Bollywood-ish

Sunday 17 April 2011

Celebrating the music of Dil To Pagal Hai

I heart this movie. Live with it. And one of the reasons it´s that absolutely wonderful soundtrack. I am NOT a fan of Lata Mangeshkar, it took me some time to get used to her voice, but as soon as I did there was not a single flaw in the musical part of DTPH. And since it clearly claims to be "Yash Chopra´s MUSICAL" there is a LOT of music. The film opening credits are one of the cutest ever, from the main message to the last couple shown, which incidentally is Yash Chopra himself, huging his wife.


And then we are given something about love too, but it definitely is nothing fluffy! Make way for energetic Karishma Kapoor and her - possibly best and most famous dance number ever!

Next there is Shahrukh sharing his fantasy about a girl with an innocent face, who has mischief in her eyes and shies away. It was his favourite song from the film by the way.

A song that set a trend of heart-shaped baloons for a Valentine´s day. I must admit some of Shahrukh´s choreography (left arm up, right arm up, left arm forward, right arm forward....) reminded me of some silly school dancing we did as kids, but in the end it´s SRK and nobody really cares, because even with silly moves he looks sexy. If you have not seen the film yet - no, Madhuri and Shahrukh don´t knoweach other yet. It doens´t stop them from singing songs about each other though. I love Bollywood.

The title song - favourite track for both Madhuri and Karishma. Shot in Germany, which I find terribly cute (and a relief after all the Swiss Alps Yash Chopra was serving us for years). Only Akshay´s ridiculous haircut spoils a bit the perfect picture.


But happy times do not last forever, do they? And so Nisha is injured and Rahul in need of a new dancer.... And then she just appears - like an illusion in a moonlight. Like a beautiful dream. Fortunatelly for us all, she is a human being, in real life going by the name of Madhuri Dixit.

My own personal favourite - Koi Ladki Hai. I already featured her on this blog in my "rainsongs list". Except for the "Maya´s dance" (right above) it has the best choreography in the film, and the one responsible is Shiamak Davar. But yeah, I never knew it is possible to dance like this with a broken ankle! Seems Lolo is capable of nearly anything.

By now Shahrukh and Madhuri are in love. But they don´t know it yet. Not even Karishma knows it, but she REALLY doesn´t like somebody like Madhuri dancing on HER stage. And so she decides to give her a lesson. People have been endlessly arguing about which of the ladies out-danced the other. My reply is: none. They both were amazing - and completely different. Madhuri as Pooja was full of grace and joy, simply enjoying the dance, while Karishma was more energetic, less graceful and full of anger. Both were superb.

They still don´t know they are in love. But to show the viewer they really are, Yash Chopra presents his favourite song Arre Arre. Brilliant picturization full of tender SRK/Madhuri moments that make my heart melt. And Madhuri just looks divine in white.

And the same melody is used to show us a moment when Madhuri realizes..... she is in love!

Guess what! Rahul knows he is in love too! And we have a PERFECT excuse for a absolutely delightful song with an amazing picturization!!! No words needed....

And in the end - a little sum up of the main songs, this time "live"! Long live DTPH!

6 comments:

  1. I don't listen to the music very often, because it's not one of the films I've seen that often, but it's a good soundtrack.

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  2. Love the soundtrack!!! We watched this in Bollywood Stars & Directors class. The boys did not like it, too many song & dance sequences. I responded to this comment by whipping my head around in shock and saying No0o0o0o

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  3. That´s funny! Because usually, when people don´t like the film, they like the songs at least! :)

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  4. Definitely the strong point of this movie. :D
    GREAT GREAT ARTICLE!!

    I wanted to do same kind of article, but for Devdas soundtrack. ;)

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  5. Well, I´m going to do such articles for movies with great music, so Devdas is coming sometimes too :) But I don´t see a reason why you could not do so too :)

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  6. This was a nice trip down memory lane! And I totally agree with you about Lata Mangeshkar. I'm one of those "heathens" that is NOT a fan of her voice--I feel it's wayyyy too over the top and, just too high. But regardless this soundtrack is one of the best!!

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