Deepika Padukone-Ranveer Singh’s Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela turns 11: The second coming of Sanjay Leela Bhansali

An adaptation of one of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Bhansali adds his Gujarati tadka to the source material, making it his own. Set in a fictional village called Ranjar, Ramleela is the love story of Ram and Leela, heirs of two clans that have been clashing for 500 years. They make part of the new generation that chooses love over centuries-old-hate on a whim. Authority, mostly as Supriya Pathak Shah’s Dhankor is a revelation. Rarely has an iron-fisted matriarch looked so delinquently fun to watch. In one scene, she tells a boisterous Ram who has thrashed around a dozen of her men, “Chalo acha hai, Navratri mein aapko devi darshan ho gaye,” and he listens. But as much as these young lovebirds are all about peace and love, blood proves to be thicker than water—they cannot shed off their last names so easily. Love thrives, is drugged, dragged, chopped off into two pieces and yet it triumphs, even as death follows.

Somehow, love winning over hate strangely almost always sells in a country that is at times proud of its honor killings. And Bhansali knows how to sell that well in exquisite Anju Modi lehengas, Wasiq Khan’s meticulous set design and Ravi Varman’s scenic cinematography. There is also meticulous detailing every now and then in the film–in a scene where Leela is sending a message to Ram, we see Raja Ravi Varma’s Shakuntala Patra Lekhan (that has Shakuntala writing a letter to her lover Dushyanta) in the background.

The symbolism in Ramleela is not consistent: neither mythology (there is a lot of Ram, Ramayan and a Sita haran), nor the peacocks. For Bhansali, aesthetic tropes matter more than anything.

Both Ranveer and Deepika are director’s actors and if there is one thing that Bhansali is a maverick of, it is making actors act. And he does it wonderfully here–he makes the stars act, and the actors do magic. Richa Chaddha as Raseela, Barkha Bisht as Kesar and Gulshan Devaiah as Bhavani get some of the strongest parts of the film, one of them being an intense chase sequence–the background music rouses as Kesar runs for her life. Nothing screams Bhansali like this.

Bhansali’s previous two movies suffered from a curious case of self-absorption. Bhansali created worlds that were so disconnected from the outside reality that his cinema lost its escapist antics. In Ramleela, he creates a world where lehengas have pistol holders and dead peacocks masquerade as symbolic invitations. But he also makes sure that the viewers devour it all, through intense scenes, powerful performances, dynamic music (the songs are feisty, seductive, sensual, trippy, ballad-y and all composed by Bhansali himself) and busty dialogues (“Jab sabne nafrat sikhayi toh ram leela ko pyar kaise ho gaya” is all that Ramleela is about). This blueprint worked for him in his earlier hits like Devdas and Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam–it was a detour for him, back to his Gujarati roots, after experimenting and failing.

Even in his experiments, failed or otherwise, superficial or profound, there is a very intriguing courage of conviction that backs up all his projects–he believes in a grand idea with wild imagination and he creates a world full of magnificent havelis, gutsy female lovers and painstakingly choreographed dance-offs between women who love the same man (Pinga, Dola Re). Bhansali’s movies are the way a lot of the world sees India and its culture—he has helped popularise Garba from a regional folk dance to national, diasporic phenomena.

In his review of Ramleela, David Chute of Variety wrote its dance numbers are lusher than the emotions. And he is not the only person who thinks like that about Bhansali’s films; a lot of people think of his films as pretty canvases that lack depth and as much as one is bound to feel that at times, every Instagram edit that has Paro running towards Dev as he dies a lovesick pauper at her doorsteps only proves that Bhansali’s films last the test of time.

Bhansali’s feminism has been analysed, glorified and scrutinized to death. His Leela, like most of his female protagonists, is not shy to take the first step in love. Dhankor is a textbook girlboss–she has no empathy for women despite being one herself. Bhansali’s women are remarkable and strong, but much like his cinema and feminism, they are imperfect. For Bhansali, aesthetic tropes matter more than anything. Peacocks and fountains and magnificent frescoes seem to come to life in the background as a besotted Ram falls down Leela’s balcony into the pool—it is not just water he is falling into, it is also love, it is also magic; it is Bhansali.