Jan 13, 2007 02:45 PM
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Why do you yearn to watch a Shah Rukh Khan film? Is it because he dances and sings and makes you laugh and cry? You believe that Khan is the Rahul or Raj who romances beautiful chiffon-clad women and overcomes any hurdle that may come in the way of love with his unmatchable warmth. You feel him grow over you each time you watch his magic on screen. Never mind his overacting or black humour, you want to take him home. You want the make-believe happiness you see on screen to be a reality. If you do not like Khan, you would still want to watch his film so that you can tell all those ardent fans of Khan that he is no actor; that he does not do anything he has not done before.
Why would you watch an Ashutosh Gowariker film? Obviously because he is the writer-director of the Oscar-nominated Lagaan. You definitely would not care about his previous film Baazi that grabbed headlines for Aamir Khan's cross-dressing avataar in a song sequence, more than anything else. Now, why would you watch Swades, a film in which Shah Rukh Khan the actor has teamed up with the director Ashutosh Gowariker for the first time? Sure you would expect fireworks. However, Swades, is not your glossy Shah Rukh Khan-starrer. Khan plays the sombre Mohan Bhargava, a project manager at NASA.
Yes, it is themed on the NRI returning to his homeland but the similarities with the Yash Chopra genre of romantic films ends there.
For one, Khan does not act in the film. He simply reacts to the situations around him that turn him from a cynical NRI who has given up all hope of India's development after seeing the poverty around him, to someone who wants to tackle the situation head-on. Swades, in many ways resembles a docu-drama. Like Lagaan, Swades too deals with issues of casteism and penury that deprive people of their bare essentials and children of education, in rural India.
It even provides an insight into the global precipation measurement projects undertaken by NASA and the effectiveness of water-harvesting for electricity generation in rural India. Yes, Swades does preach.
Like Lagaan, it stresses on self-suffeciency and the essence of team spirit. Where Swades fails is its music and the length. Where the music of Lagaan, was very much its spirit and its length of three hours 20 minutes full of action-packed cricketainment, the songs in Swades could be done without and the film could be edited to make it a little less cumbersome for the viewer. What makes Swades worth a watch are its characters.
Whether it is the village postman-cum-pehelwaan, Kaveri amma (Kishori Ballat) for whom Mohan comes back to India, the chubby eight-year-old, Chiku who befriends Mohan, the dhaaba-owner, Mevalal or Gita, the village school-teacher (and also Mohan's love interest in the film), each character is defined and very credible, never mind the length of the roles in the narrative.
Though Mohan is the film's protagonist, rarely does he take centre-stage. Even the romance between Mohan and Gita is underplayed. Gayatri Joshi's freshness works in her first film though her role of Gita hardly gives her scope to do much. For those looking to be entertained Swades may prove to be disappointing. For those who would like to check out the controlled performance delivered by Shah Rukh Khan after a decade of glossy romances, Swades is the film to watch out for.
