"I found 'Lagaan' flawless. It's extremely well made, brilliantly performed.
And when I say brilliantly performed, it's just not the main characters but
each and every artist of that film. It's very pleasant to see the artistes
that are not playing main leads performing such an exceptional quality of
work - the entire team, the villagers, the mother, the leading lady, and
each member of the team, also the guy who used the catapult. And the good
part of the performances is that they are just right. There were huge
opportunities to perhaps over do it, but that has not happened.
For me it's a very complete, beautifully made movie. I think the choice of
subject and the way it has been structured is also quite exceptional,
because I would like to believe ninety percent of India has an association
with villages. We all come from smaller towns. There is always somebody in
the family who has an association with a village, it's a very important
factor in all our lives. When you are in a village and when you are that low
down in the strata of society -- lagaan is a huge burden. The villagers had
suffered during the time of the landowners and it is a very big issue in the
country. Also a very big issue in this country is rent. I think we are very
happily living in a region where rain is not a problem, but the rest of the
country survives on just two to three months of rain; some people don't even
get it. It's a very important factor in our ethos. It rains only once in a
year and every one looks forward to it. Our entire social life, our eating
habits, our festivals, our food growing habits, our songs -- every thing is
entirely dependent on it. Rain forms a very important factor in our lives.
So to use rain as a factor, as a very important factor - there is an
immediate identity with the whole of India.
Then you have the British who had replaced the traditional landowners or the
Thakurs, that in film after film are always looked upon as the baddies,
because they cause a lot grief to the common man. (He) has been replaced by
an even bigger baddie, which is the British who ruled over us, because we
were their slaves. We have never liked them. And moreover, they had
cruelties like torturing and causing grief to the common man.
Then you have this fantastic game, which the entire country goes mad about.
It is a lovely ploy. I think it's brilliant the way it has been structured.
Then the team. It's not a common team, it's an integration of what India
stands for. It's very carefully chosen, each and every character. And how
well patterned their personal characteristics are with the game. If somebody
is in charge of getting rid of the rats and birds that eat away the fasal
(crop), they use them to bowl.
They made a crippled bowler in Lagaan an 'achut'. As it is, an untouchable
is a very sensitive character in our social ethos. And all our films are
always designed to make the under privileged, the underdog, the minority,
the backward, come up. Indian commercial mainstream escapist cinema has
always made sure that these sections of our society are made to look good.
So you have the Muslim, you have the Sikh, you have the 'achut', you have the
aged gentleman and it's marvelous the way it has been structured. Then you
make them do all the heroic feats whether it's the Muslim guy who's hurt his
leg, he comes out on his crutches and wants to fight. It's a great moment.
The 'achut', the cripple -- you give him the grandest moment in the match.
You have the Sardar who just lambasts the bowling everywhere with big
volleys and has only one 'intention' because he has suffered at the hands of
British. You have this dumb mute whose sheer strength and power, when he
hits the ball, its unbelievable the way it was shot.
Then you have the English lady falling in love with this Indian from the village.
So it's fool proof. With so many good things in place structurally, what
needs to be marvelled at is the way it has been executed. So everything is
in place, the structure is in place, all that it required was proper
execution. Then the 'bhajan' (devotional song). The bhajan is a very very important ingredient in our
lives. Every morning and evening time is bhajan time for Hindu society. And
the Bhajan at the most appropriate moment works wonders. It was that one
day, when in duration of 24 hours their future is going to be decided and they are in a very
adverse situation. And the mother and the ladies sing a bhajan. It's just
marvelously structured.
Then comes the execution, which is so good. Anybody who has put in every
possible conceivable ingredient that is connected with commercial Hindi
mainstream cinema, and it can easily go wrong and destroy the whole thing.
There is restraint. There is restraint in performances, there is restraint
in situations. It just flows effortlessly. And I really admire the way it has been shot. Not just the technical side, the camera work of
course is marvelous. I would say if you give any other competent cameraman
this kind of premise, he is bound to do brilliantly. But the way it has been
executed, that's more brilliant. This is what I really like.
The performance of every character is just flawless. They have very judiciously
not gone too much into the dialect/accent because it would have been difficult for
people to understand. I have the authority to say that because I come from
that region (eastern U.P.) and I know that it's not a very easy language to
understand for the rest of the people. For those who live in that region,
it's glorious. But they have used a smattering of that. That's also very very judiciously done. I think the attempt to speak genuine avadhi and
create the whole atmosphere was best seen in 'Ganga Jamuna' by Dilip Kumar
and nobody has been able to top that. I would like to use that as my
yardstick. This comes very close to that. But then that was a totally
different film. And that was Dilip Kumar. He is the best. But not to take anything
away from Aamir and his crew.
To me in modern times it's a totally perfect film."
|
