Rang De Basanti

Saw the movie after lot of recommendation from friends. Great to watch. A bit 'different' from the usual fares.
Positives - Good direction, great cinematography, AR Rehman.
Negatives - The revolutionary angle could have been avoided in the end.

What impressed me most was the director took to taking up a subject as over exposed as patriotism and gave it a new angle. To be honest I have always hated patriotic movies. The reason was simple, I couldn't connect to the emotions and the over sentimentalism being shown. This movie however puts freedom struggle in perspective to a modern India. Kudos to the director and the story writer for this.
Couple of things that caught my mind in watching the movie :

1. As rightly said in the movie, we tend to talk of the failures of our nation, but when it comes to doing, only a handful does something substantial. Even those who do, very little is known about them. Compare this to the US, where a person who does something substantial for the community is rewarded with publicity, biographical movies and so on. Eg. Coach Carter.

2. It is pretty intruiging to see that a cause can transform people's lives completely. As told in the movie, freedom fighters are normal people who lead normal lives till the call of the cause makes them take up extraordinary feats. If you think hard enough, a hardcore terrorist is pretty much the sam. They too passionately believe in a cause(though sinister) that makes them perform the horrible acts that kill innocent lives. I believe the policies and the strategies that US and allies play are akin to that employed by the British during pre independence which would ultimately collapse, just the way it did for the British. I think it is time we looked at a more innovative strategy to fight this menace.

3. There is a disturbing trend that seems to speak out in the movie. The movie as with the others like '4thepeople' in malayalam and 'Annyan' in tamil seems to advocate violence and murder to cleanse the system. The chilling factor was that all these movies were huge hits. It is only a matter of time before some misguided youths move in this path and adopt the violence as part of their lives. True some of the reasons for the violence advocated in the movies are justified, but the fact that violence itself becoming a way of life would be something akin to the situation in Afghanistan.

4. Lastly as it shows clearly in the movie, unless a wrong happens to near and dear ones, we tend to ignore the issues and the corruption around us. But when it happens we tend to be powerless to fight the system that has grown enormously due to our indifference and callousness. As rightly said, our elected representatives are nothing but a darker reflection of ourselves.

To sum up, I think Rang De Basanti was a well made movie that has a message to convey and does so convincingly to an extend. The direction and the acting was controlled and no overexposure of emotions and sentimentalism was at play here. I think movies with an underlying message should be made more though the tendency to glorify violence as the panacea for all problems should be shunned.
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