To make an epic entertainment out of all these disparate elements is perhaps impossible without a dash of go-for-broke madness, and Gowariker is too sane a director, too methodical, too… nice. (And this alone would have made for a wonderful addition to our canon of romances, because with the exception of Mani Ratnam, almost no other mainstream filmmaker appears interested in exploring aspects of love after marriage.) Gowariker wants to contextualise this love story within the political turmoil of the period – and while this is no doubt necessary when you consider that we need to know the kind of man Akbar was and the kind of woman Jodhaa is before they become Jodhaa Akbar (what a nice touch that her name comes before his in the title, for it’s her influence that tempers him to greatness), Gowariker simply isn’t equipped with the skills to tell that story, the whole story. Unfortunately, Gowariker isn’t content with the story of a Mughal emperor named Akbar and a Rajput princess named Jodhaa getting married, overcoming their differences and living happily ever after. If Jodhaa Akbar had been merely the latter, if Gowariker had done nothing more than train his camera on his leads – after positioning them in and around the period architecture that’s almost as good-looking – I’d have considered my four-something hours (including commercials and intermission) extremely well spent. Then there are those that function primarily as tourist brochures on celluloid, showing you beautiful people and beautiful places, all from the comfort of your well-upholstered seat in an air-conditioned theatre. There are films that you go to because they change your life, your perspective, your reason for existence. When I first saw these two together, my concerns about the film – based on rumours that it’s too long, too this, too that! – simply melted away. And while Aishwarya’s beauty is no breaking news – in fact, that’s the only explanation for the longevity of her career – she’s so luminous from certain angles, it’s as if the cinematographer lit her from within. And how could he not be, with Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan for parents – those flesh-and-blood advertisements for eugenics, with those cheekbones and that jawline and that hair and those eyes? Hrithik occupies screen space with such silent poise and regal bearing, it’s hard to believe this is the same actor with the loosest limbs in Bollywood.
– I HAVEN’T LAID EYES ON PICTORIAL REPRESENTATIONS of Jahangir as an infant, but going by Ashutosh Gowariker’s Jodhaa Akbar, he was doubtless the handsomest baby in all of Mughaldom. Hrithik and Aishwarya shine as married royals… when not smothered under the bloat of Ashutosh Gowariker’s historical romance.
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