Taal is a Bollywood film released in 1999 which starred Aishwarya Rai (former Miss World), Akshaye Khanna and Anil Kapoor with strong support from Alok Nath and Amrish Puri. Taal was produced and directed by Subhash Ghai and the music for the film was by A R Rahman. The film could be classed as a musical romantic drama.
Manav (Khanna) is a young man from the UK who is touring India with his father, Jagmohan Mehta (Puri), and relatives. On their travels they meet a renowned singer Tarababu (Nath) who is famous for being a wonderful spiritual singer. Tarababu's daughter is the beautiful and musically talented Mansi (Rai) who Manav falls in love with on first sight. She reciprocates his feelings but when he leaves to go to the family home in Bombay they know they want to be together forever. Mansi's father is not happy with their romance when he first hears of it but eventually accepts his daughter's wishes and with her he travels to the big city to meet Manav and his family again. Jagmohan had extended an invite to him to visit them whenever they were in town. Except when they go to visit, they are kept waiting outside in the street in the scorching hot weather all day until the family returns and even when they return, they show surprise and ask why they didn't call to make an appointment before visiting. Tarababu ends up insulting Jagmohan and Manav walks in on this and insults Tarababu, Mansi can't bear to see her father insulted and they leave the Mehta home in disgust.
Mansi is discovered by a bit-time producer Vikrant Kapoor (Kapoor) who makes her extremely rich and famous. Manav, during this time, realises he can't live without his Mansi and tries to make amends. Unfortunately Vikrant develops feelings towards Mansi too. Will Mansi return Vikrant's love? Or will she forgive Manav and his family for their unfair treatment of her father and herself? Will there be a happy ending for anyone?
Taal is a film which I would consider to be in my top 20 if not my top 10 favorite Hindi films. I found a lot of things about the film very enjoyable including the acting of the leads, the beautiful locations and colorful scenery used throughout the film and the songs.
Aishwarya Rai played the part of Mansi beautifully. She looks stunning all the way through the film and one totally sees why she behaves the way she does. Having seen her in other films since I think this has to be one of the best roles she's taken on in her acting career. Kudos to her (especially considering I haven't thought very much of her acting in roles she's taken on recent years).
I hadn't seen Akshay Khanna in many films before I saw him in this and found him to carry his role off quite plausibly. I found I disliked his character through much of the film as his behavior towards the woman he supposedly loved so much was rather incredible to say the least; insulting her father and her and then pining because he lost the girl he loves. I know he was just following the script but it was quite difficult to stomach that one minute you insult the father of the woman you love without knowing the full situation and the next minute you spend what seems like eternity yearning for the loss of your love. I felt like slapping his character and telling him to grow up. But that just shows he played the part very credibly to me. One thing which was difficult to believe was that he was supposed to be playing a 21 year old although he was about 24 at the time, he looked much older!
Anil Kapoor plays the arrogant musical director/producer who takes Mansi under his wing and makes her a star with zest. I've been a fan of Kapoor for quite a while, I really enjoy the way he handles roles generally and his role in Taal was no disappointment one sees his character taking on this nave young girl and slowly turning her into a star but not suffering fools gladly he scolds her when she goes wrong but you see him gradually falling in love with her and it seems a natural progression for his character without seeming seedy or casting couch behavior. Akok Nath was very believable in his role as Mansi's gentle and spiritual father who is worried about the influence these city folk will have on his daughter and rightly so. Alok Nath generally plays quite similar roles and I guess he's been typecast in recent years. He just has that nice face. I can't go without mentioning Supriya Karnik who plays Manav's vampy aunt a role that I've seen her in quite a few films now. Poor woman she just comes across as the eternal nasty piece of work aunt or mother; e.g. she played Shilpa Shetty's ghastly mother in Shaadi Karke Phas Gaya Yaar and it was pretty much the same role as she played in Taal and a very similar role in Khel too.
Amrish Puri just thrives on roles like the one he played in Taal the arrogant father of a rather childish but also arrogant in his own way young man and again shows that in India people who have money think they're better than everyone else and manners don't really mean very much. The scene where Mansi and her father go to visit Manav's family and sit outside waiting all day in the scorching heat was very touching and as a viewer it made me furious that rich people can behave that way towards a family who just a short time ago they were singing the praises of and treating as their equals and more!
The music in Taal was definitely something I have to comment on. With music by A R Rahman (who's rarely involved in musical flops to my knowledge), lyrics by Anand Bakshi and playback singers including Aditya Narayan, Sonu Nigam, Alka Yagnik and Udit Narayan the music is good enough to consider buying the music album for the film. The title song Taal Se Taal Mila is absolutely fabulous and the rest of the songs are generally all very catchy too and worth at least listening to more than once in my opinion. It's not often that I enjoy the songs in a Bollywood film; often I find that I have to fast forward the songs to get back to the rest of the film. I didn't find myself doing this in Taal, in fact, I went back to listen to the songs again because most of them were so catchy, especially the title song.
The cinematography is definitely also worth a mention. Some really fabulous scenery and locations used throughout the film making this a colorful extravaganza and making you, as a viewer, want to visit those places. Filming locations included Niagara Falls, Toronto Islands in Canada and various parts of India.
Taal was directed by Subhash Ghai who is famous for directing blockbuster Bollywood flicks such as Karz, Hero, Saudagar, Aitraaz and 36 China Town. Having seen just 3 of those that I've listed (hero, Aitraaz and 36 China Town) I'd say Taal was definitely the one I enjoyed the most, although I did enjoy the others and would definitely recommend them too. The film runs for approximately 180 minutes and is classified as suitable for viewers of all ages. Although the film was released in 1999, it was only released on DVD in 2003. The main dialogue in the film is Hindi (but obviously DVD versions will have English subtitles available).
I'd be happy to give Taal a very strong 4.5 out of 5 rating and I do believe the film was a huge hit in its time which was evident from the amount of awards it won the year after its release (2000) including from Awards of the International Indian Film Academy, Filmfare Awards, Screen Weekly Awards and Zee Cine Awards including several for Best Music Direction, Best Lyricist and Best Supporting Actor (Kapoor).