At first, it's about a man who has to leave his love to marry the girl of his killed brother; for rescuing her reputation since she's pregnant with an illegitimate child. Then, our man faces his original love again, yet after being married to the doctor who happened to save his life once. OK, that's ladies and gentlemen what they call a romantic melodrama. And with the right colors, songs, and landscapes; it's Hindi romantic melodrama. And with Yash Chopra's dexterous cinematography and directing; it's even more; a fine Hindi romantic melodrama. BUT with 183 minuets long; it's boooooooooooring!
No doubt that everybody made their best effort. The cinematography in specific was so carefully sensitive, smooth and warm. The songs were charmingly directed as if a live broadcast from la-la land. The cast did wonderful, without one atom of exaggeration. The casting itself was marvelous. However, I have to blame the script and the editing for the terrible pacing of the story. In fact, while watching a movie, what could be worse than rolling over your seat, asking: "When will it end?", and praying God for more health to be able to finish it?!
The script stopped at one point; the coming back of love between Amitabh Bachchan's and Rekha's characters, then made such a huge cobweb around that, with more than enough; scenes, situations, songs and dialogues! I think 2 hours of the 3 were spent over one question; what could be the end of that love?, yet with intention from the writer to elongate the time to the answer, not making the way to it thrilling in a decent way. Therefore, all what we had was fashionably dressed Bachchan and Rekha singing, then new characters being presented, like Kulbhushan Kharbanda's, added to more than 20 obvious coincidences, reaching to the melodramatic climax and the so-longed-for ending!
I believe it's unnecessary to assure how naive that ending was. It extremely disappointed me to end this big enough melodrama with that plane crash, which - suddenly and strangely - exposed how much Bachchan was in love with his wife!! And to perfect the naivety: "Love is faith and faith is forever". REALLY?! They should have written "and naivety is forever TOO!". It's like reading a pretty long mystery novel to discover eventually that there was no actual murder in the first place! So the general bore and the final artlessness ruled. And no lovable stars, nice colors, sad songs could compensate. I felt that I grew old in front of this movie!
To be fair, one point was in this end's favor though, since it didn't lean to use the poetic justice where Bachchan's character would, for example, die as a punishment for cheating on his wife with a married woman. I think the chosen end represented, in a way, new moral vision and more merciful solution, which consolidated values like realism and objectiveness, instead of absolute black-&-white idealism.
For another broken rule, I must refer to the fact that in this movie Bachchan shows half naked in 2 shower scenes, and one bed scene while supposedly an illicit affair, let alone acting as someone impure who cheats on his wife. All of that were famous taboos for the star, which he totally broke here, and I don't think that he broke them again much, or maybe ever, later; which works at least for me, since I see that exploiting sexuality in movies is cheap, degenerate, and hence destructive not for the movies only, but for the societies as well. It may be bugging, if not dark, conviction for you, but it's mine anyway.
Now to such unbelievable point. Bachchan plays a playwright, a sort of struggling one as well. So how come he lives in a mansion, dresses lavishly and breakfasts majestically?? I'm a writer myself, and in the character's same age, however fighting to achieve less than the quarter of THAT. Otherwise, the playwrights earn a lot, and I mean A LOT, in India!
Some said that the story was loosely inspired by the alleged real life love triangle of Amitabh-Jaya-Rekha. Well, I don't know precisely about that, however the big B looked so comfortable while doing his love scenes with Rekha, more than any other actress. It could be just a coincidence, an actress who he felt at ease with, or an honest moment of acting, nothing more. But, if I'm wrong, then this movie is so historically rare to capture a complicated and embarrassing relationship between 3 top stars at one moment!
Silsila starts off as propitious romantic melodrama and ends up as long fashion show (Bachchan is wearing a new chic outfit in every shot, and never appears with the same outfit twice!). I hated its enjoying of elongating its situation endlessly, hackneying its characters blatantly, fabricating coincidences increasingly, and - most of all - putting its leads in lovey-dovey positions during a long list of songs, to the extent of being the ultimate lovey-dovey movie of all time. Nothing wrong with romantic melodrama, but exploiting it is what destroys the whole thing, to be tired and dull. And Silsila happens to be a clear example of that.
No doubt that everybody made their best effort. The cinematography in specific was so carefully sensitive, smooth and warm. The songs were charmingly directed as if a live broadcast from la-la land. The cast did wonderful, without one atom of exaggeration. The casting itself was marvelous. However, I have to blame the script and the editing for the terrible pacing of the story. In fact, while watching a movie, what could be worse than rolling over your seat, asking: "When will it end?", and praying God for more health to be able to finish it?!
The script stopped at one point; the coming back of love between Amitabh Bachchan's and Rekha's characters, then made such a huge cobweb around that, with more than enough; scenes, situations, songs and dialogues! I think 2 hours of the 3 were spent over one question; what could be the end of that love?, yet with intention from the writer to elongate the time to the answer, not making the way to it thrilling in a decent way. Therefore, all what we had was fashionably dressed Bachchan and Rekha singing, then new characters being presented, like Kulbhushan Kharbanda's, added to more than 20 obvious coincidences, reaching to the melodramatic climax and the so-longed-for ending!
I believe it's unnecessary to assure how naive that ending was. It extremely disappointed me to end this big enough melodrama with that plane crash, which - suddenly and strangely - exposed how much Bachchan was in love with his wife!! And to perfect the naivety: "Love is faith and faith is forever". REALLY?! They should have written "and naivety is forever TOO!". It's like reading a pretty long mystery novel to discover eventually that there was no actual murder in the first place! So the general bore and the final artlessness ruled. And no lovable stars, nice colors, sad songs could compensate. I felt that I grew old in front of this movie!
To be fair, one point was in this end's favor though, since it didn't lean to use the poetic justice where Bachchan's character would, for example, die as a punishment for cheating on his wife with a married woman. I think the chosen end represented, in a way, new moral vision and more merciful solution, which consolidated values like realism and objectiveness, instead of absolute black-&-white idealism.
For another broken rule, I must refer to the fact that in this movie Bachchan shows half naked in 2 shower scenes, and one bed scene while supposedly an illicit affair, let alone acting as someone impure who cheats on his wife. All of that were famous taboos for the star, which he totally broke here, and I don't think that he broke them again much, or maybe ever, later; which works at least for me, since I see that exploiting sexuality in movies is cheap, degenerate, and hence destructive not for the movies only, but for the societies as well. It may be bugging, if not dark, conviction for you, but it's mine anyway.
Now to such unbelievable point. Bachchan plays a playwright, a sort of struggling one as well. So how come he lives in a mansion, dresses lavishly and breakfasts majestically?? I'm a writer myself, and in the character's same age, however fighting to achieve less than the quarter of THAT. Otherwise, the playwrights earn a lot, and I mean A LOT, in India!
Some said that the story was loosely inspired by the alleged real life love triangle of Amitabh-Jaya-Rekha. Well, I don't know precisely about that, however the big B looked so comfortable while doing his love scenes with Rekha, more than any other actress. It could be just a coincidence, an actress who he felt at ease with, or an honest moment of acting, nothing more. But, if I'm wrong, then this movie is so historically rare to capture a complicated and embarrassing relationship between 3 top stars at one moment!
Silsila starts off as propitious romantic melodrama and ends up as long fashion show (Bachchan is wearing a new chic outfit in every shot, and never appears with the same outfit twice!). I hated its enjoying of elongating its situation endlessly, hackneying its characters blatantly, fabricating coincidences increasingly, and - most of all - putting its leads in lovey-dovey positions during a long list of songs, to the extent of being the ultimate lovey-dovey movie of all time. Nothing wrong with romantic melodrama, but exploiting it is what destroys the whole thing, to be tired and dull. And Silsila happens to be a clear example of that.