Thursday 31 August 2017

Film Studies II - 3 Idiots



3 Idiots (Rajkumar Hirani, 2009) is a film featuring three best friends and their lives in one of the best colleges in India, the Imperial College of Engineering. Ten years after their graduation, Farhan and Raju seek to reunite with their long lost friend, Rancho. En route to locate him, they revisit their college days as engineering students while recollecting the memories of their unconventional friend who inspired them to think differently. As the highest-grossing Bollywood film, 3 idiots captured its audience with a strong aesthetic typically found in Asian cinema, also known as the Indian cinema because India is also considered as Asia. From there, I would like to discuss about the aesthetic of Indian cinema in terms of the emotional content, themes as well as film dance, music and song.

First, I would like to discuss the dances and the musics' elements found in Indian cinema. Indian cinema often use musical to give a hint of what is happening around the main cast or use to show whats the main cast feels in that particular moment with a bunch of backup dancers as a signature which makes them unique from other country's film. For example, the musical in 3 Idiots can be found at the part where Pia, daughter of Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (ViruS) opens a photo album and starts imagines she singing "Zoobi Doobi" and dancing with Rancho together with a crowd of people as their backup dancers. However, in 3 Idiots, there is a sign of evolution and influence by western style in their musical, for example, the first part and the second part of the musical is in modern-traditional clothing musical with a bunch of dancers at the back while the last part is in white gown and suits with no dancers at the back with a resemble of Titanic's significant pose (Jack and Rose standing at the ship's attic's pose).

The style in filming and writing for an Indian film is different from foreign films. While the other films are following the Three Act Structure, Indian film are divided into two parts: First half and Second half. First half is the Act One while Second half is the joint of Act Two and Act Three. In 3 Idiots, First half of the film shows the introduction, background and the story happening between the trio while the Second half shows the crisis and actions taken by protagonist to solve the problems. For example, in First half, Rancho, Farhan and Raju meet each other in college and they happened to become roommates before they become best friends. Then slowly the films focus on Farhan and Raju's backgrounds and the start of their conflict between their family and studies (Born in middle class' Farhan wants to be a photographer but was strongly disapproved by his father while born in lower class' Raju study engineering to support his family's crisis). In Second half, Rancho helps Farhan and Raju to find their own dreams and study engineering for passion, not for grades and also changed the perception of Professor ViruS at the end by proving that grades are not everything after they managed to deliver the grandchild of Professor ViruS with his own machine. The last and most obvious conflict solved (grades is not everything) by Rancho is when he meet Chatur at the end and he happened to become the prospective business partner of Chatur, the famous Phunsukh Wangdu and more successful than Chatur.


In conclusion, the film is a very good and motivative film that gives a valuable lesson of the importance of passion in study over grades, and at the same time do not bored the audience with over formal speeches but rather putting lots of inspiring yet funny elements into the film. This film is definitely the best Bollywoord film I had watched so far, in terms of educating, and highly recommended to those who likes funny movies or making jokes and pranks (in good intention) to their friends to laugh over together with 3 Idiots.

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