the 'Fist' & the 'Pacifist'

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

The King and his Swades

I have always been a big big King Khan fan!
I have had pitched battles with many a non-believer, and trust me there have been many.

I shall admit that he is no way as talented as an Aamir Khan or an Ajay Devgan.

The King Khan though, has Passion.

Passion is not at tangible scrap of reality; one can point a finger at and say, “See this is Passion”. It’s an intangible feeling, an experience almost. Some people have it, others don’t. Some people see and perceive it in others, others don’t know what its all about.

The thing with talent is that it is an already achieved “state”. In that sense it is placid, it is an exposition of an already attained position. Unlike Passion it doesn’t reek of strife and achievement, it isn’t vibrant. It’s the difference between a journey of belief and a pulpit of self-ability.

It’s the difference between a Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed.

Rahul’s world with million-dollar mansions, sports cars and epic love legends, we all know that its surreal, a fantasy world right? No actor with all his emotive talent and ability can make that world seem real. No deal of talent can make, Xavier’s college of ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hain’, seem like a real place.

This is where Passion makes a difference.

It doesn’t attempt to make real, it attempts to make you believe. Talent can at most make an Atheist an Agnostic but passion can make you a Believer.

Reading out a love sonnet from an empty diary (Kal Ho Na Ho)…that can never seem “real or realistic”, but passion can convince you that one can really love like that…that you can indeed find emotion in emptiness, meaning in solitude and love in apathy.

Swades has very relevant spirit and message. Yes technically it’s a step backwards. The editing is poor, certain scenes are quite pointless, and the movie’s structure is at times meandering, it lacks the tautness of ‘Lagaan’.

Comparisons with ‘Lagaan’ is inevitable. But such a comparison would be a bit like apples and pears.

Lagaan is Patriotic. Swades is Nationalistic.
Lagaan is representative of an earthy grass root movement. Swades is about an individual’s journey to his soul.
Lagaan is the robust euphoria of victory; Swades is the vulnerability of taking a step forward.

Labels: Cinema

5 Comments:

Rohan said... On Monday, December 27, 2004 7:40:00 pm

Could'nt agree more. The fact that he goes back to NASA, finishes his assignment (and does a good job of it) and only then does he return to India, was a very smart thing to do actually. Its all about stradling contradictions, as opposed to looking at the stuff as - thirdworld-firstworld, capitalist-backward, dollar-rupee, nasa-village...

Anonymous said... On Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:30:00 am

when we initiate a discussion about SRK,we will have to enlight his journey of 14-15 years from "FAUJI" to latest movie "swades"...a very ordinary teleserial to a high budget bollywood block buster. SRK has been through his toughest time , struglling,from non filmy background and no Godfather in the industry to bank or fall back on.But In spite of that he made it real big in Bollywood and have made a larger than life image for himself..at the end of the day he is a self made man..with no black patch in his entire career as well as in personal life. I adore him for being a loyal and perfect husband and father.
The very secret behind his success is his initial image of "boy next door" and of course his ruling lucky stars that he was widely accepted by emotional indian audiance....as they see themselves in the hero which is poles apart from reality...and miles away from pragmatism.
All SRK fans..he could be a good entertainer but talk about talent there are many in the industry as good or better than him..biggest problem with him is that one cant extract the charecter from he is playing from typical SRK....speaking fast...stammering...being extra emotional..etc.talk about "ASOKA" or "DEVDAS", while watching ASOKA i kept on searching for the Emperor Asoka in SRK... but all in vain..same goes with DEVDAS...always had the feeling that any moment ASOKA will start dancing ( read jumping)after the female lead and sing typical SRK songs like " ruk ja o dil diwane" or "koi mil gaya" (KKHH)... to name a few...

But at last we thanks to director Ashutosh gowarikar for justifying the charecter of "mohan" by extracting it from SRK and exploiting his talent properly. I must admit falling in right hand he can actually do a great job.
At last all die heart SRK Fans....dnt have a heart breake...SRK is more than successful in the industry abd at the end of the day, thats what matters.

Srabanti Majumder

Anonymous said... On Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:33:00 am

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Anonymous said... On Tuesday, January 11, 2005 10:45:00 am

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Anonymous said... On Monday, April 18, 2005 3:17:00 pm

Sorry to disappoint Rohan, but Aamir leads in every possible way. If you notice closely, SRK copies from Aamir and Jackie Chan and blends it well to make it look his own passionate to you and others.

There's no great actor as Aamir in this generation.