Kundan Shah’s ‘Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron’ released in 1983 is unanimously considered as one of the most famous cult comedies of Hindi Cinema till date. And the moment you think about the film and its hilarious characters played by well-known actors, the first memory you have is of its sequences featuring Satish Shah as the corpse being taken along by Ravi Basvani and Naseeruddin Shah reaching the stage-show where a play on Mahabharta is being performed. In fact, such was the popularity of this particular insertion in the film (post its initial release), that in the subsequent decades ‘the dead’ Satish Shah used as an entertaining prop gradually became a textbook reference while discussing dark comedies and political satires made in India.
Interestingly Kundan Shah’s fascination of using the corpse for creating funny sequences on the screen continues in his latest project ‘P Se PM Tak’ too, that coincidentally also happens to be a political satire on our present scenario of the country going through a significant change. Revolving around the story of a prostitute accidentally getting into the major political circle of the state, the film again has its final hour written around a dead minister whose body is used as a mere prop that can walk, talk, jump and even dance through some electrical gadgets fitted in by an eccentric scientist.
So after 32 long years, director Kundan Shah once again tries to incorporate the tried and tested idea in his latest flick, with a hope that it might help in recreating the same euphoria again in an upgraded (sci-fi) form going with the changing times.
However, this time the idea doesn’t work due to a completely outdated execution on screen coming from the veteran director and is not able to do any wonders whatsoever in uplifting the mediocre venture. In other words, the particular sub-plot that earned huge appreciation for the director in his first film gets outrightly rejected when re-used after three decades in another political satire from the same person.
Comments
0 comment