Re-creation Story
Vastly entertaining and epic, Lagaan swirls across the
screen in a combustive visual mix of gold sands and orange
sunsets. Buoyed by the tremendous energy of six extravagant
musical numbers, four hours go by like 45 minutes, and even a
slightly unfathomable game of cricket that lasts as long as an
average Disney movie is enthralling.
But the most remarkable aspect of Lagaan is its
triumphant righting of historical wrongs. As a textual
introduction informs us, all events and characters in
Lagaan are fictional, and the film functions as a
glorious fairy tale, a revised history, and a new mythology. In
effect, Lagaan is a re-creation story -- an explanation
not of how a people came into existence, but how they remained
in existence by defeating tremendous obstacles, and becoming
gods of their own destinies.
Much has been made of the film's expense (Lagaan is the
most expensive Indian film ever made), scope, and length (with
intermission, almost four hours). Everything about it, it seems,
is huge -- an enormous cast of ridiculously beautiful people,
wide shots of expansive countryside, and elaborate housing for
occupying British soldiers. Fitting, as everything in legend is
always larger than life.
Spanning three months in 1893, Lagaan's re-creation
mythos centers on the village of Champaner, which is controlled
by a cantonment of British soldiers and their mustache-twirling
Captain, Andrew Russell (Paul Blackthorne). Every year the
villagers are required to pay a lagaan, or land tax, to the
soldiers; this year there has been no rain and little crop
yield. Young, rebellious Bhuvan (Aamir Khan, who also produced
the film) takes a wager proposed by Russell: if, in three
months' time, the villagers defeat the soldiers in a game of
cricket, they will be excused from the tax for three years. If
they fail, they must pay three times the normal tax and so,
probably starve.
Khan's intensity makes Bhuvan a thoroughly vibrant and lucid
character, and he virtually oozes sensuality and sex appeal.
Although Bhuvan is not a particularly new character (we've seen
his like in every movie made about youth-led revolution), he is
compellingly earthy and spiritual at the same time. As the
misunderstood leader rallying his people to resist their
oppressors, Bhuvan is the center of the film's mythos. He is
continually compared to Krishna, solidifying his place as an
almost godly savior figure who remakes his people into
conquering -- but, importantly, nonviolent -- heroes. And
although the cricket match is a crusade only for Champaner and
its province, it is a metaphor for colonialism's defeat
throughout India.
What a glorious revolution is sparked, indeed: bloodless,
joyous, and righteous. That's Lagaan's fantasy, that a
rebellion can be entirely good, wholly idealistic, and even
beautiful (as the cricket match, drenched in golden sunlight,
turns out to be). And these people, who can defeat the occupying
forces with such vibrancy and on their own terms, are in no way
patronized by the filmmakers; instead, their almost spiritual
devotion to color and liveliness is extolled far above the
"sophistication" of the British forces. In fact, Lagaan
suggests that the worst British imposition upon India may have
been a fastidiousness, a forced formality.
Nowhere is this better explicated than in one of the film's
exuberant musical numbers. As part of a Hindu festival, Bhuvan
and his love Gauri (Gracy Singh) lead the rest of the villagers
in a dance detailing the relationship between Krishna and Radha.
The performance is all foot stomping, bells tinkling, skirts
swishing, and smiles flashing. Abruptly the scene cuts to the
British cantonment, where soldiers in dress uniform waltz
stiffly with women in constrictive Victorian clothing. It's easy
to see why Captain Russell's sister Elizabeth (Rachel Shelley)
would run from her white-uniformed guardians to help the
villagers learn cricket.
While these differences between Indian and British rule are
clearly demarcated, there is an unfortunate similarity in the
rigidity of the two groups' caste systems. When Bhuvan urges his
people to let an untouchable play on their cricket team, his
points are based on the prejudices of the English soldiers
towards the Indian villagers. The harsh class lines already
drawn in India, he argues, are no better than the harsh class
lines drawn by the British, and thus untouchables must be
accepted as equals. "Let no one bow his head / Let us walk
ahead," the residents of Champaner sing in preparation for the
final showdown -- progress, or "walking ahead," comes as a
result of throwing off the vestiges of "civilized" British rule.
Progress, then, comes not from the "sophisticated" intruder
(including a deity), but from self-examination -- creation may
come from a godhead, but this re-creation story is based on
purely human accomplishments.
As there is, after all, no space for it in myth, irony never
rears its sneering head in Lagaan. The almost flawless
musical numbers are explosively happy without winks and nudges,
and thus much more successful than, for example,
Monsoon Wedding's self-aware, Bollywood-inspired
productions. The one
exception is the love song performed by Gauri, Bhuvan, and
Elizabeth, but this is mostly due to the latter's inability to
hold the audience's attention when alone onscreen. Rachel
Shelley is pretty enough, but she seems to have taken the
British stiffness thing a bit too far; when she smiles, it looks
like her lips got stuck that way.
Director and writer Ashutosh Gowariker does exceedingly well in
creating a new mythology, contextualized in light of global
imperialism. Lagaan may be unabashedly crowd-pleasing
entertainment, but so are all legends. If only all the mistakes
of the past could be reworked as they are here, reality would
look something like Lagaan: harmonious, sweetly
optimistic, and outright beautiful.
— 23 May 2002
