Rang De Basanti is not a movie you are going to skip anyway. Its got too much hype, too much political correctness going for it. And I enjoyed parts of it. The cinematogrpahy is mindblowing. The music is hauntingly good.
The script alone lets you down. The idea is great. But I felt the transition from delhi brats to patriots could have been handled much better. It was so mass marketingly crass - 'maar dalo'! I guess I just felt let down that these guys had such a great cast/crew, such a great audience, and they let it all go to waste in fantastic nonsense.
The juxtaposition of Bhagat Singh and modern life was interesting, but again, I felt, carried too far.
I also loved the pre-intermission part. Very DCH! The ending few minutes were also poignant. Yet, the whole transition was just not executed well. In a movie like Yuva - I can see the individual character and their change. Here, I guess due to the limitations of the canvas and the larger cast, this wasn't done to the same extent.
It is a painful exercise in stretching your imagination, but ignore the slightly wierd bits and its an interesting movie. And one of the most beautifully shot movies I have seen in ages. With amazing music! Totally amazing!
Would I see it again? Yep - But on DVD this time, so I can f/f the idiotic bits :)
34 comments:
what r u saying?
it was awful!!! shot well.. but no part of the story could possibly be good!!!
be a patriot they say... go kill the defence minister they say... and then.. turn urself in.. and how..
oh that was me btw...
Just saw the movie 2days back..amazing movie...amazing
screenplay...amazing casting..amazing acting..amazing songs..amazing
emotions...only prob was a slightly flawed story.But with everything else working for the movie i wasnt really complaining
Just loved the movie...even though at some points towards the end i
did feel can such situation really arise in real life....it would
have been really bland had the driector not ended it that way.
Aamir does look slightly old at some parts but he is supposed to be
a college student who should have passed out 5 years ago...so i
guess that is forgiven.
couldnt agree more girl..imo the second half was way too dramatic and unwanted..dont u think Kunal Kapoor was sooper cute?drool:p
an awesome film...but the narration does fumble at points! the part after the intermission is a trifle too idealistic.
and putting bhagat singh et al in the context of today's politics and democracy ...well...not the best of ideas!! (jallianwallah bagh wit the defence minister!! :P) :)
but yes...a movie i wouldn't have skipped for anything!!! :D
so what's wrong with a film being idealistic? (i didnt think it was, in the first place, anyway)..
wonderfully stylish film, he couldnt have made a meaningful movie any more stylishly..
and it was nothing beyond the realms of reality..
junta like glorifying themselves and callin everything that they cant/wont do as idealistic..
the music and the background score was completely crazy.. brilliantly conceived by rahman..
in some sense, he kinda underscored wat the film was like.. as in, wen these guys are gettin hanged, where u wud expect a "sarfaroshi ki tamanna' type patriotic song to play, rahman goes nuts and plays a funky electric guitar with hard percussions.. that, to me, symbolised most of wat was in the film..
highly enjoyable film..
NO regrets, whatsoever.
hey, be realistic...u cant get a better movie than this...may b the killing of defense miniis. was a bit too much and it came all of a sudden b4 knowin wats happening...but i dont think u can show too much about d transition the guyz undergo ( but was there one really???)...
n where did patriotism come into picture...isn't it that they just start by taking revenge for the loss of their frnd madhavan (r am i mistaken?!!!.... n by d way wat is patriotism?)...and end up trying to bring d truth b4 d public...
Its a borrowed idea from a movie called 'jesus of montreal', check it out at imdb.
I dont mind if it is a borrowed idea or not. A good idea should be conveyed to all, doesn't matter if it is borrowed or your own.
I watched the movie miles away from my homeland on 29th of Jan. I think it was a great idea. The bits of humor and the screenplay, which many are not in favour of, are required if the movie has to reach all levels of audience.
After all, there should be some commercial element to it.
After reading Samm's comments I agree that this is not patriotism. But, it has to start somewhere. Most of us love our country. But, we are just bound to our pessimism and our assumed inabilities. The only thing we do best is the blame game.
Here's something that might change your thought, friends.
There is an on-going movement started by a few IIT grads. I don't know if you have read an article published few months ago in "Times of India" about a political party started by five IIT grads. The party is named "Paritrana". Please visit the website http://www.paritrana.org for more info.
"If you want a change, be the change yourself" - Gandhi
"Yuva" is in a totally diffrnt league altogthr. the character development in "Rang De Basanthi" is shallow. its just Bollywood's take on youth awakening, patriotism n al. at the most its good when compared to the usual Bollywood trash.
nice blogs!!
curiousity kills d cat..may i know whom u were holding hands with at d evam play :-)
dooby - i agree
and this is the point i was trying to make in the blog as well..
the character devpmnt, the transition etc are not handled well!
Yuva was a good movie!
And i've heard of paritrana too. It seems like a great idea - i hope it succeeds..
and lastly, anon - glass houses and bricks to you my friend! an anon cannot possibly seek an answer
****SPOILER WARNING****
i thought it was a good movie. not boring (which is good enough for me given the movies of late). btw, the killing of the defense minister in that manner isn't that unlikely and can be pulled off. When i was in delhi, I.K Gujral stayed close to my place and used to go for walks almost completely unprotected.. even when he was prime minister!
overall.. good movie (i liked the dialogue) but not as good as zinda! (which i think totally rocks.. cause i 'avent seen the original)
hopefully paritrana wud change d system a bit and not the othr way round.
suze ..awaitin ur thots on the cartoonization of prophet mohd.
No doubt that RDB was a brilliant movie with impeccable acting by the stars.. but s'where down the line it remained 2 b a commercial gross entertainer, and not a classic...
And yes, it tells us all to "BE A REBEL" :)
hey dooby..
Hmm... Paritrana wld change the system...??
u r statement keeps me reminding of my 7th standard chemistry class...
I had a strange curiousity reg. the imbalance of the gases in the nature w.r.t to the gas which is produced as a result of the chemical reaction...My chem. teacher quoted as saying.. "What is the taste of ocean waters if u pour a glass-full of sugar water in it.."
I may be wrong...Just my view of things....
btw i hate indian politics..I feel IP is a most brilliant way of cheating people...
India needs a political revolution..................
.... which is exactly wat paritrana was attempting, i thought?
:P
--
PLEASE do not criticise without solutions please.
avoid makin statements like 'this sucks' without justification, and without an attempt at how 'it' cud hav been better, watever 'it' is.
just cribbin is taking nobody nowhere.
cheers!
and wen making a strong point, pray have the balls to make known who you are.
cheers.
girish, valid point.. but ppl are allowed to make their viewpoints known without having blogger id's right?
and anon, i'm at home.. will blog once i'm back to ahmedabad :)
Hi, I could not resist from putting my view forth, because I strongly think RDB is made with perfection, even though it is dramatic. The reasons are:
1. It touches the youth, which earlier attempts like yuva were not able to do with this much success. And I beleive the reason is that the youth can identify themselves with the characters of RDB, which was not so close in yuva since Ajay Devgan was portrayed as a all powerful guy who has all the skills and all the wisdom, which is very heroic and not so common to find.
2. As far as the growth of characters is concerned, it is more implicit than explicit. I thought they were being transformed from brats to rebels while shooting that documentary. And even though the killing of defence minister is dramatic, it does serves its purpose by throwing the idea of being a rebel right at the face of the viewer.
And, all the other perfect things in the movie: like music, photography, acting also make up for it.
The movie may not be a classic but it fits perfectly in todays india.
MR Bean,
I disagree on exactly those two reasons.
Do you believe Yuva did not touch the youth while RDB did? And are you representative of all youth? Because I saw Yuva/AE some 5 times and enjoyed it. The point is, it is only people like michael (Devgan/Surya's character) who will get off their arse and try to change the system. In the dramatic way that RDB tries to depict.
RDB is a classy, slick flick.. but the growth of characters is dry like cardboard. They are two extremes. Posh delhi brats to revolutionaries! It seemed flipant, shallow and oe dimensional to creat characters that barely explored any part of their consciousness. The firangan simply narrated that they had changed because the plot couldn't show it.
My problem with the movie was that the message that the movie tried to send out got garbled because of the lack of direction and clarity in the script. The transition of delinquents was far too abrupt and their method of exacting revenge as a means of perpetuating Madhavans ideals was ill advised and far from what Lt.rathore was attempting to convey in his cameo appearance. He believed that if there is something wrong with India, we should correct it. But wat our brats decide to do is go on a revenge killing spree with very itchy trigger fingers. That is not wat our forefathers had stood for and definetly not wat Lt.Rathore would have wanted. It didnt touch me in any way, the sentiments were crude and overt.....at times bordering on cheap.
Yuva on the otherhand is a movie that made sense. its recipe was wat madhavan had been spouting in his few lines- to purify the system instead of complaining.
The vigilante sequence in RDB did nothing for me. it was a GODFATHER way of going abt things and is far from replicable.
See, Michael Vasanth wanted a change in the system. He didnt go about it by taking out a sniper rifle and killing every corrupt politician that came his way, although that would have made for some captivating cinema. He felt that the dirt will always remain and by introducing youth to politics a change for the better can be effected. Michael was well aware that dirt is all pervasive, in place of the venal defence minister another one would sprout. wat good did it do then?
this is why i felt RDB surrendered its principles for the sake of melodramatic cinema with which comes the jingle-jangle of coins at the box office.
Kudos to ARR tho.
dilbert - i totally agree
RDB is mainstream masala.. Yuva is not comparable!
@suze: No, I dont represent the entire youth of India and sorry if I mistakenly meant so. The reason why I cant relate myself to michael is because he is too glorified: he has the power to kick 6 well build roudies around him, he has amazing leadership qualities that almost whole of calcutta youth is after him. And yet, he is a wonderful researcher and he has proved some new results in physics. With my little experience in research and of life, I have never met or heard of a character like him in real life. I dont say that it is impossible but yes it is cetainly not common and that is why lot of average people like me cannot relate themselves with him. Surya is I guess Vivek Oberoi, I think he was a puppy lover boy and in the end he got fascinated with the god like character of Michael, which is quite possible. Again I cant relate myself with Surya, may be because I am not so much lucky with girls :-P.
Whereas, in RDB characters are very real, they exist in real life very common, again this is according what I have seen. That is why I feel lot of youth can relate themselves with them. And the whole purpose of making a thought provoking movie is that it has to go down to larger audience and if they introduce some drama in that it is fine till it serves its purpose. Artists should have the freedom to imagine and be unrealistic till they are not off track.
@dilbert: I agree with you that the script is not sound but I disagree that the message given is garbled. Because, in the end the guy called sidd says that we are not encouraging terrorism but this was their way of changing the system. It is correct or not is not the question, because in the past also Gandhi did not approve off the acts of violence by Bhagat Singh et al. The point the movie conveys is dont accept the wrongs of the system as it is and act in your own way to change it and it was their way.
The major reason we feel RDB cant match up to yuva is that the characters are not well fleshed out in RDB. the treatment to the central characters is very superficial. Unlike Yuva, where Michael was given a larger than life image. But that was ok given the context of the film. but his ability to solve complex physics problems isnt central to the plot so i had no reason to complain.....
Subtlety is an art form. the last scene where Michael in his denim shirt enters the floor of the house, where all the others are clad in dhoties is powerful. it is subtle. the 'enemy' OMpuri/Bharathi Raja is not dead nor are the other political timpots. but he made that small step and leaves it to the public to assume the rest. That for me is vintage cinema....not where michael takes out his pistol and shoots Ompuri in front of the floor and then points at the camera and breaks into a patriotic song. Michael isnt a martyr , he is a student. A student who wanted to make a change and then did his small bit towards that end..
whereas RDB was all abt martyrdom...... five spoilt fun loving brats instantly convert into martyrs over the loss of their politically correct friend whose death may or may not have been caused by a MIG 21 malfunction.
the more apt song would have been 'Be a rebel with a garbled cause'..lose control!
I dont think you have addressed my points, so I dont want to repeat my words, but yes the MIG 21 accident is taken from a real life incidence in which the pilot who was technically very sound died in such a crash and the politicians put the blaim on his inabilities. And there was this statistics presented at the end of the movie that around 75 MiGs have crashed in last 15 years despite the fact there have been no wars. So, the cause was also justified and not at all garbled. I too agree with you that idea presented is not in a subtle manner but in a loud and clear manner.
i don't think Yuva vs RDB is an appropriate comparison. Both were after all aimed at a mainstream audience. I agree with Mr.Bean that the characters had their OTT characterization and flaws. Yet, I feel i could relate more to Yuva than RDB.
I liked the first half of RDB. Certainly i can relate to the discontent, the disillusion and the disdain..
What i didn't like was the abrupt, unexplained transition. It stopped being poignant, which it could have.. and became instead a farce.
okies.. can we have ur next post? btw, i read one of ur early blogs n u did get a visitors visa 2 the US,..mine was rejected:(. so ,did u go or not?
rdb is complete masala n somehow its moving towards being a huge hit, both india n abroad.. seen this twice already :D here in ahmd.
btw, how many of us would truly wanna join the paritana initiative - yuva inspired but rdb somehow was no less - people of my college are already talking of first revolution back at my college..
anon. i did get the visa
no i didn't go. cos of the CAT and interviews and stuff.
plan was that if i didn't make it to bschool i'd take a trip right after college was over.
i did and hence i didn't :)
Saw RDB only laast night and have to say that I agree completely with you... The movie is manipulative as hell and most of the scenes aren't even believable.. What the hell was that scene when policemen come and hit everyone at that candle vigil...
Also flicks a lot of scenes from popular English films.. overall.. it was a huuuuuge let-down for me...
may be m too late to enter this debate .. nonetheless ... i also relate to yuva more than RDB .. i wud also like to bring in swades here ... swades yuva n RDB talk of the 'what can u do for ur country' also ... yuva n swades try to give a solution whereas RDB just throws up the problem ...
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