Rang de Basanti
A close of mine said - "You may not like this movie" - another said - "It'd be interesting to know your views on this one" - I was waiting for an opportunity to decide for myself. At last, I ended up watching this high-voltage movie called Rang de Basanti.
If you are looking here for a good review of the movie, I suggest you to take a look at this one.
I completely agree with Soha Ali Khan when she points out that "...RDB, quote unquote (is) a commercial film".
Commercial movies are not obliged to carry a message with them. So I do not want to fall into the trap of calling RDB as a movie with a message.
It was an honest effort from the Director to portray the lives of 5 young people searching for a path in life. The actions of the youth speak of their age and reasoning. I feel that the Director has succeeded in showing their lives - their thoughts - and reactions to taking a decision at towards a common good and sticking to it. It was great fun watching the movie, it does generate a lot of passion, since it has got lots of energy associated with it. Hearty Congratulations to the Director to have done full justice to the characters in the movie.That's about it.
If the Director wants to convey (I hope not!) that he had a message to convey, and the message has been conveyed through the actions of Aamir & co. and through that last 5 minutes of the movie where Siddharth answers the calls from all over the place - then I must say that he utterly failed in conveying the message.
As a student interested in History, I feel that the viewer is expected to exercise great amount of care in understanding the Director's way of portraying the lives of great revolutionaries like Chandra Sekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and the intellectual depth that their decisions carried. The viewer also must be careful in interpreting the actions and the dialogues conveyed by Aamir and co. in the second half of the movie.
Notice that, in the movie, Alice Patten comes to India to make a movie on these revolutionaries through the eyes of her grandfather - as she finds it in his diary. tice that the movie is narrated as an experience of Alice Patten. Therefore the movie that Alice wanted to make is not about showing what exactly happened at that time.
As we come to know from the movie itself, none excepting Atul Kulkarni (to some extent)has an idea of the life and times of Bhagat Singh or Azad. The film does not show the actors going on a study of the characters and the life and times. It is Alice who tries to convey to them from what she understands from the diary.
It is obvious that the characters played by Aamir & co. were influenced by the film that they acted in, and started to imagine themselves to be in similar situation as the revolutionaries of yester era. But the judgement on whether the situations were similar or not requires from them - a greater sense of understanding about the reality - which certainly seems to be missing in them.
I am not sure if some reels have been cut from the movie to reduce the total time of the movie - but if what I saw in the theatre was the movie without any cuts - one does not see the rationale behind holding the Defence Minister as the target for a technical snag in MiG airplanes. The point of corruption in terms of the defence deals is as well not established for the characters. More importantly, drawing parallels between General Dyer and the Defence Minister is ridiculous - and let me stop here.
The question of nation-building is something that requires deeper thought, proper understanding of the circumstances and history, a firm conviction towards the tasks ahead, courage to stand by what you stand for - and it is generally a gruelling process.More on this later.
If you are looking here for a good review of the movie, I suggest you to take a look at this one.
I completely agree with Soha Ali Khan when she points out that "...RDB, quote unquote (is) a commercial film".
Commercial movies are not obliged to carry a message with them. So I do not want to fall into the trap of calling RDB as a movie with a message.
It was an honest effort from the Director to portray the lives of 5 young people searching for a path in life. The actions of the youth speak of their age and reasoning. I feel that the Director has succeeded in showing their lives - their thoughts - and reactions to taking a decision at towards a common good and sticking to it. It was great fun watching the movie, it does generate a lot of passion, since it has got lots of energy associated with it. Hearty Congratulations to the Director to have done full justice to the characters in the movie.That's about it.
If the Director wants to convey (I hope not!) that he had a message to convey, and the message has been conveyed through the actions of Aamir & co. and through that last 5 minutes of the movie where Siddharth answers the calls from all over the place - then I must say that he utterly failed in conveying the message.
As a student interested in History, I feel that the viewer is expected to exercise great amount of care in understanding the Director's way of portraying the lives of great revolutionaries like Chandra Sekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh and the intellectual depth that their decisions carried. The viewer also must be careful in interpreting the actions and the dialogues conveyed by Aamir and co. in the second half of the movie.
Notice that, in the movie, Alice Patten comes to India to make a movie on these revolutionaries through the eyes of her grandfather - as she finds it in his diary. tice that the movie is narrated as an experience of Alice Patten. Therefore the movie that Alice wanted to make is not about showing what exactly happened at that time.
As we come to know from the movie itself, none excepting Atul Kulkarni (to some extent)has an idea of the life and times of Bhagat Singh or Azad. The film does not show the actors going on a study of the characters and the life and times. It is Alice who tries to convey to them from what she understands from the diary.
It is obvious that the characters played by Aamir & co. were influenced by the film that they acted in, and started to imagine themselves to be in similar situation as the revolutionaries of yester era. But the judgement on whether the situations were similar or not requires from them - a greater sense of understanding about the reality - which certainly seems to be missing in them.
I am not sure if some reels have been cut from the movie to reduce the total time of the movie - but if what I saw in the theatre was the movie without any cuts - one does not see the rationale behind holding the Defence Minister as the target for a technical snag in MiG airplanes. The point of corruption in terms of the defence deals is as well not established for the characters. More importantly, drawing parallels between General Dyer and the Defence Minister is ridiculous - and let me stop here.
The question of nation-building is something that requires deeper thought, proper understanding of the circumstances and history, a firm conviction towards the tasks ahead, courage to stand by what you stand for - and it is generally a gruelling process.More on this later.
posted by agastyabhrata | 9:04 AM
5 Comments:
the question is wat u think of the 'path' chosen by those 5 guys: assume that it is beyon doubt that the defence minister was at fault ... then wat would u say abt aamir n co's actions ?
Such a serious analysis for jes another bollywood movie.. :-o good to see vasishta giving attention to bollywood :-)..
If you do feel that this movie does general a lot of passion (as u wrote), I believe that the message has been conveyed.. Because, ultimately it's not really abt getting emotional for the betterment of the country.. Its ultimately generating passion..
I feel "Bollywood" (time for a change in the name?)needs to be appreciated when it provides quality cinema.
Interesting to notice that you called RDB - "jes another movie" - I felt so too, except for the fact that the quality of production was good.
Your point on passion and emotional is interesting. I see that by emotional you are trying to mean "sentimental" - and by passion - you refer to "vigor" to "do" something. There are many movies/instances in life that generate passion but very few in life translate to give a direction to your thought process. The message in this movie does not get conveyed thanks to the fact that there is no message to carry home. So - though passion is generated - you are not given the direction to put it to good use..
Since RDB happened to be liked by many, I felt like discussing it so that there can be certain understanding about the process of Nation-Building on which I heard the views from quite a few elders including Dharampalji.In a certain sense, scrutinising what Siddharth intends to convey through his replies to people in the movie.
You are right. Deeper thought is required for long term sustainable solutions rather than advocating the killing of politicians which is more of a symbolic gesture.
I agree that killing the defense minister was NOT a thoughtful step as what shown in the movie, it was just a casual step as most of youngsters take these days.
As she says, just like that, "Maaar dalo usey".
BUT this time it was not 4 their self but 4 values.
The movie is set 2 generate passion in Yuva whether or not they think deep.
Since Yuva doesnt want 2 give it a keen thot, it has 2 rebel atleast wid a radical thot! If Yuva is doing something gud widout thinking, let them do it, atleast they r making some sense of their life.
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