Opinion Raajneeti – the promotion
Prakash Jha's big ticket political drama with its mammoth star cast finally releases this Friday.
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It’s Raajneeti week in Bollywood. Prakash Jha’s big ticket political drama with its mammoth star cast finally releases this Friday. Finally we’ll come to know whether or not Katrina Kaif’s character is modelled on Sonia Gandhi. If you believe the pre release buzz of the film,then that is the only reason to watch Raajneeti.
Seriously,the entire publicity campaign of the movie is nicely wrapped around Katrina’s cotton saree. The poor girl must be all talked out by now. She’s on every hoarding,magazine,newspaper and news channel plugging “the most serious” role of her career. The cotton saree seems to be following her everywhere too. I saw her demonstrate her saree draping skills on a news channel recently. The sport that she is,Katrina did it all with a smile _ even made a makeshift petticoat of her sexy pink dress_ and tied the damn thing. What’s more,she even threw in a challenge of sorts when she declared she can tie a saree in less than 15 seconds.
It’s pretty entertaining to see the country’s top female star go all out to promote her movie,but a nagging question persists: does Raajneeti need a saree to prop itself? Director Prakash Jha is an award winning director and knows his politics quite well. It’s a film that is written by award winning writer,Anjum Rajabali who has interpreted the Mahabharata in the political context. It’s a film that has some fine ‘star’ actors and two superstars,Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina. It’s a strong film on all counts.
So then why is Katrina carrying the entire load of Raajneeti’s promotion?
In Bollywood,nothing succeeds like success. Even in a film top lining National Award winning actors like Naseeruddin Shah,Nana Patekar,Manoj Bajpayee,Ajay Devgn and (ahem) Arjun Rampal,the focus is on Katrina because of her enviable hit list. Not just her saree,even her Hindi speeches and her romantic chemistry with co-star Ranbir have been given due prominence in the publicity blitz. Recent media reports suggest that Devgn is also miffed with the film being promoted as a Katrina-Ranbir romance. The brooding actor feels this might mislead the audience who comes in expecting to see a romantic drama and goes back with a hard hitting political drama.
Jha who shares great professional rapport with Devgn paid heed to his advice and soon enough the dialogue promos were put on air. At last even Manoj Bajpayee got a tabloid story to his name wherein we were told that the actor’s character and look is based on Southie superstar-politician Chiranjeevi.
One has to marvel the publicity team of Raajneeti. They are making sure the movie is red hot. Every day some little nugget is appearing somewhere or the other. Now the focus is on the Congress party and Censor board’s politics with Raajneeti. Apparently before the Censor board could give its certificate _ U/A by the way_ the film was screened for some Congress representatives. The Censor board has apparently even asked Jha to cut an explicit lovemaking scene between Rampal and a female actor whose name has been withheld.
The timing of these stories is noteworthy. Full marks for the promotion,now all eyes on the film. Come Friday,we’ll know whether the saree has what it takes or not.
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