Film: Bhaag Milkha Bhaag
Starring: Farhan Akhtar,Sonam Kapoor,Rebecca Breeds
Director: Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Producer: Viacom 18,Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra
Banner: Viacom18 Motion Pictures
Music: Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy
The story of super-sprinter Milkha Singh
unfolds in this exceptional biopic at its own volition. There's no
effort here "to tell a story", to create an impression or to whip up a
dramatic storm to captivate audiences. The synergy in the storytelling
seems subliminal.
Still, we the audience, fed week after
week on mediocrity masquerading as cinema, are riveted to the story of
Milkha Singh for over three hours of playing time.
How come? Well, to begin with it is
Milkha Singh's own powerful life as India's superstar sportsperson that
sweeps us into the biopic. Milkha was so poor he couldn't afford running
shoes, and when he got them, he didn't know how to run in them. When
milk was offered in the army in exchange of running practice, he grabbed
it (the run and the milk) with both hands.
A victim of India's brutal partition,
Milkha's story was waiting to be told. And thankfully, no one before
Mehra saw cinematic potential in his story. If Milkha's story had to be
told, the storyteller had to be a master craftsman, and one who doesn't
waste space in self-congratulatory flourishes.
With immense help from Prasoon Joshi,
Mehra harnesses Milkha's life-story into an experience that is pure
cinema and yet undiluted and uncompromised by the mandatory, often
silly, illogical and idiotic semantics of mainstream commercial cinema.
The absolutely seamless editing by P.
Bharathi is impressive. The film is very stylishly cut, but not at the
cost of losing the simplicity and the innate ascetism of the
sportsman-hero. And yes, there are songs composed by Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy,
but they are so effortlessly woven into Milkha's saga that we don't see
them as "song breaks".
This is as good a time as any to tell
you that Farhan Akhtar does the Bhangra as well as any Punjabi.
Actually, he doesn't dance. He just flows with the rhythm. I've never
seen any actor dance with such rhapsodic abundance. Neither have I seen
any actor run like Farhan.
I don't know how fast Milka ran, but
Farhan's Milkha doesn't fake it for even a second. When he runs, he
really runs. When he stumbles and takes a fall, we flinch and wince in
our seats. Farhan's body language and emotions and expression as Milkha
is pitch-perfect.
Farhan doesn't 'play' Milkha. The actor
occupies Milkha's mind, body and soul. There are episodes in this
astonishingly, well-structured biopic where Farhan's oneness with Milkha
equals Ben Kingsley's empathy with Mahatma Gandhi in "Gandhi".
This isn't just a film about a
sportsperson who brought untold glory to our country. "Bhaag Milkha
Bhaag" is the story of an individual's journey from nullity to pinnacles
of success in a world where politics and violence are constant
reminders of how little an individual's aspirations matter in the
larger, often murkier scheme.
In Prasoon Joshi's interpretation of
Milkha's amazing success-story, yearning is the cornerstone to
achievement. In 1947, when India became two nations, we see little
Milkha (Jabtej Singh) run for his life to escape the savage butchery
that snatches away almost his entire family. Only his dear sister,
played wonderfully by Divya Dutta, remains. As we see it, Milkha never
stopped running since the partition trauma.
The 'run' as a metaphor of life's expedient circumstances, runs through the narrative.
Happily, the screen time is as much
taken up with Milkha's record-breaking achievements on the field, as it
is with vignettes from his personal life. There is a robust heartwarming
romance between Milkha and the vessel-friendly 'kudi' Biro (Sonam
Kapoor, looking prettier than ever). The writer and director invest
inexpressible warmth in the protagonist's courtship scenes. We've seen
this kind of love blossom on Punjab's soil before. But it still feels
special and unique.
Farhan does the rest. And he gets
tremendous support from other actors, specially Divya Dutta, who is
incomparably sincere in her role. Pavan Malhotra as Milkha's coach is as
usual, first-rate.
Unlike other period films in recent
times which have conveniently and lazily resorted to antiques, artefacts
and vintage songs, the 1950s in "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" simply and
effortlessly emerges from the character and his milieu.
Binod Pradhan's camera glides across
Milkha's inner and outer world, and telling it like it is. There's a
complex design to the seeming simplicity of this saga of a simple Sikh
who would guzzle two cans of ghee on challenge and run to the winning
post on feet mauled by jealous rivals.
Who said life could ever be easy for
those who aspire to fly higher than the rest? The beautiful irony of
Milkha Singh's life that this consummate biopic captures so ably, is
that he really didn't aspire to anything. He ran simply because he had
to.
The rest, as they say, is history.
"Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" is the kind of
cinema that doesn't tempt us to share the protagonist's life with any
false hopes. We the audience are driven into a desperate urge to share
Milkha's life not only because he ran fast, but because he wasn't afraid
to stumble, falter and fall.
Ironically, this film on Milkha rarely slips up, if ever.
At one point, in an under-punctuated
flashback, we hear Milkha confide in his sweetheart that he would like
the government to declare a national holiday in his honour.
I recommend a national holiday for the
entire nation to go and see this movie. It makes the other recent
high-profile acclaimed films look hopelessly inadequate.