Mumbai: The first trailer of Bajirao Mastani created a stir and now with the long teaser, this seems to be like a another blockbuster coming from Sanjay Leela Bhansali.
Starring Deepika Padukone, Priyanka Chopra and Ranveer Singh, this historical romance film centres around the life of Maratha warrior Peshwa Bajirao I, his wife Kashibai, and Mastani, his second wife.
Typical to a Sanjay Leela Bhansali film, the Bajirao Mastani trailer - that all Ranveer Singh fans prayed for to arrive and help them deal with the sacrifice of his gorgeous head of hair - is out. That's the good news. It takes your breath away. That's the bad news. It actually takes your breath away out of sheer anxiety about how bad the film may turn out to be.
So like all the recent SLB films, everything is slo mo, every frame is dark and shadowy, every one stares deeply into the camera and if you care fiercely for the success of any of the film's actors, the trailer makes you panic about what the film may do to them.
The trailer opens with a battle scene and it doesn't leave you with goosebumps as the beginning of a great war scene should. It proceeds to introduce Ranveer Singh in full battle gear riding a horse. Though he looks suitably disgruntled for a man going to war, there's something deeply disappointing about the scene. For an actor with electric screen presence, the scene is strictly ordinary.
It's the same underwhelming feeling stamped on the scene that introduces Deepika Padukone as a warrior preparing for battle. The Priyanka Chopra scenes that make it to the trailer are also slightly over the top - where she is seen lighting diyas with as much glee as a child discovering a candy bar under his pillow. In fact, she reminds us of Aishwarya cooing to a diya in Devdas.
However, there are some great moments. Like the one in which Padukone is see cradling a baby and sword fighting with a few people. The few battle scenes that are shown in the trailer are so elaborately choreographed, that they take the sting of a battle scene away and make them look like slo-mo dance performances.
There's no dialogue in the entire trailer, only rich music that reaches a crescendo as the trailer draws to a close. That was a great idea had the scenes accompanying them been compelling and stunning.
Then, there are the signature Bhansali top shots - of dance numbers, of castles, of people throwing fistfuls of gulal into the air.
However, we are hoping that the constraints of the video format is what makes the trailer look underwhelming. That was the case of the Baahubali trailer on YouTube too, on big screen, it was a different deal altogether. Here's hoping that Bajirao Mastani's mediocrity remains restricted to its trailer and the film wows the audience in theatres.
