If you don't like unpleasant films, then you should not see "Udaan". Now I am NOT saying it's a bad movie--it's actually very good. But the subject matter clearly isn't fun or entertaining...nor should it be.
When the film begins, four teens from a boarding school are caught sneaking off campus. Considering they've all been in trouble before, the group is expelled. The story then focuses specifically on one of the boys, Rohan. His situation is pitiful, as he's been at this school 8 years and he's never been home. Clearly he's a lost soul.
Rohan soon arrives back home and your worst fears are confirmed--his father is garbage. Not only is he neglectful, which was obvious, but he's also a nasty, violent brute. He has no love in him whatsoever and he bullies Rohan and his little brother. Speaking of little brother, this 6 year-old has never even met Rohan! Throughout the course of the film, the father bullies, threatens and uses violence and Rohan's response is covert insolence--pretending to work hard at school but instead running around and wasting his life. What's to happen to this miserable young man and his tiny brother?
In many ways this movie reminds me both of Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" (about an abused and neglected teen who ends up in reform school) and Majid Majidi's "The Color of Paradise"--a brilliant Iranian film about a father who is ashamed to have a blind son and abandons him to a boarding school. None of these films are fun but they are brave and compelling. In the case of "Udaan", like these other films, it's also very well made--and NOT at all like a stereotypical Bollywood production.
When the film begins, four teens from a boarding school are caught sneaking off campus. Considering they've all been in trouble before, the group is expelled. The story then focuses specifically on one of the boys, Rohan. His situation is pitiful, as he's been at this school 8 years and he's never been home. Clearly he's a lost soul.
Rohan soon arrives back home and your worst fears are confirmed--his father is garbage. Not only is he neglectful, which was obvious, but he's also a nasty, violent brute. He has no love in him whatsoever and he bullies Rohan and his little brother. Speaking of little brother, this 6 year-old has never even met Rohan! Throughout the course of the film, the father bullies, threatens and uses violence and Rohan's response is covert insolence--pretending to work hard at school but instead running around and wasting his life. What's to happen to this miserable young man and his tiny brother?
In many ways this movie reminds me both of Truffaut's "The 400 Blows" (about an abused and neglected teen who ends up in reform school) and Majid Majidi's "The Color of Paradise"--a brilliant Iranian film about a father who is ashamed to have a blind son and abandons him to a boarding school. None of these films are fun but they are brave and compelling. In the case of "Udaan", like these other films, it's also very well made--and NOT at all like a stereotypical Bollywood production.