Parineeta is one of the best Bollywood films this year. The story is nothing new with its familiar basic building blocks centering around such melodramatic stock items as a father-son-conflict, a greedy bad guy trying to lay his hands on what is not his and one of these contrived misunderstandings with final twist involving a badly suffering heroine and her out of line and abusive lover. Sounds familiar? Sure, it's in every other Bollywood film. The reason that Parineeta is nonetheless one of the finest Hindi films in 2005 is the execution which is most of the time very tasteful and does not resort to the formula masala shenanigans (over the top humor, fights, sound effects etc.) that may please the masses but are poison to any serious work of cinema. The cast is very good. Newcomer Vidya Balan is a discovery and Saif Ali Khan competent. Technical standards are high. The occasional slip such as the piano playing scene(s) (Khan is faking unconvincingly when in the picture while a professional's hands and arms during close-ups are correct and obviously someone else's) can not change the overall verdict: very good. The DVD is a technical milestone for Bollywood with its (almost) flawless picture quality and a DTS track. Well done. Stay away from rip off pirate discs! The original deserves to be purchased.
