'In Sanju, Rajkumar Hirani has essentially found a Rajkumar Hirani story buried inside Sanjay Dutt's life.'
'Now if you think that's scary, sample the alternative: Perhaps Sanjay Dutt had been living his life to suit the narrative of a Rajkumar Hirani film,' says Sreehari Nair.
For all those sermons about non-violence, Rajkumar Hirani's movies are pretty hot on ideas such as revenge and comeback.
Think about it: No Hirani hero has ever earned his badge without giving it to the inflexible, the unscrupulous, the cold-hearted, and the corrupt.
Rajkumar Hirani may want you to believe that he makes human dramas, but a careful look at the most prominent arc in his movies and you can surmise: The man makes his own versions of the revenge drama.
A Sriram Raghavan may outwardly set out to make revenge dramas, but because he cares for each body that's disposed of and for every ego that's bruised along the way, what he ends up crafting are great human dramas. (That said, Bloody Raghavan would never preach to you the futility of violence).
Rajkumar Hirani sees the world primarily in terms of somebody triumphing over somebody else. And in his continuing pursuit of remaking the world to suit his pet narrative, what he overlooks is the 'human dimension' of his characters.
Now this may have seemed like a harmless artistic choice for the sanitised ideas Hirani has pursued thus far (Even the most violent person walks out of Lage Raho Munna Bhai accepting its message of pacifism), but when it shows up in his latest work, Sanju, this creation of polar positions for 'Good' and 'Bad' hits you like an act of fraudulence -- a deceit so obvious that it makes the movie play out like an abridged version of a poorly written book.
In Sanju, Rajkumar Hirani has essentially found a Rajkumar Hirani story buried inside Sanjay Dutt's life.
Now if you think that's scary, sample the alternative: Perhaps Sanjay Dutt had been living his life to suit the narrative of a Rajkumar Hirani film.
But this time, Hirani isn't getting off lightly; and that's because there are no Lucky Singhs or Asthanas or Sahastrabuddhes 'evil enough' to atone for Sanjay Dutt's problems.
Sure Hirani slides in easy templates wherever he can.
Sanjay Dutt's drug addiction is attributed solely to a sibilant, Groucho Marx-resembling Parsi character
Dutt's diminishing public image is credited to the editor of a flimsy magazine.
These are the usual bad guys that populate a Hirani film and they are treated with the usual Hirani scorn.
But Dutt's problems are anything but Hirani-esque; they, in fact, border on the existential.
And Hirani's response to this new form of character crisis is merely to expand the battlefield: It's Poor Sanju Baba Vs a World that's Evil.
Nobody goes to a Rajkumar Hirani film to get their daily dose of guilt (Has Hirani's bad guys ever reminded you of any real person let alone evoked self-comparison?).
And so, this time, when Hirani gets his finger wagging in all possible directions, it's bound to make at least a few loyalists uncomfortable.
His prognosis: You guys are as much to blame for Sanjay Dutt's miseries as anybody (for isn't the 'public' the biggest stakeholder in the Media Ecosystem that the film tries to run down?).
The sweet Rajkumar Hirani, who turns into an avenging angel when telling his stories, gets so caught up in all that finger pointing that he fails to even remotely touch upon that aspect of Dutt which makes his story so compelling.
Sanjay Dutt is a problem child, sure, but what he's most prone to is self-flagellation: If he can't return to his old problems, he will invent fresh ones.
It's this particular facet of his subject that lies outside Rajkumar Hirani's comprehension and his artistic approach.
What we needed here were the services of a film-maker who could see beyond the 'wild, interesting, emotional stories of Sanjay Dutt's life.'
What we needed was a film-maker who possessed the psychological acuity to investigate into the core of Dutt's personality that made possible his shenanigans.
Take, for example, the big confession.
Here, I am ready to give Dutt the benefit of doubt: Maybe he did keep an AK-56 to 'protect his family.'
But as an artist jotting down that testimony as plain truth, you are also obliged to look at the delusion that accompanies the act: Even when it came to keeping a weapon for protection, Dutt could not think of anything less than an assault rifle!
This fact, and this fact alone, tells you so much about Sanjay Dutt and about the specific personality-type that he represents.
It tells you about his kind of innocence -- which is both childish and in its childishness also immensely destructive (Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer, was this sort of a 'dangerous innocent').
It makes one wonder: Was 'protection' Dutt's excuse to himself; his justification for the excitement he felt as the proud owner of an AK-56?
The absolute reality of the AK-56 episode was that Sanjay Dutt wasn't acting rationally there: He was just responding intuitively to his darkest impulses.
And understanding all this called for someone who has both a sense of justice and a great command over violent techniques.
Saints, Generals, and Martin Scorsese have it but not Hirani, the cleanest of avengers: He simply rationalises everything that Dutt did!
Critics who are accusing Hirani of whitewashing are, I think, acting out of character. It isn't whitewashing as much as force-fitting your sensibility to a story that demanded something entirely different.
The bare fact here is that if Dutt, when narrating his life-story, hadn't justified his misdemeanors; if he hadn't pitched himself as the big champ who proved his detractors wrong; if he hadn't projected himself as the man who had everything, lost it, and then got it back -- Rajkumar Hirani would not have felt that this was a story worth telling.
 |
| Sanjay Dutt and Ranbir Kapoor in a promotion for Sanju |
'Now if you think that's scary, sample the alternative: Perhaps Sanjay Dutt had been living his life to suit the narrative of a Rajkumar Hirani film,' says Sreehari Nair.
For all those sermons about non-violence, Rajkumar Hirani's movies are pretty hot on ideas such as revenge and comeback.
Think about it: No Hirani hero has ever earned his badge without giving it to the inflexible, the unscrupulous, the cold-hearted, and the corrupt.
Rajkumar Hirani may want you to believe that he makes human dramas, but a careful look at the most prominent arc in his movies and you can surmise: The man makes his own versions of the revenge drama.
A Sriram Raghavan may outwardly set out to make revenge dramas, but because he cares for each body that's disposed of and for every ego that's bruised along the way, what he ends up crafting are great human dramas. (That said, Bloody Raghavan would never preach to you the futility of violence).
Rajkumar Hirani sees the world primarily in terms of somebody triumphing over somebody else. And in his continuing pursuit of remaking the world to suit his pet narrative, what he overlooks is the 'human dimension' of his characters.
Now this may have seemed like a harmless artistic choice for the sanitised ideas Hirani has pursued thus far (Even the most violent person walks out of Lage Raho Munna Bhai accepting its message of pacifism), but when it shows up in his latest work, Sanju, this creation of polar positions for 'Good' and 'Bad' hits you like an act of fraudulence -- a deceit so obvious that it makes the movie play out like an abridged version of a poorly written book.
In Sanju, Rajkumar Hirani has essentially found a Rajkumar Hirani story buried inside Sanjay Dutt's life.
Now if you think that's scary, sample the alternative: Perhaps Sanjay Dutt had been living his life to suit the narrative of a Rajkumar Hirani film.
But this time, Hirani isn't getting off lightly; and that's because there are no Lucky Singhs or Asthanas or Sahastrabuddhes 'evil enough' to atone for Sanjay Dutt's problems.
Sure Hirani slides in easy templates wherever he can.
Sanjay Dutt's drug addiction is attributed solely to a sibilant, Groucho Marx-resembling Parsi character
Dutt's diminishing public image is credited to the editor of a flimsy magazine.
These are the usual bad guys that populate a Hirani film and they are treated with the usual Hirani scorn.
But Dutt's problems are anything but Hirani-esque; they, in fact, border on the existential.
 |
| Sonam Kapoor and Ranbir in Sanju |
And Hirani's response to this new form of character crisis is merely to expand the battlefield: It's Poor Sanju Baba Vs a World that's Evil.
Nobody goes to a Rajkumar Hirani film to get their daily dose of guilt (Has Hirani's bad guys ever reminded you of any real person let alone evoked self-comparison?).
And so, this time, when Hirani gets his finger wagging in all possible directions, it's bound to make at least a few loyalists uncomfortable.
His prognosis: You guys are as much to blame for Sanjay Dutt's miseries as anybody (for isn't the 'public' the biggest stakeholder in the Media Ecosystem that the film tries to run down?).
The sweet Rajkumar Hirani, who turns into an avenging angel when telling his stories, gets so caught up in all that finger pointing that he fails to even remotely touch upon that aspect of Dutt which makes his story so compelling.
Sanjay Dutt is a problem child, sure, but what he's most prone to is self-flagellation: If he can't return to his old problems, he will invent fresh ones.
It's this particular facet of his subject that lies outside Rajkumar Hirani's comprehension and his artistic approach.
What we needed here were the services of a film-maker who could see beyond the 'wild, interesting, emotional stories of Sanjay Dutt's life.'
What we needed was a film-maker who possessed the psychological acuity to investigate into the core of Dutt's personality that made possible his shenanigans.
Take, for example, the big confession.
Here, I am ready to give Dutt the benefit of doubt: Maybe he did keep an AK-56 to 'protect his family.'
But as an artist jotting down that testimony as plain truth, you are also obliged to look at the delusion that accompanies the act: Even when it came to keeping a weapon for protection, Dutt could not think of anything less than an assault rifle!
This fact, and this fact alone, tells you so much about Sanjay Dutt and about the specific personality-type that he represents.
It tells you about his kind of innocence -- which is both childish and in its childishness also immensely destructive (Mark David Chapman, John Lennon's killer, was this sort of a 'dangerous innocent').
It makes one wonder: Was 'protection' Dutt's excuse to himself; his justification for the excitement he felt as the proud owner of an AK-56?
The absolute reality of the AK-56 episode was that Sanjay Dutt wasn't acting rationally there: He was just responding intuitively to his darkest impulses.
And understanding all this called for someone who has both a sense of justice and a great command over violent techniques.
Saints, Generals, and Martin Scorsese have it but not Hirani, the cleanest of avengers: He simply rationalises everything that Dutt did!
Critics who are accusing Hirani of whitewashing are, I think, acting out of character. It isn't whitewashing as much as force-fitting your sensibility to a story that demanded something entirely different.
 |
| Ranbir and Paresh Rawal in Sanju |
The bare fact here is that if Dutt, when narrating his life-story, hadn't justified his misdemeanors; if he hadn't pitched himself as the big champ who proved his detractors wrong; if he hadn't projected himself as the man who had everything, lost it, and then got it back -- Rajkumar Hirani would not have felt that this was a story worth telling.
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