PEEPLI [LIVE]

If there's one man in India whom we could term as the Godfather of Bollywood it would be Aamir Khan. Aamir's third consecutive blockbuster- Peepli Live is the ultimate mockery of the Indian Press and The Indian Government. I saw it recently, in its third running week, in a late night show, with a dear one, and some 20 other people in the hall. But Peepli is the kind of movie that can be seen all alone in the theater without feeling the obvious absence of any other fellow viewer. It is a hard hitting satire on the opportunistic self-serving politicians, smarmy local political goons, the voyeuristic media persons, and on the hundreds of government policies that are made everyday only to reach dead ends. It does not preach, has no melodrama, no grandstands. It pragmatically shows us the extremes of Political Conflict and Media 'Sensations'. Farmer suicides is the ugliest truth of our democracy, and to make a movie on this subject with no glitz-glamour, big stars, and melodrama is nothing short of valor!

One of the peculiarities of this movie is the consistent and coherent digression from the protagonist's dilemma to other subsidiary comic stories that come up. These short comic mockeries work out wonders for Peepli Live- be it the saas-bahu tussle, political gimmicks of the local henchmen, or the Lal Bahadur. Talking about the acting, I would not think twice before saying that these village actors are better than most Bollywood actors who could just go do some Advertisements and forget about movies. Natthu, the protagonist hardly said a word, yet his expression and acting made him an awe-inspiring character on the screen. Even Rajpal Yadav wouldn't have played this part so well.
The beauty of the movie lies not in the songs (unlike 99% of bollywood movies) but in the dialogues. The language used is just what a farmer would speak. No fancy monologues. There are few bad words used repeatedly, but I wonder what impact it could have had without them!


For those who found it loose, ineffective, depressing or heartless, I would say that Peepli is not a spoof on farmer suicides. It is realism in the barest form. It shows us what really happens from an objective, neutral standpoint, without giving any sermons and spoiling the show, and leaves us wondering, in shame, about why it continues to go on in this so-called developing economy. The sharp subtleties that run through the movie constantly remind us of the moot point it's trying to make. All said, Peepli has its heart in the right place, and is easily the finest movie of the new millenium, and might just continue to be for another 10 years to come (knowing Bollywood!).