Gold Review - Independence special
Freedom is one right, which is of existential importance. If we do not have that, the life has no meaning. It’s easy to conceive the notion of freedom, for ones that are born in it. But the ones who really saw it happening, first hand, know the true essence of it. They are the ones who know the true facts and not the spurious bits relayed by the later generations. That is always frightening, isn’t it? Acute manipulation of facts. For instance the hate that has widened between our neighbors and us, in the last 72 years, is not the construct of the generation that created the partition in spurt of confusion and chaos. They were the victims. The new generations, especially from the areas that had nothing to do with the partition, without having any facts at hand, have induced staggering amounts of blistering heat between the two countries that it is difficult to comprehend that ideally we are the same bloody people. The makers of Gold do not just understand this, but have set the idea in the premise so beautiful, that you’ll take the idea home and it’ll hit you suddenly, after some time. And of course the words are beautifully conveyed by the man, Mr. Javed Akhtar, who has come from a gene pool of progressive Indian writers, who understand the quintessence of togetherness, than isolation.
Gold is a beautiful film, visually and intellectually, yet existing in a very much commercial plot. Although, I counted many errors, from costumes to set design (expected from an Indian film, you know if you followed Mohenjo-Daro), one feel forgiving of the details, as premise keeps you bound. Just for the sake of laying it out, by errors I mean, countless flaws in historical accreditation, to non-viable costumes of unnecessary glam doll love interest (even the polyester tracksuit of the team manager; polyester was introduced in 1951 and became popular in 1958), the stereotyping of accents (apart from Vineet Singh’s genuine Lahori), and tons of other messes. But I was willing to surpass all of that, as the film brings out the idea of sportsman spirit and togetherness brilliantly.
It’s a sports drama that does not lack human spirit, although the cinematography and hockey training of the actors could have been much better. The players do not look like players of hockey; the motions lacked the correct representation. Chak de, a movie of similar lines, in contemporary times, had better embodiment of real hockey players.
The dialogues are well written; direction and the editing are sharp. All the actors play their parts with ease. I personally was quite impressed by standards of Mr. Amit Sadh’s performance and expressions. I like the subtle, yet forward punjabi stance taken by Ms. Nikita Dutta (away from the idiotic overenthusiastic bubbly punjabi girl). I still can't get hold of the fact that Sunny Kaushal played Himmat singh. He was intensely convincing as an authentic sikh man, believe me, I was born in Amritsar.
Mr Akshay Kumar, as expected, overplayed his character. Or maybe I felt that because I was grinding my teeth at the obligatory puerile songs. Same sequences could have been shown in a dignified way. A drunk does not need to do thrusting pelvic movements while singing and stereotyping Bengalis, to prove that he’s a drunk.
I loved the fact that the white people, in my conscious, for the first time in Bollywood, were not made to speak in bloated Hindi (I know you can picture the funny stereotypical accent). Neither the Germans were made to talk in English, as it has been happening (no, all white people are not from UK or USA). The narrator spoke in a third party narrative at times, at the back, but when it Germans, I heard German and when there were English, I heard English.
Finally, talking about Patriotism. I understand that some actors have intelligently become the brand ambassadors of Patriotism (or rather nationalism) in the recent years, even though they are allegedly not even Indian citizens, I was expecting the Movie to be the contemporary version of Gadar, atleast by the look of the trailer. I later realized that the trailer is intelligently cut, to get the masses in (Hey, there’s a psychology lesson!). The movie rather explores the idea of true patriotism, which is to do something for the nation, in harmony with each other, and not by creating an autocratic vision and empire; Kudos to that.
Summing up. If you are an emotional fool like me, and want to see our nation, as a nation of oneness, love, empathy, respect, spirit, unity, secularism and true honour, this movie is for you. But I’m sad many of you would come out of theaters with wrong lessons.
Rating: ★★★☆☆
