UDAAN - The stroy of a caged bird

Udaan portrays a heart touching story of a troubled relationship between a man and his son. It feels good to see many out of the league small to medium budget movies from Bollywood making their way to the screens of the multiplex these days. Udaan falls into that league. It’s a story of a 17 year old boy who gets expelled from his hostel and is forced to live with his estranged father whom he hasn’t met in last eight years. The film depicts the suffering, loneliness, angst and frustration of a young guy who is devoid of love from his single parent and longs to fulfill his career dream of becoming a writer against all odds. After Taare Zameen Par, here is another movie which deals with the problem of kids being burdened and almost suffocated under the pressure of parental expectations. The protagonist of the story, played brilliantly by Rajat Barmecha has to deal with a psycho, tyrant, violent, drunkard and self obsessed father who subjects the hero to physical and mental torture. After returning home, he is shocked to find out that he has got a six years old step brother. A fragile relationship of hatred between 2 immature teenagers turns into a strong bond of sibling love and affection during the course of the movie. The father assumes responsibilities of taking decisions from daily routine activities to career paths of his son. Any kind of resistance from the son is meted out with verbal and physical abuse. He almost treats his both sons as if they are his slaves. The protagonist has got an inborn talent to be a writer and his talent has been showcased at several times in the movie. However, his father makes every effort to prevent him from becoming a writer. Although it is difficult for me to imagine that such a devil-in-disguise father can exist in today’s world, a quick search of Google revealed to me a sad and shocking statistic that almost 35% of children in India suffer from the domestic violence at the hands of their parents. In spite of suffering from similar harsh treatment from his father in his childhood, the father of the protagonist in the movie has been shown to justify and follow the same path of violence in bringing up his kids. I expected the film to reveal the reasons for such behavior; however I could get only few clues about it. The film throws light on a classical problem of today’s middle class urban Indian family. The tremendous money and proportionate effort which parents have to put in to provide high quality of education to their children raises the stakes involved. Every parent expects his kid to excel in the field of academics. He expects his child to become successful in the popular and traditional careers and discourages him from following alternate career paths especially those related to liberal arts and humanity. Coming back to the film, the film has beautifully depicted the rebellion spirit of an adolescent boy who confronts his father many times. Those scenes are quite intense and appealed to my heart. As the story progresses further, few softer shades of the stone hearted father are unfolded in front of the audience. Very much characteristic of a teenager, the hero steals some moments of joy and enjoyment through his escapades out of home at night. He smokes cigarettes and drinks alcohol to distress and relax himself with his newly found friends at a bar. Those lighter moments are respite to the hero and the viewer in this otherwise intense and hard hitting film. The director has resisted himself from the temptation of showing an unrealistic and sudden change of heart at the end resulting into an all happy finish to the movie.
Overall I found the movie to possess a realistic look. The director, Vikramaditya Motwane has made an impressive debut and made a movie which creates a lasting impression on the minds of the viewer. The superb, natural acting by all the actors in the movie, accompanied by an engaging screen play makes it an outstanding movie. The soul stirring music by Amit Trivedi is awesome and in sync with the movie. The songs are according to the situation and help to take the story forward. Although I did not come out of the movie hall humming the songs, I would love to hear them whenever I am in a mood for that kind of music. If you are in a mood to watch a meaningful, heart touching, serious movie, I would recommend you to definitely watch this movie. I bet you won’t be disappointed.