Rang De Basanti Adds Colour To Bollywood

This past Tuesday night, I witnessed a glimmer of maturity and intelligence in the Indian film industry. Yes, Rang De Basanti has struck all the right notes, and delivers a strong and awakening message. I am very critical when it comes to films, especially Hindi ones, but this one was pure class.

From the introductory scene to the very last shot, every scene was well thought out and brilliantly directed. Every shot was either an emotional punch or a gut-wrenching laugh. The first half of the movie was truly commendable, extremely funny, and beautifully set up for the finale. But as I absorbed the second half, I felt a sense of unrealism. The unrealistic nature of Hindi films is what I hate the most, so before the movie ended, I almost made up my mind about it – it had a good start, but then it became too unreal. But only after the movie got over, did I realize the genius of the film. The extreme nature of the end was the reason why, the message, that the film wanted to deliver, came out so strong. So even after I got a feeling of ‘what the hell’ in the middle, I have to appreciate the brilliance of how the movie got out its message. It was strong and hard-hitting. It affected me and most others. I laud the effort of the makers of the film and hope that more movies of similar nature are produced.

I find Bollywood quite shameful, because even though it produces the most number of movies, it produces the crapiest ones. Only a few have stood out to me, like Lagaan, Dil Chahta Hai and now Rang De Basanti. Unrealistic, unoriginal and not satisfying are the three adjectives I normally use to describe any Hindi movie. Bollywood is plagued with the worst sickness. Its sole aim is to earn money, and now it has found another way to earn more ‘cash’– sex! And then they say, look the Indian film industry is maturing. Indian producers produce movies to please the general public, which clearly does not include the intelligent or well-educated class, and feel that producing serious or thought-provoking films will not give them enough money. But what they are unknowingly doing is throwing the fickle-minded into an unreal world, a world where they start to believe that impossible miracles can take place, like ‘Jadoo’ crash-landing on earth, or ‘Shaktiman will save me’! This just continues to highlight India’s backwardness, and instead of using media to, in some way or the other, help the country grow, they are contributing to its stagnation. Yes some films are taking steps to incorporate both aspects – please the public and also leave them with a sense of reality. But it’s rare, and let us hope it doesn’t stay that way. In that sense, Rang De Basanti was quite uplifting. In its own way it has made Bollywood more colourful. Its high time Bollywood produces more films like that.

And about the Television industry of India, don’t even get me started. I think that they spent the most amount of their time on sound effects.

It is a very open topic, so please feel free to give me your opinions.