the other movie

I know I left you guys in a dirch with my last post and kept you in suspence for the last movie but I'd like you guys to know that this was for good reason. I felt that this movie needed a whole post all to itself. Heck, honestly, it needs way more than that but I can't afford to do that. Besides, it's pretty tough to talk about it at length without killing it for everybody.


The movie I want to talk about it called Rang De Basanti and it is pretty much the best film I've seen all year and just to continue my use of the hyperbole, pretty much the best film I've seen in a long time. It is a Hindi movie which if translated in Singaporeanish is a Hindustani movie. It is the 2nd highest grossing movie in Indian cinema in this past decade. It broke many box office records in India. And it did all this without Shah Rukh Khan, Aishwarya Rai and Amitabh Bachan. (If I spelt any of the aforementioned names wrongly you have my sincerest apologies. Make that a thousand apologies.)

Yes, I am a losy Indian boy who has never until this movie sat through an entire movie from India. (Gandhi does not count. It was made by Sir Richard Attenborough) The only time I managed to watch a large chunk of a movie from India is that Christmas at Auntie Michelle's where all the slackers were just watching some Shah Rukh Khan movie. I still needed help from Amrit to tell me what I had missed. Anyway, that was a pretty memorable Christmas. I don't think anything says Christmas like Indian cinema and curry. And by the way, I am serious about the curry part. If I do happen to stay in Hawaii for Christmas it will be the first Christmas for me ever with no curry. (I miss my mummy's tulang curry)

Back to the movie. Rang De Basanti means The Colour of Sacrifice and the only big name it has in the cast was Amir Khan. It was directed by Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra and I shook his hand after the movie. Seriously. The first big time movie director I've ever had the pleasure of shaking hands with. Gosh I wish I took a picture of that. Besides that the cast was made up of smaller actors one of whom reminds me of one of the slackers, Mr Siddarth Khapur and another reminds me of my cousin Ashley. Ashley's a guy by the way. I'm not too sure about whether his name has an "e" but the rest of his siblings have the "e" so i'm guessing it does.

The movie, like any respectable Bollywood movie, had an intermission. As to why I would bring this up, the reason is simple. The said intermission was so well placed as to split the movie into 2 parts. The first part of the movie was merely an ordinary picture of college life with drunken nights and merry making. There were the obligatory love stories and the story of the father who wants the son to further his education. The furthering of education bit is such a stalwart of Indian cinema it's incredible. There was also a line which appears in many college films. The "In college I am somebody but once I leave and go into the real world, I am nobody" schpiel. The quintessential line for many college students who realise that college, in no way, reflects the world out there. This group of students is also known as everybody, ... hopefully.

The second part of the movie is undescribable. Well, I lie. In actuality I could describe it but I just don't want to. This is because i really want everybody to go out and watch this movie. It is well worth whatever you need to pay to watch a Hindustani movie. The difficult part might be in finding the cinema that still shows it. If all else fails, just wait a while because from what I've heard, Rang De Basanti is the official entry from India for the Academy Awards. Thus, it might have a second showing closer to the awards. Or just get the DVD. Don't ask me where from but I'm guessing Mustafa Centre.

This movie will blow you away. It is a brilliant cinematic experience and an all round great movie. I am pretty good at predicting Oscar winning movies after watching movies just once. I am proud to say that I predicted Gladiator would win the Oscar on the opening night. I also predicted that Battlefield Earth would win the Razzies which it made a clean sweep of. One more reason to show that Scientology fries your brain. (The Razzies are the anti-Oscars) Anyway, I'm predicting that Rang De Basanti will take the Best Foreign Film Oscar. And when that happens it will mean that I am 2 degrees of Separation from the Oscar considering I shook the Director's hand.

Anyway, apart from awards and box office success, the film was also big in another way. It changed Indian society. It made students awake from their slumber and take to the streets like proper students to protest the injustices of the nation they lived in. This by the way is why we at NUS hardly have any time to do much. We are overworked so that we can't do anything crazy on the streets. The powers that be probably decided that the best thing to do was to give us so much work that the phrase idle time does not appear in our vocabulary. I think they should just make beer cheaper for students and thus achieve the same objectives. Of course maybe it just makes us smarter and I am just propogating insane conspiracy theories because conspiracy theories are cool. By the way, to any Government people reading this, I have a tendency to jest so do not take this seriously. Except the part about watching the movie. Go do that.

Yeah, since the movie came out there have been many protests in India, non-violent protests, trying to fight the machine of injustice that is so rampant in that country. Many people know that India has the potential to explode into a truly great nation and yet everybody also knows that the capacity for Indians to self-destruct is also boundless. (Ok, this might not be an appropriate time to make jokes about the bindi - the little red dot on the foreheads of many Indians) Anyway, many students who lead these candlelit procession quote the movie and claim that it was the movie that inspired them to try and change the world they live in.

On a more serious note, the movie inspired me. It showed me that my generation should be called the "Sleeping Beauty Generation". Forget the Gen-X ers or the Gen-Y - (I still think that Gen-Y is a retarded Euphemism). This generation I claim to belong to is full of potential but we all just need something to rouse us from our sleep. We are an enormous powder-keg just looking for something to ignite us to cause us to explode to our full potential. We have the power to change the world but we just need to know what we want to change it into. Once the initial point of inspiration is begotten then, I believe, this generation will show what it can really do. It will be an exciting time, just you wait and see. I see potential all around me hungering for something to convert them, from potential to Kinetic or Light or Heat or blooming Nuclear Energy. As the song goes, "It only takes a spark..."

Here is a sonnet I wrote about the movie. It is the first proper sonnet I've ever written. Proper as in it scans and it rhymes. I don't think my previous attempts were in iambic pentameter. hahaha, another thing this movie has inspired...

The peachiness of youth skips idly by
These are the carefree days of college life
With days of bloodshot eyes and Spidey's wife
And nights of Lucy and the Diamond Sky
'Tis wasted on the young they prophesy
And none will argue with truth so rife
Our life is rounded by a little trife
These Halcyon days we'll live until we die

But every now and then there comes along
Events that make a man out of the mice
Against the system shall we rise up strong
Our foes consume our youthful sacrifice
In truth it's us who are the fortunate
Our legacy will live indefinite