Rock On

I was sleepy, yet sleepless. My body wanted to rest but my mind wouldn't want to take a rest. Last night was party night at my colleague Lara's place and afterwards I had to catch up with Blossom and Viren's anniversary dinner. Amar and I decided to split up to be able to attend both.

We went home very late, but it didn't stop us from catching the earliest showing of 'Rock On', Farhan Akhtar's latest film. It was like we went home to sleep for a few hours and went back to a gig, I felt like clapping up my hands with the crowd in the screen. Lately, I am seeing the slow evolution of a few Bollywood films. After Jaane Tu..Ya Jaane Na, I've become a real fan of a few actors and directors.

Blame it on the exposure, but I can't remember the last time I've rushed to the cinema hall to watch a Hollywood movie, and I can't even remember which remarkable film was shown by the Filipino community.

Rock On took me to a rock concert, Indian-style. Rocking music, yes music, not noise. A rock and roll that hits home. A dreamer's disappointments, disillusions. Failures and compromises. I guess the biggest word in this film is COMPROMISE. The plot would have been a typical one, the break up of a great rock band, but it took off from there to show how each member of the band has taken their lives after the charm of youth has faded. How they have moved on from a brief success, which seemed applicable only when one is young. Responsibility has caught up the four members of the band, carefully tying up the past inside boxes and store houses.

Arjun Rampal (Joe, the lead guitarist) was on a roll, with his quiet determination, well portrayed the character of pure love and respect for his skills, despite the years, despite how life has brought him to the mundane.

The film has subtly sent the message across, one can't just give up on dreams, as one of the songs said, 'your dream is only your own.' It certainly stirred some sensitivity with the way things are going with me. I can't help but ask, where have all those dreamers gone? Although, I secretly know where one of them is.

The film aptly describes where most of those 'dreamers' are now. The common choices, conveniently dismissed ideals and dreams as youthful extravagance, yet painfully hides secret wishes.

Arjun had to battle between a better life for his family and had to agree to his wife's prodding to get on a job. To be able to make money out of music. This is particularly true with many artists. The struggle between convenience and the joys produced by the power to create.

It's amazing to experience that some movies, despite being delivered in subtitles, knows no boundaries. How else can we judge the beauty and success of a film? But I realized a serious film to be really called successful as a medium with its glaring depiction of many of life's failures, should be able to bring the viewer to a place of hope. In the end, Joe finally saw through his own songs, and derived from the same, the strength to continue moving on the path he has begun.

The music, the theme and the techniques all-together were rocking. The guys were haunted by the past, and the soliloquy of each character in the present is interspersed with what happened in their past, giving the audience the opportunity to thread the narrative by themselves.

Looking for what's missing
I realized since when did I make a review of any other good film? I can't help thinking, was it culture, was it a matter of taste that many Filipino film-makers choose to stay with the sordid, failing to rise above it? Sometimes, I feel that Filipino film-makers have oversimplified the squalid nature of our contemporary lives, and simply fail to go beyond it. Have we really lost our charm? Or have I simply lost that connection? Or am I just carried away by India's emergence in the global culture business?

Nevertheless, a good film is a good film.