Landing with a soul-shaking thud, on the minds of the movie- going masses, "The Three Idiots", unambiguously and hilariously made the stunning declaration that Indian film comedy is just not what it has been all along. Delivering fun at a mass - production rate and amassing Box-Office revenues on a record breaking scale, "The Three Idiots", administers sly but painful knocks on the heads of academic stupidity and obscene pecuniary ostentation. It is outrageously funny and in the same breath, is didactic in its own way. Its appeal was immediate and trans-cultural.
And, now comes "My Name is Khan" - to shatter Box-Office histories and above all, to demolish some assumed film-norms and human mores.
In the first instance, "My Name is Khan", is a cinematic parable, about the malaise, that affects a wide swath of humanity, in our day.
Rizwan Khan, is pushed to the edge of society, from his childhood on, because of the mild autism he suffers from his birth. His difference from the generality of other children is troubling to his mother. But, he possesses compensatory skills, that enable him to achieve some mild victories. The doting mother is over-protective and is deeply anxious about this handicapped child.
The maternal affection rouses, sibling jealousy in his brother. But Rizwan Khan, does not have the emotional maturity to fathom this development.
Adult Rizwan Khan (portrayed with adroit thespian finesse, by Sharukh Khan), undertakes a tour of the US, on the invitation of his reconciled brother and his wife.
This tour, gets transformed into a "Pilgrim's Progress", highlighted by encounters with good and evil - with true humans and those who parade in human guise.
His sister-in-law diagnoses his condition as Asperger Syndrome.
In some persons, he comes upon, he elicits a kind of pity, mixed with affection. One such person charming Mandira (Kajol) moved vastly by Khan's vulnerable innocence proposes marriage to him. She, a single person living with her son, takes on his name Khan.
In he social "quake', that erupted in the aftermath of 9/11, in some segments of human existence, name, race and religion, turned into entities that could evoke irrational prejudices, with the potency to lead even to excruciating violence. This emphatically underlines a stark human irony. Name, race and religion, are wholesome phenomena, that unify people and not divisive forces.
"My Name is Khan", stresses dramatically how thoughtless hatred had poisoned such sacred usages. "Viewed This way", "My Name is Khan", serves dramatically not only as an "Eye-opener" but, strangely enough as a "Soul-Opener" as well.
The selection of mass idol Sharukh Khan to play Rizwan Khan, the pathetic victim of the Asperger Syndrome, is an inspired stroke.
The reduction of the ever-ebullient, handsome and action-driven mass hero Sharukh Khan, to the level of the pathetic, mildly artistic Rizwan Khan, evokes viewer sympathy to the causes he dramatizes, with a telling alacrity.
After Mandira's heart is irreparably shattered by the futile tragedy, that made her lose her adorable son Sameer, Rizwan Khan, has no place in her life. The death of the son, has brought about by Rizwan Khan, which she and her son adopted. Though the tragedy underlines the irrational viciousness of those who inhumanly hate labels, with scant reference to stark reality of the victim's utter innocence, Mandira's wounded heart cannot be comforted. Her sorrow burgeons, as her self-accusing conscience tortures her for the name she took.
From that climactic development on, Rizwan Khan is propelled by the magic mantram "My Name is Khan", which he has to proclaims to the President, as the formula of redemption, Mandira has imposed on him.
Director Karan Johar (deliberately to my mind) manipulates the development of the film's progress at a kind of semi-artistic pace, which makes his cinematic product, have a peculiar hold on the mind and the soul of the film-goers.
The upshot of all this is, a new dramatic statement by Bollywood. 'Indian cinema can expand not only the limits of the possible, but even the limits of the impossible.
"My Name is Khan", drives home, quite emphatically, those burning social problems and broad human issues are grist for the mill for current Bollywood cinema production philosophy. Bollywood has captured mass audiences, right across the globe, by its unique brand of entertainment films. Bevies and bevies of bright beauties, lilting music, hypnotisingly choreographed dance spectacles, and story-lines that compensate and fulfil, created the Bollywood formula of mass entertainment.
But, in the wake of "My Name is Khan", Bollywood will be widely hailed as the producer of dramatic works, that will prove the potentiality of the film - medium, as an instrument that can challenge undaunted, the mass prejudices, that sour human relations everywhere.
Men and women could perhaps chant "Our Name is Khan" and "We Are Not...." to drill the message of humanity into the ears of rulers.
Source: http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/142532158
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