Dil Se

So I recently saw the film Dil Se. I thought this film would be good for the following reasons:

1. It starred Shahrukh Khan, one of Bollywood's greatest actors.
2. Preity Zinta was a supporting actress.
3. It won the following awards: 1999 Berlin International Film Festival, 1999 National Film Awards (India), 1999 Filmfare Awards in the following areas; Best Female Debut, Best Music Director, Best Lyricist, Best Male Playback, Best Cinematographer and Best Choreography.
4. It was the first Indian film to enter the UK top 10 box office hits.

What I found out after watching the film and completely agree with:

1. The film was a box office flop in India. (from boxofficeindia)

This was probably one of the greatest disappointments for me to watch considering I had assumed I was on a good movie choice streak. For me, this film was extremely boring. It is not something that you would want to watch on a Friday night. 

Although this film is about love the main plot throughout focuses on the political aspect of diplomatic relations between India and Nepal. This is furthered by the fact that the main actress Manisha Koirala is from a political family in Nepal where her grandfather was former Prime Minister. 

This film isn't your typical happy-go-lucky movie where the biggest problem for the leading lady is whether she should match red nail polish or pink nail polish with her saree. The film hosts violent themes such as terrorism, rape, murder, poverty, child soldiers, war and suicide.

However, it would be unfair to completely dismiss this story based on the fact that it isn't a happy movie, since let's face it, life isn't always happy and we can't simply turn a blind eye to the bad in this world, can we? The film does a very good job at highlighting the struggle faced by victims during war, in this case, that of a young girl. It allows us to see, and perhaps even empathize, with terrorists. The film shows the true meaning of how everything in this world is not black and white, how the decisions of politicians in one country can lead to the destruction of innocent civilians in another. Of how these brutal attacks can create child soldiers who in turn will commit horrendous crimes such as bombing schools of the enemy country.

Entwined in these dilemmas is of course a love story. The title Dil Se translates in English as From the Heart. I found an interesting fact of this film upon research of it

"Dil Se  is said to be a journey through the 7 shades of love that are defined in ancient Arabic literature. Those shades are defined as attraction, infatuation, love, reverence, worship, obsession and death." (from Bollymusings)

Upon looking back on the film, I can certainly see some these stages, but not all. I think that in order to do so I would need to watch the movie again looking for these aspects of them. If you see this film let me know your thoughts of it and whether you found all the stages of love throughout.

Just as a little note, I am now going through the website Boxofficeindia to find future movies to watch as I feel that this is the only way I can make sure that I don't waste 3 hours on a movie I probably won't like. In all fairness however, this movie was not bad, it just wasn't what I was looking forward to watching, but in retrospect, I do think that this was a good film.

Love
C