{"id":7352,"date":"2017-09-09T01:23:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-09T05:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/?p=7352"},"modified":"2017-08-31T19:03:17","modified_gmt":"2017-08-31T23:03:17","slug":"movie-review-anaarkali-of-aarah-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/2017\/09\/movie-review-anaarkali-of-aarah-2017.html","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review : Anaarkali of Aarah (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"Rating : 3.5\/5
\nGenre : Drama
\nYear : 2017
\nRunning time : 2 hours 3 minutes
\nDirector : Ashwin Das
\nCast : Swara Bhaskara, Pankaj Tripathy, Sanjay Mishra, Ishtiyak Khan, Mayur More, Vijay Kumar
\nKid rating: PG-15
\n<\/strong>
\nAnaarkali (Bhaskar) is a poor orchestra singer-dancer in the small town of Aarah. When Dharmendra Chauhan (Misra), a local political bigwig, takes a shine to her, she must tolerate his attentions. Things however come to a head, when he, in an inebriated state, manhandles and assaults her on stage during a performance. Everyone thinks that this is par for the course for a nautch dancer such as she, but Anaarkali is outraged at Chauhan\u2019s treatment of her. What can she do alone, against the well-connected Chauhan?<\/p>\n

Anaarkali of Aarah has a feminist message, similar to that of Pink<\/a><\/strong>, although they are vastly different movies: No means No. Anaarkali sings bawdy songs, along with the requisite pelvic thrusts and suggestive dance movements. She lives independently, makes her own sexual choices, including a relationship with her married orchestra owner Rangeela (Tripathi). She is no wide-eyed ing\u00e9nue, we are told, but, regardless of her lifestyle or her chosen profession, retains the right to consent.<\/p>\n

This is a great message, and well-portrayed by director Das. It is an interesting set-up, and we, the viewers, are primed pretty well to be on Anaarkali\u2019s side. Bhaskar, the wonderful actress that she is, has us eating out of her hands, despite her character\u2019s flaws. While the story\u2019s premise is believable, I was a little surprised at the lengths Anaarkali goes to thwart Chauhan\u2019s plans for her; one would expect her to be attuned to patriarchal views which treat women as property \u2013 to be done with as they please. This is India (not that that matters \u2013 such views exist across the globe), and she obviously isn\u2019t living under a rock. Also, in some scenes we see that her mother, who was also a nautch girl, is at the beck and call of similar men \u2013 a plight not hidden from the then teenager Anaarkali.<\/p>\n

The ending seemed a clich\u00e9d \u2013 a fanciful, feel-good cop-out of an otherwise insoluble problem. Do Anaar\u2019s troubles end after the denouement? Probably not. The system is corrupt, and for a single young woman of \u201cquestionable\u201d character, justice might as well not exist.<\/p>\n

This was still a pretty good film. It works the human moments \u2013 the dalliance between Anaar and Rangeela, the tenuous ties between Anaar and Anwar, and Anaar\u2019s own helpless outrage. It offers up little quirks \u2013 a policeman named Bulbul. It emphasizes the hypocrisy \u2013 Chauhan\u2019s \u201crespectable\u201d wife and daughter sitting with him watching a nautch girl crudely strut her stuff, in the name of entertainment, at a University event.<\/p>\n

Props where they are due \u2013 to the fantastic cast. Bhaskar, whom we last saw in the lovely \u201cNil Battey Sannata\u201d<\/a><\/strong>, is just as fabulous here; I watch films just because she is in them. I\u2019m glad that she is getting lead, meaty roles worthy of her mettle. Tripathy as the street-smart Rangeela, Mishra as the lascivious Chauhan, Vijay Kumar as corrupt policeman Bulbul Pandey and Ishtiyak Khan as the golden-hearted admirer Hiraman round off this delectable star cast.<\/p>\n

Kidwise<\/strong>: Anaarkali\u2019s performances which we see a lot of in the first half, are filled with extremely suggestive dance moves, and crude, innuendo-laden language. While these are portrayed in a straight-forward matter-of-fact way, it might not be appropriate for younger viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rating : 3.5\/5 Genre : Drama Year : 2017 Running time : 2 hours 3 minutes Director : Ashwin Das Cast : Swara Bhaskara, Pankaj Tripathy, Sanjay Mishra, Ishtiyak Khan, Mayur More, Vijay Kumar Kid rating: PG-15 Anaarkali (Bhaskar) is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"twitter_17000648_17000648":"","facebook_10233691416821117_190635594420624":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[210,76,14,182,179,159,99,15,160,187,154],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-210","category-bollywood","category-drama","category-feminism","category-hindi-movies-on-netflix","category-netflix-recommendations","category-rating-pg15","category-recommended","category-social-issues","category-whatwon","category-women"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false,"post-thumbnail":false,"sow-carousel-default":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"amodini","author_link":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/author\/admin"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Rating : 3.5\/5 Genre : Drama Year : 2017 Running time : 2 hours 3 minutes Director : Ashwin Das Cast : Swara Bhaskara, Pankaj Tripathy, Sanjay Mishra, Ishtiyak Khan, Mayur More, Vijay Kumar Kid rating: PG-15 Anaarkali (Bhaskar) is … Continue reading →","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p45CAb-1UA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7352"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7358,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7352\/revisions\/7358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fridaynirvana.com\/film\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}