Is RED the color of patriotism?
Um, just finished watching Rang de Basanti. I guess blood red is the color of patriotism? I'm all for inspiring slacker youth toward activism. However, I have to throw out a big WTF?!? to shooting your own father to make a point?! Geez Louise! I'm willing to overlook the fact that a few kids with no real reason to live found a reason to shoot a a publ
ic figure. Heck, that's a somewhat American concept. But shooting your own parent is taking things to another level as was the extended hug-fest at the radio station after publicly admitting to shooting said public figure, albeit in a different way. Grrrrrr. I would have screamed if there was one more round of hugs. The logic kept evading me.
At any rate, Kunal was very sweet. He plays the "good Indian boy" very well.
I do however, keep wondering though whether I would think about Jesus every time I see him if I had never seen The Passion of the Christ.
On a positive note, I liked the creativity in this film. It's different from the standard fair coming out of Bombay. I appreciate the fact that the writers/director took risks even if they're choices I wouldn't make. I've only seen Aamir Khan in Lagaan and didn't care to see him in anything else. (There's just something about him I find annoying.) Here though I think that same immaterial source of annoyance worked in his favor. Furthermore, what's with him and white girls? ;0) Also, did he actually say, "Would our children be black or white?" at the end or was that a bad translation? Anyone? Anyone? Futhermore, if he's black, what am I?!
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5 comments:
I saw it yesterday (again) and as I see it, he shoots the other person who was responsible for ajays death. That he really killed his dad with that for me was a act of sacrifice. He, knowingly, commited one of the biggest sins as it was the only way to stop him from going on.
And I also understood (and appreciated) the group hug. With confessing to the public they finally reached their goal, and they sort of knew what lay ahead of them, and made their peace with it.
Its sort of difficult to say what I want in English. I hope you get my approach.
Lets add this: My being christian with a strong believe in the ten commandments and being from a country like Austria, my values are totally different to the movies characters. I can say that I would never act that way but I can relate to them.
oh and as to the black/white question. he says somthing like "will they be fair or dark?"
It's weird though. In Dil Se, I totally sympathized with the terrorists to the point where I'm thinking, "What they're doing is horrible, but how could they not?"
In this I'm like, "Those damn kids!" Maybe in a couple of days I'll figure out why.
Gah, RdB spoilers! Well, it's my own fault for reading on when I haven't seen the movie yet ...
t.HYPE, have you seen Dil Chahta Hai? It's the only film with Aamir I've seen so far, I liked him and the movie is great :)
Hi,
RDB represented the apathy and the angst of this GenX India. As far as shooting the politician goes, I wasn’t shocked cos everyone here gets away with murder (literally) and it’s common here to utter phrases like just shoot the ba...! I myself have uttered this phrase numerous times and I am not the violent time (believe me).Its just frustration which the grouped acted on and remember they were drawing parallels with the Bhagat Singh and gang!
The group hugs-What can I say we are a country who loves giving hugs. If you see the old 70 movies which had 2 pairs, you'll think it’s a gay movie! My non Indian pals always find it weird but its just a norm in Bollywood :)
Yeah if you translate it you may interpret kala as black but its alos dark :)
shooting the father was extreme which I just cudnt digest!But babasko makes a great point
Aamir has been my fav back from his QSQT days so I cant say anything bad abt him!
Thanks for the insight tanya!
The more I meditated on it, I was thinking that maybe the frustrations of India are not deep enough in my psyche for me to appreciate the kind of anguish that would drive the characters' decisions.
From a writing perspective though, since most of this movie was so accessible to the Western mind, it would have been nice if the writers—who took so much time setting up both the modern and revolutionary characters—had helped us out by providing a deeper motivation in the film rather than placing his bet on the audience agreeing with his sentiment.
Again, I followed the logic very well in Dil Se and was able to sympathize with the presented plight. From a writer’s perspective maybe it’s just harder when you have seven main characters instead of two.
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