A review of Taare Zameen Par
Movie, “bindaas!”
as Ishaan Avasti (Darsheel Zafary), the character in the movie would say.
Upfront, a simple film with a moving story about a child with a disorder –
dyslexia. His disorder is not understood by anyone, and as a result he is
labeled a lazy, rude and disinterested boy who remains behind in the race of
everyday school competition. Enter, a different kind of a teacher, who has
overcome the same condition in himself, to help the kid through it, gain
acceptance in the eyes of his world by charting his own path to excellence.
But look again, the
dyslexia is only the gateway; the movie does not attempt to get into the
technicalities of the disorder, which may have interested only a part of the
audience. Not using the term “education system” anywhere really, the movie
shows glimpses of what is going wrong with our current schooling system and
flashes of ideas for betterment here and there. But, neither has the movie
started analysing deeply into schooling issues, nor tried to show The Way to
correct the system. Yet, it has touched upon many problems with it, all
connected, through a simple and inspiring story. Brilliant storytelling!
The three significant
scenes which are heavy and dealing with overall questions of learning and
schooling, flow in perfect timing and location in the movie. They come on
suddenly without any building up to profound message-giving, forcing the
audience to take the “bitter pill” so to say, and then swiftly we move on
without wallowing.
One
is the scene where the teacher, Nikumb (Aamir Khan), meets the child’s parents
and pushes them to look at the purpose of educating their boy, the absurdity of
their own expectations from him and the meaning of success, pointing to them as
well as the audience the anomalies with the current societal approach to
education and ideas of success and achievement.
The
second is the powerful conversation between the father and the teacher which
brings out the difference between true compassion and taking care of the (a)
child, and the appearance of doing so. This scene very starkly places the child
as the focal point in the entire gymnastics.
The
third scene is the staff room, when the innovative teacher hits against a wall
of lethargy, insensitivity and rigidity of the “system” in the other teachers.
Here the script
stumbles, and this staff room scene is weaker than the other two in that, it
only depicts the system’s arguments against a different learning-oriented
values and schooling, but keeps the teacher who can see the problems, a passive
listener.
Another problem in the
film is that it does not stay true to its own punch line, “Every child is
special”. In showing the one character and his trials in life, the other
children are all clubbed into one uniformed mass laughing at him. The only
exception is the one who becomes his friend.
A very good twist in
the story is that the teacher himself is also dyslexic, because then there is
empathy beyond anything else, and also an example of possibilities and
opportunities for the child.
There are many little
insights into children’s learning, human behaviour, and how relationships work,
that are scattered in the movie and make it timeless – just a subtle awareness
displayed without going too much into details and analysis – whether it is the
suggestion of how to engage with the government, or it is the consciousness
that there are other children without even the middle class comfort of our
protagonist (without being didactic about it), or a simple understanding of how
a child thinks, learns and responds.
One such subtle funniness
in the movie is the play on the word, “drishtikon”, which means
“perspective”. The boy is asked to explain a poem on Drishtikon, which he does
so with a much deeper insight into the concept of perspective. To his utter
chagrin, the Hindi teacher scolds him and appreciates another boy who re-quotes
the poem in an explanatory way as he has been taught. One could almost miss the
nuances of his fine explanation of perspective. Towards the end, the same
teacher appreciates the boy to his parents, saying “What a different
perspective your son has of things! Bravo!”
Technically, a sound
production – music, visual and imagery brilliantly done (the title visual and
music deserve special mention), and the performance of the actors is
first-rate. The one aspect in which the editing gets unstable is when Aamir
Khan is on screen. There are too many sudden cuts to close in on his face
working up tears and getting highly emotional. It does not make sense that a
person who is so passionately working with different kinds of children, and who
has had a different childhood himself would burst into such emotion at the drop
of a hat! And it is amateurish if the camera has to do a close-up every time he
gets into emotion. I suppose this is to ward off the evil eye!
Conclusion however: this is a movie worth collecting for
the library.