Yesterday, we went & watched Taare Zameen Par. It is not often that we watch a movie on its 3rd day. Veena visits movie theatres about 2 or 3 times a year and I fare much better at about 10 per year. (remaining 8 or 7 with my HP friends). So it was out of the ordinary that we both watched this movie this early and not just that, we took neha & nidhi along as well.
Their first movie in a theatre was "Ekalavya" at PVR. They hardly enjoyed it. They watched the big screen in awe for about 15 mins, then walked & played in the open area in front of the screen (we had deliberately taken the first row) for about 30 mins, enjoyed pop corn for 10 mins and cribbed that they are bored for the rest of the movie.
That was about 10 months back. TZP was their second movie. We thought they might enjoy TZP more cos its the story of a kid, they can recognise some settings in the movie (school, class, drawing...). They did watch it intently for most part. They got bored only when little Ishaan was not on the screen.
My opinion of the movie - very well made, its like a work/well prepared book. you can see & appreciate the work aamir khan has put on the subject & movie. It touches all the parental chords in your body (hey, i just realised paternal is an anagram of parental, hmm, interesting what does that mean, if you jumble up parental feelings you get paternal feelings? :-))
To me, aamir is the best actor in the last 20 years and stands alongside amitabh on my list of favourite actors. In many ways he is similar to kamal hassan in that he tries diffrent things. While Kamal mostly experiments with his looks/acting style, Aamir apart from those also tries different subjects, is trying direction in this movie and is surely more thorough in research & effort. The outcome is a great movie and I'd recommend it to every parent, teacher and anyone who cares for kids. If that list leaves someone, I'd recommend a silly entertainer called OSO to them. In short the story is about a dyslexic child facing the challenges of the world & getting beaten into a shell before a teacher helps him overcome his problem.
I asked neha & nidhi what they thought the story of the movie was and what they liked & disliked in the movie today morning. The story according to them is - ishank (& not ishaan) is a good boy whose parents, teachers scold him for no reason and then an uncle comes and helps him by singing to him, help him paint. Ishank & Uncle are the good boys while all others are bad boys & girls. Ishank's mom is a bad girl too.
The scenes that impacted them are
(i) when ishank is sitting with 2 stray dogs and one of them is sleeping on his lap
(ii) when he fights with his neighbourhood kid & the 2 dogs circle them
(iii) ishank is standing on the parapet wall in his school overlooking the valley - they thought he was stupid as he could fall down & die
(iv) ishank's dad scolding & slapping him - this hurt them quite a bit.
Aamir khan plays the teacher. He looks a little unconventional to be a teacher even in our eyes cos of his dressing and is so cool. Neha & Nidhi could not recognise him as a teacher at all. They could recognise every other character who plays a teacher role as that. They refer to him as ishank's uncle. I asked them why they thought he is not a teacher. They said cos he sings to the kids and sits with them on their bench and plays with them.
Hmmm that is a grave stmt and has me in a thinking loop for a while now. Why is it so hard to do those things with kids. For Teachers & Parents. TZP surely is a thought provoking movie and I'm learning. Thanks Aamir.
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