A very refreshing movie from Bollywood.
If Bollywood grows up in this way, I can’t wait for it to become mature.
But if all it can do is make movies like Kaante, Kabhi khushi..., i’d really not miss hindi movies.
What I liked about this movie.. it was REAL.
Small details in the movie that we can identify with that also stand in stark contrast to what we see in Bollywood.
Standard bollywood fare
Middle class house == 10, 000 sq foot mansion with rifles hanging on the wall and garish interiors. Preferably on sea face
Middle class lifestyle == mercedes, designer clothes, fancy pubs and discos
But this was totally different, middle class on screen was the REAL, honest, god fearing middle class family where the kids pray before they leave the house, the 2 sisters sleep on smallish beds in one room (no A/C, thank you).
The scenes, sights and sounds in the local train, on the street, with people walking by, the traffic, all so real.
And what a medical departure from bollywood!!
Shows medicine and medical students as they REALLY live and work--in dreary conditions, in dark hospitals and with basic equipment. But yet, ever so fulfilling.
Realistic touches: a poor mother hysterical over her child, the medical camp in far flung regions, the dark hospital, the well portrayed ICU, with docs in aprons and the characteristically ’flung’ stheth(oscope).
The way in which docs usher (and push) relatives out of the way during treatment and draw the curtains before they begin to poke/prod and inject.
Even the medical conditions (sub dural hematoma, the uncertainty about outcome) and their treatment was really GOOD.
Contrast with bollywood as it usually shows medicine:
Medical students working in a 10-start hospital (or hotel??), shabby representations of OT (OP theatres) with the RED LIGHT and attempts at showing actual surgeries that make those in the know cringe with horror. One movie actually showed a ’surgeon’ performing a cardiac surgery using a shaving blade to make the incision!!
All in all, the directors have taken a lot of pains to be accurate.
Finally--the entire movie--shot in india.. proof that u can make good movies without cavorting around Europe...