What If…?

I’m starting a new series of posts called What If…?

Somebody, Jean-Luc Godard I think, said that the best way to criticize a film is to make another one. I’m not up to the task, but here’s what I’m gonna do.  I’m gonna pick some aspect of a movie that I wish had been done differently, and spell out what I might have done if I was making it. Would my idea have worked better? You read them tell me.

I’ve provided an example of this before, in an earlier freeze frame post on Dil Chahta Hai. In it, I spoke of how the opera scene involved an unnecessary holographic tour through Akash’s mind. The point of acting is to do a good enough job that such as tour is not necessary. Aamir had done well enough, as had the script – I didn’t see why the director felt like he had to spell it out for us. Especially after the way he handled railway station scene.


,

One response to “What If…?”

  1. Well, I thought the holographic tour was called for in the sense that it’s an internal moment of grandstanding, where he’s the larger-than-life (and intensely attentive) audience to the operatic sequence unfolding in his head. It seems especially apt as it mirrored the external setting where said epiphany was being had, plus it contrasted his earlier fidgeting with a fixatedness that’s nothing if not transformative. At least that’s how I saw it.

Leave a comment