Hacker Cinema
Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India
लगान
2001 · Film · 233 min
Directed by Ashutosh Gowariker
The year is 1893 and India is under British occupation. In a small village, the tyrannical Captain Russell has imposed an unprecedented land tax on its citizens. Outraged, Bhuvan, a rebellious farmer, rallies the villagers to publicly oppose the tax. Russell offers a novel way to settle the dispute: he challenges Bhuvan and his men to a game of cricket, a sport completely foreign to India. If Bhuvan and his men can defeat Russell's team, the tax will be repealed.
4 positivefrom 4 commenters
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4 comments on Hacker News
There’s tons of very serious Indian movies. They just don’t usually capture western audiences
Sholay is a classic , in the vein of Eastwood films.
Don is our take on Godfather
Rang De Basanti and Lagaan are also great films.
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Ghum , Dil Chahta Hai and other romantic dramas are also very serious but do have songs etc because they’re huge drivers of engagement.
In the west, people see the dancing as making the movie silly. But those musical breaks are prevalent in very serious films too. There’sa whole difference in cultural norms when it comes to cinematic language.
Thank you. I looked him up.. and found that the movie 3 Idiots was loosely based on his first novel! I love that movie so much, and it got me into the wonderful world of 21st C Indian cinema.
3 Idiots (2009) and PK (2014) are my favourites. The best of the other recent Indian movies I've seen:
Barfi! (2012), Mardaani (2014), Lagaan (2001), Rocket Singh (2009), Dangal (2016), Dabba (2013), Black (2005), Rang de Basanti (2006), Taare Zameen Par (2007), Dhobi Ghat (2010), Secret Superstar (2017), My Name Is Khan (2010)
For the benefit of people not from India: Aamir Khan is a super hero around here who is leveraging that popularity to spread a lot of influence on the society and predominantly accepted as the right thing. He has been part of many serious struggles here in India - He fought against raising a dam for River Narmada which would have displaced a lot of people and disturbed nature. - He supported an anti-corruption movement
His Satyameva Jayate was a very interesting TV show that brought to light many deep rooted flaws in our system - which were never discussed or taken seriously by the society. It would take many such runs to even get people to wake up and act.
Most of his recent movies (last 10 yrs) are strongly opinionated and have some social cause in them: national pride (lagaan, Rang de basanti), education & dyslexia (taare zameen par), corruption (sarfarosh)
So, here is a person who has been successful in waking up the Indian society and doing few things himself. I think Gates is meeting the right forces which are active here.
Well, I upvoted them back to normal :)
Anyway here's my list:
Even if you don't watch this movie called Any Given Sunday, you can find Al Pacino's 5-min inch-by-inch speech. That's the best I've seen. You can look it up on youtube. Worthy 5min :) It sort of dopes you with inspiration.
My favourites (may mostly include lesser known movies):
"The World's Fastest Indian" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412080/) It's based on the real story of Burt Munro, an old hobby biker, from New Zealand who sets the world's fastest land speed record on his Indian motorcycle beating all odds like an unfit, aging body (with prostrate and a ticking heart) and very little money to spare. It's not known that much. But Anthony Hopkins is good in that movie.
This movie is a bit different, there are no bad guys and it's really awesome to watch. Gives you a very different perspective of the world ("everybody is good" sorta thing). It left me in tears after he breaks the world record in the end.
Others: Dead Poet's Society ("Carpe Diem - seize the day"), Walk The Line and a 1990 movie called Chaplin (for which Robert Downey won an Oscar for playing Charlie Chaplin) and ofcourse Forrest Gump ("life is like a box of chocolates you'll never know what you get")
Also Mongol (Story of the rise of Gengiz Khan told from a different perspective). Some other language. But you'll get sub-titles.
And if you like Bollywood (Hindi) movies, try "Lagaan" and "3 Idiots" (this is a must watch).
After reading a lot abt Chariots of Fire, I'm going to watch it this weekend.
EDIT: if you like watching action cartoons, you should try watching Transformers - Cybertron series. Although gets a bit repetitive after a few episodes (loop: "beat villian. he returns again"), the "we are a team" quote echoes thru-out.
P.S: If you notice closely in Forrest Gump, when Tom Hanks is narrating that his friend put his money in a fruit company and it seems like he's looking at a letter for shareholders, you'll notice that the letter contains Apple's old 'colorful apple' logo :D