The Rising

[dangermousie]

Apologies to everyone who is bored by Roswell, which has been the topic for the last couple of weeks. I only have 15 episodes to go :)

On a very different note, I saw the bolly flick "The Rising" over the weekend and liked it.

If you like handsome men angsting and bellowing orders and saving widows from sattees, this is the movie for you. It takes liberties with the history (but at least it puts a disclaimer upfront), and is a bit too simplistic, but it has star-crossed lovers, big casts, pretty people. It's fun.

Also, I want to take Toby Stephens' William Gordon home.

Aamir Khan is back and does an excellent job. The character starts out naive and not too bright and I like that. He even manages to look hot despite the mustache a few times. But I never see Mandey as a real person, more a collection of checkmarks on a clipboard and the movie goes and checks them all off one by one. But hey, that's how it usually works with epics.

I liked Rani's dancing number. Liked all the music actually. I am all for doomed love affairs, anyway, even if they are tacked on, masala style.

I found Toby Stephens excellent (and hot, hot HOT). He was good at portraying a conflicted and honorable man. And when he got all upperclass-British-authorityish? *swoooooon* Loved it when he rescues Mangal from the 4 nasty British officers. And he is so tender and comforting to Jwala who, lucky woman, goes from being with a sick 62-year old man whose relatives want to cook her alive, to being with a gorgeous British officer who rescued her (and there is kissing, yay!)

The sattee scene was very well done. I was quite scared. And I liked Amisha and her character.That love story was really well done.

Some visually moving moments (e.g. Aamir marching to try the cartridge. Or standing in front of the gun). Plus, shot beautifully.

The biggest problem with this flick was that this movie wanted to be a nationalistic epic, but it had to have masala as well (Unlike Swades which was purely a movie about a topic it wanted to make, no masala). I am all for masala, and if you manage to integrate it, good for you. This movie had occasional problems with melding the narratives together and at times it was like watching two different movies smushed together. The Holi dance number coming right after mutineer meeting is a really good example. But then we see Rani (who is a hooker against her will) and Aamir's Mangal making out in the water, and Jwala actually teasing and laughing with Gordon, so it's OK by me.

So see it. You'll have fun. Overall, however, I thought Swades (which came out last year and dealt with an American trained engeneer going back to a village in India) is a much better "patriotic genre" movie. The Rising is about "woo hoo, let's kick out evil opressors." Swades is "opressors have left over 50 years ago. Now we have to work on our own problems."

Btw, this is the slashiest movie EVAH. I am not kidding. :D

Comments

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen it, but agree utterly on the hotness of Toby Stephens. I saw him in a stage play in London a few years back, and he has a lot of charisma in person as well (unfortunately the play sucked, but the cast was great). If you want Toby Stephens hotness (and a bath scene!), I strongly recommend the movie version of Twelfth Night, directed by Trevor Nunn, and also starring Helena Bonham-Carter, Ben Kingsley, Nigel Hawthorne, etc. He plays Orsino, and actually makes him into an interesting, volatile and indeed extremely sexy character (in previous productions I'd seen of the play, the character was usually a mess). Mind you, that could very well be partly Nunn's direction, but I think a lot of it has to do with Stephens. Definitely a movie worth seeing.

Re: Roswell, in all honesty, no, not very interested, but that's what my scroll button is for. It's your journal, you put up what interests you. As long as long posts are behind a cut tag so I can scroll past them easily if they're not on a topic I care much about, I'm not going to grumble. Besides, there may well be people reading your journal for the Roswell stuff and scrolling past the other topics.

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I love 12th night and he was excellent in it. Quite a great flick.

I wonder what else he's been in that is good. I think he was also in Photographing Fairies, which was wonderful but utterly depressing.

Re: Roswell etc. I have a whole number of interests that have nothing in common (e.g. Bollywood and BSG aren't really similar at all) and I am one of those people who doesn't know most of the people who friended her lj, thus the only reason they friended my lj was to read about common interests. So I try to post a bit about each one of these on a regular basis, because it's only fair. But when I get extra-obsessed about one of my obsessions, it takes more lj space then the rest. :)

And yes, cuts are a wonderful thing!

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

You know that the DVD of Twelfth Night is coming out in region 1 soon, right? I'm dying for someone to make me fabulous icons once it does (I have a region 2 disc and I can't cap that on my computer!)

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I didn't realize it wasn't on DVD yet. How odd...

[raincitygirl.livejournal.com]

Bounce, bounce, bounce! Yay, I was so tired of videotape, and it simply wasn't available on DVD unless I had a region-free one, which I don't. Thanks so much for telling me.

[thelana.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, just the suggestion of "Patriotic Epos" puts me to sleep. No matter which country we are talking about :(

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

I found it interesting to watch from "the other side" so to speak. Sort of like colonial mythos turned inside out.

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

I just saw "The Rising" today and basically, I am all about the Toby Stephens character - partly because it's Toby Stephens, mmmmmmmmmmm! And partly because he's a much more interesting figure to me because he's conflicted, and torn between this country he loves but which he can never belong too (as Mangal makes very clear to him) and a duty that he doesn't necessarily like, but as an honorable man, cannot ignore (and I wish they'd actually SHOWN more of the Rising and the atrocities on both sides, because his warnings aren't wrong at all, really.) And I loved and found the romance between him and Jwala far, FAR more believable than the Mangal-Heera business.

For the most part, I actually thought the music worked fine because we never saw Mangal or Gordon burst into song, although the song at the very end and the holi thing were a little silly! I found the Hindi voiceovers with English subtitles for the English stuff annoying, but I understand why they did that for the Indian viewers (hard to subtitle a movie in 26 different languages!) - wish they'd cut it for non-Indian audiences, though.

But in general? Mmmmmm, TOBY!

[linaerys.livejournal.com]

And hee! It must be slashy if dangermousie saw the slash!

I couldn't decide who I enjoyed more, Toby Stephens or Aamir Khan. They were both excellent, and had great brotherly-love chemistry together too. I just loved the wrestling scene.

But I also love how Jwala starts off terrified and ends up falling in love with Gordon--a nice believeable transition, even though it didn't get much screentime. It was interesting how they were both separated somewhat from their cultures: Jwala exiled from her village, and Gordon pulling away from the East India company.

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

It must be slashy if dangermousie saw the slash!

Hee! But I was so partial to the lovely rescued widow ;)

They were both excellent, and had great brotherly-love chemistry together too. I just loved the wrestling scene.

I know! I think that's why I liked the first half better than the second; the second half kind of remembered to be a Big Epic and they sort of moved away from the character interactions I really liked.

[queenofthorns.livejournal.com]

Sorry, hit “send” too soon – I was going to say that yes, I agree that both Jwala and Gordon are outcastes and that makes the fact that they found each other all the more poignant. Jwala isn’t just cast out of her village; I’m pretty sure she’s like, cast out of society altogether at this point – no one will have her back. And although the voiceover kind of spoke over that part, I think I heard the court people telling Gordon he was relieved of his command (and obviously, he’s pretty much lost his “place” in India – the ability to be a bridge between the country he loves and the company he serves.)

They have more backstory on the film’s official website.

[shewhohashope.livejournal.com]

I forgot Tobey Stephens was in this!

*moves to top of queue*

[dangermousie.livejournal.com]

Yay! He is quite awesome in this.