Submit your Article

 Just when the new school of film­makers are using their creativity and ingenuity to break through the shackles of low budgets and lim­ited markets, films like “Hajar Juni Samma” come out to completely destroy your budding faith in the Nepali film industry. Directed by Bikash Raj Acharya (the man behind the overly-stretched movie series “Nai Nabhannu La”), this movie is a disaster.

Films like this are difficult to review because as much as you want to, you have nothing good to say. For a reviewer, the best place to get audi­ence reaction is at the loo during the interval. When everyone is too som­ber even to talk, and yawn through their nature’s call, you know the script has gone badly wrong.

The story of “Hajar Juni Samma” is unoriginal and seems to have been lifted off the trash can of a Bollywood production house in the 90s. Even the logo of its production house evidently takes inspiration from Bollywood biggies Nadiadwala and Grandson Entertainment.

Aryan Sigdel makes a comeback in this film as Siddhanth, a retired singer and now a guitar store own­er in Pokhara, who seems to be super-rich—an oxymoron the film­makers don’t care to explain. (And this is not an isolated quirk.) Any­way, Siddhant lives in Pokhara with his adopted sons Nishant (Salon Basnet) and Atharba (Akhilesh Pradhan). He is also good friends with Avantika (Swastima Khadka), a medical student from Sikkim studying in Pokhara. Despite his chronic coughing, endless smoking and habitual drinking, Siddhant is a good father who wants to find the perfect match for his son Atharba and repeatedly asks Avantika to become his daughter-in-law—despite knowing that the two have nev­er met and Avantika already has a boyfriend.

Now this is a movie you’d want to watch with your female friends, just to see them cringe at the creepy old man trying to find a match for his son. The whole of the first half is devoted to how the father-son trio tries to woo Avantika through­out a long journey. Some of the metaphors and allegories used for women in this film are so belit­tling one wonders why no Kolly­wood feminist has flagged them yet. Either they haven’t watched the movie or they are protective of their own fraternity while they pub­licly bash “Kabir Singh” for being a misogynist.

The long journey we speak of is what the majority of the film is about. Forced by his sons, Siddhant travels to Sikkim to find his lost love Maya (Priyanka Karki) who he had an affair with for the whole of nine days—and all of 14 years ago! Now our filmmakers seem to be from the school of fiction writers who believe a girl can get impregnat­ed from a single intercourse and raise a perfectly healthy child who looks like neither of her parents. They also seem to forget that the age of rapid communication had already begun 14 years ago. Strange­ly enough, our love birds managed to only share each other’s postal address but not phone numbers. The only thing worse they could have done was to use pigeons to ferry their love letters across Sikkim and Pokhara.

So the audience is made to stay put for over two long hours, antic­ipating at least one unexpected scene. But the only twist there is of the audience fidgeting in their seats trying to laugh at Nishant’s forced antics, while desperately trying to find the connection between Athar­ba and Avantika and somehow ‘feel the love’ between Siddhant and Maya. All to no avail .

(Note: We’ll skip the acting part because we don’t want to per­sonally attack the actors. But a hint: it’s way below par, especial­ly in the case of Aryan Sigdel and Akhilesh Pradhan.)

Bhuwan Chand—the first officially recognized Nepali feature film actress—dons the producer’s hat this time to bring Saino into the Nepali film industry. Although it takes its name from the classic Bhuwan KC-Danny Denzongpa-Tripti Nadkar starrer Nepali movie from 1987, this Saino has an independently created plot, and is nowhere close to becoming a ‘super hit’ like the former one.

Chand’s Saino, a social drama based in a hilly village near Kathmandu, revolves around a young couple Raj (Raj Kumar) and Anu (Miruna Magar). The two are in love with each other and want to get married, but the girl’s father and her cousin Maite (Roydeep Shrestha) oppose the union. In fact, Maite wants to marry Anu; both are from the Lama culture, where a guy has the right to court the daughter of his maternal uncle. So Maite tries to woo Anu, but because she snubs his advances, he plans to kidnap and marry her forcefully—another privilege his culture entitles him to. (Interestingly, the custom in which a man can kidnap and marry his cousin is still prevalent in some parts of Nepal and a few elected representatives from those areas spoke this week in the parliament about banning it.)

What follows is a long ordeal of escaping and hiding for both the lead characters. The film’s story is pivoted in such a way that it does not stick to the predictable nature of stereotypical Kollywood plots where a young couple elopes together when their union is not accepted by their families and society. The film has its own twists and turns and also tries to touch the issue of human trafficking. But this is where the film falls flat. In what is probably an effort to make a movie carrying a strong social message, the filmmakers have only managed to address the issues superficially, while there is no notable lesson the audience can take home. With a runtime of 1 hr 54 mins, the film becomes tedious to watch.

A legend in her own right, Chand also appears in a supporting role as Raj’s widowed mother. Most of the young characters in the film are newcomers, except for Radha (Nita Dhungana), who adds another love triangle to the story as she pursues Raj romantically. Performance wise, Raj Kumar’s debut as Raj is rather forgettable. He looks quite uncomfortable on screen at times and is not at all convincing as a passionate lover. Miruna, on the other hand, plays a village girl with considerable ease and her NRN status (she was born in Hong Kong) doesn’t affect her character at all. She plays Anu quite convincingly, more so than many actresses born and bred in Kathmandu who fail to enact the ‘rural’ character when needed.

Nita, with all her previous experiences in Kollywood, doesn’t add a strong work experience to her resume with this film. She does attempt to fit into her character as a dance instructor and Raj’s old friend who is head-over-heels for him. But besides showing off her dancing skills, she doesn’t do much to make the audience like her. The film would have been unbearable if these central characters were forced on the screen throughout its entire length, but the filmmakers have smartly given some screen time to a number of supporting characters to avoid the disaster.

Comic relief in Saino is minimal but clean (non-sleazy), and the comeback of legendary actors Madan Das Shrestha and Basundhara Bhusal elevates the film’s status as a whole. The veteran actors play a landlord couple and provide a much-needed break from the film’s mediocrity with their mature acting.

Who should watch it:

Saino is a below par production in terms of storytelling and acting. The plot, which again could have been its strength, becomes its weakness as the filmmakers attempt desperately to appeal to the audience’s sense of sympathy. But the movie is not entirely unwatchable. The supporting actors make it more bearable than it may sound in the review. And since there were no new releases this weekend, a Nepali film lover might want to watch this to support the industry.

Rating: 2 stars

Run time: 1 hr 54 mins

Cast: Nita Dhungana, Miruna Magar, Raj Kumar

Director: Ramesh Thapa

Genre: Drama

Sonakshi Sinha-starrer ‘Khandaani Shafakhana’ would be a much better film had the runtime been, say, 90 minutes, instead of the 136 minutes it actually is. Nothing wrong with the story. Sinha plays Babita ‘Baby’ Bedi, a young woman who has inherited an old Unani medical dispensary from her deceased uncle, Mamaji (Kulbhushan Kharbanda). The problem is that it’s a sex clinic, and Baby won’t be able to make it her own unless she runs it for six months, as stipulated in Mamaji’s will. A young woman running a sex clinic in the heart of the conservative Punjabi heartland is problematic on multiple fronts.

Marketed as the ‘the only sex film for the whole family’, the film takes up a delicate subject, which is still a taboo in many parts of South Asia. Mamaji was himself shunned by the Unani medical community for bringing the fraternity into disrepute by running a sex clinic. Twenty years later, when Baby wants to run it, she is shunned and shamed as well.

At the start, Baby is only interested in completing the six months so that she can legally inherit the clinic and be able to sell it: Her indebted family desperately needs the money. But in time she comes to realize that Mamaji, instead of being someone of disrepute, had actually helped countless couples to lead happy conjugal lives by improving their sex lives. And the realization that Mamaji trusted Baby, and no one else, to look after the clinic, also makes her consider keeping it.

‘Khandaani Shafakhana’ is a lighthearted comedy and fun to watch in bits and pieces. It also makes a strong case for sex education for youngsters and opening up about sex to bring it out of the closet. Baby’s struggle as a medical representative, her light-hearted riff with her brother Bhooshit (Barun Sharma), the weird complaints Baby’s patients come up with—all add a humorous touch. The rapper Badshah, who plays a Punjabi singing heartthrob, looks the part as well.

So what is wrong with the film? First, it is a touch too slow. Second, without giving away the plot, parts of it are unconvincing: everything happens so fast that events often seem unbelievable. Sinha is brilliant in her role. But for a mainstream Bollywood movie, the weight is too much for her to carry alone. A promising plot thus underwhelms.

The good bit is the film’s contribution to making sex less of a taboo in this part of the world. In this, the movie, again, largely succeeds. It also breaks the stereotype of males as family’s breadwinners in traditional India.

If that was the sole expectation of the film production team, they have succeeded. But if they wanted to make a fun movie and mint some money out of it, we are afraid they have won’t get far. People go to Bollywood films with certain expectations, and Khandani Shafakhakhana fails to live up to them.

Who should watch it?:

If you are parents of young children, this film offers the most gentle lesson possible on the birds and the bees. You will also enjoy it if you like women-centric cinema. But it’s a little slow and for the important message it wants to deliver, not always believable.

Movie: Khandaani Shafakhana

Genre: Comedy

Actors: Sonakshi Sinha, Badshah, Varun Sharma, Annu Kapoor, Kulbhushan Kharbanda

Director: Shilpi Dasgupta

Runtime: 136 minutes

Rating: 3 stars