Roja

Roja (1992) : Brief Review -

An early 90s Sensation about Hardcore Patriotism and Hardcore Love. Roja is first of it's kind of theme by Mani Ratnam where he set the love story in the Terrorism atmosphere. He succeeded fulfilling both of them on high note and most importantly he did it positively and without any gimmicks. Roja is a sensation because it came in early 90s, an year before Riot Events took place in India or else the impact and disturbing theme would have fizzled to stand out. And also because Bollywood and South cinema had just started enjoying Masala Films filled with Machoism and Love Triangle based on Sacrifice, but then Roja came with a Love Story set in Sensitive and more realistic atmosphere. Kashmir's backdrop is always sensitive and fragile topic for Indian Movies because if you make just 1 small mistake, only god knows how people are gonna outburst and make it big issue. Fortunately Roja is a safe film cinematically and logically both. The patriotic theme sustains and evokes people to show thier love for the country and at the same time the Love Story runs smoothly. Arvind Swani and Madhoo both provides solid acts and even supporting cast is really good. Roja is truly by all mean a staggering debut for Music Maestro AR Rahman. Each and Every song is Awesome, even the worst case ends at Good. Dialogues are Fantastic, that's it. Kudos for Mani Ratnam for attempting a gutsy product much earlier than expected. He wrote an amazing script and justified it fully with his direction. Probably, the first time Love Story and Patriotism have been bounded together therefore creating a sensational Roja. I hated his 'Dil Se' for the Dumb characterisation but Roja doesn't have anything like that and lives upto all essential elements of Quality Filmmaking. Roja is an early 90s Classic which still manages to hold its impact despite several attempts on same theme.

RATING - 8/10*

By - #samthebestest

Seen it ages ago ,still the memories stay as fresh as seen the first time. The deep struggles endured against militants who are humans also are brilliantly depicted in the movie. Well in the original language of the movie the scenes of village girl trying to cope up with the big city and north Indian culture are very vividly depicted by Mani(lost in translation in other languages). With a crew of supremely talented technicians and back ground staff Mani brings us another classic. He should also be credited for getting the best tunes of a innocently brilliant music genius. They just don't make music like those anymore. Personal Rating 10/10. I would prefer him to direct a movie remake of "THE TENANT" (original by Polanski)

The threat of terrorists in India meshed with mild romance is the summary of this movie. Roja(the rose) the heroine is an innocent girl whose newly wed husband gets kidnapped by Pakistani terrorists. The story revolves around how she runs from pillar to post to get her husband freed. The movie is quite intense in the later parts.

This movie gets a 10/10 simply because of its uniqueness but that does not mean that it is not without flaws. I'll get to that later. The terrorism component has been shown very disturbingly. The big flaw I feel is that which the director discovered but failed to exploit fully. I'm talking about the language barriers between the north and south and how frustrating it can be especially in the light of a tragedy. Well he might have actually done more than I can remember because I saw this movie more than a decade ago. The most important thing about this movie that it was AR Rehman's débutant music score, before which he was just doing just music for advertisements. Well done Mani Ratnam for exploiting AR Rehman fully.

For once it is reasonably clear why the heroine falls in love with the hero, and also the motivation of the hero, even if it is unlikely, is well presented. This was one of the few movies that actually made me cry, and its images of Kashmir are beautiful.