Despite being one of the most powerful industries in the world, Bollywood productions are still titles whose previews are rather limited in the Spanish market (Not so in others like the British or the Americans). However, Paramount dares to commercially release “Laal Singh Chaddha”, a remake of the iconic “Forrest Gump”, directed by Robert Zemeckis in 1994 and which gave Tom Hanks his second Oscar (consecutive after a year earlier for ‘Philadelphia’, to add insult to injury). A risky bet, given that it is one of the icons of Hollywood cinema of the 90s.
The result is a captivating and correct version of Indian manufacture, whose script, written by Akul Kulkarni, had a ten-year long adaptation, adding to the decade it took to get the rights to produce the remake. Therefore you are faced with an extremely careful production under various aspects, above all technical, showing the power of Bollywood feature films on the big screenwhose scenography, location and visual effects have nothing to envy to those of North American productions.
‘Laal Sing Chaddha’ retains much of the original message of ‘Forrest Gump’, with several scenes that reproduce almost to the millimeter what was experienced in Zemeckis’ film, while making an exercise of adaptation not only cultural and historical, but also chronological, placing the protagonist’s journey in 2017 and not in 1981, when Forrest was reunited with his great love, Jenny (played by Robin Wright). This makes Laal Singh Chaddha’s entire story set in a more contemporary India, which allows the film to be shown a different perspective, such as the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi in 1984 and the subsequent repression and massacre of the Sikh minority, to which the protagonist belongs.
captivating fit
This, for audiences unaware of the history of India today, it is didactic, allowing viewers to learn about passages in the history of the Asian country from another perspective. But, beyond its historical character, ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’ manages to have a feel-good comedy-drama tone, similar to that of Zemeckis’ film, with the challenge of maintaining the charisma of its protagonist, essential to connect with the history. Here it plays a fundamental role Aamir Khan, one of the big stars of the Bollywood industry, internationally recognized for his starring role in ‘Lagaan, Once Upon a Time in India’the last Indian feature film to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best International Film, and also a major film producer.
Khan, whose face recalls the Italian Riccardo Scamarcio, delivers a captivating performance that lives up to the adaptation of the character played by Tom Hanks., a beautiful challenge that the actor defends thanks to his charisma. The performer has the challenge of offering a portrait of a character with a slightly lower than conventional average IQ worthy and meant for the current Indian audience. This is the key of ‘Laal Singh Chaddha’, it is a production with a logic typical of the country that portrayswhich means that it may have certain social contexts that shock the viewer who is unaware of this reality and that makes it clear that rates of social progress are not the same in other parts of the world.
But most of all, “Laal Singh Chaddha” is a well-being comedy drama, designed to win audiences over with a captivating story, who knows how to touch the emotional keys without falling into excessive sentimentality and which allows us to see another type of Bollywood production far removed from careful choreography and a footage of over four hours (although this adaptation reaches 2 hours and 40 minutes, with 20 minutes longer than its US counterpart). As much as it lives up to the original 1994 film, the film directed by Advait Chandan gets approval, thanks above all to the savoir-faire of a protagonist dedicated to his role.
Note: 7
The best: How the screenplay was able to adapt the story of ‘Forrest Gump’ to the Indian reality. Aamir Khan’s performance.
Worse: It’s still a very similar copy, which makes audiences unfamiliar with Bollywood productions to see it as a proposition that offers nothing different.
Source: E Cartelera
