V for Vindication
I don't know what is our obsession with vindication!
I mean granted, it is a very good movie. Great comedy, fair share of emotions, good dialogues and character development. What's more, you also deliver the message you have set out to do in the first place. But after doing everything well, you have to go and screw it all up.
Whoa.. I have rambled too far without putting a bit of context to it. I am talking about the movie - "Three Idiots". A movie in which even Kareena puts in a good performance is marred (at least to me) in trying too hard to show that the Protagonist is the winner.
Having a school full of children who learn by his methods of thinking, striking blue lakes and pale brown mountains - now that could be more than enough achievement for the lead character. He does not need to be Phunsukh-Wangdu-the-scentist-that-Japanese-are-looking-for.
While Chatur seeks (and needs) acknowledgment from Rancho, Rancho is too self-satisfied to be wanting to be a big-honcho in the game that Chatur is playing. To a Rancho, Chaturs don't matter. While Aamir's attitude on the screen shows just that, the director still probably needed that last stroke to make audience feel high as they leave the theatres.
और मजबूरी का नाम तो आप जानते ही हो! ;)
The point is... Wait a minute... I swear, I had a point when I started writing this।
Leave it। It's a great laugh. Watch it. Have fun.
18 comments:
That is exactly how I felt. In the end, the movie just screwed everything up by sort of implying that if Aamir's character was 'just a teacher' he would be a lesser person.
Lovely post, first things first.
Btw, what's with this " Phunsukh-Wangdu ". I haven't watched the movie yet .
I agree totally! It was a wonderful movie, would have been even more awesome if inventing innovative methods of teaching was good enough to make him a winner at heart. However, at the end of the day it is a Bollywood movie which would not be one without stuff like this.
There can be many Phunsukh Wangdus. I don't think the film was trying to suggest that he would have been lesser had he just been a teacher. There's nothing wrong in all of us wanting to be a Phunsukh Wangdu - financially rich and coveted through what we are passionate about. After all, that's what success is about. In filmmaking, or in art, sometimes events are constructed to make a certain point, and it's not necessary that the film is advocating the event/incident so much as using it positively to drive home a message. Events become figurative in a film's narrative - and the point behind 3 Idiots is that it doesn't mean you can't gain material success because you are interested in more than the material, that it doesn't mean that you can't gain power and control because you have the guts to rebel. That this combination is possible. There are too many films/messages all over the place that advocate the point that it's okay to be satisfied with what you have - maybe another film would have shown him being a modest teacher and tried to teach the audience that kind of modesty. But it's important to realise - that you can do what you like, be who you are, be a thinking person, choose love, and still gain not only the same things that many other rat-racers aspire for on the side, but what's more - even win over the mediocre rat-racers themselves. Like he says, if you pursue excellence and passion, success DOES follow you. Not the other way round. And we all want success after all! Let's be honest about that.
The film is about rebelling within the system. There's too much stereotype around about how, if you're a rebel or someone who does what they like - then you'll make it, sure, but in an alternate space. Basically that if you're a rebel, then you can find some other place - but definitely not the mainstream. That's the stereotype that 3 Idiots breaks. Being able to rebel within the system is the toughest thing to do. It's very easy to leave something, get cynical, etc when you don't agree. Why, because not even all of those who are 'just teachers' are very honest and imaginative either, for that matter! They're some of the most mediocre duffers who never questioned the system. So being 'just a teacher' is not as saintly as it sounds. Being able to on the other hand experience freedom and control at the same time, requires a much deeper kind of strength. Why else do you think there were so many formala-driven Bollywood dramatic scenes in the middle of this movie on the education system, darlings? :D
Well success is not really about being financially rich and coveted.
And the main reason why most teachers today are mediocre duffers is that society considers wealth and success as being equivalent. Being just a mediocre teacher who never questioned the system, is of course not saintly, but being a teacher who inspires his students with the wonders of science is absolutely not mediocre and such a person should be considered much more successful than say someone like Chatur.
@Tanmay, Kavity - Thanks.
@Rishabh - Oops. Should have put a spoiler alert! :( Will be more careful later.
@Incognito - Whoa.. What can I say!! I mean you have written more in comments than I wrote in my blog. I am just grateful!! :)
My response to you follows in the next comment! ;)
Ms Incognito, I am not really against success as you define it. AFAIK, Success might be achieving anything you want to achieve - May or may not include money, fame, recognition, etc. etc. I am not trying to say that being teacher is a great thing. Nor do I mean Chaturs are unsuccessful or lesser people for being competitive to the extreme.
My only point was that A does not need to achieve the success by the standards of B. While Chatur's definition of success by default includes peer recognition and hence he needs Aamir to approve of it. But Aamir's definition (i.e. Follow your dreams and passions and don't worry about what others think) does not need that Chatur (the others :)) acknowledges Aamir's achievement.
No job is great by its own virtue including that of a teacher. What makes a job great is the passion that you bring to it and the joy that job brings to you.
Or at least, that is what I feel.
@Tanmay - no, I'm sorry if I conveyed that being financially rich and covetted is success. That's not what I meant. Of course, an inspiring teacher who gets the returns can be considered successful. But money and position are important at the same time. You can't really say that oh, I love cutting flowers in my garden, so it's OK if I don't have money later, or that I love reading fiction and I can do without a job/money. We cannot. Because even if what you want is to just read books, you need money to buy them. You need money to buy your kids books so that they can also enjoy reading. Joy and passion are the end; money and power are often the means to that end, and while we should not think the means are the end or that the means are more important than the end, we cannot achieve the end without the means.
@Bihag: your blog is just a platform I've conveniently found to rant about the movie. I'm too lazy to start a post of my own, so forgive me for taking advantage like this. I hope someone teaches me a lesson some day :-)
Like I said, events are often metaphorical/figurative in a film. The film was NOT saying that you are successful just because you are doing this or unsuccessful if you are doing that. Let's not forget, that both Aamir and Chatur, from the beginning of the story DID share the same goal/desire: making it as a scientist. (This was not the case with Aamir's friend - Farhan. He wanted to be a wildlife photographer, and so that was what he went and got for himself at the end.) But Aamir DID always wanted to be a scientist (NOT a teacher), and so did Chatur. And what's wrong with that? Then why show Aamir as 'just a teacher' at the end? It's just that both their methods were different, and that's what the film was trying to show. A doesn't need to achieve what B wants, sure - but here the A and B in question DID want the same things. So it was not a victory in terms of WHAT they got but about how they got it. The film is trying to show that Aamir won in terms of method. I mean, on a regular basis - Phunsukh Wangdu even in the film, wasn't some celebrity or anything. He was just one other guy who was doing well. Besides that, he WAS teaching on the side, remember? So he was actually giving back to the education system through his material success.
If Wangdu had always wanted to be 'just a teacher' it would have been a different film! Then this would not have been the film. The competition between Wangdu and Chatur was about method. They both wanted the same thing: to live within the system, to be engineers and make money out of machines, and be successful within the system. This was NOT Aamir who was trying to live upto Chatur's expectation or win his approval by being a scientist - he always wanted it, irrespective of whether Chatur existed or not! He was also not the one who went after Chatur to tell him he was doing well, Chatur was the one who came to him trying to prove himself. Aamir didn't even care.
You guys have gotten the film all wrong! But I feel one flaw in the film was that the friends' characters could have been tweaked a little more maturely. I agree there was too much focus on the protagonist. And I'm not surprised, knowing Aamir Khan the celebrity, for his "holier-than-thou" attitude since Taare Zameen Par. He's always the saint who's saving and enlightening people, isn't he - as teacher, as friend, as what not. Bah.
@Bihag, Tanmay - do you mind if I quote this comment thread / discussion onto my own blog?
Aamir and Chatur did not have the same goal. Aamir was always fascinated by science and Chatur only wanted to be rich (in which he was successful). Inspiring students with science and cool machines could alone be a satisfying goal for someone fascinated by science.
In any case, I get the point of the movie, I only wish the point was different. :)
P.S. Sure, I don't mind if you quote this thread.
@T Well I still disagree. Yes, in that they were different. But Aamir wanted success as much as Chatur. It's just that it came to him rather than he going towards it. And you seem to be biased towards the idea that pure fascination for science can be achieved through only a noble cause like teaching. Like being a 'just a scientist' is not a noble cause, only teaching is? Don't romanticise teaching.
I never said 'only' through teaching and I never said teaching was nobler than a being a scientist, it's not. I am only saying that being a teacher (or any other job) should not be looked down upon purely because there is not much money in that and that being a teacher would have been enough to make Aamir's character successful and it would have made the movie better for me.
Ah, I see the possible cause for confusion.
In my post I said:
(teaching..bla bla) could alone be a satisfying goal for...
The meaning is perhaps not clear, I mean:
(teaching..bla..bla) in itself could be a satisfying goal for...
Lady, I intend to claim no intellectual rights on this discussion! (with a magnanimous gloating smile..) Use it as you see fit. :)
@Bihag - brilliant post. Damn good observation. Thanks :)
@Incognito - I disagree. Your point seems to be "If someone is enjoying what he is doing and still gets all the money, whats your problem?" No problem at all. Except that if you define goals for yourself, you run out of "methods". Method, as you use it, is the thing you do everyday; it shd be something enjoyable - all of us would like it to be so. But if you have a rigid goal G, a function of power, money & fame, then there too many enjoyable methods left.
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