I think this movie has reflected several points concerning on society and its perception on education. In many scenes show the reasons why higher education is needed and that everyone should go to the university. One of the examples is from (1:15:00) to (1:16:50) where the students were burning books, which made Google and Baaji Rao to be very frustrated about.
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| the future is also gone when one choose to abandon knowledge and education |
As he scolding the kids, he said that it were not books that actually burned but rather the kids' future. Google later mentioned that he too one abandoned education, and therefore he has to struggle all of his life. I think in this sense the books symbolized the higher education as a whole, and by going to university can grant one a lot of privilege and opportunity in the society.
The other example is from 00:27:50 to 00:29:32 when the main characters got look down by Vishnu's father as they were unable to go to the university. Not only their parents were ashamed of them but also threatened them with a kind of future they didn't want.
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| The parents are ashamed because their children cannot enter university |
From this proves that by entering the university can take one to the higher status in the society (one will be accepted and looked upon by others), and those who cannot enter will stay at the lower level forever, even though he becomes successful later on in the future. By this I believe university is one of the social values that play a greater role in assuring one's position within a society; it does not really matter if one is smart or the other, as long as he can enter into the university. I believe this trend has overlooked the matter of intelligence, and university is more like a token for one to get in order to get into the higher level of social statuses.
The issues mentioned in this film are partly related to my personal experience; it reminded me the importance of education, and the planning for the future after graduation. Back to the time when I was freshly graduated from high school in 2008, entrance examination was the greatest concern of my life and I had put all of my willpower and effort into doing my best for the examination. By that time everyone surrounded me keep on encouraging me to study hard in order to get into the top universities with no other options.It is not only for the sake of my future, but also for the reputation of my parents, my relative, my school, my friends and my teacher as well. Those who failed the exam will have to live though another one year of studying hard and even greater pressure from the world surrounded them. The most important thing at that time is, in fact, just like in the film at 00:24:00 - to get into the university, not to get any degree. It was a hard time that I'm glad I was getting through safely.
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| the most important thing is to be accepted, not the degree or anything |
The film also makes me think of the necessities of school, knowledge, and educating institutions and whether we depend our lives on it too much. nevertheless, the film majorly relies on an idealistic idea of going to the university to study just about anything we want to learn, although in reality there are factors to be concerned such as future career path, wages, welfare and so on. I believe there should be more curriculum available for us students to choose, and just like in the film, we should be able to liberally choose to pursue on the educational path that we really want.
In terms of overall impression, I will give this movie 3 out of 5. The film is overwhelmed with typical Bollywoood style; there are a lot of dancing, singing, awkward lines and facial expressions, and also the irrationality of the film. However, I also sense that this film has been Americanized by Western ideas getting from the American version of this movie "Accepted" (2006). This is partly because the idea of this movie is based on liberalism, which has been fully portrayed in Accepted. But on the contrary, the idea of giving education based on one's preferences is still lacked in Asian countries due to culture and value. Moreover, I think this film is as if the director has put several music videos altogether; the camera has moved too often into almost every degrees possible; and the lighting and sound was still a little bit amateurish compare to other movies in the same genre.
Surathumrong S.
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