A Bollywood Film: Deewar - Essay Example

A Bollywood Film: Deewar Deewar (the wall) is a Bollywood film released in 1975. The writer of the movie is Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. A famous Indian movie director Yash Chopra has directed this movie. It is considered to be one of the greatest Hindi movies ever made mainly because of the superb direction and the mesmerizing acting by the lead cast, Amitabh Bachan and Shashi Kapoor. A brief summary of the movie will be conducive in understanding the scene elucidated later (Shafique, 2012) Vijay Verma (Amitabh Bachan) and Ravi Verma (Shashi Kapoor) are two sons of a factory worker who also is the leader of the trade union. When the needs of the factory workers are not met he goes against his employers and in the process gets humiliated and abused. The owners of the firm who kidnapped his family forced him to agree to their terms and then betrayed him. This infuriated the factory workers who started to think he was a hypocrite and signed the papers for his personal benefit. To avoid further embarrassment he leaves his family and becomes a vagabond. This action hurts Vijay, the elder brother, who fails to live with the fact that his father was a thief. As life continues, the two boys live under a bridge in Bombay with their mother who works very hard to provide them with food and shelter. The elder brother, Vijay Verma, sacrifices his childhood by seeking work at a tender age so that his younger brother could receive education. As they grow up, Vijay finds a job as a laborer at the dockyard and Ravi fails to find any job even after completing his education. Still haunted by his childhood memories which saw his father abandon their family, Vijay Verma turns into one of the biggest gangster of the underworld. On the other hand Ravi successfully passes his exams and goes on to become a police officer (Joshi, 2013). The most memorable scene in the movie occurs in the second half when the two brothers, now very far apart from each other, meet under the bridge where they once grew up in poverty. Vijay, who by now has become a notorious smuggler, tells Ravi that he has created animosity with men from underworld who would do anything to put an end to his life. Vijay also advises him to leave the city and look for some other place to settle down. But Ravi, a man strictly adherent to his principles, refuses to listen to his brother and vows to continue his fight against crime and criminals like him. Vijay becomes angry and starts insulting Ravi after listening to his patriotic views. He tells him that his principles have done nothing for him and rewarded him with such a small salary that it would be impossible for him to buy the luxuries in life. Vijay also tries to justify his acts and tells Ravi that he might have chosen the wrong path but this path brought him great comfort and all the material things in life. It is just after this scene that the greatest dialogue in Hindi cinema emerges. “I have a luxurious car, a bungalow and immense wealth, what do you have” asks Vijay to Ravi. “I have mother with me” replies Ravi (Chaudhury, 2012; Gopal & Sen, 2008). This scene is special because of the intensity, the drama and the facial expressions brought on while performing it. Vijay, who was totally in charge of the situation, was eased down to think if he really had everything. A mother is a very valuable figure who could not be bought for any price. Vijay knew no matter how much money he had, he would not be able to buy the one thing he loved most in his life, his mother. The mother plays a very important part for both the sons and the entire movie revolves around her. Vijay had chosen the wrong path because it paid better and this he had done to give a life of comfort to their mother who had struggled all her life for them. Vijay thought what he did was right, as wealth would bring happiness to his mother. Ironically Ravi tells Vijay that their mother chooses the path of modesty and poverty to the path of wealth from illegal activities. That is the moment in the movie where we see Vijay feeling isolated for the first time and later planning to quit the underworld. Thus this was the scene that would change the outcome of the movie. Ravi’s words struck Vijay who would later adopt the path of redemption and would do anything to get his life back (Chaudhury, 2012) Both the actors did a tremendous job in making this scene a masterpiece. It just had the right amount of anger from Vijay and just the right amount of calmness and cheekiness from Ravi. Vijay’s firm style of speech and his body language made him look rebellious. Amitabh Bachan truly did justice to his role of an angry young man here. His performance was full of pain exactly what was required of the situation during this epic scene. Shashi Kapoor, on the other hand, looked very composed. His expressions were candid that matched with his principles of not bowing down to criminals. His body language mixed very well with the scene and made him look like a man not ready to give up till the end. The performance is worth applauding (Virdi, 1993; Gopal & Sen, 2008). In this scene, we see Vijay dressed in an elegant suit that seems to be expensive just by the way it looks. Ravi is wearing what he normally wears, a non designer. Their costumes are important as they reflect a conflict in their identities and the past Vijay is trying to hide. Before getting accustomed to this life Vijay used to be shabbily dressed and wore slippers. In this scene however, he is wearing a smart black shirt and a stylish grey blazer on top. His Kolhapuri slippers are replaced with shoes showing richness and a transformation of appearance from a street urchin to a class of his own. There is consistency in Ravi’s dressing which shows there is no change in his lifestyle. What he was so many years ago he is still the same person. The props suggests that Vijay is the man in disguise, the man who is running from his past yet is faced by his brother who remains unchanged despite of the same suffering he also went through (Gopal & Sen, 2008). The scene begins with a patriotic Hindi song “Saare jehan se acha Hindustan hamara” (Our India is better than any other country). As a child Ravi used to patriotically listen to this song while Vijay used to watch him from far away suggesting that there was no or very less element of patriotism in him. As Vijay grows up, the wordings of the song hits him making him feel guilty for the path he had not chosen. It keeps reminding him the life he has adopted in order to become rich. On the other hand Ravi has grown listening to this song in school and in home. He took great pride in singing this song. Ravi’s patriotic view is just the exact opposite to Vijay’s. The song at the starting of this scene tells the audience that Ravi means business. He will talk as a police officer to a criminal and not like a brother to a brother. There is more irony in this song. The word ‘mother’ is a symbol of the word ‘jehan’ (country). Ravi tells Vijay that regardless of all the material things Vijay might have, he (Ravi) still has their mother living with him. Here, Ravi is telling Vijay that whatever he is doing is for the love of his country which is top priority for him (Shafique, 2012) The cinematography of this film is worth admiring. In this particular scene the director takes his audience to the part where it all started. It is the same bridge under which the two of them started their new life after their father had disappeared and it is the same bridge under which they lived together their entire childhood. This bridge kept them together in bad times and now the same bridge was the host of their final encounter. The word bridge symbolizes ‘distance’ and it is not an irony that it shows up at the time when the two brothers are about to say their final goodbye. This particular set holds a lot of emotions for the casts as well as the audience. While watching, the audience will recap memories from Vijay’s and Ravi’s childhood and all the sacrifices Vijay made for his brother. Now that same younger brother stands and questions the ways of his older one. The director also did a fantastic job by focusing more on the dialogues and not on loud background music. While Vijay and Ravi argued, there was silence on the bridge and the dialogues were clear to listen (Desai, 2013). List of References Chaudhury, B., 2012. Bolly Spice. [Online] Available at: http://bollyspice.com/48361/scene-by-scene-deewaar-1975 [Accessed 6th February 2013]. Desai, N., 2013. Apun ka choice. [Online] Available at: http://www.apunkachoice.com/titles/dee/deewar/mid_25840/reviews-editor/ [Accessed February 6, 2013]. Gopal, S. & Sen, B., 2008. Inside and Out: Song and Dance in Bollywood Cinema. In R. Dudrah & J. Desai, eds. The Bollywood Reader. Maidenhead: Open University Press. pp.146-57. Joshi, A., 2013. Planet Bollywood. [Online] Available at: http://www.planetbollywood.com/displayReview.php?id=040506022408 [Accessed 6th February 2013]. Shafique, K., 2012. The Express Tribune. [Online] Available at: http://tribune.com.pk/story/462731/breaking-down-the-wall/ [Accessed 6th February 2013]. Virdi, J., 1993. Jump Cut (A review of contempory media). [Online] Available at: http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC38folder/Deewar.html [Accessed 6th February 2013]. Read More