DANGAL - Wrestle the odds
This year has been a mixed bag all together with several films being great like Pink and rest of them being disposable like Great Grand Masti. But every year you are in search of a film that makes you go gaga over the time it took for the makers to assemble it. The sheer brilliance that went into making a movie of such scale and perfection. For me each and every movie no matter what is the story needs such an effort and dedication from the makers whose ultimate goal lies in box office performance. Not judging their intentions but you do need some sort of reliability from the makers when you're investing your valuable time and money for almost 3 to 4 hours in travel and theatre for the sake of entertainment. This year I found my worth for every penny theatrical experience in DANGAL!
Right from the word go, movie sucks you into its world and never lets you wander off. It never demands you to invest your intellectual energy at the same time it neither lets you think about any other worldly problems. You're concerned about Mahavir Phogat's passion, convinced by his innocence and moved by his determination. At times you feel like this guy should be given a reality check and woken up from his dream. But you still understand it is such mad tunnelled approach and focus is the demand of excellence and it becomes aspirational. Well forcing any child against their will is a grave mistake and the lead actor here himself said the very thing in one of his admirable classic film, 3 Idiots, but all that does not go in vein here. There is that mother character who stands as an opposition for this very thought and looks to throw some sense into the man. Still his plea to let him do his thing for an year makes sense as he is not thinking about individual glory and fighting against the odds and norms of the society for his girls.
The whole point of filmmaking is not about showing off some craft but to recreate or create the world that certain characters live in and make it as believable as possible to suck in the complete strangers. Well that is in the craft, isn't it? How believable it would it be for an overweight , ageing person to win against a National Champion? How believable it would be for a girl who lacks in agility and temperament to win the wrestling competition against a boy? Yes, these sort of questions needs believable answers for suspension of disbelief and filmmaker Nitesh Tiwari understands them. In his attempt he doesn't just come close to reality but he challenges you to dare to prove him lacking. The score for the film doesn't try hard to make you feel the artificial emotions but it genuinely lets you process the events unfolding in front of your eyes and leave it upto you how to feel about them. This is top notch filmmaking and hats off to the makers for letting it be that way.
In the film, you can easily point out to certain places and say use the bg score here, try to elevate him there, no no give importance to the drama less here. But when you think about it everything seems so perfectly woven that asking for heroic elevations and bg scores to guide you makes one question, "Are we too used to the gimmick-ery?" Why do you need them when script doesn't require? When the point is being conveyed effectively even without them? Yet, the drama at times feels like a forced one and you're being pushed to the third eye perspective rather than being invited to be at the fore front of the action. This might appear to be nit-picky and an obscure demand but where you find it lacking there you find it lacking. Perfection is a desirable quality and when you've a maker chasing it you want them to chase it till the moon rather than stoping at stratosphere.
Aamir Khan has been brilliant before too and his body transformation needs accolades but Dangal belongs to young Zaira Wasim and Suhani Bhatnagar. Yes, Fatima Sana Sheikh and Sanya Malhotra did the best too, but if you remove the young kids out of the equation, then the believability factor and connection to the core story would have been missing. Especially, Zaira doesn't let you take your eyes off her. She in her own way manages to snatch your eye from the adorable Sakshi Tanwar and menacing Aamir, in character. The entire song sequence, Dhaakad, is the best example of her charming work and dedication. Fatima Sana Sheikh too carries the baton to the finish line with aplomb sincerity and ease. Through out the wrestling sequences you feel like watching a pro-wrestle competition and the hard work that went into achieving it is highly motivational and inspiring.
Camerawork, Production Design, Editing, Music and Stunt Choreography everything worked in beautiful rhythm here. At no instance you can question their integrity or effort here. If there is anything that one feels there was slight slip is in writing. The set up works brilliantly but the pay off becomes too heavily filmsy departing from the original incidents. The idea of a biopic for me is to recreate the factual history with some dramatic effect but tampering with it too much does leave a little sour taste. All-in-all this is one film that demands you to watch it in theatres and try to make time to not miss the experience. I conclude by saying, as the title track suggests,
"Wrestle the odds and rise triumphant!"
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