Dangal

So last night my wife and I went to see the movie "Dangal", starring Aamir Khan. Short verdict: we enjoyed it very much. It had humour as well as sad parts, and any movie that can make me both laugh out loud and cry is golden in my book. So anyone who feels like watching a family docu-drama can watch that one and be pleased. I highly recommend it.

What was astonishing to me was that the movie was shot in about a year. When I was watching the movie, it looked to me as if it might have taken three years to shoot. I am astounded by the speed in which they were able to complete and release the movie. Within my limited knowledge of film-making, it takes a lot of time to complete a movie. I've always thought of it as a long and gruelling process. But knowing that this movie was done at such a speed, it made me want to be on a Bollywood production set and just learn how they do things and are able to achieve so much within so little time.

Another bewildering thing about the movie is that all the actors and actresses learned to wrestle like real competitive wrestlers. They went for months and months of training to be able to get the right wrestling technique and form. Aamir Khan put on and lost 30kg, all within the span of a year. It takes dedication, hard work and passion, and Aamir Khan certainly displayed that in his preparation for his role.

Some of my favourite parts of the movie (or of any movie, really) is how the filmmakers explored the father-daughter dynamics present in the story. The way they interacted with and reacted to each other seemed genuine and came off as shedding light to what many might be able to relate to in the real world. I say this because I saw my own father in some scenes. The love and support. The determination to help. The knowledgeability in the sport they were most passionate about. The difficulty to communicate at certain points. It touched a place very close to my heart, as a lot of father-child stories tend to do for me.

Of course the movie had its flaws. The establishing parts were rather uncreative with how they wanted to communicate to the audience that Aamir's character was super passionate about wrestling, by telling rather than showing us that fact. At certain points it did get a bit message-y too, where the movie was trying to tell its audience what was right and what was wrong. Not a lot of grey areas to explore, in that regard.

But overall, it was a crowd-pleasery movie, and I left the movie as a pleased member of the crowd. I hope to be able to learn how to do what they achieved in this movie some day.

Here's to learning how.