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.

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Dil

I just watched the film Dil starring Aamir Khan and Madhuri Dixit. Madhuri is perhaps one of my favourite Bollywood actresses. Her acting is so good and she looks so beautiful (not that, that is a fact that I will discriminate on for any actress). Madhuri won a Filmfare award for this film and after watching it, I think it was a well deserved award.

Dil is a film about a boy Raja, whose father wants to have him married off to a millionaire's daughter with a handsome dowry. The millionaire's daughter in question is Madhu who is a beautiful yet feisty and spoilt girl. Upon her initial meeting with Raja, the two completely hate each other. Yet, as is common for all Bollywood tales, this passionate hatred soon turns into a passionate love. However, this is not the end of the film as the couple face several other hardships.

This film was rated the no.1 Box Office Hit in Bollywood in 1990. As is typical with box office hits is the same values that resonate throughout. One qualm that I had about this film however, was the number of climaxes that occurred as problem after problem was found. I found it a little too much and it started to bore me a little. The overall film however, was a great film. Not my favourite, but certainly a great blockbuster hit.

One thing that I noticed throughout the dancing was how much it reminded me of the 70s Hollywood hit Grease starring Olivia Newton John and John Travolta. This was just for one song where they are inside when Madhu is practicing what appears to be Jazz Ballet and Raja makes her slip on a banana peel. Let me know what you think.

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Kuch Kuch Hota Hai

As by the title, I'm sure you can tell that the first Bollywood film I watched was Kuch Kuch Hota Hai. This was an amazing movie to choose to kick off my Bollywood film reviews. The film stars Kajol and Shahrukh Khan (one of Bollywood's favorite movie couple) and Rani Mukerji (Kajol's real life cousin).

The film is extremely cliche yet the perfect happy family movie composed of a love triangle, death and laughter all round in this comedy filled movie. I absolutely loved it. Every minute. The story line is a little plain and there are many plotholes, for example, the expectation by a mother that an extremely beautiful woman will still be single after 8 years and willing to take her widower-ed husband who broke said woman's heart. Nonetheless, it maintains a perfect balance of themes prevalent in almost every Bollywood film with the motif of 'love conquers all' echoing throughout it.

I am no absolutely in love with the name Anjali, the name of both Kajol's character and Shahrukh Khan's daughter's character. I only wish it was a little less popular and would seriously consider naming any future daughter's of mine Anjali.

My recommendation? If you're in the mood for a fun filled evening with a happy movie and a few laughs, watch it.

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Introduction

So I've decided that amongst studying, eating and being a regular adolescent, I'm going to add something to my otherwise mundane life, and start watching Bollywood movies! The aim is to watch one every Saturday night and I can assure you that this is something that I will definitely stick to, if not slightly surpass. After watching each of these movies, I will then write a little review of what I thought of the movie.

Something that I should let you know of, is that I am not Indian, and therefore do not understand, nor can I read, any Hindi or any other Indian language. This means that I need to find Bollywood films with English subtitles, and I'm sure that there are plenty of times that the meaning of the words will be lost in translation, but let's face it, at least two thirds or a Bollywood movie is made up of singing and dancing. I look forward to writing blogs and watching the movies.

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