Rang De Basanti

Friends, I really enjoyed writing my first movie review for Chocolate & still enjoy reading it again & again because I think I could crystallize my thoughts perfectly in that post & get the message to u guys! Don’t know how much u people liked it but since then I’d thought about giving a film review for many a films that I had seen. But each time I refrained from it coz somewhere or the other each of them couldn’t meet my expectations. But this movie overawed me in all aspects & as the punch-line (even movies are products these days) goes “A generation awakens” I too seem to have woken up!

No marks for guessing the film, its Rang De Basanti! I was really looking forward to see it but had enough apprehensions about it coz Aamir Khan’s last movie had promised too much & delivered too little. As I entered the theatre, the atmosphere appeared to be different. It was a matinee show & as expected the crowd was young but more importantly, they sounded young. After Dil Chahta Hai, this was the first time I saw people creating a enjoyable environment out of the movie. All the one liners were greeted with warmth & songs were accompanied with synchronous chants! A few groups were dancing on the floor. The viewer really starts envying the lives of these carefree, blithe characters who live life like most of us dream of. Every aspect of the first half makes us feel that life is meant to be enjoyed & in the course if there’s something worthwhile to do, then that can just be a part of the game.

The lifestyle fabricated by the director for the 5 students of Delhi Univ. easily wins hearts. The other characters including that of the foreigner have also been knitted well and no one feels a need to figure out who the lead hero or lead heroine is. Now this in itself is an achievement as Indian movies are attributed to have well defined lead actors right from the beginning & Rang De Basanti already starts as a trend breaker.

The music & the songs shake u at times, both literally & symbolically, especially if u r in a theatre equipped with dolby dts sound system. But the only complain that I had was that some of these songs aren’t continuous. There are pauses giving the movie a more polished look but for this reason the songs doesn’t stay with u forever! Coming to the casting part, as u wud expect, all the actors have been allotted roles judiciously & everyone does justice to their respective parts.

But the best part of Rang de Basanti is the way it’s story has been synchronized. I mean, history is shown to be repeating itself & most soothingly the history is served to the audience in a very witty way in order to keep away ennui. Then like a free flowing river the story moves on those lines of history & slowly the audience makes out why that history part is necessary in the film. According to me, whatever the movie, Rang de Basanti tries to convey is loud & clear. Even a little child can see it for himself. Most of the time our works miss out on this aspect only.

There is a message in the movie & its nothing too new, yet we love disregarding it time and again. It says that if something has to change, its we, the youth who have to do it. Just playing the blame game never helps. We are the most powerful components of the society & to resurrect this decaying system, only we have to rise out of our domains, which probably is the only thing we like about this country or system. As this famous dialogue from the film sums it all up “ no country is perfect, it has to be made perfect!”

Well, if u have not seen the movie & u read the above para, the message & stuff, then u r bound to feel that many a films based on such an issue has already been made. Yes! Maybe more than a dozen of them. However, Rang De Basanti stands way out. The way things have been depicted, the manner in which the story has been organized, the commitment that every actor renders to the project & impeccable direction makes it a once in a blue moon movie.

As I conclude this post, I still feel sad that in spite of such an effort, Rang De Basanti would not be liked by a good part of its target audience itself, the youth. The people to be blamed are not the viewers but Bollywood itself as our Hindi film industry have never taught their audience to learn something from a movie. Any film with a relevant message unmistakably goes unnoticed or at least the message goes unheard! So if u ask an average youth about Rang De Basanti, be prepared to get the answer “Exciting first half, but a rather boring 2nd half, ***** shouldn’t have died!”