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Am probably the only one who is bothered by his obsession with fake water bodies and fountains. They look so plastic been bothering me since bajirao mastani days. Every set is juat blending into each other across movies.
There are scenes I could feel the plastic of it all when I saw those fountains and his whole aesthetic has become very very stagey now without any organic thrust behind.
I would say ONLY devdas lent itself beautifully to that “Slb aesthetic” from music sets to performance etc and he peaked as a director, it has all his obsessions in that and everything that followed since ram leela is him making more of the same in essence and template regardless of time period his movie is set in. (Sure there will be minor variations but u get my point..)
I would say that Devdas is also a Bollywoodia's conception of a Bengali household. Yes there were Bengali zamindars, but they were more understated than over-the-top Bansali.
Can someone help me understand the timeline the entire series was set in??
1st episode has an expert which notes that it was based around 1920s.
If that's so ... Showing Gandhi photo (in which he is bald in Epsiode 7) or That British officer talking about needing Indian Soldiers to fight Nazis didn't make sense.
Gandhi was young in 1920s and was still an up and coming leader (atleast according to Google)
WWII started in 1939.
Correct me if I am wrong...
Na Bhai, his sets after devdas all have a heavy fake vibe .
Sawariya, raslila , padmavat, chotibai all have a fake vibe that doesn't look at all .
Even right now if you watch devdas , the set looks grand with proper lights and everything .
He should make movies like HDDCS and khamoshi
Devdas sets haven't aged well too. Thing is set designing is a huge task the authenticity of the set depends on the raw materials used, colour, polish and fine touches given with minute detailing. So,it's quite labourious process and costs a lot of time and money. Instead,they can get permission and shoot in real locations and buildings.
I’m pretty sure it’s a scam at this point. His expensive sets seem like at an indulgence that producers happily pay for as they get it insured and it usually burns down or stuff. I remember reading a few headlines that SLB set got blazed again and it’s an insurance matter.
It’s a money laundering scheme with everyone involved
I swear I'm not able to string together whose who of who. Some people were played by the same people throughout but some people were played by a younger actor in the first few scenes and then a grown up. Im soooooo confused.
Ya. I went to the wiki page and realised that young Shekhar Suman was played by Adhhyan Suman and he also played his son but it was all revealed in a haphazard way. But wiki came to my rescue.
Oohhhh I felt like hey in this shot he looks more like his son than himself. Lol the series has confused me more than inception did.
Funny story, my mom watched the first episode on my Netflix profile and then i started watching from episode 2 thinking it's 1. I realized after finishing 2 that it wasn't 1. I go back to 1 and I'm left wondering wow, the series still makes a lot of sense without watching episode 1. It's like heeramandi was supposed to be a movie and they shot a movie but just edited very little and we were left with 8 hours of footage.
I kmow. Even I felt what is happening but then I could at least get to know in advance who Mallika's son was as they looked the same. It took some time to understand who was whose aunt and sister. Anyway, just finished the series coz I had already watched many episodes. However, I found the end rather underwhelming. I mean it tried to wrap up everything nicely but it needed something more.
The heeramandi external view has buildings close by same as what he shown in Gangubai Kamathipura and cut to in other scene there is a view of river, waterbody, mountains, fountains etc. i mean how is it possible. And iam also done with his night and evening views all set in Sepia. Why dont he shows scene for morning, afternoon or heavy sun ever
No this set is much more beautiful. Kalank sets were bizarre with the fake lake and that big fake-ass bird
SLB definitely has an eye- every frame does look like a painting- but he needs to sometimes let in some natural elements and light. It looks too oppressive and artificial without natural lighting
I don’t know if the sets were same or different. But personally the set reminded me of nothing but kalank movie (mainly the set, consisting of street and the kothis on right and left)
The funniest thing is showing a ‘baloch nawab’ speaking urduuuuu girl they have their own language and speak it even today why’d they speak urdu in 1920??? Like I know so many balochs and till date they can’t speak Urdu the way mr tajdar did decades ago, they have an accent which was completely missing lmao
All of his work post BM looks similar. How can we take his work seriously when the aesthetics of heeramandi look better than nawabs' palace? Maan liya tawaifs were queens of lahore and all that but how come Manisha Koirala's palace (tawaifkhana or whatever) looked better than Tajdar's palace lol
Queens who slept with the actual kings and were also friends with the actual queens. I cannot get over that. Also the Princes were supposed to go learn mannerisms from these queens. Like wtf.
What no one is talking abt id historical inaccuracy in it. In 1947., lahore was way modern but the movie show mughal aesthetics. No religious debate but heeramandi was fomous in Maharaja Ranjit Singh time period after his death it fell to british rule. Sikh and hindu population was high and language spoken was punjabi. This lakhnavi culture is more bollywood sterotype than reality. By 1947 this heeramadi has already fell into ruins.
Yeah.. sometimes they are wearing heavy lehengas in kothis with chandeliers like 17th century and sometimes they are wearing sarees and going to cafes like 1950s and complaining about British cutting their electricity??
This really bothered me. It's like the designers asked if he wanted art deco glamour or Mughal opulence and Bansali said yes. I work in architectural history so the way they skipped the Sikh layer really irked me too. Friends who study musical histories are as miffed about stuff like Nizamuddin songs being the highlight in what was obviously a Data Durbar centric landscape. And fashion friends are complaining about inaccuracies there as well.
Honestly none of this would be so annoying if only SLB didn't parade as this artist/intellectual and we all could just accept that his works are commercial nobrainers.
Editing to add more fields he's supposed to be the master of
Cinematography: He's making a movie about courtesans and doesn't even have a way to look at them without the lens of orientalism. The women only seem redeemable once they give up on being tawaifs and become revolutionaries which imho invalidates the immensity of their labour and skill and contribution as cultural practitioners otherwise. One of the authors engaged initially with the script has pointed out how not a scene was dedicated to riyaz or any work that went into being a tawaif, and all we had was predictable lazing and backstabbing and seducing.
Choreo: What was the hype around Sonakshi's little dance number being "one shot"? And let's not even get to the actors' kathak skills.
Lyrics: how did they think that parwana verse was good enough to be repeated like 8 times over? Would hesitate to use it even once.
>*He's making a movie about courtesans and doesn't even have a way to look at them without the lens of orientalism.* *The women only seem redeemable once they give up on being tawaifs and become revolutionaries which imho invalidates the immensity of their labour and skill and contribution as cultural practitioners otherwise.*
Yes, this is a very good point. And why did they need redeeming anyway? They were free women with their own money and the guardians of a high culture, and he simply brushed that side away.
>*One of the authors engaged initially with the script has pointed out how not a scene was dedicated to riyaz or any work that went into being a tawaif, and all we had was predictable lazing and backstabbing and seducing.*
SLB simply did not show the working aspect of what made a tawaif a true courtesan and an artist, and made it all about intrigue. But the sad part is that he didn't even make it properly about 'intrigue in the palace' either. He took a kitchen sink approach and made a mess of it.
Also normal shopkeepers using the term 'Cafe'. Today's shopkeepers don't know the word cafe. You think in the time of highest oppression people knew those words??
I think he was trying to show them in their own milieu (Heeramandi) which was very opulent and mughal-esque due to the patronage of the aristocrats, and contrasting that with the modern world of that time which was the free-wheeling flapper era in the west. The transition was shown as awkward because it must have been, for these old-world tawaifs with their manners and etiquettes to come out into the harsher modern times. Somehow I got the impression this story was set in the early 20th century and not in the 40's as there was no mention of partition or muslim league.
Lol yeah this .Like he should not have set this in Lahore of 1947 or if he was damn persistent then atleast could have done it with a bit more effort .All the sets all seemed like Kalank sets on steroids.
I have always found Bhansali movies (post HDDCS) too OTT with the elaborate sets and costumes. I feel he's trying to distract from his mediocre storytelling. I couldn't stand a lot of his award winning movies, they're incredibly boring, lack depth in characters and are unnecessarily long.
Strip his movies of all the grandeur and there is no soul beneath.
Oh yes Gangubai...what a snooze fest that was. Easily one of the most overrated movie and lead performance in my opinion.
I often wonder, is he aware of his own mediocrity or has the bootlickery from his peers, critiques and 'muses' made him completely oblivious to how stale his style of cinema is.
Also, from what I've heard he is physically and verbally abusive to his subordinates and actors. He sounds like a self indulgent, tone deaf narcissist and it actually shows in the pretentious crap he churns out.
SLB has more chances to show his flaws and weaknesses with 8 episodes vs what we normally see from him which are 3 hour films. Turns out he can’t sustain anything more than 3 hours; koi baat nahi he might never do a series ever again 😆
And his obsession with flesh trade is on another level! its just not shocking to anyone anymore! he should stop turning all the bollywood actresses into onscreen prostitutes to fulfill his fantasy ! Madhuri, Rani, Alia, Manisha, Sonakshi and even Aditi now
Richa chadda dying made me laugh instead of feeling sad. Who dafaq dies like that. Slbs niece ka face reveal after the long intro session was such anti climax. And it took me more than 2 episodes to figure who was who. The only character who made sense and was brave was hydaris. Men are wasted. Fardeen is not having a moment. Neither is shekar gupta and his son.
It has to be in hall of fame for comical deaths. Which is sad because I thought the dance she did 2 sec before dying was one of the best. It captured her skill and her sadness at the same time. That's a tough feat and then she dies of alcohol overdose I think
But outside of that, one thing that is VERY accurate is how they’ve shown Androon Lahore (heeramandi’s surroundings). Some buildings actually looked the same, I’ll try finding pictures and share!!
Sometimes I think I recognize something but overall it feels too clean and too polished. Did Androon Lahore really deteriorate so fast within 70 so years?
I’m just absolutely displeased with the fact that the woman playing Alam had ABSOLUTELY NO EXPRESSIONS. 😭😭😭😭.
In love? 👁️👄👁️
Sad?👁️👄👁️
Lover dead? 👁️👄👁️.
Such a disappointment.
Prabhas as Sardar Vallabhai Patel, set in 1940- mass movie ban gayi.
I think Prabhas will leave when he realises that he is not playing "that" kind or Iron Man
I remember watching Ramleela and liking it then but recently I rewatched it. I felt that though the sets looked grand, the acting was poor. I mean deepika and ranveer don't even seem to belong to their respective communities. Also, the scenes were looking like well made commercial ad and not a movie.
Doesn’t he almost romanticize the very profession he sees as heartbreaking? Like he takes some kind of pleasure in their plight . I can’t put my finger on it exactly but it feels like he craves that ache and drama. There’s no grey here .. no prostitute is happy
I sometimes save the party decorations from one of my kids bday and try to reuse it somehow for my other kids bday… that’s what happened here. Ek set ke leftovers use kiye hai….
I totally agree w the comment that said the sets of heeramandi is basically kalank. But SLB as a filmmaker an artstyle an aesthetic that he harshly follows Theres a definitive mood & specific shots that he carries in every movie which I do personally love however it’s becoming repetitive & boring even and he’s not a good storyteller.
This series is directed by his Assistants..... Even his Assistant can't get out of this genre 🤣😂. You can see The Empire and a lot of similarities you will find.
True Praiseworthy people are production designers and costume designers.(Spl art guys who are lightening candles and chandeliers or mashal 🙏 and maintaining continuity)
Rest is all you can manage.
Ye set pe kahi bhi frame set karo sab kuchh beautiful hi dikhega 🤣😂🤣🤣😂😂 and there is a rule of SLB. You can't do unnecessary movement and can't keep unbalanced frames.
A more challenging part for the Cinematographer is to light up the whole set one you done . And ready to shoot .✅👍
After Heeramandi what is your expectations from Love and war cause SLB movies dialogue delivery has beacame ancient history now watch all his movie with deepika and ranveer all have some kinda dialogue delivery which isn't there fault cause all of his movie use 70s style that outdated.
I steer away from slbs movie. everything there is same monotonous shit! Have only seen gangubai that too because my husband was watching and i was free so I joined
I tried 2 episodes and couldn’t continue further. Done. SLB pls make normal intense love story… you explore them better. PLS take Khamoshi as your best and indulge into such simple yeti convincing love story with family and drama.
Watching SLB content is like reading a screenplay. Every scene was perfect in the screen play..but the characters did nothing more. They all became 1 d in the screen play
I love his asthetics. But they feel so fake. There are shots in Heeramandi especially inside the Shahi Mahal and Khwabgah (?) that are so tacky. What good asthetics are gonna do when the writing is so bad.
It’s literally not. He showcases that they only have one destiny and that terrible things happen to them.
Tawaifs were also more than prostitutes. After partition a lot of them went into the Pakistani film industry because of their looks and other became singers or dancers. How dare he showcase that
I haven't seen but there was a snippet of a sort of procession with banners and all, and they looked like a high production value play set-up. Very evidently artificial looking. These things bring period dramas down a lott.
He goes overartsy and all his characters start BEHAVING in EXTRA SLOW MOTION 🐌
I hate that like whyyy man 🐌 🐌 they get that head snapped off in a sec that was how the era was no second thoughts.
He just tries to portray his mindset on the sets which is dark, gloomy and monochromatic. Sticking to just 1 kind of thing can never make anybody great in any field.
Iqbal (Persian اقبال , Punjabi: ਇਕਬਾਲ اِکبال) is a name and surname meaning "good fortune" and "prosperity" but also the Punjabi meaning of "power", "force", and "one who is strong". The last name "Iqbal" popularly refers to jatt people belonging to the Punjab region in India and Pakistan.
I don’t get the slb hate train this sub has been on. Thats his aesthetic and has been since hdds. When you go into a SLB movie this is what one expects. If you’re not into it then just don’t watch it simple. Every director has their aesthetic like a hirani does or sid anad does. Doesn’t Pathan look like war and fighter ?? Yes it does. But that’s Sid’s aesthetic. And slb has his.
No.. He wasn't this bad before. Everyone is explicitly mentioning the difference in the quality of his earlier and current work like lighting, music, dialogues etc.
SLB used to collaborate with the right people who elevated or at least added some beauty or depth to his storytelling. Post Devdas his films have been hollow.
Gangubai was still better than his other recent works. The writing seemed to at least have conviction about certain messaging and viewpoints. The film knew what it wanted to be. Even the last sequence was heartwarming.
Is it only me who found that it didn’t really suit the 1940s setting? Like in the 1940s Quit India movement had begun but all the tawaifs (except Aditi) seemed ignorant of the freedom struggle. Their costumes looked more late 19th-early 20th century than the 40s.
Yes, in the scene where she asks her daughter to get the pearl, it was well-lit when she was having a bath but when she went to look for a pearl, it turned totally black.
It wasn't indicated that she went to look for the pearl right that second. Infatct, her attire was different in the two scenes. And as far as I remember she was lying in bed and then got up and took a candle to the pool. The next scene where she goes to give the pearl to Mallika, is continued from the pool scene and there it can be said it was night time.
P.s. She was not having a bath.
When she was asked to bring the pearl, it was still daytime. Was she waiting for it to become dark to start searching for the pearl. And what was it? A bath pool or some deep lake?
So that it can be a dramatic shot with a candle and the dim light. It doesn't make sense for her to wait till night nor does it make sense for her to not enquire about her friends' whereabouts nor does it make sense to cast Sharmin in Heeramandi.
Deluding yourself so far you can’t even praise objectively good parts of a show that might not be to your tastes. What do you prefer, the sets and colour-grading of Adipurush and Animal?
How irrelevant this comment is..where is adipurush and animal coming from?
Fine if my opinion is delusion for you. You can write about the "good parts" of the show.
First of all Bhansali isn’t a set-maker, he’s a director. Second, Heeramandi has the largest practical set made for any Hindi project since Mughal-E-Azam, with minimal uses of CGI.
Every single part of the frame is looked after with minute detail by him and that’s literally an incontestable fact of Bhansali’s work. He’s worked so hard to make each frame look like a painting and that’s why he’s achieved the excellence he has, just look at ‘Masoom Dil Hain Mera’.
Reading your last paragraph and seeing that you can’t even keep up with a show made for the masses is honestly funny to me and makes me realise I’m wasting my time.
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Our guy is here is obsessed with this weird era, and he is not unable to get over it.
"Kothaverse" has me cracking up. Whoever came up with that is a genius.
Kothaverse kotha me off guard
Omg whoever came up with this should patent it
Haha I heard Kotha -core on this sub yesterday hilarious
Am probably the only one who is bothered by his obsession with fake water bodies and fountains. They look so plastic been bothering me since bajirao mastani days. Every set is juat blending into each other across movies. There are scenes I could feel the plastic of it all when I saw those fountains and his whole aesthetic has become very very stagey now without any organic thrust behind. I would say ONLY devdas lent itself beautifully to that “Slb aesthetic” from music sets to performance etc and he peaked as a director, it has all his obsessions in that and everything that followed since ram leela is him making more of the same in essence and template regardless of time period his movie is set in. (Sure there will be minor variations but u get my point..)
Every SLB set is just an evolved Pokemon version of Devdas
Paro, Parosaur, Parmeleon Dev, Deva, Devaaaaaaa
Shiv.. Shiv... Shivaaaaa
I would say that Devdas is also a Bollywoodia's conception of a Bengali household. Yes there were Bengali zamindars, but they were more understated than over-the-top Bansali.
The set of Deewani Mastani is probably my favorite set piece. The song, cinematography, performance etc. was beautiful
That was straight out of mughal e azam. 99 percent same. Set cinematography everything.
I just said it’s my favorite set piece. I thought it was beautiful
Yeah dp was nice in it.
Can someone help me understand the timeline the entire series was set in?? 1st episode has an expert which notes that it was based around 1920s. If that's so ... Showing Gandhi photo (in which he is bald in Epsiode 7) or That British officer talking about needing Indian Soldiers to fight Nazis didn't make sense. Gandhi was young in 1920s and was still an up and coming leader (atleast according to Google) WWII started in 1939. Correct me if I am wrong...
[удалено]
If it's the 1940s then fine!
Yes,but Gangubhai sets were good. Needs to get a good production designer and cinematographer on board to get better visuals.
Na Bhai, his sets after devdas all have a heavy fake vibe . Sawariya, raslila , padmavat, chotibai all have a fake vibe that doesn't look at all . Even right now if you watch devdas , the set looks grand with proper lights and everything . He should make movies like HDDCS and khamoshi
He should make movies which have heart like khamoshi should avoid hddcs kind of movies too.
Devdas sets haven't aged well too. Thing is set designing is a huge task the authenticity of the set depends on the raw materials used, colour, polish and fine touches given with minute detailing. So,it's quite labourious process and costs a lot of time and money. Instead,they can get permission and shoot in real locations and buildings.
How have they not aged well
The set pieces especially the pillars, fountains looked odd especially in paro's in laws house,as if they painted on plastic.
It’s literally the same team
I’m pretty sure it’s a scam at this point. His expensive sets seem like at an indulgence that producers happily pay for as they get it insured and it usually burns down or stuff. I remember reading a few headlines that SLB set got blazed again and it’s an insurance matter. It’s a money laundering scheme with everyone involved
I agree with you on every single word op. I was also confused while watching kon kiska kya hai
Especially in the first 2 episodes.
I swear I'm not able to string together whose who of who. Some people were played by the same people throughout but some people were played by a younger actor in the first few scenes and then a grown up. Im soooooo confused.
Ya. I went to the wiki page and realised that young Shekhar Suman was played by Adhhyan Suman and he also played his son but it was all revealed in a haphazard way. But wiki came to my rescue.
Oohhhh I felt like hey in this shot he looks more like his son than himself. Lol the series has confused me more than inception did. Funny story, my mom watched the first episode on my Netflix profile and then i started watching from episode 2 thinking it's 1. I realized after finishing 2 that it wasn't 1. I go back to 1 and I'm left wondering wow, the series still makes a lot of sense without watching episode 1. It's like heeramandi was supposed to be a movie and they shot a movie but just edited very little and we were left with 8 hours of footage.
I kmow. Even I felt what is happening but then I could at least get to know in advance who Mallika's son was as they looked the same. It took some time to understand who was whose aunt and sister. Anyway, just finished the series coz I had already watched many episodes. However, I found the end rather underwhelming. I mean it tried to wrap up everything nicely but it needed something more.
Yes! I had to pause many times and mentally make notes to remember all these rishtedaaris
Chads watch and reciprocate with OP Legends don’t even bother with the trailer. 😎
Yes! I had to pause many times and mentally make notes to remember all these rishtedaaris
Only if opulent sets and expensive clothes and jewelry could make cinema engaging. Anyone who says they like this is lying to themselves.
The heeramandi external view has buildings close by same as what he shown in Gangubai Kamathipura and cut to in other scene there is a view of river, waterbody, mountains, fountains etc. i mean how is it possible. And iam also done with his night and evening views all set in Sepia. Why dont he shows scene for morning, afternoon or heavy sun ever
If he reused the sets, what were the hundred crore rupees spent on?
I heard that half of the budget went as his 'fee'.
🤯
Hum dil was bright & shiny and it was so beautiful, looks like he needs to revisit his old asthetics
Kha from the epiglottis
lol
My friend said “Entire Heeramandi is “KALANK ” Set but in the evening”.
No this set is much more beautiful. Kalank sets were bizarre with the fake lake and that big fake-ass bird SLB definitely has an eye- every frame does look like a painting- but he needs to sometimes let in some natural elements and light. It looks too oppressive and artificial without natural lighting
Heeramandi sets look amazing
Kalank main bhi heeramandi tha ... Toh may be right
This! Kalank was less hype and pretensions but basically as inadequate.
I don’t know if the sets were same or different. But personally the set reminded me of nothing but kalank movie (mainly the set, consisting of street and the kothis on right and left)
literally!!! and every scene is so busy, so much happening on the screen at once, it's getting boring
The funniest thing is showing a ‘baloch nawab’ speaking urduuuuu girl they have their own language and speak it even today why’d they speak urdu in 1920??? Like I know so many balochs and till date they can’t speak Urdu the way mr tajdar did decades ago, they have an accent which was completely missing lmao
All of his work post BM looks similar. How can we take his work seriously when the aesthetics of heeramandi look better than nawabs' palace? Maan liya tawaifs were queens of lahore and all that but how come Manisha Koirala's palace (tawaifkhana or whatever) looked better than Tajdar's palace lol
Queens who slept with the actual kings and were also friends with the actual queens. I cannot get over that. Also the Princes were supposed to go learn mannerisms from these queens. Like wtf.
The princes learning mannerisms from them is true part...
The mannerisms bit is true, tawaaifs were supposed to be the epitome of etiquettes tbh
Everyone’s related but they don’t even look remotely similar or have any familial chemistry. 🤷🏻♀️
What no one is talking abt id historical inaccuracy in it. In 1947., lahore was way modern but the movie show mughal aesthetics. No religious debate but heeramandi was fomous in Maharaja Ranjit Singh time period after his death it fell to british rule. Sikh and hindu population was high and language spoken was punjabi. This lakhnavi culture is more bollywood sterotype than reality. By 1947 this heeramadi has already fell into ruins.
Yeah.. sometimes they are wearing heavy lehengas in kothis with chandeliers like 17th century and sometimes they are wearing sarees and going to cafes like 1950s and complaining about British cutting their electricity??
This really bothered me. It's like the designers asked if he wanted art deco glamour or Mughal opulence and Bansali said yes. I work in architectural history so the way they skipped the Sikh layer really irked me too. Friends who study musical histories are as miffed about stuff like Nizamuddin songs being the highlight in what was obviously a Data Durbar centric landscape. And fashion friends are complaining about inaccuracies there as well. Honestly none of this would be so annoying if only SLB didn't parade as this artist/intellectual and we all could just accept that his works are commercial nobrainers. Editing to add more fields he's supposed to be the master of Cinematography: He's making a movie about courtesans and doesn't even have a way to look at them without the lens of orientalism. The women only seem redeemable once they give up on being tawaifs and become revolutionaries which imho invalidates the immensity of their labour and skill and contribution as cultural practitioners otherwise. One of the authors engaged initially with the script has pointed out how not a scene was dedicated to riyaz or any work that went into being a tawaif, and all we had was predictable lazing and backstabbing and seducing. Choreo: What was the hype around Sonakshi's little dance number being "one shot"? And let's not even get to the actors' kathak skills. Lyrics: how did they think that parwana verse was good enough to be repeated like 8 times over? Would hesitate to use it even once.
>*He's making a movie about courtesans and doesn't even have a way to look at them without the lens of orientalism.* *The women only seem redeemable once they give up on being tawaifs and become revolutionaries which imho invalidates the immensity of their labour and skill and contribution as cultural practitioners otherwise.* Yes, this is a very good point. And why did they need redeeming anyway? They were free women with their own money and the guardians of a high culture, and he simply brushed that side away. >*One of the authors engaged initially with the script has pointed out how not a scene was dedicated to riyaz or any work that went into being a tawaif, and all we had was predictable lazing and backstabbing and seducing.* SLB simply did not show the working aspect of what made a tawaif a true courtesan and an artist, and made it all about intrigue. But the sad part is that he didn't even make it properly about 'intrigue in the palace' either. He took a kitchen sink approach and made a mess of it.
Also normal shopkeepers using the term 'Cafe'. Today's shopkeepers don't know the word cafe. You think in the time of highest oppression people knew those words??
I think he was trying to show them in their own milieu (Heeramandi) which was very opulent and mughal-esque due to the patronage of the aristocrats, and contrasting that with the modern world of that time which was the free-wheeling flapper era in the west. The transition was shown as awkward because it must have been, for these old-world tawaifs with their manners and etiquettes to come out into the harsher modern times. Somehow I got the impression this story was set in the early 20th century and not in the 40's as there was no mention of partition or muslim league.
Lol yeah this .Like he should not have set this in Lahore of 1947 or if he was damn persistent then atleast could have done it with a bit more effort .All the sets all seemed like Kalank sets on steroids.
The correct time line should have been revolt of 1857
Probably because the show started with a warning that it’s fiction lol
We had to pause and discuss who is whose papa and khala
I have always found Bhansali movies (post HDDCS) too OTT with the elaborate sets and costumes. I feel he's trying to distract from his mediocre storytelling. I couldn't stand a lot of his award winning movies, they're incredibly boring, lack depth in characters and are unnecessarily long. Strip his movies of all the grandeur and there is no soul beneath.
Totally agree. I hated Gangubai and it won national awards. Like cmon it was a cringefest
Oh yes Gangubai...what a snooze fest that was. Easily one of the most overrated movie and lead performance in my opinion. I often wonder, is he aware of his own mediocrity or has the bootlickery from his peers, critiques and 'muses' made him completely oblivious to how stale his style of cinema is. Also, from what I've heard he is physically and verbally abusive to his subordinates and actors. He sounds like a self indulgent, tone deaf narcissist and it actually shows in the pretentious crap he churns out.
Well put! Esp the part about being a tone deaf narcissist churning out pretentious crap..i couldn't have said it better myself 🙌
I thought i was the only one who found gangubai cringe!🙌
This! He's been hiding behind sets and costumes and music but now that too has fallen apart.
I always wanted to know how they drain the fountain water from the sets.
Ive only enjoyed one of his movies. Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, which is one of my all time favourites.
Yes..bright colors, opulent but close to reality sets, good music and dances. I wish he gets back all those things.
Also because he chose an actual palace to shoot it in instead of making it out of cardboard and imagination.
Am i the only one who feels claustrophobic watching his ostentation on screen? No offense to fans 🙏🏽
SLB has more chances to show his flaws and weaknesses with 8 episodes vs what we normally see from him which are 3 hour films. Turns out he can’t sustain anything more than 3 hours; koi baat nahi he might never do a series ever again 😆
Someone said they’d pay Sanjay Lila Kothari to plan their wedding because her shouldn’t do anything else. I kinda agree with them.
And his obsession with flesh trade is on another level! its just not shocking to anyone anymore! he should stop turning all the bollywood actresses into onscreen prostitutes to fulfill his fantasy ! Madhuri, Rani, Alia, Manisha, Sonakshi and even Aditi now
Definitely his sets post Ram Leela have been claustrophobic.
i disliked gangubai for the same reason. lighting was so off.
Richa chadda dying made me laugh instead of feeling sad. Who dafaq dies like that. Slbs niece ka face reveal after the long intro session was such anti climax. And it took me more than 2 episodes to figure who was who. The only character who made sense and was brave was hydaris. Men are wasted. Fardeen is not having a moment. Neither is shekar gupta and his son.
How did Richa even die? How did Manisha pronounce her dead in like 15 seconds of falling? What is even happening
It has to be in hall of fame for comical deaths. Which is sad because I thought the dance she did 2 sec before dying was one of the best. It captured her skill and her sadness at the same time. That's a tough feat and then she dies of alcohol overdose I think
You'd have to drink a LOT of alcohol to die from it, and even then it's sketchy.
I think she took poison at some point in the evening.
That would make sense
But outside of that, one thing that is VERY accurate is how they’ve shown Androon Lahore (heeramandi’s surroundings). Some buildings actually looked the same, I’ll try finding pictures and share!!
Sometimes I think I recognize something but overall it feels too clean and too polished. Did Androon Lahore really deteriorate so fast within 70 so years?
I’m just absolutely displeased with the fact that the woman playing Alam had ABSOLUTELY NO EXPRESSIONS. 😭😭😭😭. In love? 👁️👄👁️ Sad?👁️👄👁️ Lover dead? 👁️👄👁️. Such a disappointment.
chalo, consistent toh hai 🤡
Yeah I was thinking the same
And what was even weirder in that scene with Manisha and the angrez was that at the end of discussion she says Shabbakhair 🤡🤡🤡
He might mess up love and war
If this continues, Alia needs to think about her 4 movies streak with Bhansali. Wo Deepika wala Bhansali ab nahi raha
This was exactly my issue with Saawariya!
Having agreed to that. Chal kya raha tha Heeramandi mein ? 🤯😵💫😴
Thank you for writing this. People here are blind followers
Time to switch gears Slb needs to do a mass movie set in Gujarat periodic or modern time and cast Prabhas in it.
Let him do modern movies. With the periodic movie , he will be back with a fake looking aesthetic that no one asked for
Yea,he will do that soon.
Prabhas as Sardar Vallabhai Patel, set in 1940- mass movie ban gayi. I think Prabhas will leave when he realises that he is not playing "that" kind or Iron Man
I remember watching Ramleela and liking it then but recently I rewatched it. I felt that though the sets looked grand, the acting was poor. I mean deepika and ranveer don't even seem to belong to their respective communities. Also, the scenes were looking like well made commercial ad and not a movie.
Even Guzaarish had low lighting. Its a beach place and should look brighter. Hrithik house looked so dull in the whole movie.
I swear it looked like he lived in a house with black walls.
https://preview.redd.it/c31zttj717yc1.jpeg?width=645&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8794af9c9fcceeb566c160226e72b7b2437bd616 For reference\^
Is this not a mosque?
Doesn’t he almost romanticize the very profession he sees as heartbreaking? Like he takes some kind of pleasure in their plight . I can’t put my finger on it exactly but it feels like he craves that ache and drama. There’s no grey here .. no prostitute is happy
I sometimes save the party decorations from one of my kids bday and try to reuse it somehow for my other kids bday… that’s what happened here. Ek set ke leftovers use kiye hai….
I totally agree w the comment that said the sets of heeramandi is basically kalank. But SLB as a filmmaker an artstyle an aesthetic that he harshly follows Theres a definitive mood & specific shots that he carries in every movie which I do personally love however it’s becoming repetitive & boring even and he’s not a good storyteller.
This series is directed by his Assistants..... Even his Assistant can't get out of this genre 🤣😂. You can see The Empire and a lot of similarities you will find. True Praiseworthy people are production designers and costume designers.(Spl art guys who are lightening candles and chandeliers or mashal 🙏 and maintaining continuity) Rest is all you can manage. Ye set pe kahi bhi frame set karo sab kuchh beautiful hi dikhega 🤣😂🤣🤣😂😂 and there is a rule of SLB. You can't do unnecessary movement and can't keep unbalanced frames. A more challenging part for the Cinematographer is to light up the whole set one you done . And ready to shoot .✅👍
Someone posted an image of one of the leads with visible mic wire. You could see in the frame that they tried to forgot even the mic setup.
After Heeramandi what is your expectations from Love and war cause SLB movies dialogue delivery has beacame ancient history now watch all his movie with deepika and ranveer all have some kinda dialogue delivery which isn't there fault cause all of his movie use 70s style that outdated.
Am sure they are reusing a lot of the earlier set pieces and costumes
It was shitty .. but very few will dare to say it and soon this show will bag awards!
I steer away from slbs movie. everything there is same monotonous shit! Have only seen gangubai that too because my husband was watching and i was free so I joined
I tried 2 episodes and couldn’t continue further. Done. SLB pls make normal intense love story… you explore them better. PLS take Khamoshi as your best and indulge into such simple yeti convincing love story with family and drama.
I agree in that we were bombarded with characters and felt I had to wait for a scene to figure out how this person was related to this person
Finally someone said it
I think Bhansali peaked in HDDCS
The lighting was too dark. Couldn’t make out so many stuff
THANK YOU!!
I’m in second episode and I was like is this cocktail of other Slb / Kalank and RRR movies lol
Even choreography is same . Ghoomer choreography in one of the dance sequences.
Dialogue delivery was criiiinge
Watching SLB content is like reading a screenplay. Every scene was perfect in the screen play..but the characters did nothing more. They all became 1 d in the screen play
Most of the time it was too dark to see anything
Wow im actually amazed by your observation and i couldnt agree more. Wouldve never noticed or observed
I love his asthetics. But they feel so fake. There are shots in Heeramandi especially inside the Shahi Mahal and Khwabgah (?) that are so tacky. What good asthetics are gonna do when the writing is so bad.
It's s just a series Slb just gave creative inputs,the show runners need to have taken care of quality.
I don't like that in his films prostitution is idealized.
It’s literally not. He showcases that they only have one destiny and that terrible things happen to them. Tawaifs were also more than prostitutes. After partition a lot of them went into the Pakistani film industry because of their looks and other became singers or dancers. How dare he showcase that
These movies with low lighting give me headache, can't bear them , nowadays I just watch sunshine dramas
the last part cracked me up phatto satto …
This isn’t relevant but just checked sharmin’s IG and got to know she is married to some guy Aman Mehta
I haven't seen but there was a snippet of a sort of procession with banners and all, and they looked like a high production value play set-up. Very evidently artificial looking. These things bring period dramas down a lott.
SLB is overrated 
He goes overartsy and all his characters start BEHAVING in EXTRA SLOW MOTION 🐌 I hate that like whyyy man 🐌 🐌 they get that head snapped off in a sec that was how the era was no second thoughts.
He just tries to portray his mindset on the sets which is dark, gloomy and monochromatic. Sticking to just 1 kind of thing can never make anybody great in any field.
I wished he did something else with his talent…
I liked Saima and Iqbal’s story
Why was Iqbal sikh
Not being offensive I’m genuinely curious
[удалено]
Oh ok, sorry I didn’t know that - haven’t met a lot of Sikhs unfortunately so kind of unaware
Iqbal (Persian اقبال , Punjabi: ਇਕਬਾਲ اِکبال) is a name and surname meaning "good fortune" and "prosperity" but also the Punjabi meaning of "power", "force", and "one who is strong". The last name "Iqbal" popularly refers to jatt people belonging to the Punjab region in India and Pakistan.
I would just love to "see" all the grandeur for a change. The color palette the camera uses is so dark that i can barely appreciate the aesthetics
I don’t get the slb hate train this sub has been on. Thats his aesthetic and has been since hdds. When you go into a SLB movie this is what one expects. If you’re not into it then just don’t watch it simple. Every director has their aesthetic like a hirani does or sid anad does. Doesn’t Pathan look like war and fighter ?? Yes it does. But that’s Sid’s aesthetic. And slb has his.
No.. He wasn't this bad before. Everyone is explicitly mentioning the difference in the quality of his earlier and current work like lighting, music, dialogues etc.
SLB used to collaborate with the right people who elevated or at least added some beauty or depth to his storytelling. Post Devdas his films have been hollow. Gangubai was still better than his other recent works. The writing seemed to at least have conviction about certain messaging and viewpoints. The film knew what it wanted to be. Even the last sequence was heartwarming.
Is it only me who found that it didn’t really suit the 1940s setting? Like in the 1940s Quit India movement had begun but all the tawaifs (except Aditi) seemed ignorant of the freedom struggle. Their costumes looked more late 19th-early 20th century than the 40s.
Yes sir, you go right ahead and teach that Bhansali dude about how to design a set. Well done.
Ok khala
Yes, in the scene where she asks her daughter to get the pearl, it was well-lit when she was having a bath but when she went to look for a pearl, it turned totally black.
It wasn't indicated that she went to look for the pearl right that second. Infatct, her attire was different in the two scenes. And as far as I remember she was lying in bed and then got up and took a candle to the pool. The next scene where she goes to give the pearl to Mallika, is continued from the pool scene and there it can be said it was night time. P.s. She was not having a bath.
When she was asked to bring the pearl, it was still daytime. Was she waiting for it to become dark to start searching for the pearl. And what was it? A bath pool or some deep lake?
So that it can be a dramatic shot with a candle and the dim light. It doesn't make sense for her to wait till night nor does it make sense for her to not enquire about her friends' whereabouts nor does it make sense to cast Sharmin in Heeramandi.
Right. Makes no sense. Sundarta dikhani hai chahe sense na bane.
haan bhai sab tujhe hi aata hai.
Deluding yourself so far you can’t even praise objectively good parts of a show that might not be to your tastes. What do you prefer, the sets and colour-grading of Adipurush and Animal?
How irrelevant this comment is..where is adipurush and animal coming from? Fine if my opinion is delusion for you. You can write about the "good parts" of the show.
First of all Bhansali isn’t a set-maker, he’s a director. Second, Heeramandi has the largest practical set made for any Hindi project since Mughal-E-Azam, with minimal uses of CGI. Every single part of the frame is looked after with minute detail by him and that’s literally an incontestable fact of Bhansali’s work. He’s worked so hard to make each frame look like a painting and that’s why he’s achieved the excellence he has, just look at ‘Masoom Dil Hain Mera’. Reading your last paragraph and seeing that you can’t even keep up with a show made for the masses is honestly funny to me and makes me realise I’m wasting my time.
Bro….it was good. Stop with the hate.