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Lagaan

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  1. #1

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    Lagaan

    Anyone know where a decent copy of Lagaan with English subtitles can be rented from - video, VCD, DVD whatever?

    Friends (non-Indian) who've read all the press coverage want to know, assuming I would know. But they're asking the wrong person. Haven't seen any desi movie for more than 10 yrs, and am clueless.


  2. #2

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    I think MovieLand have it. Have seen some Indian movies at the one in LKF.

    Best to call and confirm and to reserve it.


    Rani


  3. #3

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    You can always buy it from our GeoHumor store.

    http://www.geohumor.com/modules.php?...sin=B00005U124


  4. #4

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    blockbuster has lagaan and a few other indian movies.
    where do you stay? there is a good place on wellington street where you can rent indian movies.


  5. #5

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    Thanks for responses. Rads, I stay at HK Parkview above Wong Nai Chung Gap/HKCC. So guess I'll try the Blockbuster I've seen at Hopewell before venturing westwards of my workplace (Admiralty area).

    Another question: in your opinion would people without the foggiest idea of cricket be able to appreciate the movie? A gushing review by seemingly (who can tell) a home-grown American on GeoHumor seemed to indicate yes.

    The last thing I want to do is also to have to explain the game to this bunch who want to see Lagaan - I'm sure - only because the distaff side have read about it in magazine articles. I'm sceptical because in a past attempt when they wanted my help to prep up for HKCC membership, their attention span didn't last two seconds beyond the number of players a side.


  6. #6

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    yo HKF,
    there is only so much hand holding one can do, after that the little cricketeers will have to sing the bat themselves.

    Lagaan should be available at Thakrals at the janta price of $70/-

    the piece below should be sent to your pals in an attempt to explain your affliction

    btw I enjoyed Escape from New York and I have never been there.

    ===
    WHY INDIANS LOVE CRICKET

    There is the strive for making cricket more attractive and emotive. And then, there is this artificially generated nationalistic hype. If you observe closely the end-game analysis stresses not on the fact that a team has lost because it is inferior but because it failed to show guts, bad captaincy, bowlers did not live up to their jobs, batsmen did not show resilience etc.

    The attempt is to showcase cricket as a scientific game based more on skills rather fate, which it actually is. Everyone is made to believe that it is more like a game of chess where everything can be worked out scientifically to the last detail.

    Cricket basically is a game of fate in its most serious sense. Because you are not only playing against fate as an external entity but you are gambling against your own fate.

    Unlike Football, for instance, all the twenty-two players are not in the filed at the same time. One team can play in broad sunlight and when the other team comes to bat, it can be overcast, where the ball starts to swing and seam, the conditions can be very different. So Cricket is not a game which balances out the weights equally. Much is left to chance and fate.

    Each team is not dealing with the same or equal adversities, but distinctive adversities, the weather conditions, the change in the state of the pitch, the condition of the ball; all these are in a constant state of flux which, in turn, may lead to fluctuating fortunes even if both the teams are equal on paper.

    But, somehow all this leads to the charm of the game, the ‘glorious uncertainties’, the uncertainties of fate.

    Maybe this is why cricket appeals to the Indians. Fate does play a very huge role in our cosmology. Our lives are supposed one long battle against fate.

    That is why I call cricket the ‘Indian game accidentally discovered by the English’.

    Cricket: India’s new religion?

    Cricket is followed in India with an almost religious fervour. There is much media hype and mass hysteria. I would put this down to the urban Indian’s response to the vacuum created due to the decline in religious faith. Family gods have become defunct. Family priests as an institution has declined. Mass urbanisation and migration has led to the death of the joint family and roots etc.

    Therefore, there is search for a more generic form of religion to conform to, and a search for, a pseudo-community to which you can identify passionately. And the community of cricket lovers is a community which can identify passionately, which is generic, and one can take refuge in and sublimate one’s passions and prejudices and produces a false sense of community and releief from anonymity that urbanmisation engenders.

    Therefore, while I will not say that cricket has become a religion, I would say it would be appropriate to call cricket a cult. A cult which allows you to live and participate through the eleven players in the field.

    It is almost what the failed system has not been able to deliver, what our politics and political leaders of this country have not been able to, this country of a billion is hoping that the eleven players on the cricket field will be able to do.

    It is as if the nation is hoping and praying that cricket team will redeem their self-esteem as an Indian, by winning every time.

    Many of the problems of recent times like crowd behaviour is all due to these high aspirations of the Indians in the cricket team.

    Cricket Hype: It is all about money

    Once, it becomes a matter of national pride, plus the media hype, there is tendency for a lot of bitterness to float around the cricket ground. The high passions and nationalist fervour generated in the games with Pakistan, for instance, is point in case.

    But the paradox is that this very heightened nationalism is encouraged by those in charge of the game, the corporate, the media houses etc as this is what directly results in the higher turn out at the gates. More eyeballs on TV, therefore, the high premium paid for television rights and consequently bigger advertisement revenues.

    Other than the reasons I have talked about for the heightened interest in the game, money has a lot to do with this seemingly undying passion for the game.

    An Indian game accidentally discovered by the English

    Cricket has many elements, which are congruent with Indian life. Other than fate, cricket is also a game where nothing much happens for a long periods of time, between balls and over, for instance. What these spaces enable is for the personality and individuality of the cricketer to unfold, creating characters. Which seems, in turn, to appeal to Indian sensibilities.

    Like the Hindu ideology, for a losing team in cricket the loss is never total. Many reasons can be found as to point how fate intervened, dropped catches for instance, for why a team lost. Cricket is one of few games, where the man of the match may be from the losing team. There is a high premium for individual records even from the losing team. For instance, completion of 500 wickets or a century etc.

    This gels with the understanding in the Indian cosmology that victory and defeat are akin to two sides of the same coin; there is no decisive black and white.

    When I say Indian I am talking in the framework of a culture. It is not co-existent with religion alone. I do not think things are any different in Pakistan or Bangladesh or Sri Lanka. I am talking of a worldview of the sub-continental cultures


  7. #7

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    Thanks, but.....that wordy and off-tangent tome is guaranteed to overwhelm their attention spans. Point noted about Escape from NY but every movie is made differently (A League of Our Own, Bodyline), which is why the question:

    Rephrased as: do you think non-Indian viewers will be able to understand and appreciate Lagaan if they don't know anything about cricket (barring what they fleetingly see while driving by HK Cricket Club)?


    Can anyone help with this please? Thanks.

    MovingIn07 likes this.

  8. #8

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    you dont really have to understand each and every aspect of cricket to watch and enjoy the movie...i think you can get the basics of the game while watching the movie...if i remember right there is a scene in the movie where this english lady teaches amir khan and his team the game....don't remember how much in detail though.

    i'm not a fan of the game myself, but i can tell you this much...the movie is nice and fun. worth a one time watch.

    Gruntfuttock likes this.

  9. #9

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    HKF!..RELAX Mate!!!

    Rads is right..you really dont need to know the game into its finest details to enjoy the movie! Its a great film all in itself and the basic similarity between cricket and baseball make it a lil easier to explain as well....you just dont need to go into all those nitty gritty details!

    I say so out of experience as the first time I watched Lagaan was with a bunch of 14 Europeans & Americans in a theatre in Delhi! The movie is long...3.5 hours is pretty long infact but barring a couple of the 14, everyone seemed to simply love the movie!

    Hope this eases ur tension a bit!

    Cheers,

    Hiten


  10. #10

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    Thanks folks - reassured. The pals shall be thrown in the deep end after being told to give their undivided attention to all scenes featuring English lady teachers and also that it's not a foul ball and runs can still be scored if the ball goes behind the line of the stumps.