![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
YOU GUYS YOU GUYS, I have just seen the best movie ever! It is Lagaan, a four hour long Bollywood epic answer to David Lean, which tells the story of an Indian village which played a cricket match against the local British cantonment. If they win, the lagaan, or land tax, will be repealed for three years. If they lose...it will be tripled!
Our hero is Bhuvan, who does not believe in buttons. All of his shirts have them, but he never actually uses them. When we first meet him, he’s spent the morning scaring away the gazelles that the leader of the local British cantonment, Captain Evil Mustache (he has a real name, but also a patently evil mustache), is attempting to hunt.
Captain Evil Mustache is approximately as over-the-top evil as it is possible for a character to be while still actually seeming believable as a human being. Driven by overwhelming arrogance and an unpleasant penchant for toying with people, he is the sort of person who yearns for nothing more than high office but should never be put in charge of anything.
When Captain Evil Mustache catches Bhuvan in the act of scaring off the gazelles, he threatens to shoot Bhuvan on the spot. Bhuvan stares him down, his manly bosom heaving and his eyes flashing defiance in the face of death. Captain Evil Mustache, presumably disappointed by the fact that Bhuvan is not cowering in terror, shoots a helpless adorable bunny instead.
When they meet again later, after Bhuvan and his fellow villagers have come to dispute the yearly lagaan (which Captain Evil Mustache doubled, more or less for his own amusement), Captain Evil Mustache sees another opportunity to humiliate Bhuvan: he suggests the wager on the cricket match.
Bhuvan: I accept!
Everyone else in the village: What is this madness? We’re going to lose, and then we’re all going to starve to death!
Bhuvan: No! We must stand up to the oppressors! I am the spirit of the new India!
Gauri, the beautiful village girl: I believe in you, Bhuvan!
Captain Evil Mustache’s sister, Elizabeth, is appalled by her brother’s complete lack of a sense of fair play (and also filled with admiration by Bhuvan’s heaving, manly chest). She decides to teach the villagers the secret ways of cricket, and also falls in love with Bhuvan, which naturally requires a scene where she dashes around the strangely deserted cantonment in an unlikely and extremely fluttery dress singing “I’M IN LOOOOOOOOOOVE.”
(Alas for Elizabeth, Bhuvan is already in love with Gauri. In the end Elizabeth goes back to England, where she never marries because she holds her love for Bhuvan in her heart forever.)
But Gauri has another suitor, Lakha! Lakha is so enraged that Gauri loves Bhuvan rather than him that he goes to the British cantonment to tell Captain Evil Mustache that Elizabeth has been helping the villagers. Captain Evil Mustache (proving himself stunningly inept in this one facet of evil) attempts to forbid Elizabeth to visit the village again, which has approximately zero effect. More successfully, he recruits Lakha to join the village cricket team and act as his spy.
With Lakha, Bhuvan has achieved ten of the eleven players that he needs. But how will he find the eleventh?
Bhuvan: I have found us the perfect player. He was an arm problem that gives him an awesome curveball.
Everyone else in the village: But Bhuvan! He’s an untouchable!
Bhuvan: In the spirit of the new India, I embrace all men as my brothers! The untouchable shall play with us!
(Bhuvan’s cricket team, in keeping with the spirit of the new India, also contains a Sikh and a Muslim player.)
And then there is a cricket match! My understanding of cricket is approximately on par with my understanding of American football (which is to say basically nil), but the cricket scenes are nonetheless tense and exciting. The whole movie is pretty much made of awesome.
Our hero is Bhuvan, who does not believe in buttons. All of his shirts have them, but he never actually uses them. When we first meet him, he’s spent the morning scaring away the gazelles that the leader of the local British cantonment, Captain Evil Mustache (he has a real name, but also a patently evil mustache), is attempting to hunt.
Captain Evil Mustache is approximately as over-the-top evil as it is possible for a character to be while still actually seeming believable as a human being. Driven by overwhelming arrogance and an unpleasant penchant for toying with people, he is the sort of person who yearns for nothing more than high office but should never be put in charge of anything.
When Captain Evil Mustache catches Bhuvan in the act of scaring off the gazelles, he threatens to shoot Bhuvan on the spot. Bhuvan stares him down, his manly bosom heaving and his eyes flashing defiance in the face of death. Captain Evil Mustache, presumably disappointed by the fact that Bhuvan is not cowering in terror, shoots a helpless adorable bunny instead.
When they meet again later, after Bhuvan and his fellow villagers have come to dispute the yearly lagaan (which Captain Evil Mustache doubled, more or less for his own amusement), Captain Evil Mustache sees another opportunity to humiliate Bhuvan: he suggests the wager on the cricket match.
Bhuvan: I accept!
Everyone else in the village: What is this madness? We’re going to lose, and then we’re all going to starve to death!
Bhuvan: No! We must stand up to the oppressors! I am the spirit of the new India!
Gauri, the beautiful village girl: I believe in you, Bhuvan!
Captain Evil Mustache’s sister, Elizabeth, is appalled by her brother’s complete lack of a sense of fair play (and also filled with admiration by Bhuvan’s heaving, manly chest). She decides to teach the villagers the secret ways of cricket, and also falls in love with Bhuvan, which naturally requires a scene where she dashes around the strangely deserted cantonment in an unlikely and extremely fluttery dress singing “I’M IN LOOOOOOOOOOVE.”
(Alas for Elizabeth, Bhuvan is already in love with Gauri. In the end Elizabeth goes back to England, where she never marries because she holds her love for Bhuvan in her heart forever.)
But Gauri has another suitor, Lakha! Lakha is so enraged that Gauri loves Bhuvan rather than him that he goes to the British cantonment to tell Captain Evil Mustache that Elizabeth has been helping the villagers. Captain Evil Mustache (proving himself stunningly inept in this one facet of evil) attempts to forbid Elizabeth to visit the village again, which has approximately zero effect. More successfully, he recruits Lakha to join the village cricket team and act as his spy.
With Lakha, Bhuvan has achieved ten of the eleven players that he needs. But how will he find the eleventh?
Bhuvan: I have found us the perfect player. He was an arm problem that gives him an awesome curveball.
Everyone else in the village: But Bhuvan! He’s an untouchable!
Bhuvan: In the spirit of the new India, I embrace all men as my brothers! The untouchable shall play with us!
(Bhuvan’s cricket team, in keeping with the spirit of the new India, also contains a Sikh and a Muslim player.)
And then there is a cricket match! My understanding of cricket is approximately on par with my understanding of American football (which is to say basically nil), but the cricket scenes are nonetheless tense and exciting. The whole movie is pretty much made of awesome.
