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Rang De Basanti

Rang De Basanti

Movie · 2006 · 15 people

Rang De Basanti, a 2006 Indian film, has a title that can be rendered "Paint Me in the Color of Spring" or "Paint Me Saffron-Yellow". Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra wrote, directed and co-produced it. The coming-of-age drama mixes Hindi, Punjabi and English. A. R. Rahman composed the music.

The story follows Sue, a British film student who comes to India to document five independence revolutionaries. She casts five carefree young men in the project, and they gradually absorb the idealism of the historical figures they play. When the death of a close friend exposes corruption, they decide to confront the injustices of today's government. Aamir Khan leads an ensemble of Siddharth, Sharman Joshi, Kunal Kapoor, Atul Kulkarni, Soha Ali Khan and British actress Alice Patten, with R. Madhavan as a guest.

Shooting was mainly in New Delhi, and the film was released worldwide on January 26, 2006. It set an opening-weekend record in India and ranked seventh among the year's Hindi hits. It won the National Film Award for Best Popular Film and the Filmfare Award for Best Film, and was nominated for the BAFTA for Best Foreign Language Film. India submitted it for the Oscars and the Golden Globes, but it was nominated for neither.

DirectorRakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Rang De Basanti Rang De Basanti

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Cast

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Aamir Khan Aamir Khan Actor · 61 years old Daljit 'DJ' Singh Siddharth Sharman Joshi Soha Ali Khan Waheeda Rehman R. Madhavan Kunal Kapoor Atul Kulkarni Alice Patten Anupam Kher Kirron Kher Om Puri Steven Mackintosh Mohan Agashe Lekh Tandon

Through different eyes

AI-assisted editorial takes written from different viewer perspectives. They are not reader reviews; those are below.

History & Society Lens Asks about the period, the social background and what the work reflects.

The film's most interesting idea is holding up the story of independence revolutionaries as a mirror to today's young people. Carefree young men cast in a documentary who gradually absorb the idealism of the historical figures they play show history turning from a textbook topic into a live question. The theme of corruption and accountability explains the wide echo it found at home; the opening-weekend record was no accident. Making past revolutionary heroism a direct model for present-day problems, though, is a debatable choice, and the film tends to glorify that parallel rather than question it.

Cinephile Looks at script, editing and directing choices; keeps a distance from formula films.

Mehra's boldest choice is structural: the film-within-a-film device puts past and present side by side in the same flow, and the young men's transformation into the roles they play is written into the form itself. A. R. Rahman's music forms the emotional backbone of those shifts. The weak point is tonal balance: the move from carefree youth comedy to heavy political drama isn't seamless, and the film doesn't always earn its length. Daring to build such an ambitious structure inside mainstream Hindi cinema, though, makes the Filmfare Best Film award and the BAFTA nomination easy to understand.

Family Viewer Asks whether the whole household can watch it; cares about humor and heart.

The friendship, high spirits and music of the young characters seem at first to speak to everyone. But the story carries heavy themes, like the death of a close friend and a reckoning with corruption. I'd say it suits teenagers watching with adults, and it's a good starting point for a talk about justice and citizenship afterwards. For little ones it's both too long and too heavy.

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