Rang De Basanti
Rang De Basanti is a bohemian movie, one that deals with an unexceptional story
in an avant-garde way. As you watch, the monochrome of hackneyed patriotic
fervor is split through an unforgiving prism into dazzling shades. It’s like
attacking your enemy from behind. All the cliché and the mythology stays, yet
the sensibilities are dealt with so well, you are in tearful admiration. The
battle is won.
Sue (Alice Patten) is a British moviemaker, who comes to India to make a movie
about the Chandrasekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Bismil, Ashfaq coterie. Her
grandfather is the English jailer who walked them to their hanging, and it is
his diary she wants to reproduce on the screen. She zeroes in on the gang of DJ
or Diljeet (Aamir Khan), Aslam (Kunal Kapoor), Karan (Siddharth) and Sukhi
(Sharman Joshi) to play the parts.
The youngsters, though, are far removed from the hot-blooded patriots she
expected. High on beer most of the time, they are dancing and whiling their
lives away, to the tune of A R Rehman’s electric number Paathshaala. They
practice the dialogues in the midst of slaphappy mockery and mischief, while
Sue is watching their antics half-amused and half-distraught.
Sonia (Soha Ali Khan), looking fresh and tender, plays the link between Sue and
the group. Her boyfriend is Ajay (Madhavan), a MIG21 fighter pilot with the
Indian Air Force.
The story-telling technique is impressionist, with images and music creating
the mood, rather than the dialogues. Racy, quick images of students tearing at
top speed on their bikes are followed by a red car, to create the boisterous
mood. And a lighthearted fluttering song plays out the love of the newly
engaged Ajay and Sonia. The flashing images, sudden-stills technique is fun -
it amuses the audience for one thing. And the heavy Punjabi dialogues that
punch like a danda swiping a gilli right across a narrow village gully, are
part of the intoxication of Rang De Basanti.
What happens next is the sudden death of Ajay in a plane crash. He is an ace
pilot, and the cause of the accident is substandard Russian parts that have
found their way to India through corrupt deals with the Defence Ministry.
Instantly the tides turn, as the government attacks the skills of the pilot to
defend its own shady deals. DJ’s group is shattered.
This is where Rang De Basanti takes on a revolutionary look, an unconventional
turn. DJ’s gang suddenly takes matters into their own hands, and a
juxtaposition of the group’s behavior, analogy for painfully precise analogy
with the freedom fight events, is shown. This is the movie’s highlight.
While the build-up after the interval is suddenly as slow and leisurely as a
glob of oil-paint dispelling in water, it picks up when the plot breaks through
again. This time it makes you brain cells jog, watching the surreal déjà vu of
events. And yes, young blood fighting for an altruistic cause, with their lives
does break your heart effectively.
Finally, needless to say, Rang De Basanti is one movie where the script
completely subsumes the characters. Every element plays equally, like it would
in an epic like the Lord Of The Rings. The cast, the music, the visuals, the
dialogue, the whole movie in fact, is a vast mosaic of all these, a whole that
is not propped up by one or two of its parts alone.
Aamir shines, but so do Siddharth and Kunal and Soha and the rest. Like we
said, the script plays around with all the characters rather than revolve
around a single one. And yes, watch out for the music by Rehman. It is the
spirit of the movie - the engine that synchronously propels it, keeps it
afloat, or sinks with it gracefully. When you leave the theater you will at
least be intellectually satisfied, even if not emotionally stirred. A movie
that can do both, and perhaps stand scrutiny both ways, is definitely going to
be one to reckon with.
Priyanka Pulla
http://www.fullhyderabad.com/scripts/profiles.php3?section=Movies&name=Rang+De+Basanti&ID=3476
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