Bhaag Milkha Bhaag, 2013 — ★★★★
Tags: Drama, Colonial India, Divya Dutta, Action, Bollywood

Some people are wired differently. The normal rules of society do not apply to them. They have their own set of goals, morals and paths. Their engines run on one truly powerful fuel, emotion. You can even term them fanatic, or outright insane, but they are indifferent to what you think. Their stories are epitome of human behaviour, perseverance and desire. You can’t chain their ambitions or limit their abilities. They are born to create history. Such histories need to be showcased, put before the masses by the right set of people to act as an inspiration for generations to come. It should keep reminding us, what can be achieved with sheer brutal commitment and dedication to a cause.

Of course I talk about the positive things here. A cause can be deranged too, but I digress. Bhaag Milkha Bhaag is biopic of the Indian runner who is considered as one of the finest athletes produced by India. Directed by Rakeysh Mehra who gave us Rang De Basanti, we see Farhan Akhtar as Milkha Singh.

As I said in the earlier paragraph, an inspirational story needs to be told be the right people to make a point. Rakeysh Mehra does the director’s job splendidly. Since the story comes with the background of partition of colonial India, the story has a lot of potential to get carried away, but he has kept the scenes tight, spending significant amount of time to scenes which went on to shape the psyche of the runner. Runner as depicted by Farhan Akhtar is completely convincing, from hairdo to six pack abs. He is kept in control and not allowed to overact. He brings various emotions to life effortlessly. There is determined and focussed look, there is hopeless surrender to sorrow, there are moments of romance as well which he seems to carry very well. Along with the grown Milkha Singh as portrayed by Farhan, the young version is enacted by talented Master Jabtej Singh. From his innocent games with his sister to the look on his face when the partition exposes him to harsh realities of time, he appears confident and convincing on screen. With these two I have to mention Divya Dutta who portrays his elder sister. Its very hard for me to express in words what she manages to say with facial expressions in few scenes. On a final note, both Prakash Raj and Pavan Malhotra stand out in their roles.

Music of Shankar Ehsaan Loy is well connected to the narrative. More than the explicit Bollywood songs, I loved their background score which set the mood aptly. Guitar solos with faster tempos for the race scenes, to times when the narrative takes us back in time of the atrocities. Though the songs don’t appear stitched into the storyline, I would’ve liked to see less number and less duration.

At times the movie slows down, but it’s mostly to emphasize a point. There are a few lines which seem to be present for the mainstream Bollywood audience who loves a protagonist who delivers punchlines, but such occurrences are very rare.

I hear that Milka Singh was initially not ready for the venture, it took a lot of efforts from his family and Farhan to change his mind. I am certainly happy that as an industry Bollywood could come up with something which lauds true undeterred human spirit. Such are the people and such are the biographies which need to get captured in camera to act as a reference, something to look up to, to strive for.

Update : About the IT crowd which surrounded me in the theater who laughed at Dilip Tahil for being Nehru, made lewd jokes about scenes involving Divya Dutta in the tent, I pity them. It made me realize that the movie is not meant for those who lack passion, nor those who have seen technical refinements of other film circles and try to compare everything Bollywood does with that. Moreover its definitely not for them, who have already passed the confinements and pride of nationalism for their personal agendas, probably they can never understand what the blue blazer with India embroidered on it, probably they were never raised that way. The movie is for those who are impressionable, who look up to movie depictions as something that they can follow. It inspires them a great deal. We need more such depictions Bollywood, please don’t break my heart.