Forget mainstream Bollywood, forget candy floss, forget boy-chases-girl-chases-boy around trees... As adorable as regular fare from our favorites at Film City may be, 'Rang de Basanti' takes each and every member of the audience on a totally different ride and upon each viewing I say:
YEH CINEMA HAI, baby!
Last week, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra's groundbreaking film was screened before its cast and crew in honour of its 5th anniversary (26th January). Several fans of the film across the world also celebrated the occasion by parking the RDB dvd in their drives that week and I am happy to have joined them.. There is a saying that claims "there is no place like home" and that is exactly how I felt as I re-watched one of my all-time favorite films, not only from India, but from around the world. Yes. This is a film I bought several times in order to distribute copies to friends and of course purchased the special edition with a "gem disk" that features Mehra's ultimate commentary. I could never get enough of it!
For those readers who are Hindi cinema newbies and therefore not familiar with what all this justified fuss is about, a brief synopsis follows the trailer below (purple text).
Sue (Alice Patten), a young film maker from London sets to shoot a film about India's freedom fighters based on her grandfather's diary (a British jailor in India during the pre-independence struggle). She hence flies to Delhi and finds whom she believes are the 6 perfect actors for her film. After hesitatingly accepting to participate in it, all 6 youngsters embark on an awakening journey that will shift their view of their country and will make them act upon it together in order to change a corrupt status quo.
