Saturday, August 2, 2008

Taal

It starts out with a Om symbol and a prayer starting with Ohm.Taal
Like a lot of Indian films it is about love at first site. The hero also makes it clear that everyone will help in his quest for his love once they fall apart because of family differences that arise because of an unplanned visit by the less rich family. At first the visiting family has to wait on a bench next to a cage with a few dogs. I almost wondered if it was a phobia about dogs (Islamic considerations) more than disrespect of being in the heat.

The unscrupulous producer said the following monologue as he opens a big book installed on the wall in his office (he had one monologue towards the end that we missed part of it because of the disk but it was over 4 minutes long!):
Principles of the 20th century.
Sacrifice is supreme.
"Do good and forget about it. Do your duty, don't expect rewards."
After completing B.A., I worked on these ideals for 5 years.
What was the outcome? I starved, had no food to eat.
I use to play this rattle.
And Banerjee would take photographs.
Then our life took a new turn.
We met a man called Jaidev uncle.
He gave us these 7 tenets of the 21st century.7 Commandments!
He said Kapu, change these old tenets.
Change into a modern man.
1. The first rule is love remains healthy with give and take.
"Give and take, give and take."{Shaking rattle}
2. First do good to yourself.
"Me first, me first." {Shaking rattle}
3. All efforts are useless unless backed with expectation of reward.
"What is the profit" What is desire? What's the result?" {Shaking rattle}
4. Shop dressing is more important than honesty.
"Business." {Shaking rattle}
5. Envy is essential to win in any competition.
"Jealousy." {Shaking rattle}
6. Greed is necessary to become rich.
{Lick lips, yummy sounds}
7. Cut others down to size in order to be one up.
"Cut it. Cut into size." {Shaking rattle in slow movements side to side}
He makes this speech in front of the lower caste family and naturally he gets some strange looks but continue to do business with him.

The dancing was great and most of the outfits were excellent except one of the mens was really a stupid idea of having black squares on white background with just a repeating pattern. I am not sure if it violated the no kiss policy but the man's lips kiss the woman's closer to the camera side so we do not see her lips as they touch but this must be the closest to a full lip kiss we have seen. I almost think that since there is censorship of kissing on film then films become even more obsessed with this simple act than any other thing. Including this film has a nearly subplot of sharing a Coke Bottle {yes Coke was thanked in the opening credits} so that they would be sharing germs. You know boy and girl germs mixing up.

Taal (film)
Most of the film was of good quality and only a couple of short cuts the color was off and not visually clear.
Subtitles:
English
French
Spanish
Indonesian
Arabic
Hebrew

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