Losing Innocence – Guzaarish
25 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Movie
I remember me having the girl’s full innocence long time back. Not any more, sadly. But I still have some remains of it, which I keep safely in me and try not to show to people so easily.
Girls and boys have to be grown up. But after taking one round or two rounds of of this growing-up, this old innocence appears suddenly at a moment. Anyone can be found with their seventeen-years-old smile at any age. I fall in love with people who happen to show this secret smile to me all of sudden, which they usually hide under the knowing-things-face in daily life (some men may do it on purpose, but it’s a bit difficult to tell what is real anyway. So I’ve decided everything is real for my happiness).
Aishwaiya Lai Bachchan is one of the people who I am falling now and then. She’s beautiful, but not entirely cute anymore; at least not as cute as she was. But the grown-up Aishwaiya is so good at acting on the border between innocence and maturity. In movies, a once upon a time innocent girl gets a fate which forces her to grow up. It looks like she’s lost the valued innocence and became a knowing adult woman. But deep inside, she still has this fire, dream, or love. With the taste of realism of aging, she is becoming a greater actress.
Guzaarish is a movie which seems like inspired by The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Aishwaiya plays a beautiful nurse of a beautiful polarized magician (Hrithik Roshan) in Goa. The magician is willing a dignified death. The Aishwaiya nurse’s character is well done; she’s super cool, sometimes even looks cold. But she is actually hiding her funny and passionate character. The funny scene is that two of them jokes making sex noise each other while Aish massaging Hrithik’s legs with no nerve alive.
In the movie, the audience will know that she is a married woman running from a violent artist husband. It’s convincing that she looks over thirty with a pretty hard character based on full of experience, and the mature and volumy body. Yet, at night, when she’s scared, or in front of the person who she loves, she suddenly looks like a girl who knows nothing but her feeling.
The movie is very beautiful and dreamy, and very classic. After I saw it, I watched Devdas with the young Aishwaiya Lai again and cried again. If we compare, Aish in Devdas was in the innocent world who just entered the adulthood and she played the process of maturity so good in the movie. In Guzaarish, she doesn’t live in the innocent side anymore, but she has a special ability to come back to the innocent world anytime she wants. Time machine in her big eyes. Shah Rukh Khan narrates in Devdas, “Why we lose innocence of childhood?” I don’t know why. But I know we could go back in mind. I wish I had the ability forever.
My Name Is Khan, And I’m Not A Terrorist
15 Feb 2010 Leave a Comment
in English Posts, Movie Tags: Hindi, India, Kajor, Movie, My name is Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Terrorist
What is scary is normal people, always. They are normal, not out of their mind, smart and rational, and even good people. But only they believe you are a bad person. My Name Is Khan is the movie which is promised to be this year’s big hit and will be one of the ShahRukh Khan’s best movies. The promotion of this movie has started since 2008, and it’s finally released today with the maximum expectation of the audience.
It’s a story about a Muslim man named Rizvan Khan who has Asperger’s Syndrome. He is immigrated to the US and falls in love with an Indian widow who is Hindu. Their happy life changes since 9/11. After the terror, they suffer from the US’s discrimination against Muslim because of his name ‘Khan.’ His behaviours from Aspergar’s Syndrome give twists to the story, and his pure and straight forward character finally shows the humanity of Muslim against the discrimination.
Many Indian people seem suspected after 9/11 in the US, and it became a big trauma for them. New York released last year is also a story of a man who is born in the US from Indian parent, and became a suspect of 9/11 without any evidence even though he has US citizenship. His trauma from the brutal tortures by the police gets him to be a real terrorist at last. While New York describes the horror to the discrimination by the government and the chain of the terror, My Name Is Khan describes the horror of the neighbours who suddenly turn to be attackers because of their own fear to the terror.
People do anything to relieve their fear. Subjectively, there’s no assailant in the world but only victims. Not only in a war, but even in peace, someone you trusted would suddenly attack you because they think you threatened them first. For them, criticizing, ignoring, or even attacking you is a gesture of justice. So they never listen to your voice. Many people may have a similar experience as I do, but if it happens in a country level, it must become out of control and you can’t run away to anywhere else.
Living in a foreign country, discrimination is a little concern even for me in Bombay. Indian people are basically nice to Japanese, but some people are mean to Chinese. It could be because of the history and relationship between India and China, or I don’t really know. People murmur “Chee-nee” when they pass me on the street, or sometimes shout at me. It happens almost everyday. I shout them back “I’m Japanese!” once in thirty times, and imagine how I would feel if I were actually Chinese. My landlord told me he is fine with me because I am not Chinese, and the neighbours joke on Chinese girls and say they are relieved I am not.
It could sound selfish though, if something happen between India and China, I imagine I may be attacked by strangers on the way because I look like Chinese. Or if the Indian government becomes more defensive to foreigners and start a sort of campaign (which could really happen), I don’t want to imagine what happens in this conservative and closed society. Tomorrow never knows.
ShahRukh’s acting of Aspergar’s Syndrome is quite realistic, and Kajor’s acting as a single mother is charming. Although the story is sad and painful, you know from the beginning, that ShahRukh and Kajor can overcome any disaster at the end as they have done in their old movies. Good movie, must see.
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