Rang Rasiya

I wanted to watch this flick in the theatre but there was no time and watched it at home instead.
The movie stars Randeep Hooda, Nandana Sen, Feryna Wazheir and Paresh Rawal. It is an adaptation of Ranjit Desai's novel Raja Ravi Varma.



Raja Ravi Varma was a 19th century artist. He was married to the princess of Kerala where he didn't have to do anything and decided to start painting. But his wife looked down upon it and he decided to paint the servant in nude instead of his wife. This was followed by passionate love making with the servant and his wife catching him. The painting earns him the title of 'Raja' from the King of Travancore. Ravi Varma is shattered by the death of the king and moves to Mumbai where he comes across Sugandha (Nadana Sen) at a temple. She inspires him to take up painting again. To come up with new paintings for the King of Baroda, Ravi travels across the country in search of inspiration. All the temples and the carvings- many of them sexual, on the temples inspire him to come up with many, many paintings where Nadana is portrayed as a Goddess. Soon enough his paintings of Gods become available to the common man. Now everyone can pray to a photo of a God in his/her home. Ravi starts a printing press making his paintings commercially available but a fire burns it down. According to the movie, his wife is jealous and approaches his enemies (guardians of the Indian culture) who set fire to the printing press. Paresh Rawal steps in and lends Ravi Varma money for a new printing press. There were some nudes of Sugandha that Ravi Varma had painted which are reproduced by Paresh Rawal in prints without Ravi's knowledge. Everyone recognizes Nandana since she is a prostitute and makes her life miserable. In the end, she kills herself while Ravi Varma is an old and broken man.

The music is crap and there is a song everytime Ravi Varma makes love to a woman. Randeep Hooda is good... really good while Nandana Sen's voice seems dubbed by someone else. I hate dubbed voices. They sound so unreal.

The movie is lacking something... it felt like the soul was missing. I did not understand what Raja Ravi Varma was feeling or thinking. Nandana's one exposed breast has become a talking point when it was not even necessary. Sure, Ravi paints her nude but does she need to be shown nude? When you see the painting you anyway know she posed nude... right? Do I need proof that she did? I am not against nudity... at all... in fact, am happy with it. BUT sometimes... or most times... it makes me wonder if it is really needed. The problem is everyone knows the movie based on the nude breast and not what it is actually about. But then again, maybe any publicity is good publicity... right? Maybe that's why the movie got a release in multiplexes.

Avoidable.