Last night (rather, yesterday) I watched two good films.
One of them, that I have seen already but I watched again. Inglorious Basterds. I think it's that sort of film that I will keep coming back to watch again and again. From the music to the fonts they use to the camera angles they use to the dialogues made to the movement and pace of the story to the camera movement, I love it!
Another one, 3 Idiots, an Indian movie is clearly another crowd pleasure, a coming of age film. For Indian standards I have to applaud it, and looking at it from that way I guess a film made in India need to be atleast in some way a sort of a crowd pleaser. But concept and theme of the story is nothing new. Follow your heart. Do what you want. Like no one has ever thought of such a genuis idea in the past.
You do tend to sit to the end and wonder what happened to Aamir Khan's character. That is a good story line and I like it. If there are some elements that I had to wince through, they were:
1. the scenes where the birth of a new baby happened in a flooded room where they made portable electric connections to run a vacuum cleaner to suck out the baby from between the mother's legs. Tell me how (with all the naked wires and all) the people executing this bizarre experiment as well as the mother and baby in a flooded room (water till the ankles atleast) could survive in such a situation, only Hindi films can witness to.
2. the baby kicking in the mother's tummy every time people mention the line: all is well. Rather I am quite yucked out by how Aamir Khan, such a serious critic of the society, can fall for thinking stupid ideas like this can keep the story interesting. Something a little more smarter would have done better justice.
But all negativity aside, I simply loved the scenes of Shimla (the Mall and the roads there) showing grand views of the Himalayas. It almost looked not India. But surprise surprise, viola! India is beautiful too. The flash back scenes of Aamir Khan's history was beautiful. Old school and old uniforms against the Himalayan sky.
OH! And the most beautiful part of the film! The choreography for the song 'Zoobi Doobi' is probably probably one of my favourite Bollywood song scenes. Probably even my favourite. A feast to the eye. Not overdone, like Saawariya is. Not underdone like most Salmaan Khan movies. Just beautiful. It inspired thousands of scenes for Sirion Diaries. Will they appear on paper for real? I don't know. Let's see. (hehe!)
Kareena Kapoor is surprisingly beautiful in the movie. Not pretentious. Not over styled like she always is. She's got charisma. And probably because she is intentionally understyled, maybe she suits. (and its a compliment).
Aamir Khan is good. As usual. The supporting characters (even the nerd guy) are delightful and fun. Bomani Irani is good. Even almost lovable and still scary you-don't-want-to-get-on-his-wrong-side types.
(HAHA I haven't done this for so long! Write an almost proper film review on a film, not to mention a Bollywood film.)
I hear 3 Idiots is doing very well across the earth. Australia, USA and England. That's nice.
Ben Ning, Creative Practitioner