I have been an admirer of Ashtutosh Gowariker's work. I think the attempt that was "Lagaan" was a true adventure. His foresight of taking two topics so closely intertwined into the Indian culture namely Bollywood and Cricket and making them actually converge at the horizon in a way that appealed to our melodramatic psyche was creditable.
With "Swades", I personally think that he has gone one step further. Challenging topics that so many film-makers so easily overlook. His movies are real, concise and they definitely make you think. According to me a movie that doesn't make me think could still be a good movie, but one that gets forgotten easily.
I heard mixed reviews about this movie. Some people felt that it was slow and dull and others felt that it made them want to move back to India. I don't think that there is a particular dialog, or a particluar scene that touches you to believe the latter. I think that people who felt that way even for a small part, just felt relieved that someone echoed their emotion and actually made a movie on that. India lives in you, you don't live in India. That familiar fragrance, a particular flavour, a special festival they all force your brain into calculating the various permutations and combinations of what would have been if we had been back home, with the same materialistic assets from this country that bring us here in the first place.
For once I think Shahrukh Khan was not over the top. Rehman was at his predictable brilliant self. The cinematography was contemprary, something that we have gotten accustomed to with movies shot in foreign locales and then movies like Lagaan which have rural India as a palette.
For me, apart from the refreshing storyline, was Gayatri Joshi...a breath of fresh air....ahhh... I think its love ...
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There is this information space which has millions of users and a gazillion pieces of futile and not-so-toilet-paper-like posts. I don't know what category my blog features under, but all I can say is that its about me, my thoughts, my views and my challenged writing abilities. So logon if u think that the few sentences I have mentioned above interest you even a bit!
5 comments:
Didn't I say you would like it? Not only do you like it and never get bored but, it also doesnt leave you..... weeks after having seen it. That's how honest a thought it might provoke.....
I totally agree. Some of the thoughts that it manages to provoke give you goose bumps and at the same time fill you up with so much frustration. I guess thats the case with a lot of the realisations you make in your life ...
You are right that it makes us analyze about the different permutations and combinations for going back to the home Country. Now a days, most of the things we get here are available in India too, and thats what beckon us to go back to our country and enjoy a cultural and materialistic life. But again in "Swades", the guy goes back to his country sacrificing the materialistic and comfort life and living in a village side to solve the botherations of the common people by which he was swayed. I guess thats the difference; practically speaking not many people here, would like to go back and stay in a village.
SB
I thought about that aspect. BUt then I realised that the approach does not have to be extreme. If you are going back to India, you are contributing to its economy in the first place. Also you will be employing people around you if you start a business of your own. Even if you don't then you, personally can take it up to work for a charity if you want. But the point still remains that all these will just remain possibilities if you don't go back in the first place.
All this is good, lets say you decide to go back. You've got ure degree, recovered what you invested in getting it. So you go back to India with no monetary loss, and a Masters in hand.
If you start your own set up it's good. But lets say you join some s/w company which pays you decently.
Instantly, you find yourself among 150 other engineers all competing to get 'onsite'!
Now what will you think of your decision to come back?
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