CHANDRAMUKHI
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule: An odd mixture of BIG, SHE, and E.T.
in a story of a boy suddenly aged to a man by
magic, a celestial goddess, evil spirits,
gangsters, and a lost African civilization. The
total effect is more than the sum of its parts.
Well, to start with, much of what I say here is purely conjecture. I am writing about a Hindi film made for the Indian market that was not subtitled. (In what follows I am not talking about Indian films intended for an international market like those of Satyajit Ray. I am speaking of the sort of film that makes up the huge volume of entertainment films made for neighborhood theaters in India.) For someone who does not speak Hindi, this means that enjoying the film requires some guesswork ... but not nearly as much as you might think. It requires a lot less guesswork than would watching a non-subtitled Chinese film, for example. A Hindi film will almost always have a surprising amount of English in the dialogue. Certainly it is enough to give clues every now and then of what is going on. A character will use a phrase like "half-breed" or "Chinese torture." Also, the plots are not difficult to figure out. Indian domestic films are aimed rather low with fairly simple plots, often carried by action. Every film is a musical--approximately every half hour there is a big production number. Most are in large part comedies--even if the rest of the film is suspense or horror. When seen in theaters almost all run about ten minutes shy of three hours but have a ten-minute intermission. When traveling in India, I recommend taking in a film or two as an alternative to sightseeing in the hot sun while being chased by aggressive touts. You may learn more than you might expect about Indian culture. CHANDRAMUKHI was a film I went to see in India, but it had finished its run and we ended up seeing DAALAL instead. I probably would have enjoyed CHANDRAMUKHI more since it is more fun than any of the films I did see. This is not to say it is actually good. For quality of filmmaking it is roughly on a par with our SANTA CLAUS CONQUERS THE MARTIANS. And that is not intended as a dig. Standards and audiences are very different in India.
In any case, do not take what I say about this film as being absolutely true since holes are filled in with conjecture and inference. But here is what the plot seems to be....
The film opens with gangsters making a plot of some sort. From context, it is probably plans for a kidnapping. Also, we appear not to be in India but in East Africa someplace; it looks like Kenya. The scene flashes to some boys living in the Indian community who are friends and ride their bicycles together looking at the wildlife. One of the boys is Raja.
The scene flashes to an alien world or heaven--I am not sure which--where we see some celestial beings. It is not clear if they are supposed to be aliens or something supernatural, but they are sufficiently advanced that from our perspective they are magical in one way or another. I will assume they are magical and supernatural. One female, Chandramukhi, goes flying. She has the flowing silk dress you might associate with a Chinese goddess, at least in a Hong Kong film. But I mean she really goes flying ... without benefit of any equipment ... like Superman ... and runs afoul of some sort of flying demon--we will see more of him later--who shoves her to make her fall. Fall she does, all the way to our planet.
Upon landing she is chased by the criminals for some reason you need to understand Hindi to follow, but she is discovered by Raja. So the story comes down to one of the title character using magic (in the tradition of "Bewitched") and helping the kids against the gangsters. And she is a good ally to have. She shoots magical rays from her eyes; among the things she does is make angry people meek and friendly, not unlike Obi-Wan Kenobi, By just gesturing she cleans up Raja's bedroom. Then when she is hungry she eats telekinetically.
Does all this seem a little simplistic? Is this not enough plot for you? Okay, she magically ages Raja to an adult. Now he has to come to terms with an adult body as well as gangsters. At the same time. The makers of this film apparently knew that they had almost three hours to fill and were more concerned about the danger of letting the story slow down than about making its being difficult to believe. Indian neighborhood audiences want a good time, not a whole lot of credibility in a film story. There are some nice whimsical touches that come across the language barrier. One of the gangsters is half Indian and half English so calls himself "a half-breed." And being a half breed he dresses like Horst Bucholtz in THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN. But that is still not all, since I have not even mentioned the lost civilization that captures everybody. This script is not one that anyone would call restrained.
What can you say about the style of a Hindi film? This is a film that has had everything lavished on it but money. The special effects are poor even by American TV standards. Generally a scratch on the film is used for a ray blast. Martial arts skills are created, brazenly cheating, by running the film backwards. The only things polished are the musical numbers. That is pretty close to par for a Hindi film. Indian audiences demand big musical sequences in every film, some to sing along and some to go out for snacks. This film has a whole production number before the opening credits.
CHANDRAMUKHI is a film you have to meet halfway, like most Indian domestic films, If you catch it in when you are in the right mood, it can be fun. And it may tell you more about Indian culture than you expect.
Mark R. Leeper
mark.leeper@att.com
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