Friday, September 1, 2017

Film Studies II: 3 Idiots (2009)

Asian cinema is a space which encounters many ideas, philosophies, cultures and religions. From here, Asian cinema can evolves a world from its own ideas. There are many subjects that we can discuss in aesthetics in Asian Cinema such as visual aesthetics, mise-en-scene materials, music and sound, performance style, pace and etc. Today, I would like to talk about the aesthetics in the film, “3 Idiots”.

3 Idiots is an Indian coming of age comedy drama film co-written, edited and directed by Rajkumar Hirani and produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra in 2009. The screenplay was written by Abhijat Joshi. It was inspired by the novel Five Point Someone by Chetan Bhagat. The film stars Aamir Khan, Kareena Kapoor, R.Madhavan, Sharman Joshi, Omi Vaidya, Parikshit Sahni and Boman Irani. It was a 171 minutes film, it’s quite long compared to the normal length of films.

The film is about the friendship of three best friens, Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi and Ranchoddas Chanchad. They study at the prestigious Imperial College of Engineering (ICE). They also are roomates. Farhan wants to be a photographer secretly, but studies engineering in fear of his father. Raju chooses engineering so that he can support his family but he got a poor grades. Rancho is a talented and eccentric inventor. They help and try to be understanding to each other, have some quarrel sometimes, but all of these will strengthen their relationship.

3 Idiots can be counted as a Bollywood film which is the most representative form of “popular Indian cinema”. It is highly influenced by Hinduism. One of the factors that classified this film as Bollywood film is because this film use Hindi as its language. Mise-en-scene also helps to enhance the visual aesthetics of the film. The colourful and unique Indian traditional clothing shows the audience the culture of this race. For example, Pia wears a traditional red saree and lehenga with many accessories such as big bracelets, necklace, earrings, head accessory and nose ring in her own wedding. In terms of colour, red at here counted as passion and good things happened. Another example is in the scene of real Rancho’s father’s funeral. Most of the people wear in white clothing. At this point, white counted as sad, past and bad things happened.

Next, I would like to discuss the dance and music elements found in this film. Indian film usually uses music and dance sequences within the narrative structure. The director use musical to bring out the feeling of the main cast in particular moment with a bunch of backup dancers at behind. For example, Pia opens a photo album and starts to imagine she singing “Zoobi Doobi” and dancing with Rancho together with a crowd of people. Another example is when Raju, Farhan and Rancho dance in the toilet with others engineering students.

This film shows Indian culture and social aspects. The film points out the issue of Indian education system, the students are asked to memorize the knowledge from books without learning any practical experiences. For example, Chantur who can memorize the definition of the terms can makes the lecturer happy whereas Rancho who cannot memorize the definition but think creatively are thought to disrespect the lecturer. The film also shows the issue of disparity between the rich and the poor. For example, the real Rancho’s rich family and Raju’s poor family.

In conclusion, 3 Idiots not just entertain the audience but also brings out some moral values to the people. I think that this is really a recommended film to everyone especially the youngster.

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