Chandni (1989)

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

A remarkable film with Sridevi as the winner. She is just amazing. This movie showed her acting skills at its paramount. Be it a village belle, a westernized dancing girl, a assertive young women handling opponents as a matured adult, she took the film acting at a different level. This is a movie about three people, Chandni ( Sridevi), Rohit ( Rishi Kapoor ) and Lalit ( Vonod Khanna ) entangled in a triangular love story. Yash Chopra, famous film maker and younger brother of the legendary B.R. Chopra created a masterpiece of a love story surrounding these three human beings. Both Chandni and Rohit's encounter at the beginning of the movie kept us entertained with some good songs and frolics of two young lovers, the story took the turn to more serious situations with Rohits accident and eventual separation from Chandni. Sridevi showed some magnificent dance performance specially the one in white clothing in the open field without any song. That was a super show. The movie has quite a few songs but they were all very well placed in the story and performed very well both in playback and actual playing. Rishi Kapoor showed a lot of enthusiasm and zeal in portraying young Rohit as also Vinod Khanna in his more serious role. Sridevi expressed her self so well in all the different moods specially when she meets Rishi Kapoor at the door of her house first time after their separation, she expressed her surprise and emotions extremely well. It was a special surprise to see Waheeda Rehman as the mother of Vinod Khanna in a very well deserved role. Overall this a great movie of the late eighties Bollywood and it is a must see for all Sridevi fans. I gave it a nine out of ten.

Yash Chopra passed away. The 80 years old movie-making maestro whose last directorial venture - Jab Tak Hai Jaan is going to hit the screen shortly, has left for his heavenly abode without seeing its release and public response. As my tribute to the great director who is better known as the King of Romance in the Indian cine-circles, I am reviewing a superhit movie directed by him. It's Chaandni (1989).Chaandni is the story of a jovial but down-to-earth girl who respects the elders and believes in the Indian social and family values. She is as the title is - Chaandni (Sridevi) who is a simple middle class girl living in Delhi and happens to come across a rich boy, Rohit (Rishi Kapoor). Love blossoms between them and despite his family members looking upon Chaandni in a derogatory way, Rohit decides to unite with her. However destiny has other plans. Rohit meets with an accident and thereafter life is not the same either for himself or for the love of his life, i.e., Chaandni. Adjusting with the completely negative attitude of Rohit's family members on one hand and now handicapped Rohit's depressive mindset on the other, one day Chaandni gets fed up and gets out of Rohit's life as well as the city.Now in a different city, Chaandni happens to get a job in a company whose boss Lalit (Vinod Khanna) is a widower. Lalit falls for Chaandni's charms and his mother (Waheeda Rehman) is also too happy to see this simple, heart-conquering girl as her would-be daughter-in-law. The thing that they are not aware of is that Chaandni's heart is not hers now. It's Rohit's. And a typical Indian girl cannot love again so easily and so soon. The memories of the first love are still fresh and she lives with them. However she gets ready to marry Lalit as a compromise with her life and not out of love for him. Here comes another twist in this love-triangle.Rohit's friend-cum-relative Ramesh (Anupam Kher) elevates his spirits and propels him to come out of his depressive shell. Once Rohit starts seeing the status of the things in a different way, he gets ready for his proper medical treatment and after fully recovering, to search his lost love, i.e., Chaandni. While being abroad for different reasons, Lalit and Rohit cross paths and become good friends. Now both have a sweetheart individually but don't know that it's the same girl. Rohit comes to attend the engagement ceremony of Lalit and stunned to find that Lalit's betrothed is Chaandni only. And Chaandni ? She is at a crossroad now. Whom to choose ? But destiny and heart work in tandem and allow the story to conclude in the desired way.Yash Chopra possessed the rare knack of portraying male-female romance on the screen in the most realistic manner. We know that real life is quite different from reel life. However Yash Chopra was always able to make the audience believe that what's on the reel was close to the real. While watching the movie, we love the lovers, we love their inner feelings and external romance and we love their union in the end. At the same time, we are also sympathetic towards the loser in love because the King of Romance has made us rely his sentiments and feel his grief and we wish that he gets another girl to apply the ointment of her true love on his wounds and heal them in due course of time.With technical superiority and high production value on one hand, the movie scores very high on the music front on the other. Yash Ji availed the services of music maestros - Pandit Shiv Kumar Sharma, the eminent Santoor player and Pandit Hari Prasaad Chaurasiya, the virtuoso flautist who made perhaps the best music album of their career as cine-music directors. The movie contains nine songs and all boasts of superior quality. Chaandni O Meri Chaandni, Mere Haathon Mein Nau Nau Choodiyaan and Main Sasuraal Nahin Jaaungi became chartbusters overnight. However the relatively less talked about songs viz. Tere Mere Hothon Pe Meethe Meethe Geet Mitwa, Tere Kadmon Mein Saara Jahaan Rakh Doon and Parbat Se Kaali Ghata Takraai are also highly melodious and ear-soothing. Male songs viz. Sheheron Mein Ek Sheher Mila Bhai Sheher Mila Tha Dilly and Tu Mujhe Suna Main Tujhe Sunaaun Apni Prem Kahaani are quite hilarious. My most favourite song from this album is Lagi Aaj Saawan Ki Phir Woh Jhadi Hai which has been sung by Suresh Waadkar (with Anupama Deshpande). Whenever I listen to this song while being alone, my tears refuse to stay in my eyes. The beautiful lyrics of this album have been penned by ace-lyricist Anand Bakshi.Rishi Kapoor was always at his best when he had to romance. None could beat him in romancing with lovely ladies on the screen. Even after 16 years from Bobby (1973), the romantic skills of Rishi Kapoor are the same as visible in Chaandni. I regard Vinod Khanna as one of the best actors of his time and he has delivered a mature performance in his low-footage role. The supporting cast has also done well.But Chaandni is Sridevi's movie by all means. Right from the title, the complete story belongs to her and her only and she is at the zenith of her career in this movie. Yash Ji brought the best out of this natural actress whose charms have always been able to knock out the males. She appears so gorgeous that it's difficult for any young male not to fall in love with her.Chaandni is a heart-conquering love story with immense repeat value. Watch it again and again and you will never feel tired of watching it. It's an immortal romantic love story presented by the King of Romance in Hindi cinema, Yash Chopra. May his soul rest in peace.

Whenever the current crop of actresses is asked to list their dream roles, Chandni is almost always included at or near the top of the list. And yet when one considers the possibility of the role being performed by any but Sridevi, one cannot help but feel that she is the only one who could ever play the part with as much grace, humor, elegance, and restraint. Sridevi *is* Chandni, just as Dilip Kumar is Devdas, Amitabh Bachchan is Don, and Rekha is Umrao Jaan. These performances are so completely intertwined with the actors who embody the characters that it becomes all but impossible to imagine anyone else in the part. Because of this Chandni has become a romantic archetype, one that would inspire the generation of romantic heroines who were to follow (it will be obvious to anyone who has seen Juhi Chawla in "Darr", Madhuri Dixit in "Dil To Pagal Hai", Kajol in "Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge" or even Preity Zinta in "Veer Zaara" that these characters are derived from the "Chandni" mold). It is interesting, therefore, to consider that in the career of a woman who has nearly always played larger-than-life characters, she achieves one of her great successes in playing an average, middle-class girl, one who is not afflicted with any of the great dilemmas that burden her other characters, like ravaging insanity (Khudah Gawah), diabolical egomania (Laadla) or matrimonial self-destruction (Judaai). Chandni is a typical Punjabi girl: carefree and fun-loving, who falls for Rohit (Rishi Kapoor), an upper class heir who defies his conservative family and marries the girl of his choice. All seems relatively pleasant until Rohit is paralyzed in a helicopter accident. This strains the relationship, and Rohit declares that his love for Chandni has died. Thus the marriage is ended, and Chandni is left to live the life of a single working class woman. Thrown for the first time into the whirlwind of economic independence, she stumbles as she tries to relieve the tragedies of her past with the responsibility of the present. Eventually she catches the fancy of her boss, Lalit (Vinod Khanna), whose advances she rejects until Rohit reenters her life. The structure of the plot is not unlike other love triangles; where Chandni was different (and magnificently so) was in the way it presented this 'every woman': childlike but wise, suffering but sexual, this was a major multi-dimensional screen creation, and Sridevi infused her with her own brand of quiet dignity, raucous silliness and pert sexuality. Yash Chopra originally offered the role to Rekha (who had played a woman named Chandni in "Silisila" nearly a decade earlier) but she did not want to go back and play a character she thought she had already done. So she recommended Sridevi for the part. If the film proved one thing it was that even in the every-woman guise, Sridevi cut a larger-than-life figure. She was not a Hema Malini or a Madhuri or even a Rekha. She inhabited the 'normal' woman in such an abnormal way that at once we knew that though she was real, she would remain untouchable. 'Chandni' is a modern day icon to film actresses, proving that one need not sacrifice novelty for the sake of normalcy. The film boasts of incredible chemistry between Sridevi and Rishi Kapoor, especially in the first twenty minutes when Rohit romances Chandni, revealing her inherent vivacity that later becomes tempered when Life interrupts her hitherto ideal love story. "Chandni" is also important in that it was during the shooting of the film that Yash Chopra also came to realize that he had at last discovered the actress who would make possible the realization of a film he had been planning to make for nearly two decades, but had shelved the film because the theme was deemed too controversial. The film was "Lamhe".

It is hard to find a really good Indian film, but this film constitutes as good, even really good. It creates a haunting feel right from the start, and the theme of 'love never ends' is carried throughout the film by this haunting feeling with the use of Chandni (the character), and music. Extremely visual images of Chandni are given to the viewer in the opening of the film as Chandni dances around in misty scenery. These continues during the film with the use of the photographs that Rohit takes and are posted up on his wall, and through the songs that Rohit (with Chandni) and Lalit sing in the second half of the film; it is rare to find this type of usage of songs in Indian films. This film is really good and highly recommended because of the way that it establishes modes and memories, and later evokes them effectively. Well done.