Rang De Basanti - Die Farbe Safran

It's about time there has been a Bollywood film about the youth of India. Granted these are college kids and not the average Indian adolescent who sometimes foresakes education for work, they are a good representatives of young Indians both in the diaspora and in India.

Casting is great. Each character pursues their emotion, when their emotions are pursued by circumstances. They express both the emotions at surface and those sunken to be brought out by a situational tide. And they do it with truthfulness. Although some of the elder cast could have been utilized more, the focus on the youth and parallels with past figures are well orchestrated. The character that plays Bhagat Singh, Amir Khan, and Sonia are incredible. Each has their own spotlight where they nudge us from complacency and create an unstable sense of urgency.

This is the best screenplay I have seen thus far in Indian media. Although BLACK had great language through what we saw on the screen, this movie has shown the progress of film- making abroad. Finally! The depth and character development we need are supplied with not just turn of events, but the turn of the screen. We don't need just words to understand a character. This movie shows how well a change in scene isn't a transition but an entity that holds together a character and emotion. And repetition! And repetition of words, dialogue, and attitude through the parallels was very inspiring.

The general storyline of the movie is good. I say good because parts of the youth's leisure sometimes can get annoying as well as the camera-work that accompanies it. At times I wanted to push the film forward and get to the point. But that's the point! Point being that we need to understand the choppy nature of the first half because, chops or not, these characters are transient figures who don't realize their role in life until they have experienced the wholeness of reality. It's interesting that the wholeness comes from reflections of the past. The use and reuse of certain scenes are important in showing the character growth built upon experience.

AR Rahman's music captures the reality unbelievably. We have dance numbers, but they're pathetic belligerent kicking and hand waving. Isn't that what we usually do when we're drunk anyways? Although the use of the music is off sometimes and abrupt, the emotion that each peace carries relates so well to the circumstances. The best use, in my opinion, being Luka Chuppi by Lata M and AR Rahman. The symbiosis between the lyrics and the events on screen are incredible. Dramatic irony at it's best.

The cinematography of this film is great in the majority of the film. The few annoyances in cinematography come with the patchy scenes with the first half during these "leisure" rides and early in the second half. But, besides that - the cinematographer and director have made outstanding use of the diagonal view. The lines and profiles of people and country are so well placed that you begin to understand how crooked life's path can be. None of us have a straight line ahead of us.

What makes me enjoy the movie the most is the humor and cause. You'd think with all the aforementioned details that this is a sobering movie about crooked lives and emotions and such, but the characters have fun. Sue's project is hilarious and the use of extras was really earnest. It is very much how I would be acting with friends, of course only when drunk like they are in certain parts. The cause is very important to this film and it makes it a powerful film because it has this cause.

I'm 22. I just recently visited India. I understood and was confused by the youth of India and this film portrays the ambiguity of India well. There are no answers, there are only actions. And this is what they strive to do in the film. Usually Bollywood movies lose their purpose come the 1st dance number, but the truth of this film speaks more than numbers. It is a film about what comes after pure, white innocence of our youth. And it asks that we paint the difference.

all the people who are waiting for good, original and well executed Indian film . the wait is over for you people. Go and watch this movie. i wont tell you anything about the story. from direction to screenplay, dialog's and all other parts in technical sections extraordinary work done by all. the performances of every actor are mind blowing. don't miss this movie. its worth watching. the use of flashback to show the historical scenes, very fine use of cinematography and art direction to show the difference between past and present India. its a journey of boys from college students to the fiery,rebels. No wonder... it gives you real life look..

Aamir strikes back guys. Its the movie of the year. Simply amazing performances by all. Though i felt that the movie dragged just a little bit in the beginning, the second half was amazing. The movie begins in a very light manner and gets takes a serious turn in the second half. It basically tells a story of how truly normal students get ready to even risk their lives in their fight against the system. The performance of Soha Ali Khan was better than I had expected. I specially loved the manner in which the historic events were shown. A truly amazing transformation of normal college students into rebels. Miss it and you will regret it.

A British documentary filmmaker gets denied her funding at the last minute. But she has already sacrificed so much for the film, believing strongly in it. It is after all based on a story left to her by her grandfather. So she packs her bags and travels to India to film the documentary even without the help of her studio. There she recruits a bunch of college students to play the key parts and slowly introduces them to the history of their own country, which they have so far dismissed as corrupted and beyond salvation.

What I liked about this film the most is how it juggles its storytelling. We see the young rebels fighting for India's freedom, so in essence the film jumps between two timelines. But it's all channeled through the documentary. The college students play the characters and we're every now and then reminded that this is indeed a film. Which ties it all together very nicely.

The acting is also topnotch. Aamir Khan is as great as always, but all the rest of the main actors are also superb, and varied in the characters they're portraying. This film speaks strongly for an inclusive and all-encompassing India, and it does it well.

I was also surprised by the direction the plot takes. I cannot really speak about it without spoiling it, but suffice to say that the film takes a rather dramatic and even dark turn near the end of the second act. And it's a better film for it. Sure, there will be people that won't like it, believing that the film glorifies this kind of action, but I don't think the film makers intended it that way.

Strong film and one of the better Hindi movies I've seen so far.

Paint It Yellow…. Oops….that's suppose to be Rang De Basanti….. Well that's exactly the director tries to convey. Its about today, us and our present, yet the similarities we have from the Pre-independence era. The Gen-x who knows Mac-D but still prefers the Dhaba Paranthas with sweet Lassi. However they restrict their national values only to food and nothing more. Its not a run of the mill stuff with 6 six romantic songs, couple of foreign locales and then finally some emotional drama….. No no no….. Rang De…is a Cult movie. It is more of an introspection, a food for our thought process. It makes us think, as to how should we actually celebrate our freedom. I was really moved by some of the ending lines by the narrator, "I thought there are 2 types of people in the world, one who die crying and other who move away in silence but today I learned there is third genre, people who go laughing". That says it all…

Rang De… is definitely a very brave and innovative attempt by the director and for that matter he has selected a near perfect cast. However veterans like Om Puri and Anupam Kher looked disposed. All the characters grow gradually in the film and make you think their way. Everyone is given enough space to justify their talent. Rakesh Omprakash Mehra is a director of the new emerging Indian cinema, he always tries to bring in something very different. I was really impressed by his last attempt in 2001 for Aks (Amitabh Bachchan and Manoj Bajpai ), and he definitely has succeeded in making another fabulous master piece. The highlight of the movie is the great use of cinematography techniques. Its probably for the first time in Indian cinema that juxtaposing has been used with such a great effect. The way each character gradually immerses into scenes from the past leaves you fantasizing about the hard work that has gone in the background to create this, both technically and on the part of the actor.

The movie starts on a very high spirit reflecting today's youth mindset who believe that patriotism is something that looks good in history chapters and today's world is far ahead of all that, they would prefer to go boozing and dancing rather than thinking on any of those lines. The way the campus scenes are shown really makes everyone go down the memory lanes of beautiful college days. This is followed by some intriguing drama and events which turns the life of a group of buddies upside-down altogether.

The film grows on you gradually. The director has made sure that there is a clear message in everything he presents, even the group of boys represents different sects of society and religion. Hence creating an appeal for everyone watching it. Music is another high point of the show, its foot tapping and very much with the mood of the subject. The songs give you a sense of freedom from within, a freedom to think in one's own way. A.R. Rehman doesn't need any introductions and he is surely one of the most original music directors we have in the country.

The brilliance of Aamir Khan is something very difficult to narrate, he has proved it umpteen number of times that he is truly the most versatile actor in the industry. His comic timing in the first part is better than anything seen in recent past. He is extremely fluent even with difficult Punjabi tongue twisters and the acting prowess he has shown would be very difficult to match by anyone around. He appears so natural and his complete look with new hairstyle (which is now part of his every new movie) gives a very striking combination.

Well the most wanting part of the whole thing has been the script to certain extent, it appears very loose in the second half and at times gives a droning feel. Few new ideas presented by the author looked half-baked. However it has been the technical expertise of the director who managed to save the things with some outstanding camera work and editing.

Rang De … is for sure a must watch movie, it doesn't have any preaching but still it will force you to think once. As they say it "There are two primary choices in life, to accept conditions as they exist or take upon the responsibility to change them". I believe most of us want to bring about the changes without doing anything, so its time to think again folks and take some responsibility, lets Paint It Yellow