Ashdoc's movie review---Lanka

Bijnor in the badlands of Uttar Pradesh---the modern day Lanka.....

And where there is a Lanka , there is a Ravan.....

Except the fact that this Ravan is far more cruelier , far more merciless , far more sanguine than the old Ravan of the myth and folklore that is the Ramayana.....

For the Ravana of Ramayana was a gentleman who never touched the lovely , pure-as-raindrops Sita....

Maybe because it was satyayug and those times were far more innocent.....

But this Ravan lives according to the morals of the kalyug that he lives in.....

A kalyug that neither respects nor protects the body or the virginity of women......

This Ravan's Sita is a frail , delicate , fair complexioned doctor ( now would you believe that !! ---now what got into the head of the director to make the damsel in distress , especially this kind of distress , a doctor......especially with a doctor father !! ) .

And the Ravan is unrelenting in pursuit of his unbridled lust as he forces this hapless victim to become his bedmate , spending night after night enjoying her soft-as-silk flesh in her very home in the presence of her helpless parents.....

And he keeps a close watch on her and her movements---not allowing her to escape his evil clutches or take recourse to the law , a law which is in his own hands anyway ; he being virtual dictator of the small town.....

Anybody daring to cross the Ravan's path is destined to die a gory death , as an inspector who dares to confront him in the name of his own backward caste soon finds out at the cost of his life.....

In such a situation where is the Ram that this Sita waits for desperately to rescue her ??

Well ,there is no Ram....

So we have to make do with a Vibheeshan......

A Vibheeshan who comes back after many years in the big city to live with his long lost brother.....

And the coming back of this Vibheeshan stirs surprising emotions of love and brotherhood in the hard-as-a-rock Ravan.....

Maybe these emotions are stirred because the Ravan , living a hard life with no wife or companion , needs someone to emotionally connect to.....

But the Vibheeshan is a different and better man than the malicious Ravan.....He is man with a heart.....

And his heart is moved by the plight of Sita.....It is moved by her tears , moved by the sheer desperation of her desire to escape.....

But Vibheeshan loves his brother too much to act quickly.....He first asks his brother to correct his injustice , to marry the innocent Sita.....

But the Ravan refuses !! He wants her to be a prey of his lust , nothing else.....

Finding no help or hope from anywhere , Sita's father tries to help her escape this living hell.....

And Vibheeshan's heart is roiled when he watches the unimaginably ruthless Ravan go to unprecedented depths of evilmindedness to teach Sita's father a lesson he will never forget......

And he makes up his mind to free Sita from this living hell.....

So does he succeed in his attempt to free the modern day Janaki....??

Does this modern day Ravanayan ( how can we call it Ramayan ??--there is no Ram , and Ravan dominates the movie ) have a happy ending ??

Considering the fact that the Sita of yore got no justice , that she had to disappear in the bowels of her mother the earth , does the modern day Sita fare any better ??

Happily she does , if that is one of the blessings of the modern age where women have got some life liberty and freedom and some semblance of equal rights.....

That begs the question.....If Sita fared so badly then , and fares better now , then why is that era called satyayug ??.....And our era called kalyug.....

Is satyayug so good because women were like Sita at that time---suffering silently , living as chattels of men ??

Does the goodness of a yuga depend on keeping women on a tight leash , and if so , then was that yuga an invention of primitive people with tribal mentality ??

I think so , and for that reason alone , I prefer our good old kalyug with all its problems....

And you would prefer the Ravan of the kalyug too , for Manoj Bajpai has put up a bravura performance in Ravan's role---a performance that holds this film together , overshadowing everyone else......

Only the ending comes a little too fast and is a bit disappointing , but its still a decent movie .

Verdict---not great , but decent enough .