It’s been more than a week since I watched Rang de Basanti. I would have thought the disappointment would have worn out by now. However, since I still find myself gnashing my teeth at odd moments, I thought it was healthier to vent.
WHAT WERE THEY THINKING!!
Having said that, what were they thinking? Were they so much in love with the title that they had to sacrifice the script to justify it? Did they have a real, solid coming of age story that the first half promised and was this subverted by a cynical financer who wanted this irresponsible sensationalism? Because beyond anything else the film was irresponsible. Is this how a generation awakens? Not through sustained idealism in the face and in the midst of corruption. Not through self-belief and untiring efforts. Not through applied Karma Yoga. Oh no none of those Gandhian clichés for our Jawan. Give them instead an attention seeking blood bath of wasted youth and dubious potential.
Ok in the spirit of analysis – were they making a realistic, tell it as they are, arthouse type film? In which an ageing adolescent, a rich-with-all-its-problems young man with patricidal tendencies and unrequited love, a closet homosexual, and others with equally unsubstantial problems all in some deluded mass hysteria decide that a sensational death is the best use of their lives. Well no, it was not such a film. This film presumed to be about heroes. It was about leading the way. Which is why I find it hard to forgive. Who wants to be lead by a bunch of homicidal-suicidal maniacs? What do they think distinguishes these puppets from your average terrorist suicide bomber? Participate in the making of one film about a subject about which they formerly know woefully little, and our heroes react like they have been possessed by the ghosts of characters they play or at least high on some hypnotic drug.
It was a let down, this film. In retrospect I feel no charity with the first half either. If they knew this is what they were leading upto (and presumably they did, because at least three of the actors have vowed that it was the brilliant script that lured them) then they went about laying the track all wrong. We got not passionate young men with burning angst in whom we might have forgiven an extreme step; we got instead fun and frolic for our ticket’s worth. It wouldn’t do for the film to be accused of being too serious, now would it?
It might just be bitterness speaking - but what kind of a film do you expect then from a couple of ‘pitch for the shrillest’ Admen?
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5 comments:
i can feel the anguish in those words. you must have been terribly disappointed. But your point of view implies that there should be no place for Bhagat Singh and Co. in our history textbooks. The climax is outrageous, but I thought, very believable. The whole point of the movie (and ofcourse it is the maker's personal opinion) is to ask the question: "How different is India's corrupt political ruling class from the General Dyers of British-occupied India?". And the movie succeeds in this beautifully.
I have never admitted this to anyone before, but since I have been so touched by your cry of outrage, i can say to you that this film makes people like me, who selfishly left Indian shores, feel just a tiny bit guilty. Swades was meant to that but RDB actually does it.
ARIF ATTAR
http://spaces.msn.com/arifattar/
Arif: No not at all, no problems with BS etc just found the comparision with present day India a bit forced. i think our problems are complex, and more importantly, internal. We need to carefully monitor this rapid evolution we find ourselves in, I am not sure we can handle a revolution.
It is interesting you mention Swades, Infact i thought RDB has the chance to be a very superior Swades but went for the dramatic instead. But like you said it does provoke the kind of reaction that Swades did not, thats something.
RW:Yeah, hype really sets itself up for criticism doesn't it?
This is a late comment but I came across this sher I feel RDB should have been about:
Sarfaroshon ne lahu deke ise seencha hai
Aisi gulshan ko ujadne se bachalo yaaron
Our generation's role is to preserve, rejuvenate the world they, the older heroes, sought to wrest from the oppressor. The roles are so different - RDB lost such an opportunity to underline the differences because it was so bent on drawing parallels.
Excatly right, bakki. And succintly put as always.
I am so much with you on this. Apart from what you have stated, I found the movie making to be flawed. The pace of the movie in the first half and the second was flawfully inconsistent. The treatment of whatever little "awakening" or the process of it, could have definitely be treated differently and for the better. It seemed overtly dramatic and was definitely not justified. Finally someone who is equally mad at this "awesome" movie.
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