Rang De Basanti
Prologue
Just came from watching Rang De Basanti …
There is a lot to general things to talk about this film - but I won’t be doing that …
Instead, I will take a different route and talk about the experiences that I went through while I sat in the theatres for 3 hours today.
Some General Musings
For starters, Rang De Basanti is a pretty experimental movie to me … it’s not your normal, everyday bollywood paisa vasool movie. Not that I see so many bollywood movies, but still …
Today was approximately the 6th week since the movie has been released (and so I was told) - and there I was, sitting in the 3rd row from the screen for a saturday morning 10 o’ clock show.
The movie was to go houseful in the next 5 minutes before the movie started.
The running time of the movie is about 180 minutes - and I went through a series of emotions while watching the movie. The movie is essentially divided into two parts - the one before the interval and the one after.
The production values of the movie is very very good for a bollywood movie - brilliant acting (then again, all Amir Khan movies have brilliant acting), great cinematography and non obstructive songs (for most parts of the movies anyways)
Everyone acted brilliantly, including Madhavan who plays a good cameo.
I was particularly very impressed by Alice Patten (who plays Sue) and her efforts with Hindi which at the beginning sound corny (Maa Ki Aankh??) but you get used to within the first 10 minutes of her arriving in India.
Not to undermine the soundtrack - which was experimental too - and I loved it.
It was well synchronized with the story running and helped in elevating the momentum of the entire movie.
The first part
The initial one and a half hours of the movie deals with the character building (which is so very very important for any movie) of all the characters and is very fun and enjoyable to watch.
We’re introduced to each of the characters and the camraderie that they share amongst them. All this is kept very real, and I as a student (at approximately their ages) was able to empathize with them at once.
Though not generally a comedy, I was in splits at most of the dialogues which were nothing but inline chatter amongst the characters.
The main cast is not introduced till the first 20 minutes, but it was nevertheless very enjoyable.
The Second Part
This is the place where the movie takes a ninety degree turn and the entire emotional balance of the movie swings the other way.
Things get serious all of a sudden and you’re taken through a torrent of emotions ranging from joy, sorrow, fear, hatred, patriotism, etc.
The parallels drawn between the documentary being made - and the lives of the friends (though a bit cliched) was brilliantly done and stands out in the movie.
After thoughts
This movie actually makes you ’’think’’ and whatever hype it has received, is not over the top. Even after a hundred people telling me that the movie was brilliant and my brother spilling the ending, I still loved the movie.
About 3 weeks ago, people I didn’t know would come up to me and say ’’Rang De Basanti dekhi kya?’’ followed by ’’Go watch it’’
The movie has everything in it and as an experience, its well worth the 3 hours of your life that you will spend at the halls.
At the end, it does evoke a sense of patriotism and makes you ponder on things that happen and the government cover ups and whether anything would change in India, if at all …
Maybe a generation is awakening … and its a good thing.
And as a footnote, welcome to the world of intelligent, realistic (well almost) Indian movies. First Dombivli Fast .. and now this …
Things are starting to look good.
1/17/2006
Dombivli Fast
I caught this movie, at the Pune International Film Festival (which was my second good movie of the day) - and very worth the effort of waiting an hour and a half in front of the doors for the movie to start.
In five minutes, the hall was jam packed - with no one being able to get in because of the number of people sitting on the floors and standing by the doors to catch the movie.
Dombivli Fast is a marathi movie which revolves around the life of a middle class man - Madhav Apte (played by Sandeep Kulkarni) who is a pretty stubborn man and has a very ’’No compromising on my principles’’ attitude.
The starting of the movie depicts the redundancy of his everyday life with him doing the same things day after day after day …
Madhav Apte has never bribed anyone in his life and has never accepted any bribes himself. He is a very straight forward guy who has lived his life so far on his principles and is hell bent on continuing to do the same.
He sees the rampant corruption around him, the apathy of people and how everyone has the ’’chalta hai’’ attitude.
Everytime he tries to intervene or do something, he is stopped by one of his friends or colleagues who tell him to ’’forget it and move on’’.
Throughout his life, he is taunted by his wife, friends and neighbours on his uncompromising attitude, and how the ’’real’’ world does not work that way.
Finally, one day, he flips - the constant taunts and the drudgery of his everyday routine playing a major part in it.
What happens next when he flips, is what the movie is all about.
The supporting cast did a pretty awesome job and their acting was pretty much flawless. Kudos to Sandesh Jadhav who plays the cop and Shilpa Tulaskar who plays his wife.
The director of the movie is Nishikant Kamat and he’s also done a fabulous job of shaping the movie in the way it was done.
For a Indian movie, this one had some surprisingly, good production which put it on par with the other movies being shown at the film festival.
I personally felt, that a little bit more time should have been spent in character building - due to which it takes sometime to empathize with the main protagonist.
Due to this, the movie seems to drag a bit towards the middle, but the ending of the film is awesome and justifies for any other little flaw that the movie might have had.
Once the movie got over in the over crowded hall, the exit doors were empty.
Everyone, including the people who were sitting on the walk-ways were just .. sitting.
No one spoke for quite sometime.
The movie depicts how every person should think, but also at the same time, sticks to the sad reality of how the outcome might turn up.
