First Taal, Now Kisna?

[Pic Courtesy Rediff]

I was quite surprised when Roger Ebert chose Subash Ghai's Taal for the 2005 edition of his Overlooked Film Festival. Though the movie was a commercial hit, I personally found it to be a very ordinary, cliched rich boy-poor girl love story, held up primarily by its glossy look, a gorgeous Aishwarya Rai and foot-tapping numbers by A.R.Rehman. I believed that Taal's sentimental story, traditional ending, sanitized, Bollywood-style romance, extravagant song sequences and grand look prompted Ebert to pick the film, since he considers those elements representative of today's Indian films . The fact that Ebert has not seen many commercial Indian films and having a universally acknowledged beauty(who Ebert drools over) as heroine made Taal's selection easier, I'm sure!

According to a proud Subash Ghai, a shorter version of Kisna, his recent flop with Vivek Oberoi, is to be screened at Cannes this year. He seems to believe that Taal was selected for its quality(has he read Ebert's review?!) and hopes that Kisna too could acquire a life of its own after the Cannes screening!

I have so far stayed away from Kisna for two reasons. One, I have not liked any of Ghai's recent films(I liked Yaadein even less than Taal) and two, it was universally panned as being overblown, boring and long. I have so far avoided renting(for free!) the DVD, even when it was on the shelves. Have any of you seen the film? Are Ghai's hopes for the film's rebirth justified? Is it atleast worth renting?!