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Taare Zameen Par: Pavlovian Conditioning Prevails
Aamir Khan’s directorial debut Taare Zameen Par is an important film in the sense that it refers to the combative environment in which the present generation of children are being prepared to succeed. The film also takes issue with the declining tolerance forfailure amongst both the parents and society in general.
Ishaan Awasthi (Darsheel Safary), who is otherwise a bright child, repeatedly fails his school tests. His teachers believe that he is hopeless and his parents think he is undisciplined and obstinate. Ishaan himself is clueless. When his tentative attempts to describe his problems are met with ridicule and censure, he decides to hide behind lies and aggression. He decides it is better to be a rogue than a weak person. As you wonder, where he has learnt that from, you see his father fuming at the mere suggestion that his son could be dyslexic, a child with special needs.
It’s a dog-eat-dog world here and a child who cannot compete is doomed. Punishment is used with Pavlovian logic to make Ishaan fall in line. Parents perform their duty by sending him to that dreaded boarding school and the rest is taken care of by ‘chalk-shooting’, ‘knuckle-hitting’ teachers. Well, if nothing more, they have at least disciplined him! And what if his spirit is broken – well, what will he do with his spirit if he cannot pass exams? The only problem is that Ishaan still cannot pass exams.
Having built an excellent premise, it is here that the film somewhat falters: at about mid-way into the film, the art teacher, Ram Nikumbh (Aamir Khan) appears and with extra attention and affection ‘cures’ Ishaan Awasthi. Ishaan not only passes his exams but also wins the first prize in the painting competition that his art teacher organizes so obviously for his benefit. As the story reaches the climactic crescendo of applause, tears of happiness and family reunion, you need to ask just one question – what if Ishaan Awasthi was not a gifted painter? Acceptance from teachers, students and most importantly his parents comes noticeably only after he has ranked first, if not in academics then in painting. If the film is expecting all dyslexic children to become Einstein, Michelangelo, or even Abhishek Bachchan, these kids are facing worse pressure than the other ‘normal’ kids.
Taare Zameen Par, then, does not challenge the system that excludes individuals through arbitrary and insensitive elimination. Instead, it teaches a lesson to the boy who had thrown his results to the dogs – that results are important, that acceptance comes only after excellence. Nonetheless, what plays to Taare Zameen Par’s advantage is that the impact of the film becomes larger by way of associations that the audience makes. You do not need to have a history of dyslexia to relate to the immense pressure of parental expectations, or the grinding routine at school that threatened to kill all creative impulses, or that stay at the boarding school that felt like a punishment.
If you leave the screening in an evaluation-mode, you will also agree that Darsheel Safary deserves top marks for bringing out a gamut of emotions of a child without ever being loud. Tisca Chopra is good as the distraught, well-meaning mother. Vipin Sharma as the father starts off well but gets caricatured in the second half. In Aamir Khan, Taare Zameen Par has a director who is assured of his craft and he fares well. However, one character Khan gets wrong as the director is, ironically, his own. Ram Nikumbh is over-the-top with his intensely-knitted brows and brimming eyes every time he as much as glances at the dyslexic boy. Prasoon Joshi’s lyrics serve the narrative well. The animation sequences ingeniously portray a child’s imagination; however, the Calvin & Hobbes rip-off could have been avoided.
- Padmaja Thakore
29 Responses to “Taare Zameen Par: Pavlovian Conditioning Prevails”
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@Padmaja
Exactly my review, i.e. if I would have sumbitted it. Padmaja I don’t know if you have seen Karma, their is one very famous/infamous dialog of Anil Kapoor, which goes like this;
“Khairu bhai, sab #%@&^% ek jaisa kaise sochte hai”
Replace #%@&^% with GREAT:)
Good review by the way, precise and conscise.
Good article, though not a review as it gives away all the story.
Padmaja,
To answer your Q: what if Ishaan Awasthi was not a gifted painter?
I think the movie makes the point that every child is special. So, if Ishaan were not a gifted painter, he would have been good at something else, say sports, academics, singing, etc. Every child has some or the other gift. Its upto us to surface it. Thays why I think TZP is not about painting, its actually about recognizing the inner gift and then giving the environment to bring it out.
just my 2c,
Sanjit
my review submitted to PFC posted at: http://www.taarezameepar.com
Dear Sanjit Singh
Being good at something is not the same as winning first prize for it. You’ll agree that most people can carry a tune perfectly but not all of them become singers. So what if Ishaan was a good artist but just not good enough to make it to the top?
Notice how the poetry teacher’s stance changes at the end of the movie.That is the duality which the movie could have addressed but apart from a “Heil Hitler” failed to address.
Ultimately the protagonist simply “fits in” with the same system that hounded him.
Read my TZP review (failed the PFC contest) at:
http://www.taarezameepar.com
Feel free to critique…
@AngelEyes….i agree with you…being good at something doesn’t really mean winning the competition….but isn’t there something called artistic liberty? would it make for good on screen drama if he hadn’t won the competition….would chak de have been so well loved if india didn’t win the world cup at the end? some points to ponder on…..it’s not a question of being in the system or something like it here….it’s just a question of bringing drama where it is necessary….without this drama a film would become a monotonous drag…..
Thanks for this. I certainly agree with your review. I don’t understand the fan reviews, they end up reviewing their favorite. The proverbial reverence to the star. A limited actor, he has proved his shortcomings as a filmmaker with his lead role, which you have aptly put, Ram Nikumbh is over-the-top with his intensely-knitted brows and brimming eyes every time he as much as glances at the dyslexic boy. the best compliment for this overhyped actor-director is his eclectic selections, from Amol gupte to Setu to top notch production values! The characters behave, and acted poorly in the second half, except for the kid. Such a safe zone syrupy effort being called as a classic is an insult to art of cinema. Nothing more. Apologize in advance if I offended TZP fans, but this is my honest view.
What is the need to show him getting the first prize?
Interestingly, in the title song
The film tag line is every child is special
i still believe that GOD has given all of us that one skill/talent which we are good that.
Successful people are those who recognise those skills and work on them.
Such movies should have feel good atmosphere otherwise very few people may watch this movie.
This climax would have been better..Just my imagination…
After the results are announced and Ishaan knows that he has lost. All the students and teachers except Ishaan and Aamir have left.
Ishaan is sitting on the corner in the amphitheatre. He is looking sad, but does not cry (of course, he has seen worse than this).
Aamir walks up to him
Good one, Padmaja.
“What if Ishaan Awasthi was not a good painter?”
Hmmmm.
I don’t know why there’s a problem with the end…Nikhumb knows that Ishaan is going to win, if he turns up. Isn’t that the reason he organizes the whole thing?
It’s not as if he has suddenly won an NTSE scholarship (Do those things still exist?) or something…
Inca @ 11- Then we won’t have ourselves a movie…
Arre yaar …
Not everybody thinks the same way …
If somebody (Aamir Khan ) has tried to do smthing that is definitely different from the run-of-the-mill films , then Please PRAISE him instead of finding faults in this beautiful Movie …
I know You all are intellects with very high and superior film sense but its not that everybody can make the audience cry and that also on such a massive scale …
And Aamir did it .. and did it with Exceptional elan …
so plz .. just leave TZP as it is and encourage ppl to watch this Exceptionally Beautiful Piece of Indian Cinema .. which will be remebered FOREVER …
Take a Bow … Aamir …
abhie abhie khatam ki
‘bad guy’ by KKD
ye aadmi jaan le lega
:o:x
Ha ha ha… Dazed&Confused!
Yeah, it’s as simple as that I guess.
Taare Zameen Par never says Winning is not important.
Its just tht individual finds his own path, his own competition to win. A parent shud not force their children to fulfill their own ambition, to make their children someone they think is socially acceptable.
Winning,if not everything, is always important.
Aamir won!! TZP won!!
SUDHIR MISRA on PFC “Saeed Mirza taught me, you can drown in the quicksand of detail and I keep this very close to me. You are not making a film about details. You are creating an ambience, colour, time, and within that you are telling a story which means something to you, now”..I dont understand why ppl wud post-mortem a film like TZP whose main aim is to overwhelm with u emotions & create empathy so that u can relate to the problems children grow thru..one can definitely point out many technical flaws in the movie but the movie wins hands down in achieving what it is meant to..a masterpiece doesnt mean flawless..stop intellectualising cinema!
Why is only this review featured here? out of the ones that didnt make it?
@Sivakumar T
Loved your version of the ending.
@Arijit
Yes you are right, but what is more important? Drama or convictions?
When you use a tagline “Every child is special”, does it mean every child should be a topper to prove that he/she is special? Remember Nikumbh’s exasperation at parents who want thier children to be toppers?
When Ishaan’s brother loses the Tennis match…the father’s reaction is perfectly captured. But what happens to the climax?
The film starts out with very clear intentions, down to the parody of the poetry teacher who forces rote learning but then loses its way.
@ Angeleyes
just trying to solve the small doubt you have..
in the climax ishaans parents are happy to know to tht he has improved in this acads because that is what was important to them.. Ishaan had to win the competition, not to prove anything to anyone.. but to himself…
he was depressed, upset, had stopped painting… and he just needed it to boost his confidence in himself..
@AngelEyes… Thanks a lot!!!…Your comments mean a lot to me…
If at all Aamir and Amole Gupta had differences in handling the film, it must be in the climax! I dont find anything debatable in the whole movie except the climax.
If at all Aamir and Amole Gupta had differences in handling the film, it must be in the climax! I dont find anything debatable in the whole movie except the climax.
Aamir, the director has won over Amole Gupte, the writer…
Anyways, according to me, this is the best Indian Film I have seen in my life. This film has just beaten Anbe Sivam(Kamal Haasan’s).
Easily the best review I’ve read of TZP. Balanced and seeing through the hyperbole well-intentioned films seem to be arousing this season. Don’t know why the jury didn’t select this one.
Would love to see the winning entries. I think, only fair in the age of right of information act:)
What would have happened if Ishan would not have won the competition?
This is the question which is lingering on my mind since I saw the movie. When aamir goes to Ishan’s parent
Well a good movie review…
But what’s truely dishartening is that even a movie as special as TZP is facing such volley of criticsms…
I guess the movie had a greater msg.that every child is special in his own way .and that winning the rat race is not all that counts.
winning one drawing competetion would surely not win laurels for Ishaan for a lifetime but it more importantly made him realise that he too was special and gifted like others.Wat if he wasn’t a painter?in that case,he surely would have been gud at some other child.The story is about many like Ishaan who face similar mortification in society for not ’seeming’ to be bright enough.Are we not unscrupulusly discounting the utter reality that every creation of god is special.
As far as the art teacher is concerned,the movie projected him as an iconic character,who took time and realised the child’s agony and tried to make him feel accepted.who knew the child even more than his parents!I feel the character is quite phenomenal.Whom do we call a beloved.Somebody who even gets out of his/her way to make us feel good..They can be a ppl like our friends,our sibings,prents and teachers as well.And so was Nikumbh sir.
Parents often fail to understand the difficulties of their kids coz the social set up often compels them to believe that only getting to top can ultimately make their kids happy.And thats all they want.
the character of Nikumbh sir merely wanted to make all parents realize that they sometimes fail in the endevour of just parenting in spite of sweating for it lifelong .Reason being their flawed perception towards their kids
In short..a great movie !n precious lesson to be taken!
TZP may not be a classic but it is great film anyway.i would give it all the stars if that means anything.After all, it adds to the growing stream of a cinema which is earthy and engages with the everyday reality. i think the film is all the more significant for the fact that it dared to take up a theme that no Bollywood producer would ever want to put his or her money on.also, probably it is for the first time that a child protagonist speaks his mind and does not simply enthrall us with his pranks. could the likes of Karan Johar ever dare to have a child artist with a bulging jaw?
i see it more as a milestone on the way to an inclusive cinema.
@Amrita
The fact that people have something to say for or against TZP just shows that we all think that its an important movie worth talking about. Criticism isn’t always a bad thing and if you read SivaKumar T’s post he’s given a splendid alternative version which IMHO would have made the movie even more endearing.
TZP is certainly a good movie. But Anbe Sivam is even greater. Try to recognize and have some rational thinking to accept the facts. It does not mean if someone does something different in hindi,it is the best in the world. Infact we have a much better movie Anjali in Tamil in 1990 directed by Manirathnam. It deals with a mentally retarded child at the age of 2 years. It is very difficult to deal with a 2 year child rather than a 8 year old kid. Pls do not make such weird comparisons.