PAF Reviews : 1. Ramleela

It’s been after 5 years that in the month of March I am getting my full quota of sleep. So this being the first time in so many years that I am not involved AT ALL in the ongoing PAFs I thought I would give a shot at objective unbiased “reviews” (with a hint of personal take :P). So here goes

RAMLEELA (I won’t mention the hostels, as I need to be unbiased)
So the hype had been created by an awesomely shot and edited video. The snappiness, speed and the perfection of the trailer however was missing in the real PAF. This is the first time I think where each team is being given 4 days in OAT. The expectation of this I am sure would have been a tighter and well rehearsed PAF. However on that account Ramleela was found wanting. While watching the PAF I was reminded of this line our director in my first year would repeatedly say … “PAF main execution sab kuch hota hai”. Back then I thought it was just a speech to make us practice endlessly but after 5 years I know for sure that execution if not “sab kuch” is the most, most important part of the PAF.

Moving on to finer details. The concept was nice. I heard people complaining that dev d se uthaya kuch original nahi! Let me inform you … EVERY PAF I know has been inspired from some movie or other. At least here only the style was the inspiration and not the story. Still despite all the thought that would have surely gone into the development of the story, the ambition of of pulling something off like dev d in PAF was a bit too much for me. I think the wow of dev d (which I am assuming is what would have inspired the writers and directors of the PAF) atleast for me was not in the parallels drawn to the original story. Infact while watching dev d I hardly remembered devdas. The wow factor of dev d was from the characters and the artistic styling of the whole movie. Things like paro vigorously using a hand pump while shouting, design of chanda’s room and the dual life of her in the college. Instead the focus in the PAF was the parallels which in my opinion didn’t create impact of that level. Still being a firm believer of “trying something new” I appreciate the gamble.

As far as different elements are concerned, Lights and prod shifting were the obvious putches and choreo (though a couple too many) and music were the show stealers. Acting and voiceovers were inconsistent. The idea of having the music group to be a part of the stage was brilliant. Also the deliberate attempt of having scenes in between the choreos was also very commendable. I hope PAFs would start using choreo as a way to tell story rather than a gap filler.

Overall the length should have been much shorter, and the execution much better. I am not sure but it felt that a couple of scenes towards the end could not be acted out due to some problems, which definitely took away from the impact.
RATING : I hate to give individual rating, and I think I have included all relevant points that I remember in the text already. So for over all rating I would go with 5/10. The attempt to something meaningful was visible but not completely achieved.

P.S.: Please feel free to comment, appreciate and CRITICIZE (if you must) the review. Your feedback will be my fuel to continue writing the reviews for the rest of the PAFs as well