[ad_1]
The movie Sadak 2 (and Alia Bhatt‘s performance in it) is something that everyone seems to have agreed to sweep under the rug. Two years and well-deserved stardom later, it remains the saddest blot on a filmography that also includes Student of the Year and a film literally called Kalank. But while everyone acknowledged that she put herself in a compromised position on Sadak 2, given that it was directed by her father Mahesh Bhatt decades past his prime, there is no excuse for the way Bhatt – often described as the most talented actor of his generation, someone incapable of delivering a bad performance even in Manyavar commercials — was treated in director Ayan Mukerji’s fantasy epic Brahmastra.
Released in theaters this past weekend eight solid years after it was first announced, Brahmastra is an excruciating theatrical experience that has the power to shatter both your eardrums and your will to live. It’s an overlong, disjointedly plotted film that routinely steals from all the obvious sources – Harry Potter, The MCU, Star Wars , even Avatar: The Last Airbender — and seems to have convinced himself that no one will notice. In fact, director Ayan Mukerji has so little respect for the audience (and so little faith in his own film) that he feels the need to squeeze every last drop of exposition so loud that by the time you leave the theater, dazed and silly, you’ll think to yourself even in Sanskrit.
And no one screams louder than Bhatt’s Isha, who, when she’s not calling for her boyfriend Shiva, tearfully expresses her Parvati-like devotion to him, literally within 24 hours of their first meeting. In those 24 hours, Shiva (played by Ranbir Kapoor) has creepily chased her around to a party, manipulated her into giving him brownie points by telling her he cares about orphans, and subsequently abandoned her on a rooftop. The following day, he reveals the big ‘raaz’ of his life to Isha – that for as long as he can remember, he has been having disturbing visions – and promises that he will never keep a secret from her again.
Shiva immediately breaks this promise when Isha catches him messing with fire on a trip to Varanasi. He tells her by way of explanation that he has a ‘rishta’ with ‘aag’. And going by Isha’s pained look, he might as well have told her that he has a ‘rishta’ with another woman. To be fair, her anger is justified. She was expressly promised that there would be no more secrets between them, and then Shiva told her that he is immune to flames! But what happens next is even more astonishing.
With little reason to still be involved with a (mysterious, super-powered) man she just met, Isha tells Shiva that she knows he’s special and that if fate has brought them together at this special time, then it be her duty to do his bidding. I know this film was probably conceptualized before anyone involved had even heard of the word “woke”, but writing like this would be outdated even in the era that Brahmastra draws from.
Isha is later referred to as a ‘button’ – a literal inanimate object – that Shiva needs to function as a catalyst in his journey. In the film’s ridiculous climactic action sequence, she accompanies him onto the battlefield with a lighter in hand, ready to flick it to life at a moment’s notice – he can’t do this himself, can he? – and help Shiva ignite his powers.
Another mundane task is outsourced to Isha when she is with Shiva at Guruji’s House for Gifted Youngsters in Himachal Pradesh, deep in the film’s second half. She is told to go back to Shiva’s house in Mumbai, secure the last remaining belongings of his dead mother, stuff them in an overnight bag and bring everything back to him. So after about two hours of being forcefully thrust into a life-changing drama she never asked for, Isha is asked to give Shiva space to focus on her training, as if she’s the kind of distraction that Ramya Krishnan’s character in Straight described as a ‘chudail’. In Mumbai, she is attacked by one of the villain’s three henchmen, and even then – separated from Shiva – the film refuses to allow Isha to save herself. Instead, it sends two of Guruji’s super-powered disciples to save her skin in a blatant act of Deus Ex Machina. Brahmastra often relies on plot conveniences like this, rather than developing characters via story.
And for a film whose mission statement is a variation on the ‘love is the strongest superpower’ mumbo-jumbo from Harry Potter, Brahmastra certainly treats Isha and Shiva’s romantic arc with all the care that Karan Johar gives to the less popular guest on his talk show. In fact, Bhatt is treated better on Koffee with Karan episodes, which she is not even a part of, than she is in Brahmastra, a film that seems to be constantly chanting ‘mantras’ under its breath to find ways to involve her in history.
That Isha has no agency in the film is one thing—Brahmastra, of course, fails the Bechdel test with flying colors—but didn’t Bhatt have something to say about her character in real life either? Or maybe she did and the others simply weren’t listening. It can be argued that Mukerji, as with the several other elements in the film, plays Isha’s story close to the chest. However, we mustn’t judge a character by their hypothetical arc in non-existent future movies, but by what we’ve been shown in this one.
And to think Bhatt’s career is peaking as we speak. Isha is the kind of arm-candy character that you would expect to see in some of the more offensive ‘hero-driven’ films that Bollywood loves to make. But this is the sad realization that Brahmastra leaves you with: Shiva may be the chosen one, sure, but nothing about this film is unique; indeed, treating its female lead poorly is just one of the many traits it shares with the worst form of entertainment the industry has to offer.
Post Credits Scene is a column where we dissect new releases each week, with a particular focus on context, craft and characters. Because there is always something to fix once the dust has settled.
[ad_2]
Leave a Reply