On 6/12/2009 9:44 AM India Time, _Gayathri Chandrakasan_ wrote: > I still > think that Delhi6 is a ripped off version of Swades.The theme is almost > the same...A guy from US comes down to India and the story goes on about > the new environment he endures. And what starts as amusement soon turned > into a big revelation to him...he sees racism, caste difference eating > into the people's mind. Women are only good for cooking and cleaning. > In fact, the same Ramayana drama potrayed in Swades,can be seen in > Delhi6 too.
Here, please allow me to differ from you, gayathri ji. Swades was a kiddy movie - a totally artificial one. It was a forced movie, a "made up" cosmetic movie, a show case movie. There was no reality in it. A concept was picked and a loose story was woven to give shape to that concept. It was like a soul-less documentary like what shyam benegal made Bose to be - ticking down a list that such and such things are to be shown. My personal opinion that is, about the movie, while the music by our man was great. On the other hand, Delhi-6 the movie was superb, excellent, one of the most realistic and greatest movies ever made in India. It has soul - real Indian down-to-earth soul. So many dozens of character each having a tiny story of his own, appearing for 2 min, 5 min, 10 min on the screen and then going behind the curtain not to be missed or noticed while he/ she was not appearing - Well, that is how life is, that is how mind works - concentrating on whoever is present in front of the eyes. The actings were so natural and earthly and contained - probably except only prem chopra who appeared quite a filmy role. This movie can be seen a 100 times and each time you would notice new things that you had earlier seen but had conveniently forgotten as the next of the dozens of characters walked in to the screen. With so many parallel and interwoven sub-stories, it must be one of the most complex script ever written for Indian screen. The movie flopped because of badly conceived preaching at the end. People go to the cinema hall to get entertained, not to get an earful of lecture. It offended the ego of Indian public and so they turned it down. Also, it just lectured and didn't offer any as down-to-earth simple solution for the communal harmony problem as the rest of the movie portrayed, so the public came out of cinema halls empty handed really, with a heavy head. I hope Mehra learns from this fiasco of his destroying the greatest script at the end, and he would come up with better, more earthly films with an earthly ends. On the other hand, I have no hope from Ashutosh Gowarikar. He has been hit due to Aamir, SRK and Hritik so he gets financed and he has no brain or skills and he can't make any good movie. He would continue taking big names and those films will also be hit, however bad they are. -- Rawat
