Feline Musings

If you want to pursue an artistic or offbeat career, you have to be plain lucky or rich, else you need the guts to quit living an ordinary life, and go for your dream. And if you don’t have the luck, money, or guts, then just follow the cliché, “Life mein compromises to karne parthe hai.” This is the basic theme of the film – Rock-On – to follow a different path which may be risky in the materialistic and worldly terms, or just follow the ordinary and compromise your dream.

The theme is good; the treatment is similar to Dil Chahta Hai. Maybe Farhan wanted to bank on the tried and tested formula, instead of going off-beat because the Rock Band story-line was already novel. Or was it! Well, Jhankar Beats was a successful movie on similar lines of a struggling music band. While the struggling musicians remind you of Jhankar Beats, the events follow a typical Dil Chahta Hai pattern – flashback, best of friends, misunderstanding, separation, reunion, even a fatal disease (remember, Dimple Kapadia on the deathbed), and a well-to-do businessman complete in designer suits and ties. Seeking the love of your life angle is also present, except in Rock-On, music, rather Rock Music is the love.

The movie is slow, especially in the first half. It has taken some time to explain, through scenes and dialogues, why and how the characters are placed in the current scenarios of their lives. But it’s still worth sitting patiently through these scenes, because the flashback scenes are colorful, hilarious and fun-filled. I could appreciate the fact that there is a distinct difference in personalities and garb of the band members in the flashback and the current life scenes and in both the characters look absolutely innate and at ease.

The rock-star look of the youngsters is wonderfully natural and you do not have any awkward wigs or outrageous tattoos. These are normal people, with normal lives, living and dreaming music, creating rhythm and lyrics out of day-to-day scenarios. And as time and tide changes, they decide to move on with what life offers them, except for Joe, the character played by Arjun Rampal. He is the only person who doesn’t give up even on his hair, and over the years his shoulder length tresses become long – as long as his wait to get just another chance to play his kind of music, to an appreciating audience.

There are ample light moments, like the “Dandia-night” scene, or the humor of KD, but at the same time you will feel the knot rising in your throat as more sensitive issues of relationships and emotional traumas of having had to leave your dream midway, manifests itself in the life of these Musicians of Mumbai. Your heart goes out to each of the characters, and to their personal traumas, including Debbie, the perpetually shouting, angry, stressed-out wife of Joe, who doesn’t understand why her husband cannot move on with and accept his fate as a guitarist in weddings and personal parties.

It’s ultimately a story that the youth as well as the thirty-plus professionally successful crowd can appreciate, because when you are young you dare to dream, and after you have a successful professional life, you can look back at good times and good friends and reminiscence on the potential that was.

The movie script has some evident flaws, for instance the misunderstanding between the band members, doesn’t seem good enough to cause the split. I still call it a must-watch movie because its different from the so many flop flicks that the Box Office has churned out in 2008. It’s refreshing in its own way, and in Waves, Noida, the audience just loved this movie and there were whistles and claps and loud laughter. And yes, there is this unforgettable scene when a somber faced Arjun Rampal makes a sudden appearance on stage, long tresses flowing in the wind, guitar in hand, and the impact is an absolute “wow” both on-screen and in the movie hall. And as Arjun Rampal sings the song that he wrote for his lady love, for some reason, I am reminded of Mark Knopfler’s famous single – “True love will never fade.”

Afterthought – Considering that most Bollywood movies this year have been struggling with weak scripts, I think I should write into some directors and offer to do some good scripting

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