Well, I think Three Idiots is not so great. I know this is daring, after seeing the hoo haa around it since its release, but I will say it. Its over rated. The film has its moments but thats it.
Lets start with the comedy: The movie's obsession with human system of excretion becomes very ostentatious after a while. It makes you laugh at first, later you yawn. Is pissing so funny? The movie starts with a senior threatening to piss if not obeyed, and from there it is one PISSING story. People piss on doors, on mailboxes on gates, on walls, in lakes, on pretty much everything. You wonder whether you should laugh or make a quick visit to the restroom!
Why are people obsessed with letting down their pants? I can count atleast four instances where characters just let their pants down and expect us to laugh. And apparently we do!Conversations sitting on the toilet seat with pants down are supposed to more effective??
Now the MESSAGE: Yes, the movie gives a message.
Now I read Five point someone 5 years earlier and I dont remember much of it. But I do remember that I felt touched, moved and emboldened after it. I identified. In the movie the identification is limited to some touching scenes. It makes you feel for students like Joy raju and Farhan..because they are real. But a character like RANCHO makes the movie so unreal that somewhere you stop identifying. Rancho makes the movie an illogical fairy tale, where a woman gives birth with the help of a vaccum cleaner, a bride runs off from her mandap, someone tops four years of engineering with somebody else's identity and a man dying from fatal injuries comes back to life...just like that.
I am not saying that the movie is not a good time pass. It is so ridiculous at times that it can qualify as a very good time pass. But the movie is being touted as a movie with a message. The message would have been clearer, stronger and lasting if they had kept it real.
Five point someone was a real book. It dealt with the lives of three normal students stuck in the IIT dream (read..nightmare!)and thats why it touched hearts.I say Chetan Bhagat should be happy if he thinks he is not getting enough credit for this. The movie is not his book. Its a Bollywood "happily ever after" movie.
The only commendable part of the movie is the portrayal of friendship between the three idiots. Its genuine and touching. They laugh at each other , they cry for each other. They fight. They envy. They are insecure. Yet they stand for each other in the weakest moments and they keep promises.That's the USP of the movie. Thats were some of us see ourselves and some of us realise how important it was to have these kinds of friends.
Before closing off, some moments in the movie I really liked: Ofcourse the SPEECH was hilarious and so was the gate crashing at Irani's daughters wedding. When Farhan goes back to convince his father why he wants to be a photographer is a lasting moment and so is when Rancho recieves his Space pen. Joy's song leaves a special impression.
At the end, I would say Three idiots- the movie is forgettable. It cannot be compared to the likes of Rang de Basanti or Taare Zammen par. Here was a story which was very close to a common student's life and it could have been dealt with more genuineness and a sense of reality. It could have shown the gaping flaws of our education system by staying within the reality. It could have showcased the student's real moments of hope and triumph in a pressured society.
But unfortunately, the movie turned out to be a romp with fantasy where a hero saves the day!
PS: The sets of Imperial college of Engineering are so JNU like, it made me nostalgic! I suspect some scenes might also be shot there!!
10 comments:
Well, I read your entire blog, and though i must admit u write well, i dont necessarily agree with everything there. First of all, the director is Raj Kumar Hirani, not Madhur Bhandarkar, if bhandarkar set out to make a movie on the education system, then u will like it i am sure, but since this is Hirani, he will give it his own flavor, he is known for spreading social messages with slapstick humor thrown in, Bhandarkar is the one who makes the realistic hair raising stuff.. I mean, people liked the Goonda Munna so much in the munna bhai series, what is wrong with liking Rancho, and there are geniuses like him out there despite the education system, not because of it.
About the digestive and excretion system, if u were a guy, u wud have understood, because that's what most of the guys talk and discuss about all the time.. so, i am sure every guy wud have related to it.
And about the unrealistic Rancho, well, if bollywood isn't a bit over the top, it wud be boring, i mean, if we wanted to discover the real inside story of a IIT, we could watch a nice sincere documentary on Nat Geo and be wiser, but if a person pays 200 bucks in a multiplex, then he wud want some entertainment too, not just Gyaan..
And again, if u were an engineer, u wud have realized how brilliant the child birth sequence was, how rancho joined the car batteries to give power to the lights, how he controlled the pressure of the vaccum pump to get the pressure just right.. All the theory we had studied but never implemented..
People laugh at the brilliantly funny balaatkar speech, but the moot point rancho wanted to make was also very important. That speech proved that the rote learners will mug and vomit whatever u give them, if it is benefecial for them, and in the child birth sequence he proved that to be able to practically apply what u learn is important too..
Again the part about the boook five point someone being better and more real, well, in that book, Ryan came across more as a rascal, u sometimes felt, those three deserved it, but here Rancho keeps challenging the system and Virus, in the book, Ryan just keeps finding ways to loaf, so Rancho by challenging the system is giving out a better message that Ryan who kept finding loop holes in the system for his own benefit..
And some proof about the guys being obsessed with the digestive and the excretary system.. Let me show u a thread from my facebook wall where my school friend and my college friend are discussing what kind of farts i used to let out more than 12 and 5 years ago...
Sandesh Kanchan LOL!!! I can't recall the name of the Pandit whose role you played , but its damn funny to recall that act of yours. Taku pandya providing a voice over for you, you doing lip syncing & walking all over the stage. ROTFL!!!!
My role was funny as well and embarassing!!!! Dancing like a buffoon in front of all those people!!!!LOL!!!!!
Sigh....those days!!!!! Khopdi was there with us that time IIRC.
Mrigesh Das Hey when I was watching 3 idiots, so many times remembered u... Guess why???
U loved to describe diff kind of smells tat u will leak....
Rahul Bajpai Hahaha... I was a complete nut cracker.. But I hope i wasnt like Silencer.. Infact, I hardly used to study.. 3 idiots was a great film yaar..
Rahul Bajpai Sand, I played Pandit Bhimsen Joshi!! That act was very touching and Lovely.. Remember, we all stood with Candles in our hands at the end with the lights dimmed out.. It was so beautiful and Unifying..
Rahul Bajpai But I still cant understand how u agreed to dance and that too in a Lungi!! LOL!!!
Mrigesh Das Yeh, fun movie to watch & with some gud messages...most imp being choose ur profession based on ur love and joy for tat and not based on other things... But still very diff to implement... Though people r waking up to it....
Mrigesh Das No no only tat aspect of chatur... U have sharp brain to understand... Just the way u would announce tat tis will harmless... And tis is going to be deadly.... Lol so much fun..
Rahul Bajpai Yeah, u might hear something from me too soon!! About a Change of Profession!!
Rahul Bajpai Oh, now u are embarrassing me!! hehehe.... Hope my relatives who think i am a shareef bachcha dont read this!! LOL!!!
Mrigesh Das Wat change of profession?????
Ruchita Pande Mrigesh, I can describe to u about 15 varities of gases that he lets out... LOL!!!
1 dis-advantage of marrying him!!! hehe...
Rahul Bajpai A few things are in the pipeline!! If it works out, I will announce it to the world.. Have to keep mouth shut now, popat ho jaayega warna!!
Mrigesh Das Lol, I have not laughed out so much in a long time,,, too gud from Ruchita,
Ruchita Pande Actually, Bajpai's ka favorite topic hai yeh!! Jab bhi 4-5 Bajpai ikaththa hote hain, they only discuss gases and their solidifed cousins!! LOL!! I too am slowly becoming an expert on this topic...
Mrigesh Das Hehehe, u guys r fun...Take care... Always be like tis...
Sandesh Kanchan it was unifying yes, but when one thinks it was directed by that pervert, one may have second thoughts.
as for the gas, well what can one say? One really has to be careful sitting next to Rahul. Once, , one was the victim of his stomach's bad day in office. He was blowing it on my face with his mouth right in middle of English class(or was it supervised studies???). His Blower was set to fan speed 4, so one could smell it well. Open mouth -BURPP, Blow!!!! BURPP, Blow!!!!....
Gas classification? Khatti, Meethi, Silent with Khusbu, Slient without Khushbu, Nuclear bomb, Atom bomb......
Rahul Bajpai: Sandesh, u shud know how to reveal things slowly, if u tell it all at once, it loses the charm u see!! (I wonder how passing gas can be charming)
Between, if one didnt read ur entire comment, and just read the fact that i was blowing gas into ur face, one would wonder what u were doing with ur face near my ASS!!! LOL..
Sandesh Kanchan Yes, one would really wonder. One must have the patience to read, General.
Hey,
i read you blog.
i agree with you on some points, esp. abt pulling your pants down.
I feel the movie is to much overrated. Its a nice movie but the hype is not well deserved.
its a good movie no doubt.
it delivers the msg, tat students need not be a parrot.
they need to really learn what is being taught to them.
as well msg for parents let your children do what they like, dnt force anything on them.
other thing i feel is tat you comparing with the book.
you need to have an open mind to decide on the movie.
First thing first, before I go any further we need to make it clear that it's an entertainer and you can take a message home if you fee like. It's not movie such as Crash, Pay it forward, The blind side, or Citizen Kane where you definitely take a mesage home. The movie does not even have a mantra with the title, although throughout the movie they did spread the message "All is well". I am sure those three words will go a longway throughout the life of millions of people in India.
What you said about the movie, is a classic case of what happens when you watch a super hit movie at the wrong time. By now you have extra supernatural notions about the movie. Anything minutely less than expectation leaves us overly dissapointed. Watch it first day first show and without any expectations, you will enjoy it because you don't know how to react ! We all are blinded by what we call "Confirmation Bias". The anticipation of seeing such a movie can become an intimidating and disappointing experience.
You said "the movie had its moments and that's it".What else do you want from a movie ? From every movie, you only take away as many bits and pieces and run an analogy with your own life.
It's Bollywood for god sake. You can take someone dancing around trees and a Gandhi seeing Gunda, but you will not believe in Rancho. Why ? Is it because we would envy such a character ? Is it because I would want be to be in his shoes, but I can't, so we assume he doesn't exist.
The movie may or may not be an adaptation of the novel. But, who was satisfied with the movie "Da Vinci Code" after having read the novel. I don't think anyone was. This happens when you try to compress a book into a movie. You have to tweak the story around to catch the audience and for that we have to give credit to the Screenplay writer...... See next comment
Well for the directors obsession with excretion, I am sure he was an engineer or has a son who is a soon to be engineer. Engineers love that stuff. I am sure JNU's boys hostel is full of such incidences. I would say been there, done that (not exactly the excretion). It's a very common thing, I will not comment on doing it myself but we Engineers took the excretion in front of directors residence, hostels, and academic blocks as a prized accomplishment !! There are honour roll's in certain colleges for such stuff.
Well I know towards the end they went a little overboard with the child delivery, but I know people who really knew their applied engineering well. I might not be able to give you the best definiton of Newton's laws of motion, but, I certainly knew guys in college who talked about facial recognition technology and running engine on air when I could hardly operate my own computer. Those were the same guys who never went to the examination hall until they really felt like because they knew what they wanted from the college and couldn't care less about anything or anyone. I knew a guy who dropped out of Electronic Engineering in the final year, because he wanted to be an Aeronautical Engineer. A brilliant guy ! Another guy who never watched any movie or TV series because he was a A+ grader, but once he started watching movies he went on watch over 700 movies in 2 years and now works for a Art movie house. Follow what you want to do !
The message is friendship and how you have to follow your heart. We always hear stories about following the heart but when you see it in a movie you say it's unreal!! May be one day if there is a movie based on Steve Jobs (None of his parents ever saw college or high school), or Bill Gates, or Ambani's life, we might want to brand those movies as unreal too because the characters are larger than life. They all followed their heart and did what they thought was best rather than mugging up dozens of books.
You were comfortable with a firangi thinking about Aamir Khan as Bhagat Singh and then persuading them to kill the Defense Minister, have you ever seen a real life situation like that. No, and then you say that movie makes sense. That movie did make me cry but was not good enough to make me go fight with the system and shoot a few ministers.
Here we atleast have a message saying "follow your heart".
Why do you think Raj Kumar Hirani would care about our education system, we have another tool to take care of that problem. I call it " The Vote" . Lets be honest you rely on a movie to change the Indian Education system, R U KIDDING ME ? . Wake up Tulika !!!
Goodness!
okay, I give you that not being an engineering student,(and a guy) I might not have been able to appreciate a lot of things in the movie... all said and done: the views expressed in my blog are mine alone. If it hurts people's feelings i apologise ;)lol..
and i agree with karan's statement about watching the movie at the wrong time: there was too much expectation due to the hype !!
Well and I give it to you that it's your blog and your comment. And yes its exactly what happened when I watched Ghajini 3 months after release !! I wanted to shoot the whole public !!!
boss.i agree with you on this very well..while i agree the movie has good moments and a message i would say some exaggerated things like the delivery scene with vaccum and stuff makes it little shaky and changing education system has become a slightly old subject now..we are all aware it sucked to carry books and rattufy it and i wanted to vanish out of that system..but yes this subject is also getting old as todays toddlers can eat you, the teachers and everyone around with their brilliant and scarastic questions..they know how to manage it through out system..
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