Yaadon Ki Baaraat
Vintage Bollywood classic…probably RD Burman’s second best ever soundtrack (after ‘Hare Rama Hare Krishna‘ ), and my favourite Nasir Hussain film. It combines excellent music, great on screen chemistry and witty dialogue.
The story is pretty routine; A saintly family are separated after the dad witnesses a crime and needs to be silenced by the bad-ass villain Shakkal, who I will get to later. The typical ‘lost-found, song re-unites family’ type movie, this time it’s three brothers i.e. Shankar(Dharmenra) , Vijay (Vijay Arora) and Rattan (Tariq); the youngest of whom is played by a young Amir khan during the opening of the movie (fun fact).
After the brothers watch their parents being killed, they all go their separate ways, and end up leading very different lives. Shankar becomes a petty criminal (naturally), Vijay is rescued by a caretaker for a rich guy, and Rattan (the coolest brother) becomes a pop star.
While the plot offers very little, it is the wacky costumes, set designs, chemistry between characters and music that really keeps this film afloat. Much of the film revolves around Shankars quest to find the guy who killed his parents, and Vijay trying to woo Sunita (played deliciously by Zeenat aman). Rattan unfortunately isn’t really given much screen time or development, apart from the fact that he is one cool kid. He is by far the dorkiest pop star I’ve ever seen, and is brilliant for that! It really is a shame he doesn’t get much of a role in the film, and is only really an excuse for musical numbers.
The villain ‘Shakkal’ is very good throughout. He’s very stylish and cares as much about looking fashionable, as he does about killing people and stealing their money; and of course separating families leading to all sorts of traumatization. In his first scene he’s wearing a Stetson and cowboy boots ( ’very cool’ I hear you utter), well it just gets cooler. He loses the cowboy look and goes a little up-market, he starts wearing sunglasses with gloves, juxtaposed with a typical 70s hideout.
The music is the films biggest strength; With an absolute classic ‘Chura liya’ and its iconic picturisation of Zeenat with a guitar and the white bell-bottoms. To the incredibly funky ‘Lekar Hum Deewana Dil’ , and ‘Aap ke Kamre’ , at the end of which Zeenat aman reprises ‘Dum Maro Dum’ (which she made a classic two years before this film).The film needs to be seen for the music alone. It defines an era, and takes you back to a time where everything just seemed fun…
Flirting with Zeenat aman = FUN,
Swaying to ‘Churaliya’ = FUN
Jumping on the roof of trains because you’re too cool to ride inside = FUN,
Stealing the food off two fat brothers as they skinny dip, raising all sorts of questions of incest = FUN,
Killing the parents of a vulnerable family and separating them = FUN.
All in all, Yaadon Ki Baaraat is a fun film. It has all the elements you’d expect from a 70s Masala film; Romance, action, comedy, wacky dance moves, brilliant music, funky costumes and crazy sets. It really lives up to its cult-classic status, and has a little something for everyone.