3 Idiots (Rajkumar Hirani, 2009) is a comedic yet inspiring story featuring 3 best friends, Rancchordas Shyamaldas Chanchard (Rancho), Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi in their way finding success in study at Imperial College of Engineering, one of the top colleges in India. The story begins with Farhan and Raju on their road trip in searching for Rancho, who vanishes after graduates along with their nerd college friend, Chatur Ramalingam. In the middle of searching, flashback strikes in and brings the story back to the 3 best friends' college life. While other students were in their way to score, the trio was exploring and follows their own road of success.
In this film, I would like to discuss the aesthetics of Indian cinema by citing examples from 3 Idiots. First of all, I would like to discuss the dances and the musics' elements found in Indian cinema. Indian cinema often use musical to give a hint of what is happening around the main cast or use to show whats the main cast feels in that particular moment with a bunch of backup dancers as a signature which makes them unique from other country's film. For example, the musical in 3 Idiots can be found at the part where Pia, daughter of Professor Viru Sahastrabudhhe (ViruS) opens a photo album and starts imagines she singing "Zoobi Doobi" and dancing with Rancho together with a crowd of people as their backup dancers. However, in 3 Idiots, there is a sign of evolution and influence by western style in their musical, for example, the first part and the second part of the musical is in modern-traditional clothing musical with a bunch of dancers at the back while the last part is in white gown and suits with no dancers at the back with a resemble of Titanic's significant pose (Jack and Rose standing at the ship's attic's pose).
Next, the costumes in Indian cinema are usually lively and colorful especially in their traditional clothing. However, not all the costumes are full in colors and the need of choosing the right colors and accessories for different occasion is necessary. For example, in Pia's sister's wedding, she dresses up in a regular modern-traditional clothing with acceptable amount of accessories (few bracelets, a necklace and put nothing on her face except for a pair of gold earring), while in her own wedding, she wears a traditional red saree and lehenga with a bunch of accessories (big bracelets, necklace, earrings, head accessory and a big pierce of ring on her nose).
Besides that, the differences in colors and type of clothing also can be found in this film. For example, red clothing for Pia's wedding while white clothing for funeral (shown by the real Rancho in his father's funeral); and modern-traditional clothing for ceremony or event while jeans and t-shirt in daily life (shown by Rancho, Farhan and Raju in their college life).
The style in filming and writing for an Indian film is different from foreign films. While the other films are following the Three Act Structure, Indian film are divided into two parts: First half and Second half. First half is the Act One while Second half is the joint of Act Two and Act Three. In 3 Idiots, First half of the film shows the introduction, background and the story happening between the trio while the Second half shows the crisis and actions taken by protagonist to solve the problems. For example, in First half, Rancho, Farhan and Raju meet each other in college and they happened to become roommates before they become best friends. Then slowly the films focus on Farhan and Raju's backgrounds and the start of their conflict between their family and studies (Born in middle class' Farhan wants to be a photographer but was strongly disapproved by his father while born in lower class' Raju study engineering to support his family's crisis). In Second half, Rancho helps Farhan and Raju to find their own dreams and study engineering for passion, not for grades and also changed the perception of Professor ViruS at the end by proving that grades are not everything after they managed to deliver the grandchild of Professor ViruS with his own machine. The last and most obvious conflict solved (grades is not everything) by Rancho is when he meet Chatur at the end and he happened to become the prospective business partner of Chatur, the famous Phunsukh Wangdu and more successful than Chatur.
Overall, this film is a very good and motivative film that gives a valuable lesson of the importance of passion in study over grades, and at the same time do not bored the audience with over formal speeches but rather putting lots of inspiring yet funny elements into the film. This film is definitely the best Bollywoord film I had watched so far, in terms of educating, and highly recommended to those who likes funny movies or making jokes and pranks (in good intention) to their friends to laugh over together with 3 Idiots.
References:
INDIAN AESTHETICS- EIILM UNIVERSITY
http://eiilmuniversity.ac.in/coursepack/humanities/INDIAN_AESTHETICS.pdf
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/01/0121_040121_bollywoodfilms.html
http://www.contempaesthetics.org/newvolume/pages/article.php?articleID=545
http://www.rhythm-india.com/bollywood-dance.html
http://www.elementsofcinema.com/screenwriting/three-act-structure/ &
http://akries.in/2014/08/intermissions-and-indian-screenwriting/
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