MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Love Calls’ With Grace and Delirium

“When Love Calls” (at the International Stanton Theater, 11300 Beach Blvd.) is an endearing example of the popular Indian cinema at its most delirious--and one of the first Hindi productions to be presented in an English-language version.

Mainstream Indian audiences aren’t looking for Satyajit Ray’s eloquent social realism but pure escape from life’s hardships, and they demand their money’s worth.

In his feature debut, writer-director Sooraj R. Barjatya not only delivered the goods but also turned out what proved to be one of the most popular and heavily awarded pictures in the history of the Indian cinema.

At heart, “When Love Calls” is simplicity itself. When work takes a widowed rural auto mechanic (Aloknath) on an extended absence, he entrusts his pretty 18-year-old daughter, Suman, (Bhagyashree) to the care of his boyhood friend (Rajiv Varma), a self-made multimillionaire whose handsome son Prem (Salman Khan) soon arrives home from school in America. (Home is a hotel-like estate with wonderfully vulgar nouveau riche decor). It scarcely comes as a surprise when the two young people fall in love, but Prem’s father has a wily associate (Ranjit) who intends to marry off his niece (Pervin Dastur) to Prem.

In typical Indian fashion, it takes a whopping three hours to work out what is really a predictable plot; Barjatya, adhering to tradition, turns a simple love story into a heady, extravagant romantic epic. His audience expects lengthy musical fantasy interludes approximately every 10 minutes, and in the first half of the film the young lovers sing and dance up a storm in a series of kitschy production numbers that mix motifs from Indian and Western culture in an exuberant Vegas-y style. In the second half, the musical interludes give way to increasing melodrama and action; a climatic cliffhanging sequence is resolved, so help me, by the timely appearance of a white attack dove!

*

“When Love Calls” will strike the uninitiated as sentimental, corny and old-fashioned in the utmost, but it is nevertheless a film of considerable grace. It might most fairly be viewed as an operetta; its sincerity is as shining as it is crucial to the film’s success. Barjatya directs with no less a sense of commitment to his material than Ingmar Bergman, and that is why his film, with its folkloric ethnic charm, works. Bhagyashree is a demure, traditional type but the highly contemporary Salman Khan, now a Hindi superstar, is a lithe dancer who looks like Robert Downey Jr. and moves like Patrick Swayze (Khan may be the first Indian male heartthrob who thinks it important to stay in shape).

“When Love Calls” will screen Thursday at the Four Star in Los Angeles, June 27 at the Azteca in San Bernardino and the Crest in Oceanside, and June 30 at the Peppertree in Northridge. Information: (714) 647-2468.

‘When Love Calls’ (‘Maine Pyar Kiya’) Salman Khan: Prem Bhagyashree: Suman Aloknath: Karan, Suman’s father Rajiv Varma: Kishen, Prem’s father

A Gala Films release of a Rajshri Productions presentation. Writer-director Sooraj R. Barjatya. Story by S.M. Hali. Producer Tarachand Barjatya. Cinematographer Arvin Laad. Costumes Rani. Music Raamlaxman. Art director Bijon Das Gupta. Running time: 3 hours.

MPAA-rated PG.