Vishal Bharadwaj, whose worst work so far is better than the best work of many directors in Hindi film industry. When he directs a movie, what you expect? When I saw the trailer, my expectations were that high. The trailer sure raised curiosity. Then there were people who watched the movie and gave reactions as strong as, "7 khoon Maaf. The biggest blunder to watch in 2011." Since I am not someone to get influenced by someone else's opinion I yet wanted to watch it, but it definitely lowered my expectations. So here I was watching 7 Khoon Maaf, starring Priyanka Chopra with a bunch of actors of different age groups ranging from Neil Nitin Mukesh to Naseeruddin Shah playing her husbands, with not that high expectations.
The movie is the story of Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes, who is in search of a perfect life partner. In her search she marries a one legged super possessive, super suspecting army major, a cross dressing, drug addict rock star, a poet with violent sexual fantasies, a cheating Russian nuclear scientist, a pervert intelligence officer and a filed businessman who had plans of acquiring her wealth by killing her. The twist here is, Susanna is a woman who when threatened by a dog on her way to school as a kid decided to kill the dog with her father's gun rather than changing her way. "Madam rasta nahi badalti, raste me aane wale kutton ko maar deti hain" as put by one of her three servants who assist her in killing these dogs and digging their graves.
Keeping up to his tradition of adopted screenplay's this time Vishal has chosen a story by Ruskin Bond, which I have not read so cannot comment on the adaptation part. However it is a difficult story to make a into a movie and even more difficult to make people like the movie. Priyanka Chopra plays the role of Susanna, who ages from 25 to 60 in the movie and her husbands are played by Neil Nitin Mukesh, John Abraham, Irfaan Khan, some Russian guy Aleksandr Dyachenko, Anu Kapoor and Naseeruddin Shah. Her three faithful servants and partners in crime are played by Usha Uthup, Shashi Malviya and I missed the name of the third one. Then there is Arun, a kid who she raises and helps him become a doctor played by Vivaan Shah and Konkana Sen Sharma playing Arun's wife in a cameo. Finally a tribute to the original story writer a cameo by Ruskin Bond himself. That's a lot but the master director gets the best out of each of them. Direction is top class and he relies on audiences' intelligence rather than explaining every piece of the story. One thing that impressed me a lot was the way time line in tracked through historical events using news headlines and cross conversations. Operation bluestar, Fall of VP Singh Government, Babri Demolition, 2nd Nuclear test by India, cannot recollect and 26/11 terrorist attack are the historical events used in the movie. Then there is a photograph with a message and a year 1964. 30 minutes in the movie you come to know that there is someone in the cast with 6 fingers and almost in the end you see who that is and how cleverly Susanna hides that despite a blunder from Arun. She is a smart woman and her story needs to be viewed with smart attention. In IIT while writing scripts/screenplays we used to look for introducing wow factors, this movie is full of those wow factors.
Music is top class and supports the flow of the story. Gulzar is great and shows the glimpses of his greatness in the lyrics. Each song is so full of meaning and appropriate that you feel like clapping for the master. Visually also the movie is appealing and a treat to watch.
I would call it another masterpiece from the director of Makadi, Maqboool, Omkara and Blue Umbrella. Pay attention to the whatever is going on in the screen and you will love the movie. Look away and you might end up regretting being in the theater, this from the experiences of others who hated the movie.
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