Thoughts on Hey Ram (2000), my 43rd SRK movie:
I'll start by saying that I'm from Europe and we didn't study Gandhi in school unfortunately, so everything I know about him comes from his autobiography, which I read in an attempt to fill this gap in my knowledge of world history. Well, the autobiography absolutely useless for this! It just talks about his youth and vegan lifestyle! It literally ends as he decides to fight for independence because he thinks "what came next is too easy to look up in newspaper archives anyway" ??? Dude, I'm reading your book because I don't want to scavenge newspaper archives! So I'm still not sure of how India became independent and this movie didn't help either since it picks up right after the end of that process. At least now I know how he died, I guess? Will watching/reading a third thing give me the answers I seek?
This is all to say that what follows are my opinions on the movie as a movie, no politics etc because I know nothing about it and it went all over my head.
A really different movie from my usual SRK 90s comedy slop, really interesting, it keeps your eyes glued to the screen, especially the first half. The second half was quite heavy on the politics so it lost me a bit.
Name one SRK-Rani Mukerji movie that ends happily for her. She is always dying or getting dumped or marrying abusive men. Paheli is the ONLY exception so far. Only a slightly better track score than Preity Zinta-SRK, how is that possible ffs.
I don't think I've seen the clothes SRK wears in this movie before, which I can only assume are Muslim traditional clothes in India? If someone has recs for books on clothing styles in India please tell me cause I feel like I'm missing half the plot by not understanding the wardrobe choices and it sucks TT
On that note, what is the white thread that the guy wore around his neck/bust and under his clothes? I tried looking it up but nothing.
This is the first Indian movie I've ever watched that features a full on kiss on the mouth AND they also consummate the wedding. Where am I???
Also doing drugs and liking it? Mom, I'm scared come get me from the cinema.
Obviously, I didn't realize this wasn't in Hindi until we got to like the last scene... I guess this explains the different morality standards (Why do I even watch Indian movies if I miss 90% of the context? Languages, politics, clothes, traditions, religions, etc, they all fly over me like a shuttle to the moon.)
The good thing is that I've just watched my first Tamil movie.
I do wonder how the heck the protagonist earned money after he stopped being an archeologist btw. Did his parents leave him rental properties?
You know what? I'm going to say. if the guy had listened to Rani Mukerji and stayed home the night of the riots, he would have used the gun that night and maybe nothing of all this would have happened.
Anyway, I'm 3 movies away from Mohabbatein, I'm excited