I must confess that I don’t enjoy Raj Kapoor’s movies*. The ones I have seen are just too slow and I can’t maintain interest in them. It usually takes me about 4 days to get through one of his movies.
In Aag, you have a protagonist (Kewal, played by RK) with no luck at all. At the age of ten he is deprived of his first love (also ten) when her parents move away and take her with them. Things go downhill from there until he is finally setting himself on fire to make himself less attractive (it works!) to the woman his best friend and mentor** loves, but who loves him instead. In between is a second love ripped away, failure in his college exams, disappointed and angry parents, and two whole days of starvation before he finds his savior**. The in-between takes a loooonnnngggg time to get through and I grew tired of it all.
But there IS a happy ending. It comes when he marries a total stranger and discovers that his new bride is none other than his first love. And kismat is satisfied, finally rewarding sacrifice with happiness. I guess that was supposed to make me happy too, but I just wanted those three hours of my life back. I’ve got a lot more Hindi movies to watch before I die! Perhaps not being the self-sacrificing type myself, I just can’t relate.
I did love Shashi Kapoor as the ten-year-old Kewal. He was just as cute as a button:
Ram Ganguly’s music is beautiful*** and in keeping with the sombre tone. Shamshad Begum’s voice suits the mood perfectly, and is perfectly complemented by Shailash Mukherjee’s voice in “Dekh Chand Ki Or”. Whatever happened to Shailash Mukherjee? I can’t find any record of him singing in any other movies.
This is the thing: a movie needs some humor when it has so much drama in it. I just can’t BE that oppressed for almost three hours. Johnny Walker, where were you?
*With one exception (so far), more on that some other day.
**A young, handsome, Premnath!
***With assistance from Shankar and Jaikishan, who so impressed RK that he used them as music directors in his next production “Barsaat” (which I haven’t seen yet)
Tags: Aag, Raj Kapoor, Ram Ganguly, Shankar Jaikishan, Shashi Kapoor
August 28, 2008 at 4:31 pm |
Hi Greta,
Would you consider watching such films again, now that you have much more experience of Indian cinema? I wonder if your being bored wasn’t your disregard for what RK wanted to do, all his reflexion on the nature of art and drama…
You’ll tell me!
cheers
August 28, 2008 at 4:42 pm |
No, I just hated this. It’s self-indulgent histrionic Raj at his worst IMHO (well actually Aaaaaaaah is worse). I can’t bear it when he plays the “pity me, I am/have (insert malady here: poor/homeless/lovelorn/tuberculosis, etc.)” card. It doesn’t ring true for me, and makes me unsympathetic about any point he’s trying to make. I’m just too irritated.
I find him more bearable in lighter fare, especially when he doesn’t direct it too :-)
But I know I am much in the minority with this. Hey, that’s what makes life interesting!
July 16, 2009 at 1:12 am |
Wow – not even cutting the guy any slack for it being his first directorial outing! Your view of RK is obviously very much like mine of SLB or KJo – he can do no right. Given your comment :”I just can’t BE that oppressed for almost three hours. ” I sincerely hope you stay away from Mother India, although on the plus side, that film makes Aag look more like Chashme Buddoor so it might make you a little less unkind toward Aag.
July 16, 2009 at 8:33 am |
Ha! No, maybe that is unkind of me…Actually for some reason I really loved Mother India. Perhaps because it’s just a better movie :-D I wouldn’t watch it over and over again, but I can certainly agree that Mother India is a classic. This one is just self-indulgent and annoying (to me). I have liked other Raj Kapoor-directed films (although I generally prefer him in movies made by others, like Andaz)—Shree 420, Awara…but he is not ever going to be a favorite.
July 16, 2009 at 4:44 pm |
I’ll give you self-indulgent, but at least it has a happy ending, which is not like Mothre India which left me happy BY ending. :)
July 16, 2009 at 9:28 pm |
Well I do know what you mean by that for sure!!! That would be an excellent top 10 post: favorite movies by virtue of them just finally ENDING.