Rang de Basanti-- A Review

For my South Asia class, I had to trek downtown last night for a film screening. For peeps out there unfamiliar with Bollywood Cinema, it's worth exploring a bit- but be warned: the movies are long, usually about three hours or so and can be- at least from my experience, somewhat inaccessible. But this one was a pleasant surprise! (The title track is above- my apologies if the YouTube embeds are all weird- music by AR Rahman of 'Slumdog Millionaire' fame!)

This film chronicles the story of a struggling young British filmmaker, Sue (Alice Patten) who finds her grandfather’s diary, recounting his days in British India as Jailer and Interrogator to a group of four freedom fighters headed by Bhagat Singh. Inspired by his accounts, she travels to India and enlists the help of her friend Sonia (Soha Ali Khan) to make a film telling the story of Bhagat Singh and his fellow revolutionaries.

Encountering an apathetic, disillusioned generation of college students, it takes Sue and Sonia sometime to find the four right guys to play the parts, but eventually, they recruit DJ (Aamir Khan), Karan (Siddharth Narayan), Aslam (Kural Kapoor) and Sukhi (Sharman Joshi) to be in the film. The foursome has trouble relating to their characters at first, but when the deeply political and nationalist Laxman (Atul Kulkami) is recruited for the film as well, they all eventually begin to identify with the freedom fighters- their own views becoming gradually more radicalized as the film progresses.

When Sonia’s fiancée, Ajay (R. Madhavan) an ace fighter pilot in the Indian Air Force is killed in a crash of his fighter jet and governmental corruption is implicated, the friends attempt a peaceful, candlelit vigil to seek justice for Ajay. The police violently break this up, resulting in Ajay’s mother taking a blow to the head and ending up in a coma.

With the apparent failure of their protest, the friends are radicalized even further. Ultimately, they assassinate the corrupt Defense Minister (who knowingly put sub-par parts in the fighter jets, causing so many crashes) and Karan’s father (the company boss who sold the parts to the Defense Ministry.) When the media and government attempt to portray them as terrorists, in a final act of radicalism, they storm the radio station and take over the airwaves, asking India to open its eyes and demand better from their government. While they are still on the air, the police storm the radio station- and all are killed.

Structurally, this film is easy to follow- as it cuts between the past (Bhagat Singh and his revolutionaries) and the present (DJ, Sue and the friends)- and the parallels between the two epochs of history are very direct. Freedom Fighter Bhagat Singh eventually is imprisoned due to his assassination of a police officer following the death of fellow Nationalist Lala Lajpat Rai during the infamous Simon Commission Protests. (Rai famously proclaimed: “Every blow aimed at me is a nail in the coffin of British imperialism”) These historical events are paralleled when Ajay’s mother succumbs to blows from police and falls into a coma, and it is DJ who assassinates the Defense Minister in response. Both the freedom fighters and the four friends are eventually willing to sacrifice their lives for the greater cause of their country- inspiring the film’s title: the color of sacrifice.

While I can understand the narrative parallels between the past and present employed in the film, I looked askance at the casual and sudden turn from a candlelit vigil to assassination of a government minister. It seemed overly extreme and while the friends appeared to achieve their goal of getting the country to talk and take action- even at the cost of their own lives, you are left wondering: was justice really done?

The end of the film did, therefore, seem a little forced in my eyes- almost a trifle unrealistic, as well, given the cynical and apathetic nature of our own generation here in America today. However, a little digging on the interwebs reveals that Rang de Basanti inspired a social awakening across India, widespread youth activism and public anger at government corruption. This film, at the end of the day wanted to awaken a generation and it did so, entering the cultural zeitgeist and becoming a social phenomenon in and of itself.

Overall, this was one of the most accessible and enjoyable (if a little depressing) Bollywood films I have seen to date. And although I haven’t seen that many- this makes me want to see more. High quality cinema all around!