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Movie
Veer-Zaara
Director Yash Chopra
Music Madan Mohan
Cast Shah Rukh Khan, Preity Zinta, Rani Mukherjee,
Kirron Kher, Boman Irani, Anupam Kher, Divya Dutta, Manoj
Bajpai, Amitabh Bachchan & Hema Malini
 “Which
era do these people belong to!” Rani Mukherjee exclaims about
the Pakistani girl and the Indian man who live with the IDEA
of love for 22 years.
Old yet passionate, frail yet sublime, the estranged lovers
in Yash Chopra’s eagerly awaited film are no ordinary
love-birds. Their body language, demeanour, speech and
attitude hark back to an era when emotions were hallmarks of
human nature, not designer-thingummys to be used as and when
required in bubblegum concoctions that masquerade as romantic
musicals in our wretched times.
By the time the utterly evocative theme song about two
inseparable souls torn apart by fate comes on, we’re so
enamoured of Yash Chopra’s pristine pastel and yet striking
passions that we surrender entirely and unquestioningly to
his prescription of romantic passion.
Just when we thought heartwarming tales of undying love were
a dying art-form, Veer-Zaara comes along. It is the sort of
sublimely designed, delicately threaded romantic fable that
comes once in a while to win hearts and influence people.
That it would succeed in doing so is almost a foregone
conclusion.
After all, a film directed by Yash Chopra is no ordinary
event. Veer-Zaara is a little more extraordinary than we
expect it to be. While telling a fluent story about a love
that cuts captivatingly across the Indo-Pak wire fence, Yash
Chopra, for the first time in his romantic oeuvre, introduces
ideas that transcend romance and other intimate preoccuations.
Through the strong and very memorable character of the rookie
lawyer Samiya (Rani Mukherjee), ideas on female literacy and
women’s empowerment seep into the narrative with nourishing
niftiness.
 Nothing
about the romance between the Indian airforce pilot and the
Pakistani aristocratic girl is over-stated. There are no
raised voices (even when the heroine’s dad scolds her, he
does it sotto voce). There's no screaming, no
attention-getting tactics- and yet the films gets it- all of
our attention, though it takes a bit of time to get over the
longish bits of Punjabi dialogues among Amitabh Bachchan
(playing Khan’s prankish old man), Hema Malini (hopelessly
out of her depths in the robust Punjabi milieu), Khan and
Zinta.
Once the slight hiccups are done, it’s as simple as falling
in love for us to get into the timeless grooves and gorgeous
rhythms replicating and relocating the romance of infinite
resonances into an obtainable and accessible format.
Veer-Zaara builds its case for the protagonists’ unbreakable
bonding through a neo-classical blend of song and emotion.
Chopra unleashes a temperate tidal wave of feelings that swim
teasingly just beneath the surface. The surge of love between
two people belonging to entirely different cultures and
lands, is collected into a quaint and quivering collage of
memory and melody.
The narration moves at its own melodious volition. The music
and songs by the late Madan Mohan and the profound yet simple
poetry of Javed Akhtar supplement the melody of romance with
enchanting articulations of hearts that know not why they
love and sing. They just do.
The narration is constructed as a celebration rather than a
lament on lost love. No matter how deep the hurt and how
prolonged the separation between the lovers, there’s always
the melody playing a deeply-felt song. We simply sink into
the sounds of romance.
In terms of the space employed to cover many decades in the
lovers’ lives, Veer-Zaara is remarkably equipped to qualify
as an outstanding romantic musical. Whether it’s Pakistani
lawyer Rani Mukherjee in recreative conversation with the
Indian prisoner languishing in jail for crimes he never
committed, or the way the supple stretches in the courtroom
are used for the Khan-Zinta reunion song, Chopra proves
himself a master storyteller with an incredible grip over his
narrative.
He has terrific help from cameraman Anil Mehta who beautifies
the rugged rural landscape without making it appear fairytale
in proportion. Khan and Zinta fill the splendid rustic spaces
with sounds of love.
Many moments in the screenplay stay with us long after the
gasp-inducing symbolic union of the India and Pakistan as
Veer and Zaara walk into what Chopra hopefully sees as a new
beginning in the relations between the two countries.
 But
the protagonists’ geopolitical credentials never appear
forced or laboured. Veer and Zara are who they are. In
sequences such as the one where Veer meets Zara’s fiancé (Manoj
Bajpai) on the railway station, or when Zara’s mother(the
brilliantly passionate Kirron Kher) implores Veer to give
back her daughter for the sake of the family honour, are
potentially clichéd situtuations converted into a celebration
of life’s most cherishable experience through the writer’s
imagination.
The writing skills imparted to the story of ‘forbidden’ love
are immense, and so’s the performance level of the cast. Rani
Mukherjee’s deeply studied utterly heroic part of the
activist–lawyer is uplifting.
Once again Shah Rukh Khan confers his charismatic personality
on a role that has many shades of emotions clumped into a
captivating clasp of screen heroism. His performance as the
old man in the courtroom where after being absolved of all
crimes he reads out a poem, is rabble rousing.
And those who thought Preity Zinta couldn’t be rustic and
earthy, better watch how she slips into Zaara’s slippers,
imparting a coltish seductiveness to the part. Kirron Kher,
Divya Dutta and Manoj Bajpai bring tremendous feelings to the
supporting parts.
But the director’s true allies in this creative endeavour are
the photography and music. The use of spatial harmony in the
haunting climactic song Tere liye is a measure of Yash
Chopra’s power and skills of narration. The caliber of the
late Madan Mohan’s music is certainly high-grade. Many scenes
are elevated by the quality of music.
Veer–Zaara is a very simple story of immense nobility and
idealism. Its contours are fleshed out with the most precious
colours of life to complete a picture which is at once
symmetrical and sublime, sweet tender and yet secreting a
core of strength and conviction that takes it beyond the
conventional romantic musicals.
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