If Amitabh Bachchan represented the angry young man in the 70s and 80s, the new millennium may have just found a new icon - and he's neither young nor angry. Munnabhai may well be the most loveable and accessible idol Hindi cinema has produced in recent times. Consider what's a better bet - taking law into your own hands like DJ in 'Rang De Basanti', playing a masked watered down version of Spiderman or having your own indigenous Mr. Fixit, who's typically Bollywood and has also dusted the cobwebs off Gandhism giving it a spanking new look.
'Lage Raho Munnabhai' does what history text books and films on Gandhi failed to over the years. It makes Gandhi 'hip' and tenets like satya, ahimsa and satyagraha 'cool', ironically it took an underworld don and his sidekick to do it. The film cleverly co-opts Gandhian values along with the Father of the Nation himself and reinvents them in the popular Hindi film format interspersed with song and dance sequences, comic stereotypes - the works.
But can a film renew an entire generation's interest in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his teachings? Well that's debatable, but be sure there will be a few extra copies of 'My Experiments With Truth' flying off the shelves this season.
I know everyone's itching to see Munnabhai and Circuit's next adventure, and there are rumours abound that it's going to be a trip to the White House in the third part. But what I really want to see is a film from Rajkumar Hirani outside the Munnabhai franchise, just to know that Hrishida will actually live on. first published:September 09, 2006, 16:59 ISTlast updated:September 09, 2006, 16:59 IST
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It was November 2004, almost a year after it's release Munnabhai MBBS was still the talk of the town. A windy evening, I was in Goa covering the International Film Festival of India at Panjim. One of the most awaited screenings 'The Motorcycle Diaries' had just got over and I was busy taking reactions from the celeb frat. Nearby filmmaker Aziz Mirza walked up to Rajkumar Hirani and after congratulating him for making a brilliant film went on to offer a piece of advice - which went something like '...please don't make a sequel to it... it won't match up to the original and it will kill the reputation of something so good'. Well it seems Rajkumar Hirani thankfully didn't take Mirza's suggestion and went on to make the kind of film that reaffirms you faith in many things but most of all - good cinema.
If Amitabh Bachchan represented the angry young man in the 70s and 80s, the new millennium may have just found a new icon - and he's neither young nor angry. Munnabhai may well be the most loveable and accessible idol Hindi cinema has produced in recent times. Consider what's a better bet - taking law into your own hands like DJ in 'Rang De Basanti', playing a masked watered down version of Spiderman or having your own indigenous Mr. Fixit, who's typically Bollywood and has also dusted the cobwebs off Gandhism giving it a spanking new look.
'Lage Raho Munnabhai' does what history text books and films on Gandhi failed to over the years. It makes Gandhi 'hip' and tenets like satya, ahimsa and satyagraha 'cool', ironically it took an underworld don and his sidekick to do it. The film cleverly co-opts Gandhian values along with the Father of the Nation himself and reinvents them in the popular Hindi film format interspersed with song and dance sequences, comic stereotypes - the works.
But can a film renew an entire generation's interest in Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and his teachings? Well that's debatable, but be sure there will be a few extra copies of 'My Experiments With Truth' flying off the shelves this season.
I know everyone's itching to see Munnabhai and Circuit's next adventure, and there are rumours abound that it's going to be a trip to the White House in the third part. But what I really want to see is a film from Rajkumar Hirani outside the Munnabhai franchise, just to know that Hrishida will actually live on.
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