Rang De Basanti

Rang De Basanti was released in 2006 and for the most part was well received. It stars Aamir Khan as DJ, Siddarth Nayaran as Karan, Soha Ali Khan as Sonia, Kunal Kapoor as Aslam, Sharman Joshi as Sukhi, and Laxman Pandey as Atul Kulkarni . The leading character is played by British actress Alice Patten as Sue. Sue travels to India to film a docudrama about five individuals who gave their lives for the independence and freedom of India. With help from her friend Sonia she recruits four guys to play her lead characters- Dj, Karan, Aslam, and Sukhi, Sonia of course lends a hand in the film and later Atul comes in. The interesting thing to note with these characters is that they all come from very different backgrounds. Aslam is a Muslim who appears to come from a family that could be considered lower class. Dj is a Sikh and his family background seems to be middle class. Karan is a Hindu who very wealthy, we are not shown Sonia or Sukhi’s background but it is safe to assume they are middle class/upper middle class Hindus. Then you have Atul who belongs to the Hindu right and is not shy about showing his contempt for Muslims. All are good friends except for Atul who clearly does not like Aslam because of his religious beliefs. While filming at first does not go well, not everyone is taking it seriously and then you have the tension with Atul; but then things start to come together. One begins to see the characters become their “characters”. Everything changes when Sonia’s fiancé, Ajay, dies in a plane crash. It is then revealed that his death among many others pilots before him were a result of a corrupt government. Because of the government’s refusal to take responsibility for Ajays death, the group of friends plan a “sit in” I protest. This of course creates a riot resulting in almost everyone getting hurt and Ajay’s mother winds up in a coma.

While Sue was a central character in the first part of the film, we don’t really see her in the second half. It is in the second half that we see these six characters take on the “freedom fighters” personas. They decide that they must kill the defense minister, because he would never take responsibility and he had to pay for his corruption. In a rather quick transition the minister is killed and the guys decide to turn themselves in. It is never explained why Sonia is not an active part in the killing. The guys hijack a radio station so that they can tell their story. Swat teams storm with the order to leave no one alive. The audience watches as each of the men die. This is to mirror the men they were playing in Sue’s film. Life was imitating art and well history.

This film had some really great moments; however, it was not perfect. While in the beginning Sue has good intentions it seems as if she lives too much in India’s past (in her grandfather’s journals). It seems irresponsible that she would go to India and engage with people about politics, without understanding the political situation. She also seems to not even try to understand why these guys act the way they do. Her ignorance does not help her situation, it is also strange that no one explains the situation to her and why everyone is acting the way they are.

Despite the reenactments being rather cheesy, one look at Aslams (from a female perspective he was by far the best looking of the bunch –swoon-) face and they are forgivable. While at first I was irked at the thought that once again we have a situation in which a white foreigner comes in to teach the people their own culture/heritage/history, however, sometimes it takes looking at things from another perspective, or rather someone shaking you to see what is in front of your nose.

This is not your typical Bollywood film. Yes there are songs and dancing, however, there is nothing flashy about this film. This film touches on situations that are likely to happen. One can see Bollywoods/ Indian cinemas turn towards realism with this film. It is a definite must watch!

-Sonja