[.ca] Lagaan: Once upon a Time in India (Widescreen)

From Amazon.com:
Would you believe the most enchanting musical of the year is an almost four-hour-long epic about a ragtag group of 19th-century Indian farmers who form a cricket team to take on an arrogant British captain? The old-fashioned Hollywood musical is alive and well in India's Bollywood industry, where the joyful explosion of music and dance and innocent romance abounds in sweeping epics. In this infectious tale of bloodless revolution, the underdog outcasts and oddballs of a fractured village pull together into a unified team to take on the oppressive colonial Brits at their own game. Think The Longest Yard meets The Seven Samurai by way of Rudyard Kipling, with cricket bats, choreographed dance numbers, romantic triangles, and a rousing call to solidarity. There are no surprises, but what spirit, what color, what good fun! --Sean Axmaker

THE BEST OF BOLLYWOOD...:
I admit that I love films with Anglo-Indian themes. I also love period pieces. So, when I discovered Lagaan, I was intrigued, though somewhat skeptical about its being a musical and about its underlying story. Still, I thought it was worth a shot. I am delighted that I took a chance, as I was riveted for the nearly four hours the film was on the screen. It is little wonder that it was a 2001 Academy Award nominee for best foreign language film. The film takes place in late nineteenth century India, during the time of the British Raj, in the small rural village of Champaner. It is a poor village against whom a tax, called a lagaan, is levied by the British. It appears that the lagaan goes to support the British cantonment that rules over the Central Indian province in which Champaner sits. The cantonment is commanded by an arrogant Captain Russell, who seems to care little for the customs, culture, and people of India. He typifies all that is bad about the reign of the British Raj. Champaner has, unfortunately, had a long lasting drought and, as a farming community, the dry spell has been devastating, leaving the villagers on the brink of agricultural disaster. They have been awaiting the seasonal monsoon rains to no avail. When the villagers are told that Captain Russell has doubled the lagaan, as it had been cut in half the previous year due to the drought, they are angry. It is a now an issue of life and death for them. This brings Bhuvan, a handsome, young, spirited farmer to the fore. Before he knows it, Bhuvan finds himself wagering the future of his village and province on a cricket game, as he has likened it to a local game played by the villagers. The stakes are now higher, for if they lose, Captain Russell has decreed that not only will Champaner have to pay a triple lagaan but the entire province will have to do so, as well. If they win, however, the lagaan will be stayed for three years. So, it begins. The villagers are a colorful and motley cast of characters, both Hindu and Muslim. It is interesting to see how Bhuvan organizes and trains them to meet the British on what will be the functional equivalent of a field of battle. Village blood feuds and caste prejudices are laid aside in order to do wage their own unique war against the onerous lagaan. They are assisted by Captain Russell's tenderhearted and beautiful sister, Elizabeth, who is disgusted by her brother's meanness towards a people and culture that she embraces. This leads to a love triangle, as Elizabeth finds herself falling in love with Bhuvan, to the consternation of Gauri, a beautiful village girl who loves Bhuvan. He, however, remains somewhat oblivious to the romantic portents swirling about him. The film take the viewer through the preparations for the game by the villagers, the nefarious duplicity of one villager, and the game itself, which is a tense, three day match in which the rag-tag group of villagers meet the crisply dressed British on the cricket field. The hopes and dreams of the villagers hang on the result of the game, as does the career of the unlikable Captain Russell, whose superior officers have looked askance at his unseemly proposition to the villagers. The match itself, which consumes nearly a third of the film, is exciting to watch. The film is a thrilling epic with masterful performances and occasional exuberant musical numbers that are sparsely interjected at appropriate times throughout the film. This multi-faceted film is deftly directed by Ashutosh Cowariker, who wrote the excellent screenplay. The acting by the entire cast is stellar. It is also easy to see why Aamir Khan is such a super star in India, as he has all the attributes of a leading man. He is simply sensational. The lovely and graceful Gracy Singh, in her debut role, is wonderful as the lovesick Gauri, and Rachel Shelley is terrific as Elizabeth. The cinematography is spectacular, as are the production values. Altogether they provide a sumptuous feast for the eyes. This film is certainly representative of the best that Bollywood has to offer. The DVD has excellent audio and crystal clear visuals. The film is shown in letterbox format, and the subtitles are clear and easy to read as they are displayed against a black backdrop. The subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, and Thai. There is also a long deleted scene included that is very worthwhile, as well as filmographies for the principals in this film. All told, this is a very fine, worthwhile film to add to one's personal collection. Bravo!

If it was not all about Bhuvan:
India during the British Raj. Colorfully dressed dancing farmers are worried about their crops because there has been no rain. To top it, the arrogant British major, complete with wiggly mustache decides he is going to levy double taxes this year because they got off easy the previous year by paying 1/2 tax. The villagers go to beseech the milquetoast king of the province, and witness a game of cricket which they watch in fascinated confusion and finally dismiss as a silly children's game. Raja Milquetoast cannot accede to their demands, but the mustache man takes offence to one of the villagers making a crack at the `silly' game he was playing and says that if the village can beat him in a game of cricket, he will exempt them from taxes for four years. The villager agrees because he is the male protagonist Bhuvan and his fellow villagers give him the cold shoulder for weeks even as he tries to put together a motley crew of villagers to play based on laterally suited skills. If a man can chase chickens, he can catch a ball, if a man can fling the bola, he can `pitch' the ball, and if a man can play the drums really hard, he can pinch hit. They find a low caste guy who can spin the ball because he has a deformed hand and finally the team, is a vertible advertisement for a united India comprising of all the religions. Even Christianity gets an honorable mention in the form of the British officer's sister who appalled at her brother's unfairness offers to teach them how to play. Of course, she falls in love with him and she is not the only one. Americans might feel they won't `get' the film because it is mostly about cricket, but they really don't need to worry. It works like this. Lets use baseball as comparison. There are only two `bases' in cricket and they are opposite each other. Two batsman play at a time and they stand at one `base' each. The batsman hits the ball and runs to the other base, for a run which is completed only when the batsman with him runs to his base. You have bowlers, like pitchers, but each gets to bowl a max of 10 overs (6 ball spells) a match. You have batsman, like hitters, but if they are out, they cannot play again during the innings. The main ways they can get out is if they miss the ball and it knocks over their stumps or if they are not in their bases and someone in the oppoing side knocks the stumps (three sticks that mark an area as a base) over. You can also get caught like in baseball if you hit the ball into the air and someone in the opposing team catches it before it bounces. A sixer is a home run equivalent, hitting the ball out of the boundary and the batsman gets six runs, but there is also the four where the ball touches the ground in the field and crosses over or rolls over the boundary without being intercepted. The objective is to beat the team that batted first by making more runs than them or to defend your score from being beaten. A hatrick, a term you will encounter is when a bowler gets three batsman out in successive balls. But the game really isn't about cricket as much as it is about the underdog who comes through and wins. The other characters are what make the movie; even if Aamir Bhuvan Khan who ghost directed the movie, tends to keep the focus solely on himself. The eccenteric fortune teller, the awkward cripple who makes the hattrick, the farmer and his fued with the man who sells eggs, and his errant chickens, and even the reformed envious suitor who comes through in the end for the team; all in all, it is all about those old fashioned values like fighting for what is yours, believing in yourself and being rewarded for it.

The music will haunt you!:
This is my 6th Bollywood movie and with each one I'm afraid it won't be as good as the last one. Once again I was not disappointed. I finally understand cricket - how couldn't you after watching a 4 hour movie on it? But best of all was the music. It haunts you even days after you've watched it.

Even if you are not much into musicals in general, and you don t know a thing about cricket, you will like "Lagaan":
"Laggan" is an interesting Indian musical, that will capture your attention, even if you are not much into musicals in general, and you don?t know a thing about cricket, a sport that has a big place in this film. Why? Well, to start with the plot of "Lagaan" is original, and the director (Ashutosh Gowariker) manages to make it credible. The story takes place in 19th century India, a British colony at that time. A group of villagers have been told that due to a whim of a British colonial officer they will have to pay double lagaan (a tax), despite the fact that they are suffering the effects of a drought. The villagers, led by Bhuvan (Aamir Khan) ask Captain Russell (Paul Blackthorne) to understand their plight, and he tells them that there will not pay lagaan if the villagers win a cricket match. However, if they lose they will have to pay triple lagaan. Bhuvan recklessly accepts the bet, and has to convince his friends that he did the right thing and that it is possible to win that match. First, though, they need to learn the rules of the game, something they do with the help of Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley), Captain Russell s sister. Of course, there is more to this movie than that, for example the fact that Gauri (Gracie Singh) doesn?t like the attention that Bhuvan pays to Elizabeth, or the problems some villagers have with Bhuvan s leadership. Notwithstanding that, the more interesting part of this movie is how much the possibility of defeating the British, even if merely in a cricket game, meant for everybody. All in all, I think that you will like this movie. It is interesting and picturesque, so much so that you hardly notice that it is almost four hours long. Recommended :) Belen Alcat

A village in India triples down on their taxes over a friendly cricket match:
I am still in the toe dipping stage when it comes to seeing Bollywood musicals. I would say that my first one was "Bride and Prejudice" except that it was made in England and not India, so the correct answer would be "Dil Se..," which I checked out because I was hooked on the song Chal Chaiyya Chaiyya," which Spike Lee used at the start of "Inside Man." I picked "Lagaan" as my next Bollyhood film because it appeared to be the highest rated one I could find, and had the reputation of being the most expensive and successful Bollywood film ever made when it came out. After having spent an entire afternoon watching it I can certainly understand why it has such a lofty reputation. The full title of the film is "Lagaan: Once Upon a Time in India," which I did not know at the time I watched it. That revelation is intriguing because it fosters an implicit comparison between this 2001 film from director Ashutosh Gowariker and the Sergio Leone movies "Once Upon a Time in the West" and "Once Upon a Time in America" (but not the Robert Rodriguez film "Once Upon a Time in Mexico"). The setting is a small village in the north of India in 1893, when the country is under the rule of Queen Victoria's British Empire. The land has been suffering from drought for over a year and the villagers and their Raja wants to be exempted from the crippling tax ("lagaan") that they owe the British government. The snobbish Captain Andrew Russell (Paul Blackthorne) makes a counter-offer: the village can play his cricket team. If the villagers win they will not have to pay the lagaan for three years, but if the English team wins they will have to pay three-times the lagaan. Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), a young farmer, takes the bet to the dismay of his friends and the rest of the village, only one of whom has ever played cricket before. But the villagers have an unexpected ally in Russell's sister, Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley), who knows the bet is unfair and decides to help teach Bhuvan and the others the game. Elizabeth is clearly smitten with Bhuvan, much to the consternation of Gauri (Aamir Khan), the young woman who assumes Bhuvan is her intended. Bhuvan is oblivious to his being the point in common on this particular love triangle, because his attention is first and foremost on the big match. One of the reasons that this movie runs three hours and forty-four minutes is because it devotes the last third of the film to the cricket match. The cricket match takes several days to play, so it makes sense that the last third of the film is all about the match. Now, it could be that the idea of watching a movie where the final conflict is a really long cricket match might dissuade you from seeing the movie more than the fact it is almost four hours long with subtitles because most of the dialogues and songs are in Hindi. But since the villagers are learning the game that allows those of us in the audience who have never seen a cricket match to pick up enough to appreciate what is happening at the end. This is of no small importance because the rules of cricket come into play several times throughout the match, as do the particular characteristics of the various villagers on the cricket team, and I ended up like that part of the film more than the charming practice of breaking into giant production numbers periodically throughout the film (including the best training montage set to music since the original "Rocky"). So there are plenty of reasons for wanting to check out this film, even if you cannot watch it all in one sitting (but there is an Intermission and a opportunity to make dinner in which curry would be the dominant spice). In terms of special features there is only one "Unseen Scene" included on the DVD, but it runs over 17 minutes. I have been trying to figure out if it was cut because somehow having a movie run four hours and one minute instead of three hours and 44 minutes makes bad economic sense for movie theaters in India, or if it is because in setting up one of the key parts of the big match it might give away too much, or maybe because Captain Russell goes beyond the pale in his treatment of Elizabeth. The deleted scene reinforces the interesting idea that there is a clear line of demarcation between Russell's cricket team and the rest of the English in India. It is Elizabeth who articulates the idea that what her brother is doing is not fair, but Russell's commanding officers believe in fair play as well. Notice their behavior during the match and how they applaud the best of both teams, as if they did not have a vested interest in the outcome. The irony that the English players who pride themselves on being great sportsmen are lousy sports is pretty blatant and ultimately we dismiss them as racist caricatures. That is a minor complaint all things considered (which would include the history of British colonialism on the sub-continent), because "Lagaan" is pretty entertaining. No wonder it has the reputation it enjoys.