A review of "Rang De Basanti" — 3 years ago
I finally watched it. It was great entertainment, great music, made well. Aamir Khan’s Punjabi was awful – he was utterly disappointing and filmi. The others were pretty good, especially Siddharth, Atul Kulkarni, and Kiron Kher as a very convincing Mitro.
If you watch this film, don’t let it get you. It’s very powerful, very seductive, and the proof is the young people who have raved about it since its release. I’m cautious of anything that appeals to emotion – and I am what you’d call a highly emotional person.
Why this film bothers me so much is because of the effect it has had on other young people. They felt inspired, ‘awakened’. Does that mean it gave them new questions to ponder over, questions they hadn’t asked themselves yet? About purpose, or nation, or citizenship? These reactions echo the film’s political immaturity.
Further, it glorifies a type of heroism that I have a problem with – violent, masculine (Sonia’s absence from the last adventure reminds me of Enid Blyton’s girls), reminiscent of a romanticised past. There was something half-baked in its worldview. If there was someone I did find heroic it was the character of Mitro. Amongst other things, there are hints at a possible trauma – we don’t know how she became a widow, for instance. Hers is the sort of heroism which doesn’t proclaim itself in a blaze of glory but accumulates slowly over a lifetime, despite the odds.
It is also interesting that the film did well with a certain class and in urban centres. That should be an ‘awakening’, no?
That said, I enjoyed a lot of it immensely – like the scenes at the Kila Raipur sports, and the way it’s at least tried to adopt a sophisticated cinematic language – but then again, all part of its seductive charm.
