Swades: We, the people

In terms of the largest number of feature films produced, Indian cinema is one of the largest centers for film production in the world, even beating out the U.S. The most predominant genre for Hindi films is the masala film, a movie which freely mixes genres like action, melodrama, comedy, and the like with musical numbers, which are incredibly common in most Hindi films (which has coined the expectations of what to expect from a film from that area of the world). This clashing of tones and genres by injecting song sequences into films that don’t seemingly require them was in response to how Hindi films without songs and dance sequences rarely succeed (at least this was how some in the industry viewed it) which could explain why the 2004 Indian Hindi-language drama film, Swades: We, the people, randomly injects a sense of musicality into a story that doesn’t require it. Non-resident Indian Mohan Bhargava (played by Shah Rukh Khan) works as a project manager for NASA in the US and is currently working on the Global Precipitation Program (GPM) to use satellites to track the earth’s precipitation rates, but his mind wanders back to his youth when he was raised in India and looked after by his nanny, Kaveri Amma (played by Kishori Ballal), who he lost contact with after moving to America and now wishes to travel to India and bring her to live with him. Upon arriving, he discovers Kaveri has left her retirement home and relocated to a small village named Charanpur. Upon arriving, he reunites with her and a girl he knew from his youth, Gita (played by Gayatri Joshi) who runs a school for the children which is at risk of being relocated due to the heads of the village’s caste and religious beliefs causing a divide between its people and those neighboring around them. Upon realizing this, Mohan postpones his return to America with Kaveri and plans to assist the village and improve its living standards, unknowingly warming up to its simple beauties, falling in love with Gita and starting to understand that Kaveri might not wish to return to America with him. Based on two episodes of the series Vaapsi and a novel written by K. Shivaram Karanth, the film is considered a cult classic despite its poor box office reception and is even considered one of the best films in the filmography of star Shah Rukh Khan. Swades acts as a pretty decent introduction into the world of Indian cinema and provides a mostly charming film with likeable actors, a calm laid-back atmosphere and a strong first act.

Along with the previously listed aspects that brought this film together, the premise for this story (more rather the latter act’s conflict involving the creation of a hydroelectric device generating electricity for their village) was actually inspired by two real life people, Aravinda Pillalamarri and Ravi Kuchimanchi, who were a Non-Resident Indian (or NRI for short) couple who returned to India and developed a pedal power generator to give light to off-the-grid schools. Even the fictional village of Charanpur takes inspiration from the real-life village of Bilgaon, which is known for its community doing 200 person-days of community service (or shramdaan) to make their village energy self-sufficient. This is important to know as this genuine tale of kind-heartedness, community and hard work overcoming the limitations put onto their remote living environment is all a part of what makes this movie so charming. The direction in which this narrative written by M. G Sathya and Ashutosh Gowariker (who also serves as the film’s director) goes down is very akin to a ‘’returning to your roots’’ kind of story you see from any culture, as a lot of people can identify with being away from your childhood environment and feeling like an outlier from a place that you originally grew up. Because of this, the movie’s first act is very slow-paced and chill, but also incredibly simple to grasp and charming to witness, it has a mellow timelessness that anybody can appreciate, and it makes it accessible to people who aren’t fully engross in Hindi-type material. The directing for this movie by Ashutosh Gowariker (who was mostly well known outside of India for his previous 2001 film, Lagaan, being nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars) really lets these quiet human moments stand out and gives the impression that this isn’t a story that’s about anything deep or overly dramatic, but rather a small, relaxing little tale in this small village. It does a great job giving this village a lot of personality too; you get to know the people, you see that its not incredibly wealthy, but manages to remain positive none the less, and also shows some of its cracks through its leaders being more traditionalist, but it never goes to the level of having a villain or anything like that, its appreciated. With that said however, there are problems as the story keeps going and evolves into something not as engaging. The screenplay for this film written by Gowariker, Sameer Sharma, Ayan Mukerji, Lalit Marathe, Amin Ajee, Charlotte Whitby-Coles, and Yashdeep Nigudkar does well with the humbler moments, but it starts to get a little overstuffed and even a little too ambitious once the film reaches its halfway mark. The film is unfortunately very long, dragging this simple story to an unnecessary three-hour-length and  the longer it trails out, the more confused and ‘’important’’ the story tries to present itself as. It gets lost in what should be the main focus (with the final conflict not having too much build-up come the end), things set up previously go unmentioned by the conclusion, it becomes too monologue-focused and takes time away from what this movie was supposed to be about, and the resolution feels like emotional manipulation with how it feels like it is telling you how to feel instead of it making any logical sense.

The characters in this aren’t the most fleshed out individuals, but they are likeable, charming and quirky in their own ways. It’s helped out by establishing this community and even if they aren’t big characters, faces can be remembered from just small little scenes, and that goes a long way in a story like this. This is really assisted by the acting as everybody is very good at performing their parts, especially the three leads. Shah Rukh Khan, Gayatri Joshi and Kishori Ballal are excellent in this film, conveying their parts with incredible expression, life and passion to create some memorable roles out of basic archetypes; Kishori Ballal’s sweet grandmotherly tone is so likeable and innocent that she easily melts your heart, Gayatri Joshi’s facial expressions and blunt but intelligent speech pattern gives her great confidence and independence through every line (very impressive for her first and only acting role) and Shah Rukh Khan (also commonly referred to as ”King Khan” in the industry) can play the business suit in NASA and the more casual and playful Mohan in the village very well. Most of the supporting cast like Rajesh Vivek, Lekh Tandon, and Daya Shankar Pandey are pretty over-the-top, but not to an overly annoying element, they still work in the film just fine. The movie does still have its issue with how it handles some of the characters, however. Despite the film’s main crux being around the elderly Kaveri, she pretty much disappears during the middle of this movie and doesn’t play into much of anything, further proving how the script and direction goes haywire after the first act. The relationship between Gita and Mohan is not very strong with the two-sharing average chemistry at best but having no strong reason to be a couple and even their past connection as children factors into next to nothing. Also, it feels hypocritical of the movie to tell Mohan that it is wrong to bring his loved ones to America as they wouldn’t be able to adjust, then guilt him into staying in India despite everything he has to adjust to. Also, Mohan’s weirdly selfish desire to bring Kaveri back with him despite her being needed in the community as well as putting his entire project at NASA on hold for him to have this holiday is oddly mean, but these don’t disrupt the movie too much, rather just act as little annoyances in an otherwise likeable experience.

The production design for this film by Nitin Chandrakant Desai does a good job at giving a sense of earthy grit but also honest and unkempt feel to this location. Its not the most well put-together or pretty location, but it feels authentic and carries with it plenty of cultural specific elements that adds nice flavor. The movie’s premise and anchoring within reality would make people think that it wouldn’t feature any musical numbers, but it weirdly does include them, and they don’t entirely fit. This logic must in some way come from this ideology that Hindi movies that don’t feature songs and dance numbers don’t do as well as those that do, because this movie doesn’t feel like it needs songs in it whatsoever (at least not to this extent). Thankfully, the numbers aren’t bad; they are well performed (even though its incredibly obvious it’s not the actors’ voices), they are written by famed Indian screenwriter, poet and lyricist, Javed Akhtar and composed by A. R. Rahman, who’ve both worked on several Hindi movies previously so they weren’t slacking, and they are catchy melodies that create a fun and lively element, but they are also pretty bland, don’t provide any proper insight into character or story, and more or less act as breaks in the story which unfortunately drag it out to that unnecessarily long running time. From a tonal standpoint, it get a  little messy as things continue forward, as the movie’s perspective shifts from a casual laid-back ”returning home” kind of story about a man reuniting with a woman who helped raise him which has a quirky and light feel, to dealing with the poor situation of several Indian farmers and the caste system separating these people apart which takes itself way to seriously. It gets weirdly dramatic about how much it delves into the suffering of some of these people, and because of how randomly it shifts to this stance, it doesn’t feel warranted or even that necessary so its really hard to get that invested into it. These issues are important to raise and the first act actually did a decent job of setting up the pros and cons of living in this environment in a natural way, as well as showing Mohan’s natural separation from this community without overly talking about it (him sleeping in an RV while everybody else is in their houses is a nice touch), but it doesn’t feel like its needed.

Its always nice to experience new forms of film-making and watching a movie from another culture is a great way to view something familiar through different eyes, as even though they have their own stories to tell and show them off in a very unique memorable way, they can also do similar stories to anything from the Western front, and Swades is a movie that anyone can enjoy regardless of inexperience to the realm of Hindi cinema. The film is not trying to do anything unique to the point where those who aren’t used to watching films from India won’t be caught off guard by anything, and they can appreciate elements like the simple story, charming characters and overall likeable first act. There are qualities that don’t work about the film, but it all just depends on the mindset that you’re going into for this, because if you’re just looking to not think about things and enjoy the ride, this will satisfy you easily. Check it out and introduce yourself to a whole new realm of cinema.