Saw ‘Rock On’ during the weekend, and as always, Farhan Akhtar did not disappoint. No reviews here, just a few thoughts that the movie provoked, so even if you haven’t watched the movie, read on.
Inspite of the movie’s tagline – ‘Live your dream’, I thought it dwells more on choices we make as human beings, the directions we take at crossroads, the compromises we make as a result of those, and the implications of those choices, some of which we have to live with, our whole life. That, i guess, is why the movie worked for me, after all ‘Choices’ is perhaps the largest tag item on this blog. 🙂
All of us have dreams, right from the time we were asked who we wanted to be when we grew up, and perhaps before that too. There are those who pursue it without deviating at all, there are those who compromised in between, but came back to them because living with the choice we made was difficult, and then there are those who live with a choice that did not include their dreams. The film shows all of the above, in addition to one more set – those who live a compromised version of their dreams.
So, there are those who follow their dreams, there are those who choose not to, but the tragedy doesn’t end there, as gray shades are abundant. Those who are never able to figure out what they want, who live in a limbo of multiple alternate realities, those who chase the dream only to figure out that it wasn’t what they thought it’d be, and lose the spark in their eye forever, as a life is gambled away.
Compromise – that was the keyword. While its very easy to see that a choice out of our dreams would involve lots of it, the movie also made me think about the other side of the fence. When a person pursues his passion/dream with all his heart, does he also harbor a feeling of having ‘compromised’ on the (for lack of a better word) fun part of his life, or the materialistic things that he could’ve afforded if he had put his dream on the shelf? The opportunity costs arriving out of following what one considers his destiny? Will he be a mirror reflection of those of us who compromise and wish for that chance to live at least once before we cease to exist? Or would he have achieved a private utopia as a reward for sticking to his dreams? Or does that utopia exist only in others’ minds? What happens when you’re the only individual gold medalist your nation has produced, and you still fell a sense of ennui/hollowness, a feeling of having missed out
Which leads me to a question i read sometime back – ‘Is dissatisfaction in the nature of existence’, and irrespective of what we do, the climax has already been decided?
As for the movie, it speaks about something many of us can relate to, and it is ‘feel good’, er, except for the part where i was met with stern gazes when i sang ‘Popcorn, hain yeh waqt ka ishara’ during the interval. So, you see, I do it all to myself. 😐
until next time, bedrock
PS. A nice read on the movie.