Aamir Khan the ‘thinking’ actor/film person experiments & is driven by his immense guts.Aamir Khan the superstar it seems knows the pulse of the masses.So this time, Aamir Khan the superstar is back after a long long time & has unleashed his star power in Ghajini like never before in his 20 years long career.Ghajini is not ‘great’ cinema.It may not even be ‘good’ cinema(I use the word cinema on purpose). But Ghajini is a great fillum.Unabashed about its dumbness & going all out with it.
Yes, technically this is not a review of Ghajini.Because I don’t have much to say about the film simply because the film doesn’t say anything.Its dumb.Its not the kinda film that you will watch on a Sunday,on TV after 6 months because you wouldn’t have much to chew on.You could instead watch Memento.That’s an achievement in filmmaking, Ghajini is not, but Ghajini is not even attempting to be that.And yes, the similarities between Ghajini & Memento are - tattooed body, polaroids with notes,girlfriend killed,boyfriend on the look out for the killer & yes, short-term memory loss.And hence,Aamir may have accepted it, but Im unable to accept Murgadoss’ claim that he watched/came to know about Memento only after making the original Tamil version of Ghajini.But the fact also is that the similarities end there.Ghajini is a different film in terms of story & screenplay.
So coming back to Aamir’s Ghajini.It is the ‘kinda cinema’ why many of us must have fallen in love with movies as kids & enjoyed it.When our mind is less polluted,less conditioned & less desperate to rationalize everything, including movies.
As the title of this post suggests, watching Ghajini was nothing short of an experience.It was like an event everyone had been waiting for(thanks to Aamir’s never-seen-before-promotional-campaign & the name Aamir Khan himself ).I went for the night show on Thursday.I, with my friend reached Delite theatre (Delhi..single screen) half an hour before the show expecting to buy tickets in black & guess what, even tickets in black were sold out..grrr..this just took my curiosity to the next level & inspite of this setback I decided not to leave the place until the movie started.And then just 10 minutes or so, before the show, a guy with 2 extra balcony tickets came up to my friend.We obviously went ahead & bought the tickets, almost triple the actual price with my friend unsure about doing so (the guy claimed that he had bought the tickets in black & that’s why he is selling them to us at the same price..hmm..nevermind).As the gate opened for entry they had already started the movie..GRRR (this time I wasn’t the only one doing this…the whole crowd expressed themselves by rasing their voices).Man was I already overwhelmed by it.You hardly witness this kinda ‘collective curiosity level’, so high.As we entered, the starting credits reminded me of Fincher’s Fight Club but that’s it.
Personally I don’t like Aamir Khan, either doing in-the-face marketing or doing loud,dramatic acting.I like & admire the Aamir Khan who underplays everything, even his success, his star power.I don’t enjoy him taking pot shots at SRK in press conferences. That’s not so Aamir Khan. That’s SRK, & no one does it better & sexier (taking pot shots) than SRK. But as far as the film was concerned it was different this time around because Aamir Khan had built a body that none of his admirers, fans, non-fans could have ever thought Aamir doing it in their wildest dreams. First reason, his persona, his height .Second, he is taken (& I suppose also admired) as a ‘sensitive’ actor & third, Aamir Khan is not ‘supposed to’ do ‘that’ stuff because we have Salman Khan,Sanjay Dutt,Sunny Deol,Hrithik Roshan for doing that.But I guess we underestimated Aamir Khan’s conviction for his films.When he screamed & roared I was seeing a new Aamir Khan.An Aamir Khan who could look convincing throwing strong built men in air & beating the shit out of them & looking amazing while doing that. The climax action sequence is performed very well by Aamir Khan. You have to watch it.I cant describe it.Its not that we have never seen something like that or even better than that before but yes, its Aamir Khan like never seen before.
Naseeruddin Shah in one his interviews around the time of Mangal Pandey commented on Aamir Khan saying something like “Aamir miya ko lagta hai ki looks change karna acting hai”.Though he didn’t say it in a negative way & sounded genuine airing his opinion & also If I remember correctly praised Aamir Khan inspite of his opinion.But my point is, it doesn’t matter what is an actor’s approach to his/her performance in terms of characterization & other technical aspects.What matters is his/her conviction,sincerity & Im dead sure that Aamir Khan is one actor who has both of it in loads plus, he has got guts to attempt the outrageous.Ghajini is outrageous for Aamir Khan’s fans who admire him for his more subtle qualities, on or off screen.One more interesting observation – If Aamir Khan knew from the beginning that GHAJINI’s format would be popular, mainstream & hardcore commercial, then why he himself didn’t produce it & make huge money for his production company??It surely involved lesser risk & higher chances of being a huge grosser at the box office compared to Lagaan,TZP & Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na.Is it because he wants to maintain a certain quality,standard in terms of content for his productions & doesn’t want to break it??If that is the case/intention then Aamir Khan’s sincerity despite his extraordinary success, according to me, is unparalleled & commendable because Ghajini is surely not the ‘kinda cinema’ many of us associate with Aamir Khan & wouldn’t even like to associate with him in future even if we have enjoy Ghajini.Though I believe Aamir knows his fans’ expectations from him but despite that he goes ahead & does Ghajini.We would want ‘the old Aamir Khan' back(including me), who quietly with his films challenges the ways of mainstream Hindi cinema not just in terms of filmmaking but also in terms of how the industry approach filmmaking & aspects of it.But what does Aamir Khan do.He takes a U-Turn & says - look guys,I am doing Ghajini.I want to have some fun! I think fair enough.
There has been a lot of criticism of Ghajini here, since its inception.Nothing wrong in it but what upset me was that there hasn’t been anyone who has spoken in favour of Aamir Khan on Ghajini. We didn’t know how Ghajini would turn out but we knew Aamir Khan – “our old Aamir Khan”.We knew about his conviction to his films.We knew about Lagaan.We knew about TZP.Yes, many people criticized TZP & many praised it at PFC & rightly so because all of it was done after the TZP release.But sadly that was not the case with Ghajini.I am not angry but I am upset because all the while in the last 6-10 months there wasn’t a single dedicated post defending Aamir Khan’s choice to do Ghajini.I don’t know why.I don’t understand it.Anyway this post is not just supposed to be a reaction to that.So…
Irrespective of how Aamir’s Ghajini would be perceived as ‘cinema’.Acc. to me & reports, the fillum has achieved its purpose by raking in the moolah.By making new records in terms of box office collections.And by doing that it has given more power to Aamir Khan to go ahead & again make films that will quietly challenge the ways of the mainstream cinema.Till then Remember - Ghajini is a blockbuster. That is what it was always meant to be.Isnt it? I think so.
I feel sometimes we should accept actors/filmmakers whom we admire consistently, to do the outrageous to ‘us’ as their fans, because we may like them for certain qualities but we share them with million other fans who may like them or start liking them for certain other reasons that are in conflict with our reasons of liking them. Aamir Khan is a superstar & Aamir Khan is a cultAnd this time its Aamir the superstar & like never before. Anyhow, more power to Aamir Khan.
Bring on “our old Aamir Khan” now!
Good luck,
Munis
P.S : This post was first published on Passion for Cinema on 26th December, 2008 - http://passionforcinema.com/ghajini-expereviewance-aamir-khan-like-never-before/
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