A SEPARATION : A story travelling through Empathy

A Separation got the Academy Award for the Best foreign film in 2012. Recently I saw this movie and became so excited that I decided to share my feelings about the film through some medium. The commercial movie is the one which is capable of selling itself and in my opinion, if a movie is intriguing it should be commercial and this movie falls very much under that category.As I felt it as very intriguing in nature.

IT'S ABOUT THE CHARACTERS AND THEIR HELPLESSNESS 
This film can be one of the best examples where conflict is the hero.  The film starts with conflict between Simin and Nader in a family court before the judge. As Simin wanted to be separated from her husband because he is using the opportunity to go abroad as they had planned before. She believed that Termeh's future would be more secure abroad than in the prevailing conditions of Iran.  Even Nadar is in favor but wouldn't show it out due to his father who was suffering from Alzheimer's. As he couldn't leave his father in this conditions. The opening scene of this film is very rare and special because it reveals most of the character traits of both characters Simin and Naadar to an extent which drives the story throughout.

As Simin tends to move always towards secured environment for her and the family. Whereas Nadar has his stern decisions in which he doesn't consider anyone for opinion or feelings.

Some of the other scenes through which the character traits are shown which leads to conflict. 

This scene where Nadar asks his daughter to pump oil to the car and then have a rigorous conversation with the man to take back the usual tip which is given to them. As she had done the work the tip is paid by Nadar to Termeh. With a small smile, Termeh takes the money. In this scene, the character of  Nadar is completely portrayed and this is a very crucial scene to justify his behavior in the movie afterward.  The objective of Nadar was to make his daughter earn it and he wanted her to face problems, unlike her mother who shy's away from it.

Rajkumar Hirani - Films and The LCD principle

Rajkumar Hirani 

Rajkumar Hirani, A director, editor and screenwriter who gives something more than entertainment with total entertainment in the film. If some title to be given I would call him PlAYER OF EMOTIONS who could juggle the emotions of the audience and take them through a wonderful movie watching experience. There is at least one characteristic of a  child in all the protagonists of his films. For instance, In Munnabhai MBBS (Munna who is afraid of his father and sleeps on the lap of his mother), In 3 idiots ( Rancho who is excited and wondered to see everything around him like a child ), PK ( The PK who is metaphorically portrayed as a child asking lot of questions to the way society functions in the film) .

Overview

Rajkumar Hirani born in a middle-class family at Nagpur on 20th Nov 1962 helped his father in the typing institute during his college times. His father recognized his interest and suggested him to go to film school FTII. He joined in an editing course just to get entry inside the institute.  He also spent some time with his friends who were pursuing medicine and from there he got the idea of his first feature film MUNNABHAI MBBS which was a very great movie experience. Initially, the idea was that a gangster comes to the hospital with a headache and gets a lot of tests being done which make him realize that they are actually doing the same thing in a sophisticated way and also getting respect with money. Hence he decides to be a doctor. But then he felt that this was too harsh on doctors and script changed its shape. 

( References are taken from  his interviews and other articles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBLgcWf6h0o&t=67s for overview  )

LAUGH... CRY..... DRAMA(LCD) PRINCIPLE OF WRITING FILM 

This is the apt technique of writing for an Indian audience because we as Indians were always emotional people than being intellectual people at least while enjoying stories and loved the movies if it carried an emotion with you after leaving the theatre no matter even if it is melodramatic. Even our mythologies like Mahabharata or Ramayan have high drama in it.  I believe that every segment brings out their own taste according to the bringing up and the society which also influences cinema and there is no right or wrong cinema if there is a compelling story to tell and Rajkumar Hirani and his co-writer Abhijath Joshi spends most of their time in writing script than in shooting it. They ensured that every scene in their movie should have either Laugh or cry or drama.

Let us see whether the movie 3 idiots portray these three emotions scene by scene or not.

3 IDIOTS AND THE LCD

screenplay was written by 

Rajkumar Hirani and Abhijath Joshi  

                                     (Abhijath Joshi on the left and Rajkumar Hirani on the right )

3 IDIOTS

Madhavan gets a call inside the airplane and something mysterious thing is being told from the other side of the phone. The plane takes off and Madhavan falls down holding his heart which leads to the shot of pilot stating emergency landing.
DRAMA

With the doctor and other amenities, they take Madhavan to the hospital and in the way he opens his eyes and runs away getting up from the stretcher. This, in a humorous way, makes us realize that actually Madhavan actually acted as if he is having the heart attack.
LAUGHTER

Then the sequence of him taking a cab which is waiting for someone else by misguiding the driver takes to  Vasanth Vihar to pick his friend up which is also taken in a humorous way as it ends with Raju character played by Sharman Joshi coming out forgetting to wear pants. In this scene, there is a lot of revelation done with a fun element and humor and a curiosity in it. Like when Madhavan calls Raju we know the character's name is Farhan for the first time and that Ranjo is a common friend of both or more than just a friend. As Raju couldn't even remember to wear his pants in the excitement. One more character of Chatur aka Silencer is mentioned in the conversation.

LAUGHTER

Chatur creates a smile from his strange way of speaking Hindi and through conversations like" meri wife ko nahi idiots uske pichekke bangle ko dekho" showing his property and car to both Farhan and Raju. This conversation reveals that Chatur knows where is Rancho and they go on a mission of finding Rancho is where the flashback starts. Even the conversation is taken in a humorous way.

LAUGHTER

As it's in the nature of Rajkumar Hirani movies to have more of humor element in it. Even in flashback, there are scenes such as the introduction speech of Virus which starts with drama and ends in humor with a question from Rancho and the raging scene which is mostly humor or the classroom scene in which definition of machine is asked to Racho (humor). 

After a long sequence of LAUGHTER, there is a full-fledged scene which had drama ie the conversation scene of Lobo and Virus about the science project delay and his termination from the college.

DRAMA

Some of the Cries

Scenes from PK

Scenes from Munnabhai Mbbs

OTHER EMOTIONAL SCENES WITH A SMILE ON FACE