Break Ke Baad (2010)

We all know Bollywood gives us unrealistic expectations about men and Break Ke Baad makes those expectations rise to the sky. It’s a story about the ideal guy, Abhay (Imran Khan) who technically any girl wouldn’t leave no matter what happens. But here’s an exception; Aaliya (Deepika Padukone). Abhay and Aaliya are childhood friends and as they grow older together, they get into a relationship with each other. The two are shown to be complete opposites. Abhay has no goal in life whereas Aaliya is highly ambitious and aspires to be an actress. The story moves on when these two decide to give their relationship a break after Aaliya makes a decision to move to Australia to pursue her career.

However, since Abhay is the perfect guy, he follows her to Australia and makes her believe she loves him to the extent that she’s ready to leave everything for him after feeling nostalgic and lonely for a while. Clearly, the major flaw in the story is the switching on and off in their relationship, which hasn’t been portrayed convincingly either.

The film still works on some accounts though. And the reason is that you just can’t help falling in love with Abhay and Aaliya; Abhay because he is so tolerant, kind, wise, loyal and good in general and Aaliya because she is fun, crazy, bold, ambitious and determined. The actors have done a great job. Both Deepika and Imran look perfect for their respective roles. Deepika seems real in the crazy girl role who flies to a completely new territory to chase her dreams and follow her passions. Imran too is apt for the role of a patient man who isn’t afraid of commitment and has great confidence in his love.

Also, the concept is fresh considering Bollywood hadn’t yet explored the issue of space in relationships. However, the execution of this issue hasn’t been very unique in Break Ke Baad, which makes it look clichéd in parts and reminds the viewers of similar movies. Moreover, the name itself gives away the farm (a couple breaks up and gets together again because, guess what? It’s Bollywood and they have to end up together).

Halfway through, the movie becomes sluggish and it seems like it’s going nowhere but the witty banter between the protagonists does fill in the gaps to a certain extent. Scenes like the one where Deepika insists on calling herself Shah Rukh and oscillates between Gulati, Julati and Gelatto when it comes to referring to her boyfriend put a smile on the viewer’s face and make the movie interesting as a whole.

A major flaw in Break Ke Baad is that of locations. Half of the film should be in Australia but they haven’t shown any popular Australian locales that could prove that! Whoever thought that setting three quarters of the film in Australia, but actually shooting those scenes in Mauritius, was a good idea, deserves to be locked in a room and never allowed to come out and make films.

Today’s audience is very intelligent and directors should realize that. Especially when filmmakers like Karan Johar have made Bollywood films so international, nobody is going to be fooled by a couple of Aussie props and a few poorly dubbed ‘Australian’ extras.

The music is fresh and fun. Vishal Shekhar have done a great job and a few songs like ‘Dooriyan Hainn Zaroori’ and ‘Dhoop Ke Makan’, which are both beautiful and melodious songs, take the narrative forward. Debutant director, Danish Aslam has done a fairly good job but he hasn’t shown us anything that we haven’t seen in romantic comedies and light hearted films before.

But if we forget these intricacies for a while, Break Ke Baad is simply a movie which teaches you that love never fades away. And if two people are meant to be together they will be regardless of what happens or how many distances are between them. It also teaches that at times in life, distances bring people closer and if they don’t that means the two weren’t meant to be. So the next time you think a relationship is taking its toll on your life, try taking a break and as Aaliya puts it a break does not always mean a break up! – Hafsah Sarfraz

Rating – 3 out of 5

Cast and Production Credits

Year – 2010, Genre – Romance/Drama, Country – India, Language – Hindi, Producer –Kunal Kohli, Director – Danish Aslam, Music Director – Vishal Dadlani, Shekhar Ravjiani, Cast - Imran Khan, Deepika Padukone, Sharmila Tagore, Shahana Goswami, Yudishtir Urs, Navin Nischol, Lillete Dubey

Sharmila Tagore

Sharmila’s supreme achievement lies in her being that rare heroine who triumphantly criss-crossed image boundaries. From being Bengal’s most ogled export who stirred up both the hormones of a generation as well as a hornet’s nest when she dropped her clothes, she next shocked us with what she ‘was’ wearing — floor-grazing sarees!

Being Satyajit Ray’s discovery in Apur Sansar gave Sharmila distinction from the onset. In their second film together, Devi (’60), her portrayal of a teenage wife whose father-in-law believes her to be the reincarnation of Kali, moved America’s most respected film critic, Pauline Kael to enthuse, “… she is exquisite, perfect (a word I don’t use casually)”. Ray and Sharmila both belonged to Bengal’s cultural elite. Ray studied at Tagore’s Shantiniketan, while Sharmila hailed from the Tagore family herself.

From this genteel background, Sharmila moved to Bombay and began as Shammi Kapoor’s peaches and cream heroine in Shakti Samanta’s breezy musical Kashmir Ki Kali (’64). She was accorded a lukewarm response till she repackaged her persona and in 1966 caused a catalysmic shake-up by becoming the first heroine to pose in a bikini for a magazine. With An Evening In Paris ( ’68), she portended an era of high gloss and glamour. Heroines had worn swimsuits before but Sharmila gave sex appeal a modern definition. Whether it was in the way she held a coke bottle or the way she accentuated ‘Don’t be silly’, Sharmila exuded a stylized ‘come on’ that dragged Hindi cinema screaming and kicking into a new age.

The backlash, however, hit home and Sharmila Tagore vowed not to “leave the industry with the image I had acquired after An Evening In Paris“. Her marriage to the extremely eligible Nawab of Pataudi helped. Luckily for her, Aradhana (’69), which charted the growth of her character from a young girl to an old lady, changed the cartography of her career soon afterwards. If her `Roop tera mastana’ song with Rajesh Khanna gave off a real erotic charge, she was as convincing as the unwed mother. She gave a delicately layered performance. But in the midst of the histrionic hosannahs she received for this superhit, Sharmila characteristically chose to take off to give birth to son Saif.

Not long afterwards, she returned to the studios, showing off an incredibly tiny waist. She expertly juggled her steam queen image with soul-in-the-eyes histrionics in a series of Rajesh Khanna hits like Safar (’70) and Daag (’73). She continued to work with Ray through Nayak (’66), where she surprised everybody by wearing spectacles throughout the film, Arenyer Din Ratri (’70) and Seemabaddha (’71).

Her twin turn as two variedly different prostitutes in Amar Prem (’72) and Mausam (’75), defined the transition in the portrayal of the fallen woman (one of Bollywood’s pet themes). The ground-breaking, starkly realistic whore of Mausam who spewed obscenities, has become renowned but Sharmila conveyed more pathos as the moist-eyed, mostly-mute courtesan of Amar Prem whose amazing eyes were the (broken) windows to her soul.

After easing out of films from the mid-70s onwards, Sharmila has done only the occasional character role or come out of the shadows to endorse products in prestigious advertisements that reflect an elitist lifestyle. Even in retirement, a nifty-at-fifty Sharmila remains one of India’s leading exponents of style.

Anupama (1966)

Cast: Dharmendra, Sharmila Tagore,Tarun Bose, Shashikala, Deven Varma

Director: Hrishikesh Mukherjee

Music: Hemant Kumar

Lyrics: Kaifi Azmi

Capsule Review: A mute and minimalist drama far ahead of its times, Anupama tells the story of Uma (Sharmila Tagore) whose father (played with brilliant authority by Tarun Bose) detests his daughter ever since his beloved wife died during childbirth. The transference of his grief into the daughter’s guilt is majestically achieved through the subtle screenplay and sparse dialogues. Dharmendra as an author who brings the repressed girl’s angst out is also unforgettable. The stress on the spoken word and its opposition to the silence of stifled emotions comes across in the contrasting characters played by Sharmila Tagore and Shashikala. What gave Anupama its bedrock of emotional strength was the troubled father- daughter relationship.