Some of the best tweetworld people consist of biggies like Vir Sanghvi, Rajdeep Sardesai, Barkha Dutt, Pritish Nandy, Rajeev Masand and some of the younger stars like Priyanka Chopra, Sonam Kapoor etc. I don’t want to accuse them for using twitter for promoting their work, one man who had always intrigued a zillion people all the time is a butt naked fellow in this over dressed world is Mahesh Bhatt. I have not this man one on one barring one occasion when he had come to office to talk to us. He is not a good looking person but a person who has some strange air about him. I don’t know what his sun-sign is but he displays qualities of a Sagittarian. I don’t have attitude, you have a perception problem. He is weird, some loose, over sized cotton shirt, ill fit jeans and trademark chappals. Munching something, stopping to scratch himself and his motor mouth delivers words of wisdom. I don’t know if they are his or he made them up or that’s his style where he procrastinates a lot just to form the right words but he is an entertainer and a damn good one.
A few days back he tweeted “You are lost only when you are searching something”. This man summed up one of the most complex philosophies of life in these many simple words. I realized that the world is a simple place, full of simple people, with simple thoughts, simple ambitions, simple needs and a simple way of living. Simplicity is the only way one can avoid complexities. And I saw an English film which is a simple film – The Boat That Rocked.
My knowledge of actors working in international films is genuinely low. Sometimes I struggle to remember the name of the actor whose film I had seen a couple of hours back. Ya, but if you ask me about Hindi films, I may surprise you with some really stupid idiotic trivia which has been missed by many. So I saw a film The Boat That Rocked. I saw the promo of the film which one of my colleagues Mateen had showed. It looked like a fun film and yesterday Muthu gave me the DVD, it was like a pleasant surprise. I had thought of watching the film with a friend but she had other plans so I put the plans off for Sunday morning.
The Boat That Rocked is a film in which there was not one single person whom I knew, though some faces were vaguely familiar. One of the many short-comings I have.. The fellow who directed this film has directed a couple of other comedies, light hearted films. I had seen Notting Hill and Love Actually from the list of films that he has directed. With very little expectations, I switched the DVD on, but not before getting my tumbler full of tea and a few pillows for a comfortable watch.
The film is one of the simplest linear stories I have ever seen. The story is set in 1966 when pop music and Rock N Roll were on a roll and people were going berserk over them. However, some so called purist politicians had an aversion towards it and hence broadcast of such music on radio was under scrutiny. British purists, I say. While the aam junta was dancing to those tunes, a bunch of quirky DJs joined hands to work in a radio station. Not an ordinary radio station because it was a pirate radio station, broadcasting without any legal license, that too from an ancient ship which was anchored in the middle of North Sea. The whole film is about one minister trying to shut the radio station down and on the other hand this whole bunch of DJs and other team mates trying to save the ship.
So what’s the big deal? I mean, honestly, what’s the big deal in this story? Some hazaar stories have been written where the mighty ones are trying to squeeze the poor ones and the tide of events take such a turn that the poor ones win with people supporting them and all that…blah blah blah. What is amazing about this film is that this is actually a sly “coming of age” film set in the late 60’s with music and radio station as a motif, and background.
One teenager whose mother sends him to the ship “Radio Rock” where this pirate radio station is housed to be with his Godfather so that he can learn to respect life and not waste it smoking and doing drugs. He meets us with strange DJs. One who calls himself count and does countdown. One eternal romantic breakfast host who believes in love and never goes for their fortnightly fornication sessions when the girls are brought over to the ship. Eventually he gets married to a hottie who basically uses him as a scape-goat or rather a means to an end, because she wants to move in with another hot DJ who is also on the ship. Another one is a muttonball with a body that won’t fit on a dozen barstools who is using his DJ status to bed as many women as possible and he is such a slimeball that he manages to bed the teenager’s latest crush thrice in a night and mind you it’s same night when the teenager has been hit by cupid’s arrow. The irony of the situation is that the teenager goes to the same muttonball DJ to borrow a condom just in the hope of getting lucky that night.
The characters are woven intricately and so well that none of them look out of place. A boring newsman, one afro-amercian rookie who helps in every show play crucial roles. There is one late night RJ who says probably 6 words maximum in a link on his show but has more women eating out of his hands than there are dolphins in the North Sea. Being a radio person, I could do nothing but admire the smartest link any RJ/ DJ/ VJ has ever done in his life. While the song playing is fading out, this almost mute DJ says “Wow” and the song fades out and in comes the intro of the next song where is utters the second word of his link “Now”. Boy, if only DJs across the world learn this art, radio will kill the video star and the internet star too.
When the ban is imposed on the station, Radio Rock has to off air but the owner comes up with a strategy. The last day of broadcast where the Count says good bye to everyone, there is dead air of about 10-15 seconds in which the minister starts to celebrate this ban by clinking the glasses of wine with his wife and his right hand man. But Radio Rock isn’t done and the Count comes back saying that they were joking and the whole of Britain suddenly comes alive. They decide to go against the law and continue the broadcast illegally by taking the ship in to the deeper sea.
The noose is tightened but the pirates continue to broadcast the best of rock n roll and pop hits, chartbuster after chartbuster and the nation grooves to the medium wave frequency where Radio Rock DJs are live, all through the day and night. However, the ship reaches the deeper sea and has not strength to withhold the currents of water. The ship gives up but the Radio Rock team continues to broadcast till the ship is totally submerged…just when you think that this is another Titanic moment, your heart has already started grieving and mourning the death of Radio Rock team, their listeners who have heard the coordinates of their location on radio, come to their rescue in their boats…and in the end the count comes out after the last broadcast….the movie ends with all pirate radio members saved…
It is such a simple story but told in the most unusual way. I was blown. I watched a story on radio station. For years, I have been struggling to come up with a story around radio station but firstly, Rakeysh Mehra used it in Rang De Basanti sending the nation in to frenzy, and now Richard Curtis in The Boat That Rocked has taken radio to a level which is beyond my reach. This is a salutation to the makers of the film and some really amazing actors who made my Sunday…
I might have ended up using some clichés while writing this and with my limited linguistic skills that’s all I could manage…but this film has managed more than anything…gave me a new way of looking at my movie dream…though I am too old to realize it…never the less…everything is worth is.
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