kakusei

great story and acting, with a powerful message... it's especially great to see stories like this being told in modern India, in which mass media has played a large role in curbing corruption, and social networking is also helping...

HOWEVER!!!! do we really need to hear indians say the f-word as much as possible? it DOESN'T SOUND COOL, it sounds STUPID. i can't help dropping my face into my hands every time one of these characters says the f-word, for ABSOLUTELY NO REASON AT ALL.... indians are sooooo obsessed with looking cool that they make themselves look like complete idiots... i don't understand this stupid trend and it really takes away from the movie when everyone is trying to outdo each other with the English swearwords they can say. it's not cool at all, it makes them look silly and low class... but i have a feeling this trend will continue, and audiences will keep eating it up until typical indians become as foul-mouthed as typical Americans... this goes along with so many other bollywood trends, such as everyone being a smoker. in American films, you hardly ever see this anymore, yet it seems that more and more Indian films now have characters that smoke, again FOR NO REASON AT ALL.... another scene is one in which rani's character is seeing aggressively making out with a man, presumably after a night out, and this scene is NEVER referred to again. i just don't understand why so much effort goes into trying to look cool, especially when there's no purpose for it. i have no problem with swearing, smoking or making out, but when it's being put into a movie that it has nothing to do with, the audience is cheated. slaughtering animals is also a part of daily life, so why don't they put in a few scenes of that too? or of rani using the the toilet? or of vidya using tampons? because that's basically how trashy they look when they're CONSTANTLY repeating the f-word for no purpose other than to make young indians giggle and try to look cool....

there are very few Indian films that confront real situations, without cheating the audience, treating them like children or giving them what they want instead of what they need. 'arth' is one of those few films.

the story is a simple and timeless one, yet one that is rarely explored in Indian film. what makes it so great is that each side of is represented, with two female points of view, another rarity in Indian film. but the performances are what bring this great story to life. the acting is superb, especially by shabana azmi and smita patil - two women with excellent performances in the same film, which is yet another rarity.

the film is well directed, and mahesh bhatt highlights the emotional impact of the situation very well. not a single shot is wasted and the story unfolds at a perfect pace.

at no point is 'arth' clichéd or predictable, and it tells the story as it should be told. the ending was one that would have made so many other films excellent, yet the storytellers were afraid to tell it. this is the thing i admire most about this film, it never cheats the audience and treats the situation as realistically as possible. most importantly, each of the main characters is three-dimensional, and the film examines each of these characters and their states of mind very well, rather than having them react to events.

the writing, directing, and acting in this film are absolutely perfect and this film is easily one of the best Indian films ever made.

this movie is SURELY a parody or spoof. there's just no way anyone can take this silly film seriously. it is so full of cheesy dialogue, unbelievable jingoism and awful, over-the-top performances that there's no way you can watch it without laughing.

first, there is some good photography and cinematography in this film. the actions shots are done quite well. but that's where it ends. EVERYTHING ELSE about this movie is absolutely HORRIBLE.

this movie was most likely written by the Indian army, as there are just too many references to how much greater India is than Pakistan and how it must be protected at all costs. the rhetoric is soooo thick and performances so wooden that there's really no explanation other than that the Indian military knew they would need some public relations help, especially since they were to go on to detonate five nuclear bombs the year after this film was released.

the acting is absolutely horrible, with every character being completely one-dimensional caricatures. the embarrassingly bad character played by sunny deol is taken straight out of an American war b-movie. his unending screaming of silly nationalistic clichés was most likely written by politicians, and serves only as a source of comic relief. every other character is similarly based on cartoon characters....

every five minutes, the viewer is reminded about how great India and hindus are, how brave and intelligent they are, how strong and proud they are, how loving and noble they are... this idea, beaten into your head over and over, is followed by explosions and heroic indians beating down those evil pakistanis. this gets so tired and stupid that it's quite clear this movie has nothing else to say - it is completely self-righteous propaganda or ingenious parody.

the incredibly bad dialogue, surely written by army children, sees the entire world in black and white, and India is always right, no matter what. it even goes so far as to suggest that god wants India to win and Pakistan to lose, but never shows the pakistani army believing the exact same thing...? of course not, because everyone knows that Pakistan are the bad guys and India is doing god's work, right?? in the middle of all this carnage, no opportunity is missed for these tough guys to drop their guns and take part in silly choreographed dance routines, which are so out of place, that they serve as yet another piece of proof that this film is a spoof and should not be taken seriously.

this film exists primarily to support the ideas of conservative warmonger tough guys who like guns and violence and like killing people who don't pray to the same god they do. it fuels the minds of small-minded, nationalistic idiots who believe that India is the greatest country in the world - yet have never traveled outside of India.

however, it also serves to satirize these kinds of people, with such an extreme, arnold schwarzenegger-type plot, that it seems to completely undermine and subvert what i assume is the real message of the film. it's quite ironic that this is the case because the makers of this film most likely thought they were creating something amazing but ended up creating something so laughably bad that it can only be enjoyed as making fun of those who support war.