Over-hyped, Mis-directed or Weak-intentioned : What makes Peepli live so irrelevant?
Peepli live, a uch talked about movie which leaves you with a ‘so is it over?’ and later ‘what did I really watch??’ expression in the mind. I left the cinema quiet and remained so for the first two minutes after having sat back in the car, till the ritualistic ‘how was it’ came up… and easy as it is, I discarded this one as an average watch-nothing new-watch it on dvd-types and told myself to move on. But then this was an Aamir Khan production and apparently one potraying ‘reality’ and ‘the truth the way it exists’. With claims so tall this movie needed an evaluation on the honesty meter.
To me the movie loses its plot, (metaphorically only just yet), trying to be something between documentary, ‘arty’ and commercial. Quite obviously as happens with a lot of experiments which try to walk the tight-rope, it falls completely flat with ending up being none of the above.
The tale is set in a small village Peepli which is a sturdy vote bank somewhere within the state of Mukhya Pradesh. While Budhia and his brother, the poor farmer protaganists of India, tour you through the helpless lives of village India, (poor read as : unshaven faces loathed in dust, further dusty clothes draped over fitted frames and skeleton like figures dragging their bicycles of misfortune but still eating a full plate meal with roti, daal, sabzi et all), you come across their mission of wanting to save their ancestral land from being subjugated by the government or some other such body. Simple as is bulleted in the movie, you and the protagonists get introduced to a government ‘scheme’ of compensation for farmers who commit suicide. Without much deliberation on this easy solution, the brothers decide this is the way to go, make some quick money (which btw, they don’t see desperate for at all), and get the ancestral land back in their pockets. The younger brother (Budhia) shall now sacrifice his desi daaru and wanderings and take the path of a media-clad suicide. Somewhere in the backgrounds also feature some talks about American grains and fertilizers, women jumping in wells, a old sick man who isn’t taking the leap inspite of being nearly there, apparently distressed farmers’ light-hearted discussions on suicides and a politician flirting with a news reader minutes before going live for an interview (?) !. Coming back, we are sure as hell introduced to the madness that is media in taking up this story, with their idiosyncrasies and over-emphasized silly reporting. So we are inflicted with a range of emotions from discussing the household items used by Budhia and family, to small-town reporters bullying thier staff, to blockprint cotton salwar kameez-clad englicised hindi-speaking journalists educating silly local reporters on the heartless profession that they have chosen. Parellely, the media reporting has stormed up a political disaster with elections round the corner and all parties counting their votes over this issue. By then you have lost hope of finding anything new or untold in this movie and you wonder how will they ever end this numbly predictable saga, just when you are suddenly reminded that its been 72 hours since Budhia announced his suicide! And this steals you from your thought to start wondering why the hell isn’t he dying or doing anything at all? Thankfully you aren’t left with that thought for too long as, surprisingly enough, there is a half-baked frustration shown from the protaganists side and an eventual run-away attempt to escape the whole situation. What follows is a political media cat and dog chase to finally climax this oft-repeated tale and end up with no winners, no losers.
On another note the movie does have some very interesting music and back ground score and some amazing shots, infact the camerawork and lens actually spoke of the poverty much more than the story or protagonists did. Also commendable are the actors chosen and Aamir Khan’s touch of keeping to local dialects inspite of wanting this to be a commercial release. All of these work well in building a flavour for the movie but the movie begins to lose its grip with the inferences that it draws from. Observations seem too naive and on-the-surface and the movie clearly becomes a fact-stating exercise at one point with no opinion of its own.
The only one freeze-your-feet moment occurs when the audience is made to realize that the person killed in the accident, which was considered the conclusive event for the media story of Budhia’s life, isn’t Budhia and is infact the local reporter who germed the story of Budhia’s suicide, much without Budhia’s own knowledge, and made a media debacle of it. That to me was the point of audience empathy where reality becomes brutally distinct from power. Which also tell us why this movie doesn’t work as being a tale about hand-cuffed politicians or helpless farmers, both of which exist inert within their domains with or without media interference. It could have probably been better said from the view of the failure of journalism within journalism, where a scoop-hungry media will walk over anything for a story, even itself.
Ultimate mystery moments : The movie beginning with Budhia puking his lungs out in a moving car ?! Nandita whatevers super cool americani hindi-ised english accent?! Believe me this one is a first!
To me the movie loses its plot, (metaphorically only just yet), trying to be something between documentary, ‘arty’ and commercial. Quite obviously as happens with a lot of experiments which try to walk the tight-rope, it falls completely flat with ending up being none of the above.
The tale is set in a small village Peepli which is a sturdy vote bank somewhere within the state of Mukhya Pradesh. While Budhia and his brother, the poor farmer protaganists of India, tour you through the helpless lives of village India, (poor read as : unshaven faces loathed in dust, further dusty clothes draped over fitted frames and skeleton like figures dragging their bicycles of misfortune but still eating a full plate meal with roti, daal, sabzi et all), you come across their mission of wanting to save their ancestral land from being subjugated by the government or some other such body. Simple as is bulleted in the movie, you and the protagonists get introduced to a government ‘scheme’ of compensation for farmers who commit suicide. Without much deliberation on this easy solution, the brothers decide this is the way to go, make some quick money (which btw, they don’t see desperate for at all), and get the ancestral land back in their pockets. The younger brother (Budhia) shall now sacrifice his desi daaru and wanderings and take the path of a media-clad suicide. Somewhere in the backgrounds also feature some talks about American grains and fertilizers, women jumping in wells, a old sick man who isn’t taking the leap inspite of being nearly there, apparently distressed farmers’ light-hearted discussions on suicides and a politician flirting with a news reader minutes before going live for an interview (?) !. Coming back, we are sure as hell introduced to the madness that is media in taking up this story, with their idiosyncrasies and over-emphasized silly reporting. So we are inflicted with a range of emotions from discussing the household items used by Budhia and family, to small-town reporters bullying thier staff, to blockprint cotton salwar kameez-clad englicised hindi-speaking journalists educating silly local reporters on the heartless profession that they have chosen. Parellely, the media reporting has stormed up a political disaster with elections round the corner and all parties counting their votes over this issue. By then you have lost hope of finding anything new or untold in this movie and you wonder how will they ever end this numbly predictable saga, just when you are suddenly reminded that its been 72 hours since Budhia announced his suicide! And this steals you from your thought to start wondering why the hell isn’t he dying or doing anything at all? Thankfully you aren’t left with that thought for too long as, surprisingly enough, there is a half-baked frustration shown from the protaganists side and an eventual run-away attempt to escape the whole situation. What follows is a political media cat and dog chase to finally climax this oft-repeated tale and end up with no winners, no losers.
On another note the movie does have some very interesting music and back ground score and some amazing shots, infact the camerawork and lens actually spoke of the poverty much more than the story or protagonists did. Also commendable are the actors chosen and Aamir Khan’s touch of keeping to local dialects inspite of wanting this to be a commercial release. All of these work well in building a flavour for the movie but the movie begins to lose its grip with the inferences that it draws from. Observations seem too naive and on-the-surface and the movie clearly becomes a fact-stating exercise at one point with no opinion of its own.
The only one freeze-your-feet moment occurs when the audience is made to realize that the person killed in the accident, which was considered the conclusive event for the media story of Budhia’s life, isn’t Budhia and is infact the local reporter who germed the story of Budhia’s suicide, much without Budhia’s own knowledge, and made a media debacle of it. That to me was the point of audience empathy where reality becomes brutally distinct from power. Which also tell us why this movie doesn’t work as being a tale about hand-cuffed politicians or helpless farmers, both of which exist inert within their domains with or without media interference. It could have probably been better said from the view of the failure of journalism within journalism, where a scoop-hungry media will walk over anything for a story, even itself.
Ultimate mystery moments : The movie beginning with Budhia puking his lungs out in a moving car ?! Nandita whatevers super cool americani hindi-ised english accent?! Believe me this one is a first!
posted by blink blank link at 2:35 PM
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