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Taare Zameen Par
This year so many good movies were released but I could not watch any of those movies in cinema, for different reasons. I still have not seen those movies. That reminds me I have to order the DVDs. And I was afraid that ‘Taare Zameen Par’ would become one of those movies which I could not watch in the cinema. But fortunately, I watched the movie on Saturday. I didn’t had to call anybody to organize/plan anything.. in fact, people called me and everything worked out perfectly.
I knew I was going to like the movie - the only question was that - how much will I like the movie? Well, I found the movie to be too good, in fact, perfect; so I have decided to write a review article. I know, there are already quite few reviews of the movie on passionforcinema.com and also, there will be many more reviews via PFC Ronin/iView. But one more review… won’t do any harm. I just wanna say a few things, that’s about it. One of those things is that, they kept using my first name - Honhaar - a lot. See, I did not ask for a khoka or anything, I just requested the people to mention my name now and then in the film. So thank you.
Anyway, I saw ‘Taare Zameen Par’ in a medium sized screen - about 100 seats - and it was more than 80% full. There were as many kids as elders. Perhaps it was weekend and holiday period just kicked off. Many would have come to see the film because of Aamir Khan, but during the film not one single soul mumbled the name - Aamir Khan. In fact, everyone were so enchanted by the film - they were into the film - they smiled - they had a bit of moist in their eyes - at every right moments - they did not miss anything. The crew of ‘Taare Zameen Par’ should be proud of getting their story across. Also, Darsheel Safary, a little Aamir Khan was simply natural that he instantly was a hit - he made people forget about Aamir Khan. He did not have much to say in second half, so that must have been hard for him. But he was brilliant during that part. He showed he had matured. That scene - where he runs around the Basketball court or when he is standing on the wall and looking down the town or when he bunks the school and goes on a stroll around the town - were the best scenes of the film.
On B4U, I saw an interview of Aamir Khan and Darsheel, and even in that interview he was so himself. He was not bother about camera or people around him. He was unfazed throughout the interview. He was cheeky that he mimicked Aamir Khan and told him that you ain’t that good. They did pick the right kid for the movie.
Now a bit about the movie.. I had a rough idea about the movie like many of you would have had, so I am not going to go into the story. But did not know what the treatment was going to like? Would the film be preachy? Would the film be melodramatic? Would they throw gimmicks to attract the kids? The promos gave me an impression that the film would not have any of those flaws. And after watching the film, I feel same. The film is flawless, well, I did not like the animation bit - it was good, though. I would have preferred if they had used a minimal of animation - perhaps - figures coming live on the paper - rather than going for a complete animated scene. But anyway that is minor, which you can ignore it, because ‘Taare Zameen Par’ is an exceptional film.
I am no parent, so I did not look the movie from a parents view. I looked the movie from my view - I do not know what is that. Majority of the scenes in the move were like metaphors - appreciate simple things or talent (creative), that is what I saw and I liked. It was a simple and subtle film. I wish I knew a few more superlatives to describe the film. But you get the jist, I hope.
I am going to write a bit about the ending, so ignore this bit if you are yet to see the film. The film did not need a happy ending - a close ending - it needed an open ending - a beginning - that is what we got. Ishaan’s life just started. Now many of you would have wanted the kid to run towards the parents, but the kid knew who to appreciate for giving him a new lease of life. He would have been lost otherwise. He appreciated his Guru rather than his parents. The ending or the film could not have been any better. The film was perfect.
tu dhoop hai jham se bikhar
tu hai nadee o bekhabar
beh chal kahin ud chal kahin
dil kush jahan tero toh manzil hai wahin
Shankar, Eshaan & Loy - the trio, I like ‘em. They are very talented bunch of composers & singers. But they have given a lot of rubbish - they have wasted their talent on so many occasions by associating with a wrong kind of group. That has infuriated me a lot cos I expect them to give a gem like “Taare Zameen Par” every now & then - rather than on rare occasions. They should seldom come with a “Jhoom Barbar Barbar” - but should produce a ‘Taare Zameen Par’ or a ‘Johnny Gaddaar’ often.
“Taare Zameen Par” is the best soundtrack of the year 2007. It is a complete soundtrack - all the tracks will please your ears and soul. And all the songs gelled sweetly with the story - film.
There are eight tracks in the soundtrack - seven songs composed and written by Shankaar - Eshaan - Loy and Prasson Joshi, respectively. And the one track - “Mera Jahan” is composed by Shailendra Barve and written by Amole Gupte.
A special mention for Shailendra Barve - his song stands out in the album which the trio have given their best work till date - Shailendra’s composition is as good as other tracks and when you have Adnan Sami lending his voice and Amole Gupte’s words…. you have got a winner here… “Mera Jahan” scene was one of the best scene in the movie.
bachpan ke din chaar
na aayenge baar baar
jee le jee le to udhaar
jeib khaali to udhaar
jee zindagi
“Kholo Kholo” is my favorite track from the album and it is my favorite song of the year - it beats my favorite A R Rahman’s composition “Jaage Hain”. I was hoping that the song would become a national anthem of this year but, unfortunately, it did not. The song is sung by Raman Mahadevan. He has got talent. I have been listening to the song non-stop. The song is always first on my playlist.
zindagi to hai batasha
meethi meethi si hai aasha
chakh le rakh le
hatheli se dhak le ise
I would love to talk more about the soundtrack, Shankar-Eshaan-Loy, and Prasoon Joshi. But this article is already a bit stretched and I have got a couple more other things to say, so… a few more lines to…
Khul ke sochein aao
pankh zara phailaao
rang naye bikhrao
chalo chalo chalo chalo
naye khwaab bunlo
Amol Gupte and Deepa Gupte refer “Taare Zameen Par” as their baby, thankfully, the baby wasn’t a by product of a one night stand. I do not know what hard work they did or what difficult they went through to get this baby walking and then setting her free in the world. But they have done a superb job on her. They produced a kid who had the genes to be perfect. But she needed something special to achieve that target…. like Ishaan.
I do not know what went between Amol Gupte and Aamir Khan on the sets, but I find there is an uncanny similarity between the film -”Taare Zameen Par” and making of “Taare Zameen Par”. No?
Let’s say, Amol Gupte & Deepa Gupte’s baby - “Taare Zameen Par” - is a special kid - like Ishaan is. And Mr & Mrs Gupte are more or less like the parents of Ishaan. They did everything to develop their kid “Taare Zameen Par” - but in the end they had to give her away - to Aamir Khan, to maker her special.
Ishaan was fortunate that special person - Ram Shankar Nikhum - came into his life to save him. Otherwise, their parents had thrown him into the boarding school to…. Likewise, Aamir Khan came into Amol Gupte’s life, to give the “Taare Zameen Par” a life and the finishing touch. What would have happened to “Taare Zameen Par” if a corporate house was producing the film?
There is also a small similarity between the film’s ending and the audience reaction towards the film. In the end, Ishaan went to Aamir Khan - to show his gratitude - likewise - the audience are applauding Aamir Khan rather than the parents of “Taare Zameen Par”
Amol Gupte & Deepa Gupte will be remembered as the parents of “Taare Zameen Par” and Aamir Khan will be remembered as that special person who made it…..
The film did not make me laugh. The film made me smile. The film did not make me cry. The film made me feel….
Amol Gupte, Deepa Gupte, Darsheel Safary, Shankar-Eshaan-Loy, Prasoon Joshi, Aamir Khan, the enitre crew:
24 Responses to “Taare Zameen Par”
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Wow… I’ve been a avid reader of this website for about a year, and this is the very first time I am commenting on a post. I have to say that the last few paragraphs of your article has really hit the mark based on the controversies that’s been surrounding this film for the longest time.
I’m glad to see in this article that both Amole/Deepa and Aamir are bring appreciated for what they have contributed to this film. Hats off to you for writing this post.
very nicely put..TZP wudnt hv been possible without Aamir Khan or Amole Gupte/Deepa..the parallel u hv drawn between the film & the making of the film is an interesting insight..nice point of view…TZP rocks!
Bugger, Honhaar. while the veracity, currently, is unknowable you have drawn a beautiful analogy in your review. it had become boring to hear the same few things being said in unanimous favor of the film.
nice to know the extent the film’s touched you. good stuff Honhaar.
I really liked the film.
follow the link to read my views.
http://gauravt168.blogspot.com/2007/12/best-debut-2007-darsheel-safary.html
Aamir is Yashoda!
Wow, HG! I am so glad to hear you say the film is flawless! I also thought the trailers gave that impression, but I was scared in case I heard it didn’t live up to expectations.
The film did not make me laugh. The film made me smile
Great! I always say I love films that make me smile!
I can’t wait to see it, man! :((
I agree!!I think it’s one of the best movies i have seen. I was wondering if it will be a box office hit as well. I am glad that Aamir’s new blog at his website suggest that. I am glad!!
Aamir’s latest blog:
You know when a director is thinking about his film before the release he often goes through amazing highs and major lows. One sec we feel that the film is not going to connect with people, another we day dream that it will get into the blood stream of the audience like no film before. The response that I have got for my very first film is like a dream response. I couldn
Great write up and so glad you struck out the word review, and said its an article instead.
Thanks for the insight on “amol Gupte giving away his baby” angle.
At the cost of being accused of cheap publicity, I’ll refer people here to my Review rip off post.. on my/great indian mutiny blog.. When an outstnading movie like this comes out, the critics have a special responsibility…Some critics forget that..
Please do read..
pheeeeeeeeeew, it made all sense to all you guys!
i think, i found there is more to the film than the dyslexia angle…….
Honhaar, really wonderful article. Well and truly said–Amol and Deepa gave birth to the baby TZP, Aamir nurtured it. Let us thank them, the whole team, SEL, Prasoon Joshi, the cinematographer[Setu?], and yes a big thums up to the enlightened Indian audience that makes a Bheja Fry, a TZP possible.
“Amol Gupte & Deepa Gupte will be remembered as the parents of
“That scene - where he runs around the Basketball court or when he is standing on the wall and looking down the town or when he bunks the school and goes on a stroll around the town - were the best scenes of the film.”
I missed the basketball court scene, truly brilliant. and also the telephone conversation where Ishaan doesn’t speak.
Goonda bhai can write some kick-ass previews and reviews, and all in 3 days
:)
darn, i forgot to mention setu… i have missed a few more stuffs as well. anyway, the film did look gorgeous.
Hello Honhar Goonda (lol, can’t believe just said that),
yours is a very honest article about Taare.
I like the way you’ve stressed on the songs and juxtaposed them with the scenes and written about their importance in the film. This is probably the only film with seamless integration of songs (with some of the best and most moving lyrics) and they all have been excellently shot too.
And you’ve made a very original and interesting point about the uncanny similarities between the making of Taare and the film itself. In the end they all worked hard and sincerely on this and it shows on screen.
Thank you for a sensible write up with no pretentious regurgitations.
Sachin,
I read your CV, so you are into animation and cgi effects. Not bad. You any good at? ;-)
You guys have any more projects on the pipeline? If you get time do submit an interesting article (for Projekt iView) on the projects you have done so far. Or the short film..
And was Ek Kavita - a short animation film?
Hey Honhar, thanks for your interest! Yeah, sure, i’ll write up when i hit something interesting.
We did well for ourselves when we were working for a studio for two years but broke off about a year ago to freelance and do our own thing.
Ek Kavita was just an experiment we did right after we quit with our modest cell phone camera. You can look it up on youtube else lemme know i’ll pass you the link.
Few concepts are floating around in our heads so we’ll develop those ideas and probably even discuss them over here as i see a lot of original and out of the box discussions happening here.
Haha, i guess you’ll have to check out our demoreel to decide if we are decent enough or not. Our reel did make it to the front page of some popular animation forums though. Anyway, i digress.
Btw, what are you into? Film making?
We keep discussing about how one learns so much about film making from animation too. At least, staging, lighting and if one does animation then even acting skills come in handy. Maybe i could write something about that. Or industry perspective or something (though i haven’t been around for long to truly reflect on that).
The animation bits were well executed in Taare except for the spider bits which could have been better but no qualms. I liked your suggestion about the characters coming alive on paper. But i loved the calvinesque animation too. The opening sequence with the words and cacophony of sounds was awesome too.
Hey, if you’re interested in good animation shorts i’ll pass you a few links. And thanks for the iView article suggestion. I’ll cook up something.
So as a freelancer do you get enough work in India?
I saw the Abandon clip and the other clip reel. It was good. However, I don’t get the jargons - FX and reel. Did you use Maya software?! I tried to download that software in the summer but my operating system is ancient, so could not use it.
Do you do story boarding as well?
In Taare Zameen Par, yes, the animation scene was good, but I thought having a CGI effects would have been much slicker and apt. I would have preferred that way to have been transformed into the Ishaan’s world.
I am not into filmmaking and all, I only dream about it.
Hanuman Returns is releasing soon! :-D
Sachin, include me in this plan, I am with Goonda on this one, heck I am even ready to adopt Goonda for that, lol, if TZP people fight over copyrighting issues with ‘Honhaar’ :)
I am always curious to know how cinema merges with other art forms, like still words, poetry, theater and animation, comic books, even sleep(its a great art form IMO!). Checked out your site, loved the natural images. Will check ‘em demoreels out too.
I am a confused wanderer in films, just keep roaming from one story to the other, lets talk things out, where do you work out of? It would be great to just discuss and share your experiences, if we are looking at a point to start at.
Regarding Taare, I really wish Ishaan just flew when he runs towards Nikumbh, everything was pointing towards that. When he didn’t, I was like whaaat! nooo!! who cares to be original(ET), it would have made many people smile a lil more.
Anyways, my 4 yr old nephew can’t stop raving about those opening credits, and wants me to take him again just to see the credits! He thinks the film was too serious for kids. lol
I didn’t think much of the flying letters too, it was an idea pushed too far.
nah tushaar. ishaan flying would have been too far fetched.
lol, I need my alternative ending DVD!
Thank you Honhar for checking them out. Yeah, i should’ve been cautious before using those jargons. Habit i guess. Well, FX is short for effects as in special effects and reel is for a demo reel.
Yeah, we used maya for the 3d stuff. I’ve worked on win 2000 too so don’t know if you’re on win 98 but the demo should work on 2000 as well. Hehe, i always get excited when someone tries to dabble in 3d. Feel like a rabid missionary hellbent on converting (no offence meant to anyone).
Since we just started out freelancing, i can’t confirm if there’s a steady flow of work in India. Most of the time its networking that gets you a gig or maybe some online hunting or like in our case, someone in italy saw our work online and ended up recommending us to his indian partner here. But from what i hear though there is a lot of work, however quailty projects are probably hard to come by. Bigger studios do have huge work being offshored to india here, like in my previous job where i got to work on disney and weinstein projects but you usually have to be working in a studio fulltime to work on them. Unlike studios abroad, indian studios rarely hire freelance artists. That culture hasn’t yet started here as the animation industry is still in its infancy.
I’m not a professional story board artist neither a fine artist but simple sketches and layouts are fine. Usually when you work in a studio, there are people specifically to do that, like a separate art dept that does all the 2d stuff like concept arts, story boards, etc. We’re mostly into lighting, set modeling, texturing and special effects. This field is like an ocean and there’s so much more we have to learn. The best part is how its so related to aspects of filmmaking. Its a lot about having the eye for detail as well.
Yeah, i’m going to watch Hanuman too but mostly because Mr. Kashyap is helming that. Now, he too is a brand in his own right. I do have a issue with the quality of animation in indian films though. Maybe thats something that i’ll touch upon in a discussion. We have the potential to tell some great universal stories but quality’s really lacking right now.
Hey Tushar, sure man, sounds good. And thanks for appreciating our work. Always glad to interact with fellow enthusiasts. Hehe, ishan flying would have been another tangent altogether (pun intended). Yeah, i’m fascinated too by the corelation between various art forms, though i claim to know not much about traditional arts but i want to learn. Right now i stay and work with my gf/colleague/wife/partner in crime in andheri. We are actually more interested in film making and this 3d profession happens to be our medium of learning the craft and keeping the “choolah garam” as well.
Damn, i’m using my phone to surf this site as my comp doesn’t allow me to post replies on this blog. Some bad behaviour error or something. I’ve written to the tech support. I’ll post a few links tomorrow for few interesting animation shorts.
I’m enjoying interacting with you guys!
Btw, I hope the TZP dvd has director’s commentary and Amole Gupte and Deepa’s too. Just can’t get this movie out of my head.
Hi!
Honhaar Goonda bhai! Kudos for really good review.
I liked your review coz I thought this one and only this one was about “How you have felt the movie”
Most reviews are about “How people/critics/viewers SEE the movie. How they think movie has been made.”
I really appriciate your focus on Music and Lyrics section (we have some disagreements here. But that happens isn’t it????)
Really loved your review. Thanks for that!
All I can say is, you have to watch this movie. I already watched it twice. And as Mr. Goonda rightfully said:
“The film did not make me laugh. The film made me smile. The film did not make me cry. The film made me feel
Very nice review…best among all the dozens of articles written on TZP! Applause!