Dangal
Cast: Aamir Khan, Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Girish Kulkarni, Aparshakti Khurrana, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Nitesh Tiwari
Rating: 4/5
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games are years away. Geeta Phogat has just returned to Balali, her village in Haryana, after months of preparation at the National Sports Academy in Patiala. Something about her has changed. She isn’t exactly the same girl her father, former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, trained. She is confident, ambitious, better skilled and ready to take on the world by storm.
On the other hand, the rustic Mahavir wants to keep things simple. The tough patriarch wants his daughter to remain focused on the elusive international wrestling medals. He doesn’t like the way Geeta has been sucked into the new training regime. He thinks his methods are better than the coach’s at the academy.
This is the beginning of a war that’s surprisingly physical and abnormally mental. He challenges Geeta for a bout where he would test her newly acquired skills. As absurd as it sounds, the burly former wrestler, indeed fights his own daughter with all his might. He loses and with it, the years of conditioning of women and male domination are thrown out of the window.
This is the point where director Nitesh Tiwari had to decide the hero of the film: Will Mahavir curb his instincts and become an even more fierce coach, or he will let Geeta explore the horizon? Tiwari goes with the first.
Chapter 1: Mission Impossible
In the early 1980s, wrestlers are treated as heroes. And common folks believe that wrestlers are physically superior to them. On top of that, Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) is a former national champion. A government servant after his wrestling days, Phogat who wears a gold ring and a silver plated watch, has a volatile temper and wants a son to carry his legacy forward.
Such sentiments have already taken Haryana on a route to the wrong side of the gender equality debate by the beginning of the ‘90s. His mostly apologetic wife (Sakshi Tanwar) demonstrates how you start liking your oppressor because there is nowhere else to go. Not so directly, though. Tanwar’s comic timing tries to deflect your focus from her life to the little girls who are forced to fight the local chauvinists because their father has decided to transform them into world-class wrestlers.
Chapter 2: Pride And Prejudice
Mahavir is doing it because he has a dream to fulfill, but the girls have kissed the soil because they are tired of the unsympathetic crowd of cringe-worthy men and unrepentant boys. No wonder they get their first boy versus girl fight because the organisers believed, “Agar apne pehalwano ko sher se bhi lada dega toh itne log nahi aayenge,” (You won’t sell these many tickets even if your boys fight a lion).
Geeta’s face, stride and attitude scream of retribution. She is there to break bones and the proverbial glass ceiling. And she doesn’t need to wear a classy gown for that. The kid wears skin hugging lycra beneath her loose shirt and shorts that leaves only her palms and feet free. It’s in stark contrast with the outfits of the boys she fights who have nothing but a loin cloth on. Still somebody in the crowd lets out an obscene whistle. Geeta must win the fight at any cost.
Chapter 3: Resurrection
People cheer the winners. They celebrate your success when you are on a high. Some don’t. And you meet them again when you return to your roots. In the rise and fall, what keeps a champion aloof from his surrounding is the survival instinct and motive. Geeta (Zaira Wasim, Fatima Sana Shaikh) and her national champion sister Babita (Suhani Bhatnagar, Sanya Malhotra) know that they have got into wrestling with a mission where victory is the only way forward.
Chapter 4: Respect
You hear a roar first before witnessing the enormous frothy sea, a metaphor for Geeta and Babita’s quest to be at the crest of wrestling. But they need top-class preparation. Daler Mehndi belts out the Dangal title song right here and you feel a similar goosebumps moment that you felt in Rang De Basanti, Lagaan and Chak De India. It succeeds all too well to build up the support for the protagonists.
But nothing can be so perfect, so a villain has to be devised. It’s a fictional account, but a good story is never complete without a strong antagonist. If it was the society in the first half, the wrestling federation takes it over in the second. It gets a bit preachy. But it doesn’t matter. Aamir Khan and his girls have already won the bout.
This could be Aamir Khan’s his best performance till date. Yes, even better than Lagaan. A man making his daughters chase his own dream. He cries, frowns, becomes unreasonably angry, looks old and tired, but is definitely one of us. When he shakes his head in helplessness, you see a father in him. When he gets into a brawl in front of everybody, he is the brother you always banked upon. When he wants to see you win, you know you have to perform. It’s not just his pride, it’s yours as well.
Cast: Aamir Khan, Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Girish Kulkarni, Aparshakti Khurrana, Sanya Malhotra
Director: Nitesh Tiwari
Rating: 4/5
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
The 2010 Commonwealth Games are years away. Geeta Phogat has just returned to Balali, her village in Haryana, after months of preparation at the National Sports Academy in Patiala. Something about her has changed. She isn’t exactly the same girl her father, former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat, trained. She is confident, ambitious, better skilled and ready to take on the world by storm.
On the other hand, the rustic Mahavir wants to keep things simple. The tough patriarch wants his daughter to remain focused on the elusive international wrestling medals. He doesn’t like the way Geeta has been sucked into the new training regime. He thinks his methods are better than the coach’s at the academy.
This is the beginning of a war that’s surprisingly physical and abnormally mental. He challenges Geeta for a bout where he would test her newly acquired skills. As absurd as it sounds, the burly former wrestler, indeed fights his own daughter with all his might. He loses and with it, the years of conditioning of women and male domination are thrown out of the window.
This is the point where director Nitesh Tiwari had to decide the hero of the film: Will Mahavir curb his instincts and become an even more fierce coach, or he will let Geeta explore the horizon? Tiwari goes with the first.
Chapter 1: Mission Impossible
In the early 1980s, wrestlers are treated as heroes. And common folks believe that wrestlers are physically superior to them. On top of that, Mahavir Singh Phogat (Aamir Khan) is a former national champion. A government servant after his wrestling days, Phogat who wears a gold ring and a silver plated watch, has a volatile temper and wants a son to carry his legacy forward.
Such sentiments have already taken Haryana on a route to the wrong side of the gender equality debate by the beginning of the ‘90s. His mostly apologetic wife (Sakshi Tanwar) demonstrates how you start liking your oppressor because there is nowhere else to go. Not so directly, though. Tanwar’s comic timing tries to deflect your focus from her life to the little girls who are forced to fight the local chauvinists because their father has decided to transform them into world-class wrestlers.
Chapter 2: Pride And Prejudice
Mahavir is doing it because he has a dream to fulfill, but the girls have kissed the soil because they are tired of the unsympathetic crowd of cringe-worthy men and unrepentant boys. No wonder they get their first boy versus girl fight because the organisers believed, “Agar apne pehalwano ko sher se bhi lada dega toh itne log nahi aayenge,” (You won’t sell these many tickets even if your boys fight a lion).
Geeta’s face, stride and attitude scream of retribution. She is there to break bones and the proverbial glass ceiling. And she doesn’t need to wear a classy gown for that. The kid wears skin hugging lycra beneath her loose shirt and shorts that leaves only her palms and feet free. It’s in stark contrast with the outfits of the boys she fights who have nothing but a loin cloth on. Still somebody in the crowd lets out an obscene whistle. Geeta must win the fight at any cost.
Chapter 3: Resurrection
People cheer the winners. They celebrate your success when you are on a high. Some don’t. And you meet them again when you return to your roots. In the rise and fall, what keeps a champion aloof from his surrounding is the survival instinct and motive. Geeta (Zaira Wasim, Fatima Sana Shaikh) and her national champion sister Babita (Suhani Bhatnagar, Sanya Malhotra) know that they have got into wrestling with a mission where victory is the only way forward.
Chapter 4: Respect
You hear a roar first before witnessing the enormous frothy sea, a metaphor for Geeta and Babita’s quest to be at the crest of wrestling. But they need top-class preparation. Daler Mehndi belts out the Dangal title song right here and you feel a similar goosebumps moment that you felt in Rang De Basanti, Lagaan and Chak De India. It succeeds all too well to build up the support for the protagonists.
But nothing can be so perfect, so a villain has to be devised. It’s a fictional account, but a good story is never complete without a strong antagonist. If it was the society in the first half, the wrestling federation takes it over in the second. It gets a bit preachy. But it doesn’t matter. Aamir Khan and his girls have already won the bout.
This could be Aamir Khan’s his best performance till date. Yes, even better than Lagaan. A man making his daughters chase his own dream. He cries, frowns, becomes unreasonably angry, looks old and tired, but is definitely one of us. When he shakes his head in helplessness, you see a father in him. When he gets into a brawl in front of everybody, he is the brother you always banked upon. When he wants to see you win, you know you have to perform. It’s not just his pride, it’s yours as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment