A Movie Nearly Every Night: My Name Is Khan

My Name Is Khan (2010)
Dir. Karan Johar
Starring: Shahrukh Khan, Kajol

"It's pronounced Hctkhan. Use the epiglottis."

So, it's been about 2 years since we started to seriously watch a wide selection of Bollywood cinema. We've watched the "Vijay films" of Amitabh Bachchan, the poetic magic naturalism of Guru Dutt, and the splashy fantasy musicals of Farah Khan. As different as they seem on the outside, these films have a common-base in melodrama. Things don't just happen here, they swing around in circles, roll in on a dolly or dance up to the camera in slow motion, usually in time to music. There's some vague basis in realism, but it's more like a bubble that grows out of realism and expands out into implausible until it pops back down to start all over again.

Given all that, I thought I was ready for My Name Is Khan. After all, it's Shahrukh and Kajol; it's Karan Johar, which means it comes out of a Yash Raj romantic films background, and I've seen a lot of those: Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (1995), Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003), Veer-Zaara (2004). I expected this to be no different -- big, romantic, dramatic, lovely to look at -- and it's not different, essentially, in those ways, but what makes it difficult to get into is that it's filmed almost entirely in the U.S., a real U.S., not like that nutty, strangely clean version of New York of Kal Ho Naa Ho. This has dusty roads, the real San Francisco Bay and real American actors ... and they suck a bit.

Rizvan's Muslim prayer among the American Christians.
Who's unhappy? We're unhappy.

Bollywood bubble-style melodrama takes some getting used to in realistic American settings because when it gets to the fake towns built on fake stages with fake people in them it's hard to make adjustments. And, yes, the American actors are reminiscent of kids in a high school theater arts class (what do I do with my hands?) and they're incredibly wooden. Did they not use a casting director?

So it took a good hour to force myself into a comfortable space with My Name Is Khan. Wait, no ... that can't happen ... or maybe it could, but ... erm ... geez ... I don't know! How the hell do I read this movie anyway?

Injecting some realism.
The circled news-ticker playing off of Shahrukh Khan's
detainment at Newark last year

Now, I love Shahrukh. You know I do. And I know what Asperger's Syndrome is. But putting Shahrukh Khan together with Asperger's is like giving whiskey to the ... well, let's just say that he plays it less functional and more autistic than most Asperger people I know. But, this isn't a movie about most people I know. He's going to take it to 11, people, and it's silly to think otherwise. It's Rain Man performing in La Boheme.

However, that said, comparing it to his other films, Shahrukh is actually pretty impressive as Rizvan. He's got to do the whole movie without the use of the point-and-drag hand gesture (watch him in songs if you want to know what I'm talking about; it's in all of them) or the misty-eyed romantic sighing and weeping and making impassioned speeches that are trademarks of his performances and something I've not only come to expect, but have also looked forward to seeing in his movies. But in this, even at 11, he plays it fairly conservative. I mean, it's big compared to say, Russell Crowe, but conservative for Shahrukh. Swapping out his acting like that definitely gets the A for effort.

No eye-contact. No eye-contact. No eye-contact.

So take realism out of the equation. Remove the real U.S. from the cinema U.S. Ignore the fact that Obama doesn't look like Obama and isn't named, although George W. Bush looks like George W. Bush and is named, or that it somehow spans 8 years without kids growing up or Mandira changing her style (she doesn't have Asperger's, so what the fish?). And he walks around the country for 2 years? He "goes out the back way" from a Federal building? Yeah, no, let it flow over you without barriers, allow in the big melodrama and the implausible, and you'll have a much better time with it.

Rizvan leaves Faketown, U.S.A. There are good people here.