Saawariya (2007)

"A really small movie done up in a big, moody package, Saawariya entices, fitfully springs to life...  Derek Elley, Variety
"Eye and ear candy for fans of Indian musical cinema...visually enchanting, cloyingly sweet, at once utterly chaste and insanely erotic...  The New York Times

Editor's Note Bollywood and Hollywood entwine for this mix of romance, singing, comedy, dancing, and melodrama, directed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali (DEVDAS) and produced in tandem with Sony/Columbia. The achingly beautiful Rani Mukherjee narrates and appears as Gulab, a streetcorner princess haunting the red light district in an expressionistic melange of Venice, Vegas, and Amsterdam. The irrepressibly callow musician Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) catches her eye, but Raj thinks he's in love with Sakina (Sonam Kapoor) who prefers to pine away for her absent lover, Imaan (Salman Kahn). All this longing (it's based on Dostoyevsky's WHITE NIGHTS) is stunningly captured through bizarre and elaborate backdrops, winding staircases, torrents of rain, and a color scheme heavy on the blues. Fans of Baz Luhrman's MOULIN ROUGE will want to live inside this film: there may not a whole lot of weight to all the tomfoolery, but the pain of youthful romantic idealism is part of the message. The music is always the thing with Bollywood films and SAAWARIYA packs in its share of rousing numbers. Western viewers entering the realm of Bollywood for the first time will find SAAWARIYA ("beloved" in Hindi) to be a crossover film that's ready to welcome them with open arms into a jubilant world of high-spirited song and dance, over-the-top goofiness, anguished melodrama, gyrating hips (with very sexy exposed belly buttons), and PG-rated romance.

	Ranbir Kapoor
	Rani Mukherjee
	Salman Khan
	Sonam Kapoor
	Bela Leela Sehgal - Editor
	Deepak Raai Sharma - Executive Producer
	Ismail Darbar - Original Music By
	Monty Sharma - Original Music By
	Omung Kumar - Art Director
	Prakash Kapadia - Writer
	Ravi K. Chandran - Cinematographer
	Sanjay Leela Bhansali - Director
	Sanjay Leela Bhansali - Producer

New York Times
"Eye and ear candy for fans of Indian musical cinema....The experience is visually enchanting, cloyingly sweet, at once utterly chaste and insanely erotic..." 11/09/2007 p.E14

The Village Voice 5 of 10
See Saawariya if you need to get some thinking done. Not that Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Bollywood flick provokes thought--much to the contrary. During its 142 minutes of sari-swirling and hip-twitching, so little happens that you could tune out for an hour only to rediscover the same strapping fellow pursuing the same fickle damsel. The film, touted as the first Bollywood movie produced by a Hollywood studio, revolves around Raj (Ranbir Kapoor), who is a paragon of good looks and good manners, and Sakina (Sonam Kapoor), who is hot. (Both actors hail from the same influential showbiz family.) Raj spends the film wooing Sakina, bursting into song, and empathizing with sorrowful women. Which reminds me of thoughts the film did provoke. The first: How does the unbelievably emotional Sakina cry so much without smudging her eye makeup? The second (and last): Do they import that brand to the United States? Despite Raj's efforts, Sakina's heart will always belong to the scary-looking fellow who wins her with the line "Will you agree to live a life full of hardships with me?" We can only wonder how she will handle the upcoming challenges, given that friendly jokes make her sob. Alternatively, see this movie if you need to get some sleep. - Abigail Deutsch