Bollywood Movie Marathon: Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham

Two years ago, my friend/roommate and I decided to take a Bollywood cinema class together. It was this class that got me hooked both on filmmaking and on Bollywood cinema. I used to watch at least two movies per week for this class (which is six hours of movie-watching per week, on average--I had a lot of time on my hands that semester). 

What is always interesting to me about Bollywood movies, especially mainstream, high-budget Bollywood movies, is that they always manage to slip in two main ideologies: one about relationships with other people, and one about the greatness of India.

Temporarily having a TV and an absurd amount of free time, I will be having a week-long Bollywood marathon. And really, one single movie is as long as a marathon itself. Let it begin!!!

December 13: Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham (2001). 210 min. Directed by Karan Johar. Produced by Yash Johar. Starring Kajol, Kareena Kapoor, Jaya Badhuri, Farida Jalal, Rani Mukherjee, Shah Rukh Khan, Hritik Roshan, Amitabh Bachchan, and some other people, prominent actors and not.
Loose translation of the title: Sometimes Happiness Sometimes Tears

(Kareena Kapoor and Kajol)

Thoughts: This was a great movie to start off with. As I wrote on Facebook, "Today's movie was Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham, which was three and a half amazing hours of music and dance numbers, dramatic irony, and famous people crying in (literally) every scene. It was great. :D" I loved every second of dramatic irony in this movie, and every second of the dramatic irony was made extra dramatic because everyone was crying the whole time. It even made my dad cry. The title is completely accurate.
 I won't spoil them, but the plot twists were really well done. 

So much crying, so much heart-wrenching sadness. (Shah Rukh Khan and Jaya Badhuri)

Major "India is great" moment: Kajol's character always gripes about how her son will never know his country or his culture, and she sings India's national anthem every morning. She and her mother also make fun of English accents at every given opportunity. Then, at a school function, he surprises her by singing the whole thing in front of a crowd of parents. I don't know if that counts as a spoiler or not.

The love theme in this movie was familial: the meaning of a mother's love for her sons, the father's concern with his social status/reputation superseding all else, including his family's happiness.

Also damn Hritik Roshan and those turtlenecks. You can keep wearing turtlenecks if you want, but leave the leather shirts with the cut-off sleeves behind. 

Sweaters. (From left to right: Hrithik Roshan, Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan)