Friday 21 April 2017

My Review - Mohenjo Daro

* SPOILERS INCLUDED *


After Bang Bang, his blood clot, the controversy, I was elated when I found out that his movie Mohenjo Daro was releasing this year. I definitely missed seeing him in a film, that experience is something else. When the trailer was released I was blown away, maybe that was the fangirl in me or my love for learning about exploring places marked in history, it probably was a bit of both, but all I knew was that I was extremely curious and excited for this movie.

With any project comes a lot of positive feedback and tenfold of negative ones, it was not different with this. Many people voiced their opinions and commented on the authenticity of various things in the trailer and about the time period. All of these opinions did nothing to hamper my intentions of seeing this movie.

I listened to the jukebox of all the songs of Mohenjo Daro, out of all of them I liked Tu Hai the most, (I think at that point, Tu Hai was probably the only one I liked at the time) A.R. Rehman's music is different, it needs more than one listen, after which you get drawn into it like you have been spellbound. Same was the case with me, ease by ease I listened to the songs again and at the moment I am in love with the entire soundtrack, I can't stop listening to the soundtrack now. The soundtrack paints a visual of what could have been that time period, it makes you feel as if you were there yourself. Its different, beautiful and meaningful.

August 12th 2016. - First Day, first show, at 10:45am I was seated inside the movie theater with popcorn, food and a drink in tow. After a few ads and movie trailers the movie began while my heart raced. The reveal to Sarman's face had me beaming from ear to ear. I took a few pics of him in that scene (along with the name of the film at the start) Then I completely put all my focus onto the film, after many years I was seeing Hrithik on a big screen. (I remember seeing Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham at a cinema when I was younger and I saw Dhoom 2 at a Drive In theater, apart from that I watched all his other movies at home, I saw Kaho Na Pyaar Hai probably more than 50 times)

The beginning scene with the crocodile scene was interesting, I've seen a lot of animal planet so it honestly it did not make me go oh my god this looks fake, I thought it showed what kind of person Sarman was from the start of the film, it set the tone for his character, caring for his friends, fast and smart thinker when he thought of lying inside the boat so he could harm the crocodile with the trisol. He was also helpful, very brave and strong willed, once he agreed to do something he put his mind to it. He set out to help his villagers and he came back successful. 

Uptil now Sarman, his friends and the rest of the villagers were speaking in their Ancient Sindhi language so we had to guess what they were conserving with each other. The camera zoomed into the man who was speaking to Sarman in the Sindhi language, the dialogues switched to Hindi as the camera zoomed out, that completely blew me away. It was as if we got a translator chip to be able to understand the language of the film. I was so glad with the way it was done since this was a major problem for other people when they were looking at the trailer(why people were speaking hindi).

Sarman has a dream, images of his childhood, then he meets a river and sees a unicorn waiting for him. A hauntingly familiar tune plays, making the moment seem magical. As he awakes, he hears his aunt humming the same tune. Immediately this raises flags as an audience, its obvious that they are not from that village. Sarman feels drawn to Mohenjo Daro and requests his uncle to go and he declines yet again, the same reply for three monsoons now. His aunt and uncle are seen worried about Sarman's insistence, which indicates they're hiding something from him.

Another problem that people had was seeing horses in the trailer. In the movie, it was shown that the Sarman had no idea what a horse was, the people who came to trade were the ones who brought their horses, another tick for clearing that up.


Different angles of tu hai, new ones, I couldn't stop laughng at him trying to mimic the other dancers moves.

The scene where he kissed her and she said he took advantage of her and then she did it to him.
It was adorable!!


I was really looking forward to the Sarsariya song in the movie but they cut it :( I feel like it won't have hurt had they put it in, it was just a couple of minutes and the video they released was cute.

The bridge of boats was such an innovative idea, Sarman is definitely a fast thinker, which brings me back to his entry scene, the scene where he saved Chaani from the horses, the Bakra Zohaar scene & the fight scenes with Moonja.

The end of Maham: I'm glad he left Maham because a greedy person like Maham deserved to go the way he did. Maham wanted the dam, he got the dam, he died because of the dam. He died in the one place he tried to rule, the place that saw his sins, the walls of Mohenjo Daro washed away all the pain they faced because of Maham.

Beneath the water, the articfacts reminded me of the ones that were actually found, love that they made sure to add that, it felt quite real... as if in the future someone will discover what was once someone's home, a lifestyle and a lost civilization.


The sequence where they stumbled upon the water was beautiful and left a mark. Sarman saying that the water was pure, they would settle there and he saw the unicorn from his dream, tying in everything... this was where he was supposed to end up. As he decided to call the river Ganga, I was left spellbound, I had goosebumps at the end scene.


I'm in no way inclined to give a star rating on the 1-5 scale mostly because most of the critics give less stars to good films and more stars to bad films. I don't get the star scale, it doesn't make sense to me because at the end of the day its what the critic's personal choice and view is, not ours.

But I will say, go into the theater with an open mind, its a movie... not a history lesson. Its a beautiful story, make your OWN decision about the film, don't be persuaded by other people's opinions because no one likes the same content.


Lots of love,
Sarita