"The goal was clear, but the path was unknown."
Hello everyone!
I wish I'd be capable of apologizing but, I'm honestly REALLY enjoying my foray into Indian cinema, so why would I stop?
Although I'll admit it takes some serious stamina. This thing I'm reviewing tonight is over three and a half hours long! That's like ... a lot, compared to most movies nowadays haha.
But that said, I actually didn't have that much trouble sitting and watching it through in one go, because apparently, my attention span can and will adapt to what it needs, once I'm interested enough for that to happen that is.
So let's not waste too many introductory words, then. We have a lot of ground to cover.
Instead, let's travel back in time to roughly 16th century India, in a time when religious upheaval seemed to be rather prevalent. Let's go back and see Jodhaa Akbar.
So while I'm immensely enjoying House of the Dragon in its second season at the moment (and MAN what a SEASON), I'm also really enjoying random movie picks, though this one isn't as random because it features an actor who quite quickly jumped to my top favourite. I'm slowly making my way through a lot of his repertoire right now! But then, Hrithik Roshan has the face that you won't easily forget, after all.
Anyway, in Jodhaa Akbar, we first meet the child versions of our characters, Jalal and Jodhaa, with Jalal becoming the head of the fierce Mughal empire when he's just a boy, and Jodhaa becoming betrothed to one of the other Rajput princes at the time.
Jalal's senior advisor is a ruthless brute who insists Jalal needs to show his enemies no mercy once defeated, but as the boy grows into a man, he finally takes a stand and yeets the advisor off his council, enacting different laws and methods as he sets off to conquer Hindustan (India at the time).
This is when Jodhaa's father, after not giving a portion of his kingdom to her cousin Sujamal (and kickstarting a chain of events that'll be rather regrettable later), decides he might want to avoid the machine that is the Mughal army, so he incurs the wrath of his other co-kings and offers Jodhaa to Jalal as wife, that they might avoid bloodshed.
Now comes the first hilarious moment in the movie, where Jodhaa (Rai) thinks to outwit the men around her, making demands of Jalal to keep her religion and be allowed to bring an idol of her god with her to Agra fort, their home.
She's hoping that he might spurn her for this, but Jalal's a little too liberal and open-minded, so after stomping his way over to her tent to figure out what the holdout is, he announces that her demands will be met, and they're married that same evening, much to her dismay.
Of course then she c*ck blocks him when she says her heart hasn't accepted the marriage yet, and he tells her he'll wait until that happens. He's a patient man.
(She's also way stronger than I am, as I'm inherently shallow, but I digress).
Jodhaa arrives at Agra fort and is installed in the Empress' apartments, after which come the traditional scenes of two cultures meeting and gently merging together to form a cohesive unit. Jalal slowly gets to meet the woman that he agreed to marry, and she in turn gets to see some of what makes him a good Emperor (that is, he picks the people around him for their skills, not for what he supposedly owes them).
I will say though, that him wandering about like the heart-eye emoji whenever he's with her is pretty funny, especially since, in respecting her traditions, he always takes his shoes off before entering her apartments, but then usually leaves SANS shoes, so by that point Jodhaa's probably wondering what kind of weirdo she ended up marrying.
Against the backdrop of this slowly unfolding love story is Sujamal in the background trying to curry favour with others who might help him get a portion of the Amer throne, and he finds a willing ear in Jalal's brother-in-law, who's getting greedy and wants more than what Jalal gave him after the marriage.
Tale as told as time.
Plus, seeing as Jalal's old wet-nurse who's a minister on his council also has it out for Jodhaa (no particular reason is given beyond her being Hindu, but I suspect it's also merged with the oldest and most usual: a young woman comes between mother and son, and the mom is raging because she's losing her precious baby boy, not realizing that if she just LET the thing happen naturally, her son wouldn't actually turn from her when things hit the fan) you can probably tell there's trouble brewing on the horizon.
In fact, trouble comes home to roost just as Jalal and Jodhaa seem to be finding strong common ground, which includes but is not limited to him watching her from afar and her spying on him practicing his swordfighting (shirtless, thank you, movie director).
The wet-nurse has one of her cronies find a letter that Jodhaa wrote before marriage, and sends it off to Sujamal, who comes running, though Jodhaa for some reason doesn't immediately ask WHO the hell sent that letter if she didn't. I don't give her brownie points for that - you're smarter than this, woman!
Anyway, as the old nurse warned Jalal, he spies on the meeting, thinks it's some sort of plot, and sends Jodhaa back to Amer in a rage.
Thankfully, his biological mother pops back up at that time, mad that the wet-nurse is interfering with her son's private life, and she lays out a who's-who for Jalal, explaining who the man with Jodhaa had been and what had apparently happened.
Distraught, since he actually loves his wife by this point, Jalal heads to Amer to win her back, at which time we're treated to some more hilarity, because apparently, the first time a son-in-law visits, he has to find his wife among all the veiled ladies, because that's the only way he gets to sleep in her bed. Otherwise, if he screws up, it's under open skies for him!
Luckily, Jalal knows Jodhaa enough to actually be able to find her, but she nixes any and all ideas he might have by dropping a curtain between them in the bed. He's not all that great at apologizing, honestly - being an emperor will do that to you - but she makes him see that he needs to pay more attention to people, rather than what he's told about them.
So after a bout of sparring during which our Jalal is trying his level best to really become the human heart-eye emoji, and Jodhaa tries her damnest to lop his head off, he then heads back to Agra and mingles with the people to figure out how they feel about the empire.
Turns out, there's stuff in his policies he has no clue about, including a Pilgrim Tax that makes him want to yeet everyone off the council immediately. Abolishing it, announcing that everyone in his empire is free to worship who they choose, he's then given the name 'Akbar' by his people. Jodhaa also returns, and you'd think all's well that ends well, but nope.
Jalal gets struck by a poisoned arrow during his victorious procession, and ends up nearly dying.
This serves as a conclusion to all the indicators that you get throughout the movie right from the get-go, but also to show how much Jodhaa actually cares for her husband at this point.
He pulls through, and she nurses him back to health, after which, in true Muhammad style, he admits to being illiterate, but he also finally confesses his love, as does she, and we're treated to a beautiful (and innocent, sans visual spice) scene during which it's inferred they finally consummate their marriage.
I swear Esmeralda gave more than this movie, but also the song gives WAY MORE in that sense.
In any event, with the love story now happily concluded, the political one with the brother-in-law and Sujamal has to end, too. They're going to march on Amer and install Sujamal there, after which brother-in-law believes he has the might to challenge Jalal on the battlefield.
Warned, because he has competent people who figured out who his assassin was, Jalal rides out to meet the challenge, and Jodhaa follows soon after because she has to try and stop the bloodshed, if she can, considering brother-in-law can and might get rid of Sujamal sooner rather than later, too (as per Jalal's sister, who delivers the warning).
Unfortunately, she's only on time enough to witness Sujamal dying, as he'd uncovered a plot against Jalal and rode to warn the man, finally having enough of the blood-thirsty methods his partner in crime is employing, and Jalal faces his brother-in-law in single combat.
Defeating him, he lets the man live for the sake of his sister, and the movie comes to a close saying that, together, Jalal and Jodhaa quietly changed history because they fought for an India of religious tolerance, and freedom to be who you want to be, without reservations or limitations.
And man, it's a statement that echoes even today, considering everything. I'm not sure that India's ever fully succeeded in that mission, but we do know Jalal was a real person fighting for this, and his wife really was a Rajput princess, even if her name is rather heatedly debated. It's actually telling to see so many liberal icons in history fighting for a world where fear doesn't have to feature, and it marks Jalal and Jodhaa as an OG power couple.
Which makes me love the movie even more, even when it's completely bonkers sometimes. At one point, the wet-nurse's son kills the Prime Minister because the guy discovered his tax embezzlement, and after Jalal confronts him, he has him thrown off the parapet head-first as punishment.
THEN, he asks if he's still alive, and after the guards confirm he is (poor dude), the Emperor demands they drag him back up AND THROW HIM DOWN AGAIN. I have no words.
BESIDES THAT, however, Jodhaa Akbar is a visually stunning masterpiece that utilizes all the beauty it can find in telling this story, including its leading actors (duh, look at them), but my one quibble is that I feel Jodhaa didn't show her progress into love as much as Jalal obviously did. I can understand her being offended at the accusations Jalal levels against her - her pride is hurt, first and foremost, after all - but the truth is that up until that point, she doesn't really give the man much to work with to think otherwise, so you'd THINK a smart woman might have, you know, done more.
No matter what, Jodhaa Akbar is a wonderful movie to watch and a great way to kill some time in an afternoon. I highly recommend it, if for no other reason than to watch Hrithik Roshan's love-struck face while Aishwarya Rai tries super hard not to roll her eyes at the weirdo in her apartments again.
10/10 recommend!
xx
*images and video not mine
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