stab wounds and head injuries, when lo! He spots a house! So he staggers up to the door knocks and just before collapsing from his injuries, guess who answers the door?
Guess!
You know it. It’s Zooni’s house. And guess who lives there with her? Her father and
her son, which she dutifully named after her baby’s daddy, Rehan.
So of course they take this strange injured man in, because he’s dressed in solider’s clothes and they’re patriotic people. But the blizzard is so bad they can’t call for a doctor, or radio anyone and none of the phones work. So they tend to Terrorist Rehan, who wakes up finally, and figures out that Little Rehan is his son. Then he sulks and stomps around the house like a pissy little bratty brat. Little Rehan is very cute by the way, although he possibly needs a dose or two of Ritalin and has a tendency to talk about himself in the third person. All “Rehan loves you more than you love Rehan,” and “Rehan doesn’t want to wash his hair.” Whatever. Terrorist Rehan finally climbs off his huffy bike and starts falling in looooove with Zooni again. They all go out into the snow and play and sing songs about silly summer ants sucking sugar (…I don’t know) and Zooni, who’s no fool finally figures it out through scent and touch that this is her fiancée that she thought was pureed into a pulp 7 years before.
I honestly forget what story Rehan feeds them about the whole thing and I refuse to go look it up, but they believe him still to be in the Indian Army and that he just needs to finish his last mission. Zooni’s pissed though, understandably, because look how much pain and suffering she went through and now all the sudden Rehan is back? So Rehan leaves in the early morning without saying goodbye to anyone except Little Rehan, who later reveals that Terrorist Rehan has left, causing Zooni to chase after him in the snow.
Zooni catches up to him and proceeds to wallop Rehan across the face with a solid smack and beat him across the chest all while screaming at him that he doesn’t get to leave, she’s in charge now, his life belongs to HER, bitch. It’s pretty awesome. Then they hold each other in the snow.
Zooni’s dad marries them, and we cut to a spectacular musical number of them singing about holding hands and having the world when they have each other.
Meanwhile, the Indian FBI is closing in on finding him, and issues a report over the television basically saying “Hey look out for a dude posing as an army man with a nuclear trigger on his person.” Rehan decides that this is the perfect time to suddenly say, “I have a completely unrelated mission to complete before I can stay with you guys forever, can somebody take me to the neighbor’s house so I can radio my unit?” Like that’s NOT SUSPICIOUS AT ALL, REHAN. Zooni’s dad catches a glimpse of the nuclear trigger sticking out of Rehan’s pocket, and again, WAY TO BE STEALTH THERE, REHAN, YOU SCHMUCK. So the next morning, Zooni’s father takes Rehan to the neighbor’s house, but since he knows, confronts him with the trigger which he lifted from Rehan’s jacket pocket earlier. Again, way to be all willy-nilly with the trigger which can annihilate 5 million people, smackass. Zooni’s dad says he’s calling the Feds and then he and Rehan fight over the trigger, and during the struggle, Zooni’s dad falls off of a cliff.
Rehan, kills the neighbor, and radios his terrorist unit and gives his location so they can pick up the trigger.
Meanwhile, Zooni is gathering water at a local creek, when she sees her dad’s dead body floating under the ice of the local river. It is seriously creepy as hell. It gave both Nirmala and I a case of the jibblies. Zooni freaks the hell out as she should. She runs back to the house just as Rehan gets back, and when he sees her, before she can even speak he’s like, “Your dad decided to stay at the neighbors and drink for the night!” Zooni sees through this because she knows her dad is dead, and while Rehan is showering trying to wash off all the evil, she packs up Little Rehan, takes the trigger (SERIOUSLY, REHAN, GET WITH IT), and gets the hell out of Dodge. She books it to the neighbor’s house, barricades herself inside, and radios the Indian FBI, tells them everything. For their part the Indian Feds are like, “That’s great! Don’t give the trigger back to Rehan or else he’s going to blow up the whole country! We’ll come find you sometime tomorrow!” During all of this, Rehan figures out where Zooni and Little Rehan went and starts running sexily through the snow.
The next morning, Rehan arrives at the neighbor’s house and tries to persuade Zooni to give him back the trigger. Zooni is all, “Uh, NO, thanks, I think I’ll just keep it until those slow-ass Feds come” Rehan whines about how much he loves Zooni and Little Rehan and then swears that the terrorists won’t actually
use the bomb, they’ll just have it for leverage so that their demands are met. Riiiiiiiight. Rehad really tries to sell that point, as if he actually thinks this will win her back and that they could possibly live happily ever after even though he’s killed hundreds of people including her father and has been lying to her for 7 years.
Just then the terrorists arrive in a black helicopter. Rehan wrestles the trigger away from Zooni and goes outside to meet them. Zooni grabs a gun and runs outside too, and tells Rehad to stop or she’ll shoot. Rehad’s all, “Please, woman.” But Zooni is a down girl, and she shoots him in the back! Then! He falls to his knees and whips around with his gun leading us to this very cool suspenseful Reservoir Dogs-esque scene of them in the snow pointing guns at each other.
Rehad knows he can’t shoot Zooni because he really does love her. So he puts his gun down and struggles to stand and starts walking towards the oncoming helicopter again. And man, Zooni. Girlfriend shoots him again. Like a trooper. And then the Feds finally arrive. Like no rush guys, really. It’s just a formerly blind girl and her kid out here alone with a terrorist and a nuclear trigger. God. The Feds shoot the terrorist helicopter down. Zooni runs to Rehad’s body, because terrorist or not, she did love him too. Just before dying, Rehad takes a page from Little Rehan’s book and says, “Rehan loves you more that you love Rehan.” So cheesy. SO AWESOME.
During these final scenes, Nirmala and I were literally
clutching each other, it was so suspenseful and there was so much tension and sadness.
Some final thoughts –
The musical numbers. I’m a fan of musical numbers to begin with, but really, nobody does them like Bollywood. Amazing.
The cinematography was breathtaking. Great balance of color and light throughout. The entire thing was just beautiful to look at.
Our girl,
Kajol, who played Zooni. She was awesome. Apparently she attended the Regaining Your Sight While Accidentally Falling In Love With A Terrorist And Looking Damned Gorgeous In The Process School of Acting. I so want her stylist.
And of course,
Aamir. Hott. As Renée says, “Stop dying in films, Aamir!”
Next on the Indian Film list? The Bollywood version of
Dirty Dancing. Oh yes.
