Monika’s Pensieve

{FILM DIARY}

Taare Zameen Par (India, 2007)

Seen: Saturday, 28th March 2009 (cinema, special screening)
Runtime: 165′
Director: Aamir Khan
Cast: Darsheel Safary, Aamir Khan, Tanay Chheda
Production House: Aamir Khan Productions, PVR Pictures
Plot: The story of Ishaan Awasthi, a little boy who struggles with school because of dyslexia.

Scene From The Film
This is a sort of song number from the film - I say “sort of” because it doesn’t involve any dancing or lip-syncing. I thought this particular sequence was pretty creative :) A shame I couldn’t find an English subbed version cause the lyrics enhance it quite a bit *sigh*

Impressions In Short
It’s a stylish tearjerker ;) Quite original.

More About the Film
You know how A Beautiful Mind takes you into the main character’s head to sort of go through the schizophrenia with him? The people John Nash invents are just as real to the viewer as they are to him. Taare Zameen Par sort of does this with dyslexia and I think that’s the best thing about the film. You can see the script was really researched and I found out quite a bit about dyslexia through the film. There are many creative sequences designed to take you into the boy’s mind and animation is used quite extensively throughout the film.
The film felt too long, however. I had the impression it could have been about 20 minutes shorter without losing any of its message.
The boy playing Ishaan was very good and it was nice to see one of the Slumdog kids making a small appearance *grin* One of the big bummers for me was Aamir Khan though. I mean as a director I think this is a very good début for him. But as an actor I think he sucked in this :] The moment he came on it was like “Hello, I’m a star.” and it just so didn’t suit this film and I know I’m not alone in this - I’ve read comments on-line from other people who felt the same way.

Recommended?
Yes, I think. Particularly for those of you who want to see a slightly different side of Bollywood. Might also be worth seeing for people who are interested in dyslexia. Or even if you aren’t particularly interested in it, but think it might be an interesting premise for film. I mean it’s not like there are many films out there on the topic - at least I’ve never seen a film about dyslexia before.
Stay away if you don’t like sentimentality. Mind you, the sentimentality did work - it actually jerked some tears out of me. I’ll add that it’s the first Bollywood film to do so which didn’t have Sanjay Leela Bhansali directing or Rani Mukherji starring ;) It’s still a totally shameless tearjerker though.