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Reviews
Mangal Pandey: The Rising (2005)
Female roles not very strong
OK, Here goes....
Great Movie, but what's the deal with the female roles? There was a lack of character development for most of the females in this story, and their own "stories" are mentioned but never explored any further or finished/tied up.....Why?!?!?!? I do not know the actual Mangal Panday history very well so i'm not sure about the relevance of some of the characters in the movie - i.e. did Mangal really marry a prostitute? Did Captain William Gordon really save a girl from "Sutti"? (and howcome the girls relatives stopped trying to kill her? - I mean, not that i wanted her to die, but it just casually stopped....and then we don't really know what her significance is, or what happens to her?) At the start of the movie you see an Indian woman servant breast feeding a English baby, and then having to resort to using opium on her own baby to keep him quite cuz she doesn't have any milk left for her own child. I thought that woman might have had a stronger, larger part in the movie (she had a Gracie Singh from "Lagaan" charm about her). But she didn't - so why introduce her at all? Surely the movie could've done without her character. OK, so she tells the English lady about the plans.....but is that historically correct? did it really happen? Did it need to be in the movie? I can understand the symbolism behind the breast feeding scene, but nothing else.
(And talking of breasts, My GOD was there CLEAVAGE in this movie - add to that a subtle girl on girl scene.....woa nelly! Gone are the prude days of Indian cinema...) Also, what did the character "Emily" contribute to the story? Nothing. At the beginning, she comes dressed in Indian clothes....so i thought, this girl likes India and all it has to offer, but then her character too disappears after the opium conspiracy is revealed.
The only real respect they gave any female in this movie, incidentally, was the prostitute who is played by Rani. But again, that too is minimised to: one good line, one important piece of information to Mangal and then the rest is all cleavage and 3 songs.
The lack of character development of the 4 females roles ("Emily's", rani's, amisha's, and breast feeding woman) really annoys me. I got excited each time a female came on screen because each one looked promising (and I was so impressed and in love with Gracie Singh's character in Lagaan) that I was sorely disappointed.
Overall, I liked the movie because it was based on a true story. If this story was made up i'd complain about the loop holes (e.g. why the guy who fans the English lady didn't warn the Indians of what had just happened. Why the breast feeding lady was loyal to the English when her own flesh and blood starved?) Very Macho film. Like I said, I liked it cuz its based on a true story - also, I love Aamir Khan. He didn't fail to deliver at all in his performance. For anyone that didn't know, that's his real hair and Moustache in the movie which took him 18 months to grow...and I thought he still looked hot....