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New Bollywood movie dares to probe marriage
Wednesday August 9 2:31 AM ET
Bollywood is set to take a big leap this week with the opening of a blockbuster set around marital tensions, a brave departure by an industry known more for showcasing marriage as the heart of Indian family values.
"
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" (Never Say Goodbye), an extra-marital potboiler which opens on Friday, is one of the most eagerly awaited releases of the year.
The story begins where most traditional Bollywood plots end -- after a couple hold hands and walk happily into the sunset -- and explores what happens to relationships after marriage.
"The alarming statistics of failing marriages in recent times often made me wonder about the relevance of the institution to our society today," said director
Karan Johar.
"The seed for
'Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna' was born somewhere from these thoughts."
In the past, Bollywood's attempts at examining marriage and its shortcomings were subjects touched only by art house movies with little mass appeal.
Although there were rare attempts by mainstream filmmakers as well, none went the distance and questioned the relevance of marriage itself, as "
Kabhi Alvida" does.
The accepted wisdom has been to portray young love as pure, naive and disconnected from all complications in a society which is only now opening up to Western social trends.
Such love, in most stories, would culminate in a happy family wedding album after the lovers had gone through a series of song and dance sequences, convinced or rebelled against their parents and battled villains.
"
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" is not bereft of Bollywood's song and dance staple, but critics say it has handled the theme in a refreshingly new manner.
The film is about two seemingly happy couples who meet their soulmates outside marriage, forcing them to look at their relationships from a new perspective.
"There are many dimensions to a relationship. We don't say this or that dimension is right,"
Shah Rukh Khan, Bollywood's hottest star and the film's lead actor, told Reuters.
"We have just tried to show one dimension, one possibility."
"
Kabhi Alvida" has several reputations riding on it --
Khan, the iconic
Amitabh Bachchan, his son
Abhishek, and 34-year-old
Johar -- considered a Bollywood whizkid who has so far made syrupy romances that became superhits.
"
Kabhi Alvida" is set in New York and revolves around the lives of a set of rich Indian immigrants, something that some critics say Indian audiences may not be able relate to.
But
Johar says relationship problems are universal.
"Seemingly simple bonds between people can amount to so much and cause such upheaval that lives change drastically with a minute change in these equations," he said.
"Especially in the fast-changing world of today, such changes seem magnified hundred fold forcing us to question our age old definitions of relationships and commitment."
