The Rising
Aug. 15th, 2005 04:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieApologies 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
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
