Re: Ghajini

[Guest guest]

Just curious, Kishoreda - where do you find the time to explore the antecedents

of Ghajini ?

Prabha '84

Subject: Ghajini

To: mgims

Date: Thursday, December 25, 2008, 11:23 AM

(Tamil version with English sub titles)

A man wakes up with Amnesia and only a desire to kill a certain person whose

phone number is tattooed on his body- that is the very interesting premise

and base of the movie Ghajini.

The story begins with a Medical student who wants to study a patient,

Sanjay, with short-term memory loss, but is dissuaded by her professor

because it is a police case. Through a set of clever flash backs, we get to

know the past of Sanjay Ramasamy, the owner CEO of a mobile company.

The first part is a breezy romantic comedy, when a naughty ad model is

inadvertently thought to be the sweet heart of Sanjay. The model, Kalpana,

played energetically by Asin, who is fond of pranks, lets the

misunderstanding blossom purposefully. Sanjay decides to confront this

prankster only to predictably fall head over heels in love with Kalpana. In

the confusion, he omits to mention that he is the real Sanjay, and in one of

the most hilarious moments of the film, Kalpana requests him to play the

real Sanjay, so that she can earn brownie points with the ad filmmaker.

There is a scene clearly inspired from Raj Kapoor's Anari, which in turn was

partially inspired by 'The gift of Magi', when one person gifts the other

and the other sacrifices something to gift back in return. The film keeps

harking on old time values where real love can be found only if the girl

does not know that the other guy is rich. This is probably the only aspect

of the film, which rankles a bit for being outdated.

The rest of the film deals with how Kalpana is murdered and Sanjay ends up

as an amnesiac with only one mission in life- kill the murderer. The problem

is that Sanjay cannot remember anything or anybody after 15 minutes.

Deftly handled, there is never a dull moment, when we are quickly shifted

from the past to the present to the past and back to the present again. We

can really empathize with Sanjay as he painfully tries to remember whom he

is talking with and whether he is a friend or foe. There are some powerful

dramatic moments like when halfway through a chase Sanjay cannot remember

who he is chasing and why.

The fights are a bit over the top, inspired by Matrix and a host of other

clones. However, full marks to the writer for producing a tense edge of the

seat thriller with never a dull moment. But major credit for making Ghajini

a very interesting watch goes to the hero who plays the two Sanjays very

differently, a soft romantic tycoon in love and an obsessed killer without

memory, sporting that trademark Ghajini scar on the scalp signifying a

trauma causing all that amnesia.

Asin is quite sweet and competent, and I am certain that she will make a

mark in Bollywood. I am sure that Amir Khan must have acted equally well in

the Hindi version, but the Tamil hero never makes you yearn for Amir. All in

all a good entertaining yarn. Don't look for medical accuracy, but if you

want a thundering good thriller, which will keep you glued to your seat,

then go for Ghajini.

Kishore Shah 1974