lijinhangcs2006-blog

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“Dangal” Film Review

Synopsis: Former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat and his two wrestler daughters struggle towards glory at the Commonwealth Games in the face of societal oppression.

Plot: Biopic of Mahavir Singh Phogat, who taught wrestling to his daughters Babita Kumari and Geeta Phogat. Geeta Phogat was India's first female wrestler to win at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, where she won the gold medal (55 kg) while her sister Babita Kumari won the silver (51 kg).

Director: Nitesh Tiwari

Year: 2016

Cast: Aamir Khan, Sakshi Tanwar, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Sanya Malhotra

Film Review

Why this film:

This film is the most impressive movie I have seen in recent years. In this film, we see the inequality between men and women in Indian, the irresponsibility of related organizations, the hardships behind the dream. We often see glory at the moment when the national flag rises during sports games, but unable to see the courage that they have to compete with these world best athlete and these countless days and nights of hard works that they had put in.

Characteristics of the film:

Dangal is an Indian biographical sports drama film based on a true story of Mahavir Singh Phogat. It differs from these traditional Indian films, this new Bollywood style film without singing and dancing to catch people attention, but by the sincere and touching story to impress the audience, not emotional and overkill, is an excellent Indian film that I ever watch. The whole movie is talking about how the father trained her daughters to become world top class wrestlers. The story is clear with full of joy and sweat. At the same time, it made me reacquainted with the sport that I did not fully appreciate before.

The significance of this film:

The corresponding true information:

“While Geeta won gold in the 55kg category at the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, Babita won silver in the 51kg category.

Babita went on to win gold in the 55kg category at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014.

In 2012 Geeta became the first ever Indian woman wrestler to qualify for Olympics.

As of now, Geeta and Babita have won 29 medals in International Wrestling.”

India's champion wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat was forced to give up wrestling when he was young. However, he still kept his dream of winning a world-class gold medal for the country. Therefore, he hopes to have a son in order to inherit his dream and career. Unfortunately, upon having four daughters, he gives up hope. But when his older daughters come home after beating up two boys, he realizes that they have the potential to become wrestlers. From that day onwards, he started to train his two daughters and step by step to become a world-class wrestler.

As what the story showed us, a girl, Geeta, came from a small village, changed the history of Indian sports wrestling events through years of efforts. However, it seems more than that. Her success has broken the Indian culture's stranglehold on women. Nowadays more girls started to do wrestling, and more Indian girls were given extra chances in different fields.

“If you win tomorrow, millions of girls will win with you. All the girls who are thought to be inferior to boys, girls who are forced to do chores or girls who are married and have children. Tomorrow you not only compete with Australia, but also with those who despise women!”

That is what Geeta’s father told her the night before her final match. The director might want to deliver the message to the whole Indian society that the current power of the patriarchal society in Indian should give women more opportunities for them to self-develop and explore.  

There are a lot of criticism of the father in this film about his rigid education, forced to train her two daughters, forced to cut their long hairs, did not care about their own opinion and destroyed their childhood in order to achieve his dream. However, I have different views after I watched this film. I asked myself, how many various possibilities in life could a girl that comes from a small village have？Obviously it is very little. Only if the parents keep a strict hand over their children can bring more possibilities in their future. Although such strictness might not have appreciated by other people, their children might also blame their parents that why they want to make their life so terrible.

That is the reason why Geeta and Babita crying out to her friend during a wedding party after ran away from training and reprimanded by their father in public.

Impressions:

In this film, there are few scenes which are very impressive and touched my heart.

Firstly, for the sake of convenience of training, their dad forced the barber to cut off their long hair. Geeta was pleading with her father not to cut her hair, but her father has no choice and has to go ahead with his decision for the higher goods. At that moment can see Geeta’s helpless eyes on her face. It shaped the image of father's patriarchy which is a bad image.

Secondly, is what the girl said during the wedding party. “When a girl is born here, the only thought is to teach her household work and get her married off at 14. At least your father is thinking about you.” There is no doubt that this part is the most significant push for the story, not only to create a right image of their father, but also to give the audience’s thought with a significant reversal. The most remarkable thing about what the little girl said is that it shows the present situation of women's rights in India. Making decisions for their own life becomes the most aspiration of these women in India.

Thirdly, is the scene that the older daughter Geeta wrestling with her father after back from the National Sports Academy in Patiala. Her father keeps struggling on the ground and does not want to give up. It shows that he does not want to lose in front of her daughter. He lost the fight not because his ways are old but because he is old. It was really sad.

The next scene is that Geeta won the final match by recalling 5-pointer tactical techniques taught by her father. When her father heard the national anthem was played, his eyes were wet with tears. He knew that his daughter had won the match. The moment was really touched my heart.

The last scene is when Geeta walked in front of her father and handed over the gold medal to him. I can see that his feeling cannot express in words. He was relieved and finally after so many years of hard works. Eventually, his dream has come true.

Shooting analysis：

When watching this film, I was very curious about why we feel much more excited than watching really wrestling match. After I did some research, finally I knew the reason. Similar to most of the sports films, the characteristic of this film is highlighted all the technical actions and physical contacts of wrestling and enhanced the background music.

Many articles mentioned that the actors in the movie have been going through professional wrestling training for a very long time. Therefore, there were not much video effects to enhance the wrestling movement like some action movie. I also noticed that they used a lot of tracking shot during the wrestling within or outside the wrestling stage to follow the wrestlers' motion. Such filming angle emphasizes the real sense of movements and makes the audience feel like we are really watching the match in the Wrestling Hall.

Most of the wrestling scenes did not use subjective shot or shots that emphasis on the details, but emphasized on the techniques they used for wrestling and the outburst movements during the match. On top of that, the film also stressed the sounds made by body contacts with each other, body contacts with the ground and the sound of breathing from the actors so that can enrich our experience during the match.

The last match in the film used the slow-motion effect to stress on this final moment. This will immediately catch audience attention and curious about who will be the winner. That is the only part used high-speed photography.

There are a lot of cross-cut techniques used in the film. For instance, in the world championship match, the coach told Geeta to defense from her opponent. That scene mixed together with the scene of her father told her to attack during the national league final. For the final match in the Commonwealth Game also used cross-cut techniques, Geeta was fighting with her opponent while her father stuck inside a small room.

Conclusion:

I think the spirit is the soul of a film. Any film that wants to impress people, it must have spirit. In “Dangal”, the professional spirit of Aamir Khan as an actor really impressed audience. As in the film, he has to act different stages of a father, one is a young energetic wrestling champion with a strong body, another stage is to be an old father with a fat body. To achieve the best effect, Aamir Khan refused to wear prosthesis as he thinks that is not real. The unreal feeling will be reflected in the facial expression and body movements during acting. Thus, he preferred the tougher way which is to gain weight up to 97kg and then back to 72kg. Such a spirit makes many people respect him including me.

“Dangal” is also a meaningful film. It is entirely different from the majority of movies. From my point of view, I see the importance of dreams, I see the success no matter how much resistance you faced, whether from the pain of physical exercise or the misunderstandings from people around. It is invaluable that the father can stick to his goal.

No matter what, I think this is a movie that is worth for everyone to enjoy with. Everyone will get different feelings.

References

[1] Wikipedia, “Dangal (film)”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dangal_(film)

 [2] IMDB, “Dangal (2016)”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5074352/

 [3] BEN KENIGSBERG, “Review: A Father’s Dreams, Recast by His Daughters in Dangal” ，22th Dec 2016

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/movies/dangal-review.html

 [4] Lisa Tsering, “Dangal ('Wrestling Match'): Film Review” ，24th Dec 2016

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/film-dangal-wrestling-match-959164

 [5] Amrit Dhillon, “Geeta and Babita Phogat: ‘Our father taught us never to be scared' ” ，21th Jan 2017

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/film-dangal-wrestling-match-959164

 [6] FELICITY THISTLETHWAITE, “Weight loss: Actor Aamir Khan's astonishing pot belly BLITZ for Dangal movie role”, 3th Dec 2016

http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/diets/739402/Weight-loss-Aamir-Khan

 [7] HDNET MOVIES, How To Make a Sports Movie, 28 Mar 2014

http://www.hdnetmovies.com/bts/how-to-make-a-sports-movie/

 [8] Wikipedia, Slow motion, last edited on 31 October 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_motion

[9] Wikipedia, Cross-cutting, last edited on 1 November 2017

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-cutting