Rebellion is a necessity in any political society. It is a check on power. It emanates in many forms and is never without a cause. The attempt has to be made to understand the cause. For example, the most prominent rebellion is that of the teenagers, which is always considered as being without cause. But, is it true? A teenager considers herself a political prisoner of her parents, who have been forcing their decisions on her for so very long. Hasn’t the mankind erred in considering the rebellion of teenagers as being that without cause, thereby ignoring such a long standing conflict! I liked the movie “Udaan” because it has tried tackling this conflict with a different perspective, though I know the movie doesn’t provide any solutions.
The story of the movie made the context simple by juxtaposing a bullying conservative father with a creative liberal teenager. If the teenager was not so talented and daring, and the milieu was not so apolitical, the father would have won hands down. This kind of conflict is unheard of in India. The power of parents gets extended much beyond teenage, mostly unquestioningly, though negatively. So, a father has to be really villainous to lose, which was so the case in the movie; and the portrayal of the villainy by Ronit Roy is excellent. However, my heart goes out for the kid in the movie, who had no choice of rebellion even. Thankfully, the young rebel writer new how to run for his life and for the life of his kid brother.
I have heard that Motwane had to wait for years to make this movie, but it doesn’t look like he will have to wait much longer to make a truly “commercial success.” I just hope that the “commercial success” he makes is also a good product like “Udaan.” ©2011-2015 Ankur Mutreja