An Absurd Question, A Cop-Out Answer - Review Of Movie "What's Love Got To Do With It?"

[Warning: Spoilers galore!]

I was very intrigued by the billing of this "cross-cultural romantic comedy" that had a number of celebrity names attached to it - Director Shekhar Kapur, screenwriter Jemima Khan and top stars Emma Thompson and Shabana Azmi.

As the film began, I was also happy to see that it starred Shazad Latif, whom I'd seen before as Ash Tyler in Star Trek - Discovery.

The film began promisingly enough, but to cut a long story short, it posed a question that was illogical, and then answered it with a cop-out ending.

I won't bother going through the entire plot with its twists and turns, since you can find those in other reviews. Let me explain why I felt the way I did about this movie.

The movie moved quickly onto its plot premise - the phenomenon of arranged marriages (also called "assisted marriages") prevalent in the Indian subcontinent. A number of pros and cons were aired in early dialogues, so the question set up by the movie was clear:

Are arranged marriages better than "love marriages"? The definition of "better" is of course vague. Is it the durability of the marriage itself, the happiness of the partners, the stability of the family setup for children, the harmony of the larger families involved, etc.?

This question strikes me as absurd because it sounds like "What arrangement of deck chairs would be better at preventing the sinking of the Titanic?"

The necessary conditions for a successful marriage should be no secret:

- Mutual respect and trust

- A willingness on the part of both partners to learn, adapt and change themselves

Additionally, if the partners possess complementary strengths and have the patience to communicate in a way that is aligned to their partner's thinking style, they're set to be a winning team.

Needless to say, the circumstances under which the two partners come together is irrelevant. They could have met on their own and fallen in love, or they could have been introduced by their parents and agreed to marry before they had significant feelings for each other. Heck, they could even have been forced into marriage, for that matter!

So that in a nutshell is why I thought the film went completely off-target. I have seen examples of successful and unsuccessful "love marriages" in real life. I have also seen examples of successful and unsuccessful arranged marriages. It's clear as day to me that this categorisation is completely irrelevant when it comes to predicting the success of a marriage or the happiness of a couple. Without mutual respect and trust, and without a willingness on the part of both partners to learn, to adapt and to change themselves, a marriage cannot "succeed" or be a happy one. It has nothing to do with whether the marriage was "arranged" or took place after the two partners had fallen in love. The film didn't bother to raise this most important aspect of the topic at all (although it made an attempt to address the issue of marital fidelity, which is related to trust).

At the end of the movie, the arranged marriage of the male lead (Qazim Khan) fails, because it turns out that his bride was in love with someone else, and was forced by her parents into marrying him. They divorce and she leaves to rejoin her lover. Predictably, Qazim then pairs up with his childhood neighbour and friend (Zoe), who has been cataloguing the entire process of his arranged marriage.

In the style of "Four Weddings and a Funeral" then, the movie turned out to be "Two Love Marriages and the Failure of an Arranged Marriage".

The reason I call this a "cop-out" ending is because this seems to be the only acceptable answer that filmdom anywhere is allowed to provide: Love-before-marriage good, arranged marriage bad.

Even in India, where over 90% of all marriages are arranged, Bollywood and regional cinema only promote a romantic narrative where people fall in love and often battle parental and societal opposition to get married. The big screen doesn't reflect societal reality at all!

Is it possible at all for a movie to be honest and matter-of-fact about this topic, I wonder? Or will fear of box office failure forever keep storytellers from telling the unglamorous truth about what a happy marriage really needs?

[If you liked this post, check out a related one - "Why Marriage Is Hard Work - Two Psychometric Models Provide An Answer"]

Movie Review - Three Thousand Years Of Longing

[No spoilers, don't worry.]

I saw this movie earlier this evening at the cinemas, and thought it was interesting enough to write about.

This won't be my usual style of review. That's because I see this movie as being composed of two layers - an original plot premise, and a certain style of execution.

I'll first extract that plot premise as I understand it, and lay it out for you in distilled form.

Then I'll try to tease out the various core themes and lines of tension that the plot presents, which may then suggest various creative means to resolve them.

Finally, I'll evaluate how well the movie actually delivered on this plot premise, both in terms of storytelling and in terms of cinematography.

Plot premise

The protagonist is a modern-day single woman, a middle-aged professional who has seen a few ups and downs in her life and reached a stage of philosophical equanimity. The story begins when she comes across an interesting-looking bottle in a Middle Eastern bazaar during one of her travels, and buys it. Back in her hotel room, she opens the bottle and out comes a genie who grants her three wishes.

The interesting twist here is that the woman is genuinely contented and does not wish for anything, which surprises the genie.

Besides, she has heard too many stories (and jokes) about this wish-granting business ending badly, to risk falling into the same trap.

The genie needs her to make three wishes, otherwise he will never be free. He understands that the stories she has heard have made her suspicious of genies as tricksters. He then tells her his own life story, about the three times he ended up being imprisoned in the bottle.

The woman then does something.

That's the plot premise. The job of the storywriter is to flesh this out into a captivating story.

Core themes and lines of tension

1. The inner tension between contentment and making a wish - what happens? Does one triumph over the other, or is there another creative way to resolve this conflict?

2. The suspicion that genies are tricky characters not to be trusted - is this suspicion justified? The story could take either tack and run with it.

3. What stories would the genie tell the woman? Ostensibly, they are just a narrative of whatever happened to him, but their ulterior purpose is to overcome her reluctance to make three wishes. So what would the stories be? Would they be true stories, lies, or half-truths? Put together, what course of action would they compel her to take?

4. How would the movie's finale resolve all of these tensions satisfactorily? The genie's selfish motives, the unresolved question of the genie's own trustworthiness, the woman's suspicion of making wishes, her genuine contentment and absence of desire, and the suggested cumulative moral of the genie's three stories - how would they all play out?

Execution

To put it bluntly, the movie disappointed me, because I have grown to expect far more intelligent and creative storytelling approaches in modern films. Any number of talented storywriters could have picked up this plot premise and run with it in different brilliant directions.

First, the genie's own stories, while mildly interesting, did not seem to provide any significant lessons. Neither did they provide plot elements that played out in the present day with the protagonist.

Second, the events in the present day, while touching upon elements of modernity, science and technology, did not leverage them in any meaningful way. An early scene shows a speaker on a stage talking about storytelling and narrative, and suggests that advances in modern science and our understanding of the world have dispelled many of the mysteries that in earlier days were attributed to metaphysical phenomena. This is an extremely intriguing idea that makes us wonder how the genie phenomenon would be explained in scientific terms in today's world, but this is dealt with in a very superficial and unconvincing way. Hand-waving about electromagnetism and organic matter isn't enough for an audience used to sophisticated science-fiction.

Third, the protagonist's core character was not leveraged effectively enough. There should have been a dramatic development that both resolved a moral dilemma and heightened the audience's appreciation of her character. If there was one, it was rather weak.

Fourth, there was no satisfying denouement that closed the narrative loop, no "Chekhov's gun" earlier in the plot, for example, that popped up again at the climax to play a pivotal role.

In short, the storytelling was disappointing.

The cinematography was vivid and colourful, providing a swift panorama of Middle Eastern "history" over three thousand years to the present day. This part was well done. (If I had to make a wish, it would be never to be born into a palace. The stress induced by all the intrigues would get to me long before any assassins could.)

Final score: 3 stars out of 5. That's for the original plot premise and the cinematography. Better creativity in fleshing out the plot would have earned it a 4 or a 4.5.

Review Of 6 Japanese Films (Japanese Film Festival Online 2022)

[Spoiler Alert: Many of my review comments will reveal plot elements that may be spoilers for some.]

A friend alerted me to the Japanese Film Festival Online a week before it ended, so I was able to watch 6 of the 20 that were available. The service ended at 5 PM sharp (Japan Standard Time) on Feb 28, and I finished watching the last one with half an hour to spare!

The JFF website, showing a partial line-up of the 20 movies available. I've moved the 6 I watched to the beginning of this list.

The online festival is available in quite a few countries, so I would advise my friends to subscribe to the site and be informed of future screenings.

Let me complain about one of my bugbears right at the start. The website does not support Linux! Sure, they tell you that on their Help page, but for someone like me who only uses Open Source operating systems, this was a real pain. I had to watch all 6 movies on the cramped screen of my Android phone.

I really hope the JFF ups its game and enters the 21st century by 2023!

With that rant out of the way, here are my reviews of the movies I watched. All of them had English subtitles, although they were almost not required, since half of all the words spoken seemed to be just Arigato Gozaimas' (Thank you)!

Happy Flight

I can best describe this light movie as a documentary held together by the thinnest of storylines. A plane takes off, then returns after a couple of hours due to technical problems. With this simple plotline, the movie shows us all the processes that happen in an airport, like an Arthur Hailey novel would. There is light humour throughout, but I wouldn't classify this movie as a comedy.

I liked this movie for the way it educates its viewers about everything that happens in an airport, using a few characters and short storylines.

Ground engineers - If a tool is missing, the entire area is searched and no one goes home until it is found. The risk of a tool ending up inside an aircraft engine is simply too great.

Ground service staff - They deal with the mess of overbooking and the confusion of misplaced baggage, among other things.

Cabin crew - Life is a series of minor emergencies and challenges, from difficult passengers to unexpected food shortages, all handled with calmness and smiles.

Air Traffic Control - Dealing with weather issues, sudden changes in flight plans, and real-time decision-making are all in a day's work.

The pilots - Anyone can seemingly do this job, until there's an emergency, which is when their training kicks in.

This was a light and no-stress movie, and I would give it a 3 out of 5.

Ito

It wasn't clear at the start what kind of movie this was going to be. I don't like watching tragedies and "struggle movies". But thankfully, it wasn't anything like that.

Ito is a shy country girl who lost her mother at a very young age, and lives in a village with her father, an academic, and her maternal grandmother who is a classical musician. She takes a train to attend school at a nearby town. She seems a troubled teenager, but it's not clear what her problems are.

Bit by bit, she grows up as she resolves each of her problems, whether it be her own lack of self-confidence, her inability to communicate well with words, her unresolved feelings about her mother's death, her reluctance to play the shamisen, or her relationship with her father. Taking the first step, which is to apply for and take up a part-time job as a waitress in a "Maid Cafe", draws her out into the larger world and helps her develop her personality. At the end of the movie, we see her climbing a mountain with her dad and shouting with abandon as she looks down from the peak. Ito is fine, and we're happy to see her grown up as the movie ends.

Ito's grandmother is a sane voice in the household, capable of talking sense both to her granddaughter and her son-in-law when the latter have a spat.

Taking up a job as a hostess at the "Maid Cafe" was the best thing Ito could have done. It introduced her to a bunch of nice people whom she grew to like.

Ito's father overcomes his misgivings about his daughter's job in what he considers an anachronistic outfit when he sees her actually working.

Ito accepts herself enough to start practising the Shamisen again with her grandmother.

This was a mild coming-of-age movie, and I would give it a 3.5 out of 5.

Bread of Happiness

In some ways, this was the weirdest of the 6 movies I saw, although it wasn't bad. It seemed to have some mystical elements to it, and the female lead's problems and motivations weren't very clear.

The female lead is a young woman called Rie, who is heavily influenced by a childhood storybook about a boy called Mani and the moon. Mani to her represents a soulmate, and she gives up on her dream of ever finding such a soulmate as she grows up. After her father's death, she is all alone, and accepts the invitation of a man she knows (Nao Mizushima) to move from Tokyo to a small village. It's not immediately clear that they are married, and the relationship between herself and her husband isn't fleshed out well. They just seem to be joint owners of the Mani Cafe, which is also a boarding house.

The story is a series of episodes where people with various problems come to their cafe, and go away happier after the encounter. Whether there is supposed to be some mystical element to the bread Nao Mizushima bakes, or the coffee and soup that Rie makes, isn't clear.

At the end of the movie, Rie finally realises that her loyal and supportive husband is the Mani (soulmate) she's been looking for after all. She tells him they're going to have another guest in the new year, pointing to her tummy.

Rie making coffee (She looks Vulcan!)

Nao baking bread

A dumped girl and a man with a dead-end job find each other at the Mani Cafe after eating the magical bread there.

A latchkey kid and her divorced father rediscover each other after some magic bread.

An ailing old woman and her devoted husband find peace through magic bread.

Again, a mild and nice story, and I would give it a 3 out of 5.

Masked Ward

Now this is a thriller where providing spoilers would be a criminal offence, so I won't. The basic plot is about a young doctor doing his first night shift at a hospital for patients with dementia, where he finds himself in a dramatic situation as a masked robber bursts in with a wounded hostage. Things get curiouser and curiouser as our hero begins to look beneath the surface. Suffice it to say that nothing is what it seems to be.

Can we just agree that clowns are the scariest characters ever?

I would give this mystery thriller a 4 out of 5. I found it absolutely gripping.

Aristocrats

With the last two movies, I would say we've moved into adult territory in the sense that the themes have much more sophistication and depth.

"Aristocrats" gives us a good look into elite Japanese society. Japanese society in general is much more custom-bound than others, but the elites operate within an even more constricting social environment. It's a bit like the British Royal Family - glamorous from the outside, but probably unbearably stifling. It's an absolutely terrible life for the women of course, but the men born into this society don't have too many options either. The path ahead, paved as it may be with gold bricks, is laid out for them, and they cannot deviate from it.

They can keep their money! I'd rather live my comfortable middle-class life, doing whatever I want.

The story is essentially a contrast between the lives and personalities of two young women, Hanako and Miki. Hanako comes from an upper-crust family herself, because her father has been a successful and well-off physician. But the man she marries (Koichiro, literally "first son") comes from an even higher stratum. Hanako's upbringing gives her barely enough sophistication to cope with the demands of her role in this family.

Miki is from a much humbler background. Her father is perpetually unemployed, and she is forced to discontinue college for financial reasons. However, her brief period in college makes her a classmate of the privileged Koichiro. She has a relationship with him later on, although she doesn't have any hope of marrying him. Their relationship is a natural one, and they are easy friends. In contrast, Koichiro's relationship with his wife Hanako is a bit more formal and strained, even though they are both decent human beings. Hanako lacks a certain something that the less sophisticated Miki has in spades - a vivacious and sparkling personality with plenty of pluck and drive. I personally was very impressed with the character of Miki.

Koichiro with Miki - Miki's being from the out-crowd paradoxically allowed her to relate to Koichiro much more naturally than the women of his circle could, although a formal relationship was out of the question.

It's interesting how the two women meet and interact. It seems to be an understood aspect of Japanese society that men will have extramarital affairs, and the two women negotiate awkwardly about it, Miki parting ways with Koichiro thereafter.

The surprising twist in the story comes when Hanako sees Miki in the city and impulsively meets up with her, even visiting her modest apartment. She sees that Miki's life, although more challenging and less privileged, is completely authentic, and Miki is her own woman. It brings home to Hanako that she is trapped, and once she has a child, escape will be impossible, because aristocratic families don't allow divorced wives custody of their children. She then divorces Koichiro (which earns her a slap from her aristocratic mother-in-law) and becomes a working woman like Miki. She becomes the manager for her high school friend, who is also single and a talented violinist.

The best part of the movie is at the end, when Koichiro, by now a local politician on account of his family's connections, runs into Hanako at a park. As a district official, he attends a musical performance by Hanako's friend. Hanako and Koichiro look at each other across the room, and exchange smiles.

The movie is a statement against the shackles of aristocratic society that prevent both men and women from discovering themselves and relating to one another as authentic individuals. One can see that Koichiro is a man who finds independent women attractive. That's what had attracted him to Miki, and that's what makes his ex-wife newly attractive to him in a way she wasn't when she was playing her domestic role with docility.

For the gradual and convincing way it brought out the need for humans to live their lives without stifling social constraints, this movie gets a rating of 4 out of 5.

(Trivia: Miki's strikingly un-Japanese looks are because the actor Kiko Mizuhara is of mixed ethnicity. Her mother is Korean, and her father is American.)

Until The Break Of Dawn (The Japanese title is Tsunagu, which means "Connect")

I frankly wouldn't have watched this movie if I'd known how many times I'd have to reach for the tissue box. But having watched it, I have to say this was the best of the lot.

This was the only movie of the 6 I saw that dealt with the metaphysical. However, I see this as just a plot device to explore how we should see our lives.

The premise is that there are people called "connectors" who can allow living people to talk to a dead person. There is a limit of one meeting per person, both for the living and for the dead, so it is important for both to choose wisely. If a living person asks to connect with a dead person and the dead person refuses, then the living person has lost their only chance.

Ayumi, a young man who lives with his grandmother, does the legwork of connecting people. The grandmother is the actual connector. Ayumi escorts his clients to a hotel room where they meet with the person who is dead. The meeting only takes place on full moon nights, and at dawn, the dead person disappears for good.

The noble profession of the Connectors

The story is an exploration of regret in all its forms. At the end, Ayumi understands that his job is to facilitate the dead in comforting the living so they can move on.

Every client's story was deeply poignant. If I'd been watching it alone with no one else at home, I'd have been bawling like a baby.

I give it 4.5 out of 5.

Movie Review: The Big Sick

(Some mild spoilers ahead, although this isn't really a mystery story that can be ruined by spoilers.)

I first heard about this movie from a friend's positive post on Facebook, and I saw it at the movies earlier tonight.

The Big Sick - if you haven't seen this movie, do so at once

To most people, The Big Sick would seem to fit into the rom-com genre, but to me, it was much more than that.

For a start, it's not fiction. Not only is this the true story of Pakistani-American comedian Kumail Nanjiani and his wife Emily Gordon, the cultural conflict that strikes at their relationship is one that is playing out right at this moment across thousands of immigrant families in Western countries. That cultural conflict is something that fills me with indignation, and I'll return to that later after I've discussed the movie itself.

Rarely have I seen such a tight script, because the movie moves from scene to scene without a single boring moment. There's humour, there are witty conversations, there's emotion and there are some important questions to ponder, and they're all seamlessly blended together into a smooth-flowing narrative. My only disappointment was when the movie ended. I wanted to keep watching!

As a South Asian myself (although importantly, not a Pakistani or a Muslim), I was able to emotionally straddle both the worlds depicted here - the Western and the non-Western. I must say that Western societies are relatively guileless in the way they approach the world. The older, non-Western cultures may seem to be richer in their traditions, but they're also saddled with baggage that only they believe to be a strength. The depiction of the Pakistani family's superficial integration into Western society was authentic (they all spoke fluent English and used Western cultural idioms effortlessly), as was the line they drew at intermarriage.

Kumail's character developed as the movie progressed, and he was a pleasant surprise. Initially, he seemed to be just a smooth talker with no more than a physical interest in bedding as many girls as he could seduce. But as time went on, he displayed a more serious and caring side. Zoe Kazan as Emily (with her surname changed to Gardner for the movie) was extremely cute and endearing. She seemed somewhat young for her character, and this vaguely disturbed me. Anupam Kher struck the right note as Kumail's father. I personally dislike Kher for his political views, but have to admit that as an actor, he's reliably pitch-perfect. Adeel Akhtar as Kumail's brother was convincing too. However, Zenobia Shroff as Kumail's mother seemed more of a caricature than a three-dimensional character. That was probably the one tiny flaw in the movie.

Kumail Nanjiani, who plays himself and tells his own real-life story

The endearing Zoe Kazan as Emily Gardner

Ray Romano as Emily's father Terry, and Holly Hunter as mother Beth, portrayed such realistic and believable characters that I believe they did more than Kumail to make the movie gripping and authentic at the same time. They were amazingly real people.

Ray Romano and Holly Hunter in a masterful performance as Emily's parents

Something that may slip past unnoticed is the heartwarming camaraderie among stand-up comedians, even though they are in competition for recognition and career progress. I really liked the scenes of interaction between Kumail and his comedian friends.

One minor character I had a lot of sympathy for was Khadija played by Vella Lovell (who surprisingly is not of South Asian descent in spite of her convincing appearance). If Kumail had not been involved with Emily already, Khadija would have been a good match for him. Arranged marriages are terrible when taken to extremes (coercion and in-breeding are two obvious negatives), but they can also make for some excellent matches between people who would not otherwise have met. The brief and poignant scene with Khadija hinted at a possible alternative pairing in a parallel universe that could have worked out very well.

Vella Lovell as Khadija - Ms Right in a parallel universe

And now to return to my feelings of indignation.

I cannot understand why people would migrate from their native countries to a Western one if they aren't open to the possibility that their children may marry someone from another community. If they're so closed-minded, they should simply stay home! It strikes me as terribly selfish and bigoted that many immigrants look upon Western societies as existing merely to provide them a safe, stable and comfortable living, but not as an equally respectable culture that could influence them. I've personally seen this attitude among many Indians in Australia. We want homes in the most upmarket areas, and we expect to experience no discrimination in our careers, but we want our children to marry only within the Indian community. I have no hesitation in calling this attitude bigotry.

And it's this question that is left unresolved at the end of the movie. Sure, the couple have a happy reconciliation, but Kumail is estranged from his family. We don't see them come around, and so they don't learn anything valuable and grow as people. This is one of the worst aspects of multiculturalism as it is practised. It's all take and no give. I have to marvel at the tolerance of the West towards its insular immigrants.

As I said, this was much more than a movie or a simple rom-com to me. It addresses a very real and disturbing phenomenon - the bigotry of immigrants towards their adoptive society, which is far more prevalent but far less spoken about than the racism that immigrants may face from Westerners.

For a rivetting tale, authentic and endearing characters, and a thought-provoking set of questions, I give this movie 4.5 stars out of 5.

Movie Review - Bajirao Mastani (An Allegory For Modern Indian Society)

Bajirao Mastani - a period romance with a subliminal political message for modern India

Sanjay Leela Bhansali's blockbuster movie "Bajirao Mastani" starts with a grand and ambitious allegory. The candidate for the post of Peshwa (prime minister and de facto ruler) of the Marathas under the nominal emperor Shahu is the heroic and confident Bajirao. Challenged to display his worth by splitting a peacock feather in two, Bajirao fires an arrow and apparently fails - the feather remains standing. Bajirao then asks the Maratha court to examine the lower part of the feather that was anchored to the soil. His arrow has indeed cut it in half - not along its length, as his challenger had implied, but into two shorter lengths.

Bajirao demonstrates his political allegory with a peacock feather, just as Sanjay Leela Bhansali does with his film

Bajirao's allegory then follows. The soil is India, and the feather is the Mughal empire of the Muslim invaders that has entrenched itself in Indian soil. If one cuts off its supporting lower half (the stronghold of Delhi), the Mughal empire will crumble. If made Peshwa, he proposes to establish the power of the Marathas by conquering Delhi and deposing the Mughals.

Needless to say, Bajirao's soaring rhetoric and inspiring allegory, not to mention the display of his martial prowess, win over the emperor and the court, and he is duly crowned Peshwa.

But what follows in the rest of the 160 minute movie is itself a grand allegory, and if the box office returns are anything to go by, its intended lesson is being welcomed in India as enthusiastically as the Maratha court welcomed the feather analogy.

But first, let's dispense with the superficials.

The sheer splendour and opulence of the palace scenes fill a viewer with awe. I knew that the Marathas rose as a major power in India towards the end of the Mughal empire, and might have gone on to conquer all of India had the British not made their appearance. But seeing their glory in such exquisitely rich detail is something else altogether. If nothing else, Bajirao Mastani inspires me to read up on the Marathas in more detail.

The battle scenes are dramatic too, although the very last one where Bajirao single-handedly takes on the entire army of the Nizam is over-the-top and unrealistic.

An early battle scene - Bajirao takes on Muhammad Bangash in style

Bhansali has clearly pulled out all the stops in making this a larger-than-life period drama. If his intention was to evoke awe at the grandeur and tumult of early 18th century Indian history, he has clearly succeeded. The entire movie is a visual treat.

The opulence of the palace scenes is dazzling

Speaking of visual treats, the human elements of this drama are delectable eye-candy too. One finds it hard to look elsewhere when Priyanka Chopra as Bajirao's wife Kashibai appears in a scene.

Time and again, we are reminded why Priyanka Chopra was crowned Miss World 2000

Deepika Padukone as Mastani is not so much glamour girl as warrior princess, and she is magnificent.

Whether defending her kingdom Bundelkhand against a Mughal Nawab or defending herself and her child against Maratha would-be assassins, she fights like a tigress

And Ranveer Singh as the great Bajirao does justice to his role as a giant historical figure.

As I will argue, Bajirao's heroism extends beyond the battlefield to challenge society itself

My personal favourite bit of eye-candy is the bath scene with a buff Ranveer Singh and the ever-ravishing Priyanka Chopra.

Eroticism needn't be sexist - this sequence can do something to men and women alike

On to the more substantive part of this review, then!

The entire movie has a subliminal political message. It is Bollywood's allegorical exhortation to Indians to be inclusive, and is aimed mainly at Hindus.

In the style immortalised by the Four Word Film Review, I would summarise Bajirao Mastani as "Hindus, don't be hardhearted".

The Maratha empire stands for Hindu-majority India. In contrast to that other period romance Jodha-Akbar, Bajirao Mastani is a story of Hindu ascendency, not of Muslim triumph. The timing of the movie's release is significant. The mood in India in 2015 is palpably different from what it was just a couple of years earlier. The Hindu nationalist BJP won a decisive victory in the 2014 election, and the saffron flag now flutters everywhere in India, virtually unchallenged. There is a mood of triumphalism among Hindutva supporters. This mirrors the rise of the Hindu Maratha empire in the early 18th century and the resurgence of Hindu pride.

Nothing secular about this state - Bajirao on his temporal throne with the figurative backing of Ganesha 

Set against this larger trend as background, the character of Mastani is an allegory for the Muslim minority in India. As a matter of historical fact, Mastani was half-Hindu and half-Muslim, and she herself had developed a syncretic identity (as her father says in the movie,"She worships both Allah and Krishna"). Such syncretism is of course viewed as heresy by Muslim fundamentalists, who allow for only one "true" god. In contrast, Hindus claim to subscribe to a more liberal, many-paths-to-one-truth philosophy. Yet Mastani's bridging identity was never accepted as such by the Hindu Marathas, and she was seen as purely Muslim. Moreover, she was not even accepted as a royal since they considered her father's Muslim wife as only a concubine.

To this day, India's Muslims, who are Indian by blood but following a faith that is foreign by origin, are often treated as invaders and foreigners, not as natively Indian. It is a matter of record that Indian Muslims are the most integrated and least alienated of all Muslim communities worldwide, yet that seems to cut little ice. The constant attempts to position Mastani as a courtesan rather than a queen represent the RSS view of Muslims as nothing more than second-class citizens.

The non-Hindu people of Hindustan must either adopt Hindu culture and language, must learn and respect and hold in reverence the Hindu religion, must entertain no idea but of those of glorification of the Hindu race and culture ... In a word they must cease to be foreigners, or may stay in the country, wholly subordinated to the Hindu nation, claiming nothing, deserving no privileges, far less any preferential treatment—not even citizens' rights. - "We, or Our Nationhood Defined" by MS Golwalkar (the second supreme leader of the RSS)

Mastani arrives in Pune and sends back the soldiers who accompanied her from her native Bundelkhand. This is enormously symbolic. She has surrendered all power, and relies on the goodwill of the Maratha court to accept her. The analogy is clear. After the fall of the Mughals and other petty Nawabs, Muslims in India are no longer the rulers of the country. In a democratic setup with a Hindu majority, they rely on the goodwill of that Hindu majority to be able to go about their business as equal citizens.

Alone and vulnerable - Mastani arrives at the Maratha court to a hostile reception

By portraying Mastani in a piteously sympathetic light, the movie is appealing to the sentiment of its predominantly Hindu audience to accept their Muslim brethren as their own.

What stands in the way are several mental blocks in the Hindu mind, each symbolised by a character in the movie.

Bajirao's loyal wife Kashibai is India's Hindu majority, the original and legitimate claimant to the affections of the Peshwa (the state). Accommodating another woman in her marriage is asking too much of a wife. Why should Muslim citizens be accommodated as equals in a secular republic when India has historically been a "Hindu Rashtra" and Muslims arrived as invaders, as unwelcome interlopers? How could her husband betray her and cost her her pride by bringing home another woman?

Kashibai's "How could you?!" look

Nevertheless, Kashibai is the fairest and most accommodating of all the members of the Maratha court. She can see Mastani as a fellow human being. She thus also represents the accommodating and tolerant aspect of Hindu society,

The murderous and hardline priest Krishna Bhatt represents Hindu religious orthodoxy. It is the sentiment that invokes scripture to deny humane treatment of human beings.

Krishna Bhatt - The face of villainous orthodoxy

Bajirao's unbending mother Radhabai represents rigid social mores. She can acknowledge with pride that her son respects women and that he is fighting to give Mastani the respect that is her due, but she cannot take the next step to grant Mastani that respect herself.

Radhabai - "You may be right, but I'm not budging!"

Bajirao's elder son by Kashibai, Nanasaheb (who later becomes Balaji Bajirao), represents resentment and hatred. He cannot see beyond the fact that his mother has been humiliated by an outsider, and repeatedly asks Mastani to go back to Bundelkhand. The fanatical Hindutva hordes who harbour an unthinking hatred of Muslims and only want them to "go to Pakistan" mirror this attitude exactly.

Nanasaheb - a chillingly unremitting hatred born of resentment over perceived injustice

Together, the priest, grandmother and grandson are a dangerous trio. They will attempt murder and imprison the unwanted one the instant the Peshwa's attention is elsewhere. When a government fails to do its "Rajdharm" (duty of governance) and turns a blind eye to intolerance, the mobs will take the cue and go on a communal rampage to harm and kill the hated "other".

The issue of bigamy poses its own interesting allegory. The social injunction against bigamy ("No man shall have more than one wife") is analogous to MA Jinnah's Two-Nation Theory ("Muslims and Hindus are separate nations and cannot share a state"). Mahatma Gandhi's idealistic belief that Hindus and Muslims can live together in peace in a secular country mirrors the unspoken hope of Bajirao Mastani's audience that the two women can somehow reconcile to being co-wives, that the Maratha court and society can somehow find it in themselves to accept Mastani, and that everyone will then live happily ever after.

The contradiction here is what we all need to resolve in our minds. The law against bigamy, after all, takes no note of the will of consenting adults to enter into polyamorous relationships. The Urdu saying, "Jab miya biwi raazi, to kya karega kaazi?" ("If husband and wife consent, what can the law do?") comes to mind.

Cohabitation is a choice. We can choose to be rigid and doctrinaire in our ways, insisting on separation or apartheid under the excuse of irreconcilable differences, or we can choose to melt those rigid rules by consciously deciding to welcome difference as diversity and to live harmoniously with other people. By demonstrating how easily audiences will overcome their prejudice against bigamy in their wish for Bajirao, Kashibai and Mastani to be happy together, the movie is showing us that our mental barriers are of our own making and can be dismantled at will.

They're all good people. Can't they get along somehow? Is tragedy inevitable?

A tragic ending puts the final seal on this argument. Sad movies tend to leave a stronger imprint on audiences than others, as I discovered for myself when I watched Roman Holiday. The movie's appeal for inclusiveness is likely to be especially effective because of its unsatisfactory ending. The unspoken message is, "If you could end this story differently by making the Marathas more softhearted, would you?" Of course we would!

Crucially though, what should we see represented by the character who accepts Mastani, who wants her to be treated as an equal, who can bring up one son (Raghunath Rao) as a Hindu and the other (Shamsher Bahadur) as a Muslim, who loves both his wives and wants to keep both of them happy?

In other words, who is Bajirao himself?

He is our conscience.