TEENAGE WASTELAND Rang De Basanti Dir- Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra Cast- Aamir Khan, Alice Patten, Atul Kulkarni, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor, Soha Ali Khan, Siddharth, Anupam Kher, Mohan Agashe and Madhavan. Written by- Rensil D’Silva, Prasoon Joshi and Kamlesh Pandey. Rating- ***** “No country is perfect…it needs to be made perfect”, voices a character in Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra’s sophomore effort Rang De Basanti(Paint It Yellow). To the characters in the film however, as it is true for the rest of the youth in India, India is a gutter in which a new insect is born every minute. And if gutter be the simile of a nation, its youth is most definitely a teenage wasteland. Aimless and disillusioned, they drift towards a common end- an unknown death to an unknown existence. Rang De Basanti bellows for a change though, demanding the youth to act and not just remain mere onlookers while their country is bent over- bureaucracy and... ... corruption standing behind her! If that makes you wonder whether the film is angry, it is. Still, like graffiti, it delivers its message with such colourful flavour that you cannot help but remain fixed…not just in awe but reflection as well. On the surface, Rang De Basanti might seem like a Dil Chahta Hai meets Lakshya meets Swades meets Mangal Pandey- The Rising. It is not! Aamir plays DJ, a character that resembles to his Akash of Dil Chahta Hai in many ways. He has the same carefree(not careless) attitude to life, giving two hoots to any analysis of it. The difference though is that unlike Akash, there’s an undercurrent of resignation, loss and alienation beneath DJ’s jokes and every time he drinks more than he can handle, you can taste the bitterness on his tongue. Siddharth’s Karan is like Sid of Dil Chahta Hai, again only on the surface. Karan’s silence is not contemplative, it is angry…and it is contained! Then there’s Sharman Joshi as Sukhi, the total opposite of Dil Chahta Hai’s Sameer when it comes to his luck with women but very similar in his naïveté and jollity. Add Aslam, essayed by Kunal Kapoor, a bohemian artist who expresses himself through poetry and spray-paint. DJ, Karan, Sukhi and Aslam are joyful not because they are unaware of their potential, as was with Karan of Lakshya, but because they are afraid whether their potential will be realized and their talents acknowledged once they step out of college and start dancing to the monotonous tune of life. And they don’t suffer from the internal conflict of self vs. nation that Mohan Bhargav faced in Swades. To them, patriotism is simply an island that is not on the map of reality and sacrifice- a notion that makes no sense. Q. Why the comparison to Mangal Pandey- The Rising? A. Rang De Basanti is also about Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhagat Singh, Rajguru, Ashfaqullah Khan, Durga Vohra and Ramprasad Bismil! Sue(Alice Patten) is a London based filmmaker. After her funding for a documentary on Indian revolutionaries is cancelled(apparently Gandhi sells, Bhagat Singh doesn’t!), she arrives in India intent on making the documentary with fresh unknowns. Her Indian contact is Sonia(Soha Ali Khan), a student of Delhi University. A hilarious mass audition later(watch a youth trying to mouth Vande Mataram with gusto, but ending up mispronouncing it), Sue meets up with Sonia’s friends- DJ, Karan, Sukhi and Aslam. In their banter and camaraderie, Sue finds her Chandrashekhar Azad(Aamir Khan), Bhagat Singh(Siddharth), Rajguru(Sharman Joshi), Ashfaqullah Khan(Kunal Kapoor) and Durga Vohra(Soha Ali Khan!). For Ramprasad Bismil, she chooses Laxman Pandey(Atul Kulkarni), much to the chagrin of others. Laxman Pandey is a radical Hindu youth leader whose belief in the country’s past and its glorious freedom struggle is exploited by those over him into hatred for the Muslims. Laxman, however, appears to be the only individual who believes in sacrificing for his country, misguided may his reasons be. So begins the documentary on these revolutionaries, based on the diary of Sue’s grandfather, James McKinley, a jailor to Azad, Bhagat and the others. Initially indifferent to the story of these revolutionaries, DJ & the gang slowly begin to realize that their life isn’t much dissimilar. The same choices stare them that faced Bhagat Singh. If the British Empire was the villain then, it is the present state of politics now. The metamorphosis is forced into immediate action however when Sonia’s beau Ajay Rathod(Madhavan), a Flt. Lt. in the Indian Air Force, is killed in a MIG-21 mishap. Tragically, rather than giving him a celebrated death for his bravery(he averted a bigger accident by not crashing his plane into a populated area after it failed) he is labelled as a novice by the Defence Minister(Mohan Agashe) who is worried lest the shady details of the purchase of old Russian MIGs become public. DJ, Karan, Sukhi, Aslam, Sonia and Laxman vow revenge and suddenly, fighting for your country and dying for it doesn’t appear all that boring and useless. It is to the script’s credit(Kamlesh Pandey) that the transformation of the youths is neither sudden nor late. Their early lack of interest is cleverly delineated in Khalbali(chaos), a brilliantly shot song that juxtaposes the group’s revelry with the grit and determination of the revolutionaries in the prison. Plus, the dialogues(Rensil D’Silva and Prasoon Joshi) are in sync with the young-lingo and that only helps get the message across without sounding archaic. The MIG-21 scam is just an excuse(and a silent doff of the hat to Arthur Miller’s ‘All My Sons’); Rang De Basanti could’ve been just about anything else. The movie wants you to act, not just crib. It asks you to clean your own mess. Until the third act, one can hardly recognize Rang De Basanti as a Rakeysh Mehra film. Unlike his underappreciated debut Aks, Rang De Basanti is vibrant and vigorous right till its concluding act when it shocks you with its gloom and austerity. If Mehra gave us a haunting world through Kiran Deohans’s lens in Aks, he makes Binod Pradhan give us a colourful present and a sepia past in Rang De Basanti. The cast is up to the challenge of portraying two contrasting roles. Sharman Joshi is fabulously in character as Sukhi, while Kunal Kapoor is very much the arty Aslam and the lyrical Ashfaqullah. Atul Kulkarni emotes with his eyes and were it not for Siddharth’s intense and brooding act, Atul’s would’ve been the performance to talk about. The multi-talented Siddharth(he writes, acts, and speaks five languages) makes a confident Hindi debut and one only hopes we see more of him. Soha Ali Khan is a spitting image of her mother, but other than that there’s little to talk of her. Alice Patten is efficient and does a good job with her Hindi lines. The crowds will come for Aamir Khan though and let’s set the record straight- Aamir was, is and will be the poster-boy for Bollywood! Here is one actor who manages to work within the commercial machinery of the industry and yet deliver quality projects every single time. Following his superb work in the misunderstood Mangal Pandey- The Rising, he amazes with his makeover into the young DJ from his mustachioed Mangal Pandey. It is Khan’s respect for the story and script that enables him to bury his ego(not that he has any) and allow his fellow actors to take centre-stage when the script demands. Which other actor would feel secure with giving a climax to a debutante? And which other actor would agree to an ending as bleak as this? Mehra is in complete command of his craft. He succeeds in achieving the right feel to the movie- the crisp editing(P.S. Bharathi), the everyday costumes(Loveleen Bains and Arjun Bhasin), the freestyle choreography(Ganesh Acharya, Vaibhavi Merchant and Raju Sundaram) and the brilliant score(A.R. Rahman). Rahman is back in form here and gives an apt score. The fact that Mehra uses the songs innovatively and unconventionally adds to their charm. The title track and the closing Rubaroo(face-to-face) especially deserve special mention. Rang De Basanti is also Mehra’s love-letter to Delhi. The city has been shot with sensuous laziness and it looks beautiful. As the movie faded out to an arresting final screenshot, I sincerely awaited The Who’s Teenage Wasteland to start playing over the end credits! If Hazaaron Khwaishen Aisi was a eulogy to the youth of the 70’s, Rang De Basanti is a preface to the fortunes of this generation- one that is driven by the addiction of ambition, one that is letting life slip by. I doubt if I’ll see a better movie this year, and this is just January! If I do, then 2006 will surely be a great year for Bollywood. For the moment though, thank you very much Mr. Mehra! - Abhishek Bandekar
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