Paa : a quick review

Its been a long time since I reviewed a movie on this blog. Thats because these days I find movie watching tiring.

Yes, to be honest, Paa was also a movie that made my blood all jammed up by the end of it. But still, it was a movie worth watching.

Surprisingly, it was not disgusting. Amitabh plays a kid who has the body of an old man, and an enlarged, venous head. And yet, and yet, he manages, to steal your heart.

Humorous dialogues, dubbing, treatment, co-actors, and camera work get the credit. The mis-en--scene. Not Amitabh. Because one doesn't ever see him. not even his eyes remind you of the star.

All you can see is a naughty child who calls his granny Bum and has an attitude of a regular kid.

At the most, a kid with a good dialogue writer behind him.

Here is account of how BIG B became Auro:



The most Herculean task about the latest release PAA was transforming a 67-year old Amitabh Bachchan into 13-year old child Auro, suffering from a
rare disorder called progeria.

The prosthetic makeup, as we know, has been done by Hollywood's Christien Tinsley (THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, CATWOMAN) and Dominie Till (THE LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY).

According to the reports Bachchan's make-up cost 10 per cent of the total
budget. It is learnt that it used to take four to five hours daily for Amitabh
Bachchan's makeup to be done for his film PAA.


Not only this, if it used to take four hours to put on the make-up then two
hours to remove it. There are eight different layers of clay which has been put in his make up in the film.

While applying the make up he could not eat, drink and talk for four hours. Most of the performance comes out because of the make up.

Big B wore specially designed dentures so as to effortlessly replicate the
voice of a 13-year old child.He gets a lisp and his speech pattern gets altered because of the extra teeth. He wore the dentures throughout the film's shooting and also had them on while dubbing.

Infact he has also sung a song in his voice wearing these dentures, which
sounds like a child. But Big B never ever showed a sign of panic, on the contrary he was always co-operative, patient, cool and full of enthusiasm.

Ramchand Pakistani

I watched this film yesterday evening, after leaving the kid playing in the park. Halfway through the film, I couldn't stand the separation from my baby anymore. I went back to the park and got him back home. We watched the rest of the film together, and that wasn't so bad.

'It's based on a true life story.' I told him.

So take this as a warning. Don't watch this film without your baccha nearby. You might suffer anxiety pangs.

And after we watched the last half of the film together, Pavan wanted to see the beginning (naturally) .

'Ok. I will show you till he crosses the border, ok?'

'Ok'.

And we saw again how the eight year old boy has a tiff with his mother over a cup of tea, and walks off in a huff across the Indo-Pak border.

His father, seeing him walk toward the dangerous no man's land, follows him, and they both are caught, questioned, and imprisoned in an Indian jail.

The mother has no idea whether they are dead or alive. They are a hindu family in Pakistan, belonging to the harijan community, and have no clout, not even to make a police complaint.

And the Indian jail imprisons a child of eight along with his father for four, long years.

'So the lesson of the story is not to fight with your mother over small things, right?' the boy volunteers, as I am trying to get him to talk his thoughts about movies.

'No, tukru, the lesson of the film is not to cross the border without a valid visa.' I say.

'Oh. What is a visa?'

'An official permission to enter a country.'

After the kid went to bed, I thought about his interpretation and realized that it was not really off the mark. Most big fights start small, don't they? And big separations begin with small incidences.

After the four years, when they are finally released from the Indian prison, (sorry, I am giving away the ending), the boy is released first, with no hope that the father will be out, and no knowledge of the mother, whether she is still alive.

And Ramchand has to make the back-journey to his village alone, just as he had left four years ago, alone.

And then another thought struck me; the similarity between Pavan's response to Ramchands trauma. Since the whole fight began for a full cup of tea, till date, Ramchand does not drink tea anymore. An eight year old boy gives up his favorite drink out of guilt and fear.

But what was this film really about? My grandmother, a freedom fighter, used to proudly say that we are a constitution that has a judicial system based on a basic premise. Being, if ninety nine culprits go scot free, it is ok. But not a single innocent should ever be punished.

This ratio has reversed, and so help us God.

Here is a beautiful song from the film.



Brilliant performances, evocative landscapes, and an even pace, which is a big achievement for a first film. The austerity, the minimum dialogue, is a style that comes back once every ten years. It's almost worth the wait.