A macabre opera that does not translate into captivating cinema When I heard that Vishal Bharadwaj was going to adapt Ruskin Bond's short story Susanna's 7 husbands, I was intrigued as well as skeptical at the same time. I haven't read the original story but I suspect its narrative technique would be episodic, as the protagonist (or antagonist?) moves on from one husband to another. So it made me unsure as to how such a somewhat sporadic skin would be turned into continuous flesh. Enter, Vishal , whose works in the past speak for themselves and if anyone could transform Bond's story into cinema, then it would be him. However, I think, certain tales remain stories that are best kept in books and we rather let them unfold in our heads to assimilate its guilty pleasure as they do not possess that lineament which makes them fit for an adaptation on celluloid.
Susanna(Priyanka Chopra) starts as the battered wife of a invalid army man(Neil Mukesh) who we are explained has all the qualities of the typical Indian husband - boring, distrustful and flatulent. After bumping him off, she moves to another man, a junkie rockstar(John Abraham), a soulful poet with a sado-masochist streak(Irrfan), a cheating Russian(Alexandr Dyachenko), a greedy doctor(Naseeruddin Shah), a timid sex starved cop(Annu Kapoor) and a mystery man.
The brandishes of Bharadwaj are there though if you look hard like the shiver-inducing sequence of the army man caressing Susanna with his half limb, the transitioning from marriage to funeral in one shot, references to literature, Tarantino-esque sequences like blood splattered walls and a cool cameo by Ruskin Bond himself towards the end. However, you cannot mask your disappointment when you cannot get inside the head of the main character. As the narrator Arun(superbly portrayed by Vivaan Shah) tries to dive into his godmother's head as to why she kills her men rather than leaving them, we ask ourselves the same question. In the form of an anecdote we are told that when she was a child she used to be harassed by a dog while on her way to school, but instead of taking a different path she blew the canine's brains off. That is like a shining light, the tremendous gist of this film. Susanna in our eyes is then is a feminist vigilante, a voice for women lib, making this world safer from adulterous and oppressive men. But then contrastingly, she is shown as love-starved, a person who sluggishly just moves on from one bad relationship to another . We would then rather deplore the lack of judgment the woman has rather than applaud her liberties. Hard to sympathize eh?
I couldn't bear What's your Rashee? What's with Ms Chopra doing in these type of looping sequence films. The episodes for this film are : Find husband, discover the rot, so kill him and this repeats and repeats.
Priyanka's performance meanders between the good and the average and lacks the depth you would associate while playing such a character. As a character, she does not get to display enough histrionics although the make up work is excellent. The supporting cast is pretty good while from the husbands, it is difficult to say which one makes an impact because of the abrupt screen times. Just as you are settling on one, he is done away with that too with mind-boggling ease. However, Annu Kapoor records a worthy performance.
7 Khoon Maaf would perhaps be best played out in the form of musical theater, a macabre opera(once again Gulzar and Vishal are in awesome form) because of its tantalizing atmosphere. As a movie, it fails and at times bores. As a fan of Vishal, with a good track record , I guess there is always scope for one bad movie maaf.
Rating : 2/5
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Well I quite liked Ms Chopra's performance in this movie....its a different thing that movie turned out to be rubbish....