PEEPLI Live 2 Free Download 720p Movies
Mariela Coxon
Very few art house films have drawn the mainstream audience and Peepli Live does what Ketan Mehta's Hero Hiralal (1988) or Aziz Mirza's Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani (2000) couldn't. Now, both these films were satires on the media coverage of an event (the suicide of a hero in Hero Hiralal and the live execution of a man who's possibly innocent) and in terms of structure and theme trod exactly the same territory Anusha Rizvi does. The films were largely inspired by other films made in the genre ( Switching Channels , Network , Dog Day Afternoon to name a few) but barely made an impact at the box office probably because they hit the market before it was ready to consume media-bashing. Despite Shah Rukh Khan's presence and marketing, Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani sank because the media wasn't exactly cut-throat and sensationalist back then.
With Peepli Live , we can see why it strikes a chord. People going to the movies may not relate to farmer suicides (they may want to... given that they do read the stray story about droughts once in a while) but they can surely relate to competing channels doing the Breaking News/Exclusive and trying hard to make you think that journalists actually give a damn about what they report.
The biggest triumph for Peepli Live is in bringing out these contrasts between the haves and the have-nots in a landscape untouched and neglected by the government and then invaded by video cameras that have turned a news story into a reality show. Right from casting (so rare to see an Indian film pay so much attention to getting the right kind of raw actors who would look fresh and unknown on screen) to production design (just look at the soiled clothes and the earthy tones of Peepli contrasted with the world of the rich and the bureaucratic) to performances, Peepli Live gets every bit right.
There may be a bit of a fumble towards the end (a hurriedly executed sequence involving explosives) but the end justifies the means. The climax is dark yet funny. It is morbid, yet there's hope. It's tragic, yet it is just another day in the life of the Indian farmer/ news channel.
It's this balance, sensitivity and exposition of contrasts, apart from Aamir's timing, that makes Peepli a compelling watch. The point Hero Hiralal and Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani tried to make using the larger-than-life cinematic idiom is more effectively made through Anusha's sense of realism and satire.
Storyline: Media sets up a circus tent at a village called Peepli when word gets around that a desperate farmer is planning to commit suicide to get compensation from th government and pay back his bank loans
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Natha, a farmer in central India, is in danger of losing his land because he can't repay a loan. But all of his problems could be solved through a government program that would award his relatives with a staggering 100,000 rupees -- about $2,000.
This is the premise of Peepli Live, a Bollywood satire that had its American premiere in mid-August. The movie's story is fictional -- as is the village, Peepli, where it takes place -- but the phenomenon it examines is all too real: In recent years, hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers have killed themselves because they're unable to pay their debts. And India's government really does compensate their families.
"It's like an epidemic," says Aamir Khan, the Bollywood veteran who produced Peepli Live. Between 1991 and 2001 alone, 200,000 farmers took their own lives, he says. "That's really a scary and heartbreaking thought."
The subject matter isn't the only thing that makes Peepli Live unusual. The film's satirical tone also sets it apart from the bulk of what the Hindi-film industry produces. And it's not light satire: Natha's family members, Khan notes, are impatient for him to go ahead and close the deal.
Local politicians and the media come in for a merciless skewering. "There's a local election happening at that point in time, which is why things completely spiral out of control," Khan says. Meanwhile, ruthless TV news crews jockey to film Natha's imminent suicide live.
To Khan, the film's take on politics and the media is "reflective on all of us as a society, and how we do in fact move toward stories which are sensational." What plays out in the village of Peepli is "very funny when you watch it," he continues, "but the sad fact is that it's actually not very far from the truth."
In fact, some elements in Peepli Live blur the line between truth and fiction. One of the film's featured songs is a tune that director Anusha Rizvi first heard being played by a local group of musicians when she was shooting on location at a small village. Not an upbeat, Bollywood-style extravaganza about romance or rivalry; it's a song about the ravages of inflation, with lyrics like "My husband earns a lot of money / but inflation, that witch, eats it all away every month."
Khan knows that he's taking a risk by producing such an explicitly political film in a country where reasonable expectations say it'll find a niche audience, at best. But he's come to believe it's his job to make movies with a message.
"I don't know who else will do it," he says. "When I come across material which excites me -- which not only is engaging and entertaining, but also has something to say, or hopefully sensitizes people or makes you think -- I'd like to be a part of that."
Peepli Live, Anusha Rizvi's film, is a film that takes us into a world that we have forgotten. A world that was in the periphery of my consciousness when I was growing up..thanks to Doordarshan and its programs like Krishi Darshan, Malgudi Days, Munshi Premchand ki Kahaniyan, DD sunday movies of the 60's, 70's era, and so on..but is now, almost absent from my mind.
The plot of Peepli Live, as you might know by now, is about Natha and his brother,who are farmers in Mukhya Pradesh, who have lost their land and are striving to make ends meet.To this end, Natha half- heartedly decides to take his life as suicides are rewarded monetarily by the government. Unfortunately for him, his dubious decision comes at a time when there are elections on the anvil, and the media is dying for a story that will regenerate TRP's. What ensues is a political-media generated circus that enfolds around Natha and his family, with everyone having a stake in Natha's suicide. Does Natha kill himself? Watch the movie to find out!
After a really long time, comes a movie that makes me think, feel, and applaud a movie-maker for having the courage to make a film that is truly different from the glossy, meaningless films that we have been subjected to this year.
Peepli Live is a satire in the lines of Jaane Bhi do Yaaron, that takes a massive dig at ALL the characters in the film. Yes, there are obvious villians a plenty in the form of the heartless, TRP oriented media, self serving politicians and local goons..but Natha's family is not exactly heroic either. Yes, they are farmers who are struggling to make a living and are hard done by the government...but poverty does not keep them from being just as manipulative and self serving as their urban, more well off contemporaries.
The conscience of the film is a periphery character called Hori Mahatho (similar to Munshi Premchand's hero of Godaan) who is just present in a few frames. Hori is a farmer whose land has been usurped, and is seen quietly and tirelessly working to make a living digging up dirt, and who just as quietly slips away from this world. His is the character that brings gravity and pathos to this satire.
There are laughs aplenty throughout the film, mainly due to the unending stupidity of the characters....but you dont leave the film feeling happy. What I felt was a deep sadness at having completely forgotten about the large part of my fellow indians that live in the villages. I had completely forgotten that people exist beyond the "India shining" media portrayal of my country. There were film makers of yore who set their films in villages and crossed the rural-urban divide (notably film makers like Manoj Kumar), but when was the last time you saw a film set in the rural milieu of 21st century India?
Peepli Live may not bring about a revolution or change, but what it does is atleast make us conscious of a world long forgotten. It makes us conscious of the diversity there is in our country, and think beyond the boundaries of our westernized, over-crowded metropolitan cities.
With regards to the technical aspects of the film...it has a wonderfully natural, believable group of actors, is short and crisp in terms of editing, has dialogues that fit the characters like a glove, fabulous soundtrack by Indian Ocean (love "Desh mera rang reziya babu"!), and a director at the helm who knows EXACTLY what she wants to convey, and does it with conviction.
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