Sound of success - Qatar Tribune

Saturday, May 25, 2013
BOLLYWOOD
Ishkq In Paris
feel good, frothy
Film: Ishkq In Paris
Rating:
Director: Prem Raj
Starring: Preity Zinta, Rhehan Malliek,
and Isabelle Adjani
NOW PLAYING IN DOHA THEATRES
IANS
LOVE, as the sages say, is a many-splendoured
thing. You can look at it as an occasion
for stress and heartbreak (which is why
we fall, never rise, in love). Or love can be a
celebration of life.
Director Prem Raj’s debut film Main Aur Mrs
Khanna took a quaint capricious look at love during
times of adultery. On this occasion (Ishkq In Paris) he
takes flight in a Parisian paradise where two strangers,
both single attractive and commit-phobic, spend the
night together.
No, not doing what you think in your dirty minds.
They roam the cobbled mysterious pleasurable lanes
of Paris in pursuit of a good time and then decide
“never” to meet again.
If you’ve seen how Kareena Kapoor affects the
sober, staid and repressed Shahid Kapoor in Jab We
Met, you’d know that feminine exuberance is a hard
aphrodisiac to resist, specially if you are a closet-romantic
like Akaash (Rhehan Maliek) who in no time
at all (first five minutes of this crisp and delightful
slice of love-life comedy) is eating out of Ishkq’s lovely
hands.
Ah, Ishqk! She is that kind of a girl. Half-French
and fully desi, Ishqk fills up the frames with an unbridled
joie de vivre. I can’t think of a role better written
for Preity Zinta. Missing from the screen for a couple
of years, she bounces back with a performance that
derives its zing and sparkle from the actress’ inbuilt
zest for life.
Preity takes her character Ishqk beyond her own
personality. From frame one we see Ishkq as a girl
trapped in self-deceptions that leave her unnecessarily
wary of relationships. Ishkq hides her real emotions in
romantic nonchalance. This is not the first time Preity
plays a repressed character. In Nikhil Advani’s Kal Ho
Naa Ho, Preity had to make a ‘spectacle’ of her character
Naina to bring out her commitment phobia in the
absence of a father, who abandoned her when she was
young.
Here in this Parisian homage to all things romantic,
Preity’s character blossoms before us without
props and yet looking immensely fetching. It is a
non-accessoried performance, very basic and liberated
from humbug.
Preity brings out the highs and lows in her emotionally
awash character without taking flamboyant
leaps of on-camera conceit. It’s a beautifully written
and directed part, replete wth restrained resonances
that give the actress a chance to show her skills in
subtle ways.
Rhehan as Preity’s ‘other’ gives the actress just the
right cues. Confident and yet not cocky, Rhehan seems
poised for a satisfactory innings in Hindi films.
Looking at how well Rhehan partners the screenfilling
Preity on the screen, one wonders if this bighearted
romantic-comedy would have worked with
any other two actors! These two may not be mad for
each other (at least, not until we leave them at the end
of the film). But by Cupid, they are definitely made for
each other!
Prem Raj allows the couple plenty of space to let
their feeling breathe freely and easily into the narration.
The two protagonists may be in a hurry to get
somewhere, the film is not.
The exquisite camerawork by Manush Nandan
sweeps languorously through the neon-lit seductive
night-life of Paris and the daytime bustle of the streetside
cafes without getting into touristic awe.
One shot where Preity treats Rhehan to the wondrous
sight of all the lights coming alive in the Eiffel
Tower stays with you. If only love could be captured
and frozen in its most majestic manifestations!
Interestingly, the narration is fashioned like a fable
with the legendary French actress Isabelle Adjani telling
us about Ishkq’s brief encounter with Akaash and
its aftermath without letting us in to her own role in
the romance. It’s a cute little secret kept away from us
for a while in a film where the main protagonists play
out their emotions in full view and with disarming
transparency.
Preity, Paris and Prem Raj whip up a souffle romance.
Fresh, frothy feel good and, yes, look good,
and with a solid undercurrent of emotional frisson to
guide the love story to its heart-warming culmination
Ishkq In Paris makes you thankful for that
thing called love. The tone of narration is umistakably
European.
A still from the film Ishkq
In Paris.
Here in this Parisian
homage to all things
romantic, Preity’s
character blossoms
before us without
props and yet looking
immensely fetching. It
is a non-accessoried
performance, very basic
and liberated from
humbug