On a story level, there's little groundbreaking about Saawariya despite its literary pedigree. We are informed via the narration of woman of the night Gulabji (a delectable Rani Mukerji) that we are seeing a city of her mind, and the opening shots are clearly drawings. Once the actual first real set is revealed, the interior of the town's biggest nightclub, that unreality hasn't abated, it's simply shifted to an ostensibly less animated version. Gulabji is quickly introduced to our hero, budding rockstar Raj (Ranbir Kapoor, son of Bollywood legend Rishi Kapoor), who delights her with a goofy love song, the title tune of the movie (which translates loosely as "Beloved"). The next scene finds Raj moving into more serious territory as he sings a song of healing to the prostitutes that inhabit this region of Gulabji's imaginary town. Raj soon becomes enamored of a mystery woman he sees on a bridge, Sakina (Sonam Kapoor, herself the daughter of another Bollywood legend, Anil Kapoor). It soon develops that Sakina waits at this bridge for a long lost lover who promised her he would return to her at this place. The rest of the film follows the travails of hapless Raj, who is hopelessly in love with Sakina, even as she pines for her own paramour. In fact, though completely different in tone, there are some strange echoes of Disney's Enchanted, with Raj doubting Sakina's story much like Patrick Dempsey does Amy Adams'. While there isn't the patented happy Hollywood ending to this film (it is in fact reminiscent, in a masculine way, of the ending of one of the last big-budget 60s musicals, Bob Fosse's Sweet Charity, with its subtitle "and she lived hopefully ever after"), it does provide some unexpectedly touching moments in its denouement which belie a lot of the candy coating that has gone on before. While the film at 142 minutes is probably a good half-hour too long for its own good, there's such a kaleidoscope of colors and visions to behold that it rarely if ever bores.

It's instructive to see how a Bollywood director, in this case Sanjay Leela Bhansali, does not need to resort to an endless panoply of rapid cuts in order to create visual interest in the many musical moments of this film. Instead of two or three second shots flitting by in rapid succession, we're instead invited into a leisurely assortment of relatively lengthy shots which are given variety by well orchestrated dollies and pans around sometimes disarmingly simple dance moves. It makes one positively hope for a Bollywood director to reinvent the actual American film musical.

What Saawariya lacks in story (really nothing new to Bollywood fans) it more than makes up for in an impressive visual sense, with most of the film cast in a cool blue hue, and an equally impressive production design. The town looks like an Indian version of Venice, with lots of canals and bridges, with romantically shadowed alleyways peeking out of every corner. Bhansali has a firm hand on the directorial reigns and elicits charming performances from Ranbir Kapoor, who resembles an elongated Hindi Sonny Bono, if that's possible. His sweet, if slight, tenor augments many of the songs, most in a proto-pop style heavy on acoustic guitars, almost Once-like at times. Sonam Kapoor and Rani Mukerji are both impossibly lovely and give sweet performances. The real knockout, however, is 90-something Zohra Sehgal as Lilian, Raj's landlady, who despite her miniscule size fills up the screen with an astounding amount of spirit and emotion.

Saawariya is the first major Bollywood film to be co-produced and distributed by a Hollywood studio, in this case Sony. This augurs well for a future intercultural exchange that can only benefit both film capitals. The Hollywood musical has long needed some of the Bollywood exuberance, free of the gimmickry that has been pasted on it since the failure of big-budget fare from the late 60s on. Maybe some astute Hollywood insider can watch Saawariya and see there is life in the old genre yet, if only it's approached with a certain respect and joie de vivre that this film exhibits in abundance.

The DVD

Video:
Saawariya is presented in an enhanced 2.35:1 transfer that is exceedingly sharp and well detailed. The bulk of the film is intentionally quite dark, but colors are excellent with good contrast.

Sound:
The Hindi 5.1 soundtrack (the only one offered) is great, though it is kind of fun to hear English slang, and even whole sentences, creeping into the otherwise foreign dialogue. Separation and fidelity are both top-notch in both the musical and spoken sequences. There are an incredible number of subtitle options, including English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Chinese, Korean and Thai.

Extras:
Two extras, both culled from the same footage, detail the creation of Saawariya's music (with some great, if too short, historical shots of 80 years of Bollywood posters up front), as well as the opening night premiere of the film. There are also a number of trailers from other Sony product included.

Final Thoughts:
The musical is alive and well, if not in Hollywood. Saawariya may not have an innovative storyline, but it is splendiferous to watch and listen to and will delight most Bollywood fans.

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"G-d made stars galore" & "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?" ZMK, modern prophet