I'm not going to get too much into reviewing the story of this movie, most of the other reviews are covering that for you. Honestly I don't remember too much the story that well anyways beyond the basics. Besides this is a Bollywood film, you know the melodramatic story of a boy and girl who fall in love against their parents wishes. I'll stick to a more cultural commentary. I remember 1995's Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge being a good movie that dealt with second generation Indians living in England. This was a funny film that struck a chord with younger Indians living in Western countries around the world, and it was an obvious smash hit in India as well.
Let me say that every country in the world has something "cool" or "bad ass" about it. But India has often had the most uncool, nerdy stereotypes about it. When I was growing up in the 80s and 90s, most of the representation of Indians in Western culture was limited to Apu from The Simpsons. Taxi drivers, convenience store clerks, curry, cow worshipers, more curry, thick English accents, effeminate men and hairy women,... nothing here was ever cool (these stereotypes are still here, yet are finally changing, albeit slowly). What kind of crazy kid wanted to be Indian? If I could have gotten away with passing myself off as a Mexican, I probably would have tried it. But then there was Bollywood, showcasing the beautiful people of India that could dance and sing just as good as anyone on MTV. This was the cool side to India. It made India look beautiful, exotic, young, hip and cultured. One of the biggest audiences for Bollywood flicks outside of India had traditionally been Indian girls. Older audiences obviously watched too, but young Indian women growing up in America have always been keen to Bollywood, many years before the arrival of DDLJ. Bollywood models, gharba dances, since as long as I can remember Indian girls immediately zeroed in on knowing that Bollywood was a cool piece of Indian pop culture that non-Indians didn't have access too or couldn't immediately claim as "theirs". Instead of being impenetrably "foreign", this industry made India look much more "exotic". I suppose it's the better balance to all those National Geographic specials that showed nomads in India eating the most disgusting things imaginable. Like all Indian movies, Bollywood flicks are overacted with dumb plots and idiotic fight scenes, but it involves outrageously beautiful people dancing and singing and that's always going to be cool. Beautiful people can make almost anything look cool. If Apu from The Simpsons has an arranged marriage then from the Western point of view it may look backward, cruel and dorky. If Aishwarya Rai or Hrithik Roshan has an arranged marriage, then it seems much more exotic and cultured,...hey maybe there's something to the concept. Beautiful or well accomplished people can turn previously weirdo things about a country into something cooler then it used to be perceived as. People are damn superficial aren't they? (Bollywood stars all being so fair skinned is a topic for another time) But DDLJ had a cross over appeal that didn't just include Indian girls. It was the first film that I remember being "big" amongst Indians. When I say it was "mainstream" I don't really mean that it fully crossed over into non-Indian audiences (though I know it did), but rather this is was the first Bollywood movie that I remember that was widely talked about and had immense appeal among many different types of Indian American audiences.
Before the release of this film, Bollywood movies seemed to exist in their own little niche of loyal cult followers (usually young Indian women). Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge broke some of the rules and didn't just appeal to Indian girls who wished they could be in a Bollywood movie and marry some hunky fair skinned North Indian guy. No this film had an exposure to a broader audience that seemed to really put Bollywood on the map for Indians that grew up outside of India. Indian guys were into this film, yeah probably because Indian girls were into it, but it was big change from what was going on before. A movie about second generation Indians was automatically going to appeal to every Indian growing up in Europe, Canada, Australia and of course the U.S. This was newer territory and since then Bollywood films have increasingly become more youth targeted in their marketing campaigns. Despite plenty of moments of stupidity (I remember a ridiculous "Yeeeeeeaahhhhhhhh!!" yell by Raj during a game of rugby), this movie was the beginning of a small change in Indian culture. Indian exposure to non-Indians and the dispelling of stereotypes is still very much a work in progress and people are unlikely to mention DDLJ on history papers in the future, but it had a milestone effect in my opinion within the community. The overtly glitzy Hrithik Roshan stuff today in 2006 seems a bit more aimed at pre-teen girls (so it's gone even younger), but DDLJ was the most talked about film in the 90s. 11 years have gone by, Shahrukh Khan is nearly 41 years old, he's basically an "Uncle" today, a status a lot of Gen-X Indian Americans are creeping towards. Of course Bollywood is a silly representation of India, it's like someone in Mumbai watching Rambo and thinking that's America. But for a brief moment in the mid 90s, people were united in talking about this Hindi movie, regardless if they spoke Hindi, Tamil or Malayalam. The movie had a great cast and awesome dance numbers, along with a more humorous angle then previous flicks I had seen. Recommended.
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