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Rang De Basanti
I am late, quite late to talk about a film called Rang De Basanti. The movie has been reviewed from almost all the angles and most of the reviews were exhaustive. I am not a movie buff neither have I written any review thus far. But somehow I felt I must write about this one.
There is this set of youth whom we all know. We have grown up listening to their stories, we have grown up reading about them in our history books and we have grown up taking them for granted. A set comprising Bhagat Singh, Bismil, Chandrashekhar Azad and Ashfaq. Their unfailing faith, sacrifices and boundless energies are well known. In fact so well known that they do not stir any chord in us. Juxtaposed to this is another set. A set comprising present-day youth. Carefree, practical and resigned. Resigned to chaos around them, resigned to everything that is wrong around them. The only faith they have is, that theirs is a useless land where nothing can ever change- not the corruption, not the injustice and not the power distribution. Their energies remain untapped and they drift with the wind. The film does an amazing job. It creates a consciousness and a conduit whereby the energies the faith and the spirit of the first set flows into the other and the fivesome are metamorphosed. The history gets repeated. If general Dyer could be killed so can a corrupt Defense Minister. If masses could show their solidarity against a cruel alien Raj by congregating in a historic park so can candles be lit in unison to show discomfort against corrupt ministers.
Therein lies the beauty of the movie. It reminds us that the shackles of British Raj were broken by the massive uproar of common man. We need to repeat that portion of our history. The characters morph back and forth from one set to another conveying the idea that we are the same people, that we can fight and that we are still alive. All is not dead within us.
The feel of the film is very fresh and all the actors do justice to their characters, especially when they have to play dual roles, which are diametrically opposite to each other.
However, at time the scenes get dragged too far .One does feel that the subject could be dealt with a little more subtlety and that the film is trying to please everyone. But then if you have to reach far and wide you cannot be otherwise. The message comes packaged in a drama but its not didactic. Just a little solution thrown your way. All said and done it’s a must see movie of the season.
PS: Two of my favourite stars Aamir Khan and Madhavan make the movie all the more interesting.