Saawariya (Blu-ray)

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Sony has long been a player in the Chinese-language film industry, but "Saawariya" marks their first venture into the Bollywood market. In one of two scant bonus features here, we're told that over the past 87 years the Indian film industry has cranked out 40,000 movies. That's roughly 460 films per year--which begs the question, why would Sony's first backing go to Sanjay Leela Bhansali, a filmmaker who, before "Saawariya," had directed just four films in nine years? Well, probably because Bhansali's "Black" (2005) was hailed as a milestone for a film industry that had been using recycled plots and love-story conventions as little more than an excuse to showcase songs and dances. Bhansali wasn't afraid to do things a little differently.

"Black" and Bhansalil's "Devdas" (2002) were both well received, but it's not as if bankrolling him would guarantee success for this important Holly/Bolly collaboration. "Saawariya" is being billed as "Bollywood filmmaking at its best," and yet the screenplay by Prakesh Kapadia ("Black," "Devdas") offers an adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky's "White Nights," rather than the typical Indian love story. And instead of a lot of big production numbers with colorful Indian backdrops, we get fewer big numbers and a stylized set reminiscent of the old Hollywood musicals from the back-lot era, shot almost entirely "at night" and in near-monochromatic scenes of blue, green, and black. Like the dream sequences in a Gene Kelly film, the set is clearly staged, not cinematic, with the emphasis on several brightly-lit business signs in each, with additional holiday lighting along bridges and via candles.

It's the eve of Eid ul-Fitr, the Muslim holiday that signifies the end of Ramadan, and in a red-light district a narrator tells us the story we're about to hear might just be a dream, which, of course, explains the dreamlike sets. She's an attractive young woman of ill repute known as Gulabji (Rani Mukherjee), named for the syrupy sweet Indian dessert gulab jamun--which is like being called "Candy" in a Western film. She's the clichéd hooker with the heart of gold who works at the RK Bar, and some of the scenes and situations will remind viewers a bit of "Moulin Rouge!" The other main female character is a "good girl" named Sakina (Sonam Kapoor). Dostoevsky's story and Kapadia's screenplay takes place over four nights, with a lonely young man meeting Gulabji and befriending her . . . and, in fact, acting like a magical balm for all the sad women of the red light district. He wipes their tears, he sings to them as if he were a cheesy Elvis, and in this entire town it seems as if he's the only male for a time, and he ministers to all the women like an angel. The weird thing is, he dresses a bit like a European mime, complete with horizontal-striped shirt and bowler hat. Like Elvis, he ends up getting a job as a guitar-playing singer at the RK Bar, but he's a bit too goofy to be a real ladies man like the King, and his songs, gestures, and choreography are so cheesy that it makes Tom Jones look like a classical artist by comparison. When he meets Sakina and pursues her, it's a clear case of the nice guy /sad clown not being able to get the girl he likes, because she likes the bad boy instead. In this case, it's a merchant-marine type fellow named Imaan (Salman Khan) from her shadowy past, who has about as much depth and time onstage as a shadow. We watch the clown try to woo the good girl, while remaining friends with the bad girl and wondering what in the world the good girl sees in the bad boy, because none of it is developed.

Story isn't a strong point for this film. Style is, and by style I mean the visual look that the film has. The characters themselves are nothing more than stock or "type" characters, with the good guy pining for the good girl who'd rather have the bad boy, and the bad girl secretly wishing the good guy could be hers. It doesn't get any deeper than that. In fact, the relationship that's explored the most in this film is between good-guy Raj (Ranbir Kapoor) and his landlady (Zohra Sehgal), who "adopts" him as the son who left her 37 years ago. And at times, her character does some very odd things.

If you haven't seen any other Indian films, I'm not sure this is the place to start. For one thing, the sets have a highly European look to them. What drove the other Bollywood films I've seen was flirtation and inaccessible love, as well as hovering insistent parents and big production numbers and dances. Here, there's a lot more in the way of solo numbers, and Ranbir Kapoor's character is all over the tonal map. One minute he's doing it straight, the next minute he's clowning around or doing pratfalls. And cheesy? If this guy were on "American Idol," I shudder to think what Simon Cowell would say about the way he seems to evoke the worst of what every gold-necklace-wearing lounge lizard has to offer.