Baghban - explore the dark side of K3G

This movie reminded me much of Rowan Atkinson`s "Mr. Bean: The Ultimate Disaster Movie". In both films you are getting nervous seconds before something realyyreally bad is going to happen. And both films are not missing any chance to confirm a brainscript which is very easily created. Finally both movies are showing us worst-case-scenarios. "Baghban" ("the caretaker") is a terrible familydrama from the year 2003, starring Amitabh Bachchan, Hema Malini and Salman Khan. I was somehow forced to see this movie, after somebody touted too charming. I was not much surprised that i actually hated it... no, i mean i loved to hate it. I would say it is a seeworthy average movie with a soundtrack that didn`t knock my socks off. But it was good to bridge some time. And finally now i can see why people in fact like Salman Khan (who deserves one or two glorioles for this movie).



Story: Raj (Amitabh Bachchan) and Pooja Malhotra (Hema Malini) are married since 40 years. They are so nice together, that you can barely sit still watching them soft-soaping each other. All his life Raj did everything for his four sons. And in many acts of self -abandonment he also gave away his annuity to fulfill the wishes of his kids. See? He is a very nice bighearted father. Furthermore he adopted a street kid (Salman Khan) and funded his education. Now imagine what should happen if Raj rentires....For the first time in his life he is asking his sons for help. The four Sons (and their wifes) should savoury contest about who may take care of their parents, right? Bad selfish sons doing the opposite. They dare to isolate them from each other and try to get rid of the unpleasent situation by thinking up a sickly roundsystem, where every son has to take one parent for six months. Shame on them. Notice how sad Raj and Pooja look, because they will get parted for the first time since 40 years:



And here is what happening right before they will get seperated: One of the sons is going to get the two doggys of Raj and Pooja, while saying something like: "I take them with me. I cannot see them stay apart and suffer". Pfff. I know... thats ugly. And it hurts. Again thats a bad case of not proper functioning of indian film-censorship. Here is the evidence-screenshot.




The next two hours we are confronted with the misarable, heartbreaking agony both of them are going through. Here you can see Raj, whose eye-glasses are broken by accident from his nice little grandson. Poor Raj is not able to read the loveletter of his wife. Guess what his son is replying to him, when Raj is asking his son to repair it: "its not possible, maybe next month".



Message from "Bagbhan": Life is unfair sometimes. Children could become very bad and selfish. Modern Times are dangerous `cause Respect is missing. People who let their parents suffer are bad. Take a good look on the follwing screenshot and see how bad people look like.



So, tell me, why is it that this highly manipulative movie became a Superhit in India? Is it simply because it shows how things are developing if you don´t give a damn on traditional values (like respecting the own parents)? Is it because it is the exactly opposite of (also highly manipulative ) "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." (2001)? Is it possible that "Baghban" has the potential to balance our western (suposable overstated) emotional K3G-feelings out? Hmm...not exactly i guess...