First things first, whatever reviews you may have read about the movie but its not going to be a blockbuster hit like 'Dil Chahta Hai' or '3 idiots'.
Nevertheless its a movie far better than either of the two or for that matter millions of the movies that have come in the recent years.
I will just fall short of calling it a ground breaking movie because at the end of it, the movie will not bring any changes in our society, neither will it start any movement and nor will it do any good for the farmer's plight that is so well depicted in the movie.
Anyways, when I went to watch the movie the part that struck me most was not the movie itself but the audience watching the movie.
I was watching the movie in a multiplex and to my amazement so many of the audience sitting there were not understanding the dialogues (they do understand Hollywood movie dialogues clearly) or they were just trying to laugh at every dialogue possible pretending to themselves that they were enjoying the movie.
The city multiplex audience mostly go to any movie either based on reviews or the movie stars or just for having a 'good time.
For sure people did come to this movie because of the name attached with it 'aamir khan productions' and some may be based on the reviews. But the movies was not houseful or booked for several weeks like other big movies.
One of the lady sitting behind me needed the whole movie translated to her my her male friends as she wasn't able to comprehend the dialogues. Her friends would translate the rural accents into plain Hindi or English and then all of them will have a laugh (I'm not even going to mention how irritating it was).
There were people who were not even aware about the subject, 'Farmer Suicide' was something they have heard for the first time and they were not able to understand why a movie on that.
And many poor souls kept on searching for Aamir Khan in the movie till the end.
Most of the audience wouldn't have seen the rural life, things like a handpump, a tempo, a phawada, a goat in the house, a women smoking a beedi were as good as the weapons used in a star wars movie for them.
Though the writer/director was at her satirical best but there wasn't a moment in the movie where (if you really understand the movie) you can laugh your heart out, but the theater was full of laughs and cheers at instances like the protagonist family being mobbed by camera crew, he going to relieve himself in the wild, a old cursing mother, a farmer tilling the soil and even at the end seeing the protagonist working in the city as a labourer.
Somewhere in a review i read the movie goes on and people come and go debate if 'Nattha' would suicide or not and nobody cares why ?
It was pretty much the same scenario off the screen too, where nobody cared about the 'Why?'. Most of us were there to enjoy a movie and have a good laugh and enjoy our weekend.
I do not blame, criticise or judge anyone but wonder, in a country where still the 70% population depend on agriculture and millions living under abject poverty and where the movie just touches may be 50% of the rural life, will we ever be able to make a difference, will our country ever change for better.
And even further will we ever be able to lessen the divide between rural and urban India and know about our country and countrymen in a better way then we do now and start appreciating (rather than enjoying) a movie like Peepli Live and fathom if it can ever start a movement.
