Locations in Europe: London, Paris
Storyline
Star(s): Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Bobby Deol, Lara Dutta
Songs/Dance: Located in Europe and India
Indian/ International Crew: Indian and international
Language: Hindi
Line Producer/Executive Producer/Associate Producer Executive Producer: Sanjay Shivalkar; Line Producers: Navnit S. Jha, Ravi Sarin; Location Managers (UK): Chris Martin and Tom Howard
Director/Producer Director: Shaad Ali; Producer: Yashraj Films
Film Location Analysis
By Ranjani Mazumdar
Jhoom Barabar Jhoom uses foreign locations to establish the context of two of its characters' belonging to India and Pakistan. They are introduced to the audience at Waterloo train station. There are three songs in the film that use foreign locations. This includes Amitabh Bachchan’s opening title song, in which he plays the role of a street musician and a sutradhar in conversation with the audience to take the story forward. Bachchan literally walks the streets of London and takes the spectators into the station as the credits roll over the film’s title song. The same song is played again later in the film, but in this opening sequence, establishing the location becomes key. The site used for the opening is London’s Waterloo train station, a historic place where several Hollywood films like The Bourne Identity have been shot. The architectural layout of the station and its glitzy quality are mobilised specifically via Senior Bachchan’s navigation as a hippie-like figure who sings the title song of the film with several dancers. Bachchan is not a specific character in the narrative but someone who appears like a sutradhar.
The song is shot to highlight three different elements of the station: the first is its inner circular lobby, which is surrounded by shops, ticket counters, and billboards. This space shows the station as a shopping paradise and is energetically mediated through the dancing and camera work. The second moment introduces us to a new type of choreography and editing that is linked to a change in location. We are now in the extension of the station that was built in 1994 by Nicholas Grimshaw, inspired by the high-tech architectural styles that had emerged in London in the 1960s. Grimshaw built an asymmetrical curved roof that appears like telescope tubes that slide into each other. The International Terminal has glass panels and steel structures that are clearly visible from the platforms below. The glass and steel combination of Britain’s industrial aesthetics is captured with low-angle shots of the dancers and with only Bachchan in the frame. We get ample access to the roof and its texture. The final moment highlights the platform and was shot to capture the rail tracks alongside the dancers. Through these different elements collated into the song, the station's heritage history, its architectural form, and its place as Europe’s busiest train station are highlighted. The scale of the song sequence in a sense captures the imaginary movement that the director must have made from the original idea that was meant to have the film located in Gorakhpur station, built in U.P between 1886 and 1905. This station has the longest platform in the world and is a major junction.
The second song in European space takes us to Paris. The catchy song "Ticket to Hollywood" is shot using imagery associated with the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, and the Arc de Triumph, as well as a set of popular assumptions linked to the city’s cultural life. It mobilises the museum's historic location by presenting a group of painters working on their easels just outside the museum. We also see women and men dressed in 19th century costumes dancing alongside other women in burlesque-style clothing. Some of the men are dressed as chefs, and the women in contemporary global fashion. The sequence mobilises a scattered assortment of histories and then presents Rikki dressed like a Tapori trying to woo Laila, dressed as a fashionable French woman. The use of expansive camera work, including several aerial shots, establishes the big budget of the film. Architectural spaces, including ground-level floor work patterns, the Eiffel Tower, tunnel space, and streets, are used to great effect, along with still frames that appear like fashion spreads from a magazine. The rhythmic and humorous rendition of the song adds to the film’s ironic quality as Rikki demands that his ticket to Hollywood be returned to him. The entire sequence is structured to frame the dancers against iconic sites of Paris, working with a postcard imagination. Many of the dancers were hired in London and brought to Paris for the shooting.
The third song, "Kiss of Love," uses the London Bridge, a favourite site for film shooting. In this song, a mock trial, supposedly in the UK, is conjured as a fantasy interior space with momentary and brief encounters with the space of the London Bridge. The grey stone of the bridge is the backdrop, with Alvira in a red dress. In "Kiss of Love," the protagonists and dancers arrive in a car at the bridge and then perform with the bridge as the backdrop, as opposed to "Ticket to Hollywood," which is a street-level movement to carve out the architectural layout of the space.
Other than the songs, some public spaces in London have been used to locate certain everyday events and encounters in the city.
Additional Information & Links
http://wherewasitshot.com/jhoom-barabar-jhoom/
https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/bollywood-hits-streets-of-london-6590700.html
Tourism
https://www.dnaindia.com/world/report-indian-film-buffs-boost-britain-s-tourism-revenue-1118225
