If dreams match life, what is a dream?
In the film "India Has Hip Hop", the street boy Mallard successfully won the rap competition with his genius lyrics skills and received a million rupees in prize money, changing his life. In this rap version of "Slumdog Millionaire", the most important thing is not the final result of the competition, but the gradual recognition of the social reality in which the male protagonist lives in the process of pursuing his rap dream. Following the trajectory of Marado's life, a series of real scenes of India's slums are also displayed in front of the audience.
In the past Indian films, there are not a few films that express social problems, whether it is the education problem in "The Starting Line", the class anxiety in "Indian English", or the discussion of the imbalance between men and women and the status of women in "The Country Without Women", and even the disclosure of the father's whole society in "Wrestling Daddy" are impressive.
But before "India Has Hip Hop", there had never been such a film that could show India's social problems so comprehensively, and on this basis, it could maintain the rhythm and watchability of the film. The film deals with the caste system, patriarchal society, and the status of women in Indian society, while also taking into account the references to love, family affection and friendship. The story unfolds with the male protagonist Mallard as the center, takes his encounter as an opportunity to unfold the narrative, and uses the rap competition as the clue to connect the plot and finally end the story. Among them, the three characters of the protagonist Marado, his girlfriend Safina and his friend Moyn are very worthy of analysis.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1, gully boy who dares to pursue his dreams</h1>
The film's protagonist, Marado, is a boy living in the slums of Dharavi 17 districts and has a special love for hip-hop culture, especially rap. But like other children born in the slums, Madeira's family conditions did not support him to pursue what he liked, and as a boy in the family, he was given the opportunity to go to school and receive an education, and his father used the rich man as a driver for him to study, which was the only financial pillar of the family. By chance, Madeira was able to show his own words to the crowd, which was unexpectedly unanimously appreciated by everyone. Unfortunately, his father, who unfortunately injured his leg at work and could not continue working, asked Madeira to take over the driver's position.
Faced with his father's involuntary appointment, Madeira had to take care of his studies while driving to work. Since then, he can only create in his spare time, but it is precisely because of this job that he has come into contact with the rich people at the top of society, felt the gap in class, and the reality of society has made him deeply feel the injustice of fate, which has further inspired his creation.
In general, madeira's character's fate is tragic, and his sadness lies in the fact that even if he uses hip-hop rap to successfully get ahead and change his identity, he cannot change the inherent mustardism between classes. The film uses a variety of methods to try to present this sadness that is contained in Mallard. Long lenses are one of the most direct and powerful ways. When Mallard entered the final venue, the director designed a long shot in this enclosed space full of underground colors, in which the camera scheduling continued to move with Mallard's movements, sometimes wandering, sometimes locking on to a character, in order to maximize the display of this space full of underground culture and the "underground people" in this space.
Some of the contestants who come here are from famous backgrounds, dressed in big names, and spend all day, while others, like Marado, are born in slums and have to bear the burden of family livelihood at a very young age. The rap competition provided them with an equal opportunity to compete, and as the camera swept through the contestants, everyone's eyes showed a beast-like hungry gaze, and this competition was a perfect opportunity for them to change their identity and a stepping stone to the upper class.
"Gully boy", originally meant as a street boy, is Mallard's second identity, when he first made a voice in the local rap circle began to make a small name, at this time he was in urgent need of a code name, "gully boy" is the best summary of his creative style derived from life, so Mallard chose this name. Since then, he has begun to have a second identity, in front of his parents he is Marado who takes on the burden of the family, but when night falls, he changes into street clothes and becomes a "gully boy" who shouts for the people at the bottom.
When the two identities clash, Mallard abandons his family identity because the family brings him no good memories other than a tragic childhood, and runs away from home with his mother and brother, choosing the social identity "gully boy" supported by dreams.
But after he successfully became a rising star in the Indian rap world, Mallard still faced the gap between classes, only this time he stood on a higher class, and in the face of such a situation, he did not choose to alienate his previous life, but returned to the slums, returned to the place where he came, insisted on speaking up for the people, and secretly stuffed money to his grandmother, who was very mean to himself before. Unfortunately, with his own strength, it is impossible to shake the inherent class concept, so it can only choose to continue to live in the gap between the two classes as a faded slum street boy. In this way, Mallard is pathetic and powerless, but at the same time his efforts to pursue his dreams are worthy of recognition.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, gliding between good and bad— Moine</h1>
The first character to appear in the film is not the protagonist Mallard, but his friend Moin. In the first scene, Moin takes Mallard and another friend to steal a car, and Moine is more like his big brother in the film than Mallard's student spirit. Moyne is a complete jerk in the traditional sense of stealing, using children to sell drugs, and has violent tendencies. But behind the evil lies the image of a real man with flesh and blood. After the theft, he would divide the money among his friends, using the children to sell drugs just to reduce the risk, and although it seemed inhuman, the children were not disposable items for him to use up and throw away— he adopted the stray children and provided them with food and shelter.
In this way, Moine is just taking this group of children to survive in the cracks of society. We don't know whether there is an inexplicable hidden plot behind each of his crimes, but we can really see that when Mallard ran away from home and had no source of livelihood, it was Moin who took him in and took him to "work" to earn money. When the street children were dying without food, it was Moine who adopted them.
A scene in the film to justify Moin's name appears after he is imprisoned, and Mallard, out of guilt, immediately comes up with the idea of letting himself be imprisoned in place of Moin, but is stopped by Moine. Moyn said, you have a great future, you are different from us, go get the championship, and then come to save me. Finally, he did not forget to ask Mallard to take care of his adopted homeless children. Blessed by Moine, Mallard untied the knot. In such a society, if you want to survive, you sometimes have to take some measures. When a good person in the eyes of the public becomes an illegal bastard under the social system, should we reflect on ourselves, or the system itself?
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >3, detached but detached girlfriend - Safina</h1>
Marat's girlfriend, Safina, is the quintessentially awakened female figure in Indian cinema, but at the same time the film also gives her the fate of eventually having to succumb to male power and to society, even if this fate does not unfold with sadness.
Safina was born into a family of doctors, her father was well-known in the local area, and unlike Marad, who was born in the slums, Safina never tasted the hardships of life for economic reasons, on the contrary, her only worry was that her parents were too restrictive of herself, and the carefree living conditions created her dare to love and hate, which was very precious among Indian women. Mallard's mother did not dare to say anything in the face of her husband's blatant marriage of her mistress to live with her, but on the other side, Safina dared to stand up and tear up the girl who hooked up with her boyfriend, even if that person was her own friend; she even smashed the bottle directly at the female partner who was intimate with her boyfriend.
Such a girl who dares to love and dare to hate seems to be beyond the constraints of the Indian social cage for women, but in fact, it is still in the shackles, in the film it is shown that Safina had to accept the marriage arranged by her parents, and was not allowed to love freely, and finally Safina and Marade finally became a family, but in the face of Marad's stealing behavior, Safina still chose to forgive without thinking, which is deeply rooted in her mind for the absolute obedience to male power, whether it is for her father or her husband, this idea is deeply rooted, Far-reaching and enduring. Safina is also destined to return to the cage of Indian society after a brief period of rebellion in her youth.
Whether it is Mallard, or Moine, or Safina, their common dilemma is unfree, they are using their own methods to attack the social cage, using rap to speak, wandering on the edge of the law, resisting arranged marriages, but in the end they all end in failure, at the end of the film, Marado won the game, successfully staged a counterattack, but in society, the tragedy is still repeating, and the success of a rapper is far from enough to shake the class concept.
Hip-hop attitudes transcend classes and ostensibly become art of common appreciation, so when will the freedom and equality advocated in hip-hop music also become a recognized value orientation of all classes? This is the heavy thinking that "India Has Hip Hop" brings us.