1942 A Love Story - Rum's First Indoctrinated Movie!

The main characters are all in there!

Schools out for winter yaay so i have tons to review!
As ruler of the Masala Pradesh and president of the Anil Kapoor Fanclub I just needed to do a post on my favorite romantic epic of all time and the first Bollywood movie I ever watched 1942! This movie is absolutely essential in the Anil Kapoor Masala state, as its a sweeping illustrious epic, that I continue to love to this day as an 18 year old indoctrinated girl!
I do realize that becoming a movie journalist requires me to watch a movie critically and with an eye for goof-ups and greatness, but I really can't review this movie critically because its in my system. I have grown up with watching this movie every time my parents did the hoover, I know the songs off by heart and more importantly I started my Bolly-watching with my ANIL.

The cutest paperboy hat ever!
Perhaps this is the movie that gave me my bollyhollymusical-itis, because Vidhu Chopra really knows how to make this romantic and tragic at the same time!
The movie starts off with Naren(ANIL!) who is getting ready to be hanged for treason, he says goodbye to his nice sympathetic maa(Sushma Seth) he also bids adieu to his nasty colonial-loving father(Manohar Singh) as he goes up to the noose, he looks down at the crowd screaming Jai Hind below and we are told in flashback what led him to being accused.
I love the scenery in this movie, as they call the town Kasauni but its Nepal and you can tell by the Nepalese guards accent when they talk in Hindi, Lol just a little quibble there! Naren is a bourgeoisie young guy who is good friends with his driver Munna(Raghuvir Yadav) they go to the city square and a riot breaks out and Naren rushes to save a kid who's getting kicked in for holding the Indian flag, he also spots Rajjo(Manisha Koirala)Manisha the damsel!
Its love at first sight for Naren, who goes home and wonders about the girl and he sings my favorite song "Ek Ladki Ko Dekha" as you can see this movie shows how indoctrinated I am to this movie, as my parents used to play that song all the time to keep me quiet or again while doing the hoover. And my first images were probably Anil falling off his bed, swinging with his duvet, dancing with his pillow, and doing a dance with the pillow feather every where! Thats probably when I fell in love, a guy who is soo happy to be in love he jumps on his bed and throws his pillows about is my kinda man! Here's some of my fave pics:Yaay I love pillows!

He loves to dance on his bed AWWW

I love the "in-love" hands!
He's just contentedly in love!

He sees Manisha again at Munna's neighbours house she on a swing, this seems to be a reoccurring element in the movie that Rajjo is always on a swing maybe it says something about how innocent she is or that when she is in love, she goes on the swing instead of jumping on the bed. Or maybe its a massive symbol of young love! There I'm being journalistic about the movie.
Rajjo's father (Anupam Kher) along with his accomplice (Tiku Talsania-in a rare nice guy role) are freedom fighters that want to kill General Douglas (Brian Glover- from Alien! Someone Hollywood-ish here) who obviously symbolizes the oppressiveness of the British.Pran yaaayyy!
General Douglas also is a bad guy coz he killed Rajjo's brother for being a freedom-figher, so they want revenge, another accomplice is the great PRAN, I squealed a massive yaay here because it was Pran looking all grandfatherly and he is Baig-sahib a theater director staging Romeo and Juliet with of course Naren in the lead and some girl called Chandni as Juliet who is the daughter of the bad-ass general Danny Denzongpa. I'm still a bad-ass Officer!
Rajjo and Naren romance secretly, they rehearse lines together and they sing songs in the library and they do a lot hugging and snogging! What I liked here was that there was a simplicity to their love, they are young and in love, they don't care to much about the freedom movement until it catches up with them later. Their romance is epic, because they get torn apart by the movement and Naren valiantly tries to find Rajjo everywhere.
Sorry back to the story Rajjo's dad finds out and is mega-pissed that she would go out with a Westernized man, and in a truly BARSAAT CRY moment Naren shouts this and gawsh I fell in love with Anil all over again!You'll do that all for me Anil?
When her daddy approves there is another scene of her on a swing, when they see eachother they do the "Run of Love" where they run into each others arms and happiness is abound in their world, except that Naren's dad sends the army in to capture her dad! There is a sweet moment when their hands meet and are torn from each other once the cops come. Even in these overblown gestures their love seems so sincere!
Anupam hides in the shed and blows himself up, while Rajjo runs into the mountains to another freedom-fighter Shubhankar (Jackie Shroff-another YAAY). Manisha is great in the hysterical parts where screeches Baba in the mountains, while up there she tries to forget moments of love like these:AWWW
A very Gone With the Wind style snog!
Another epic looking moment

Shubhankar also loves Rajjo but doesn't make it obvious, coz Jackie can just act yearningly and stare at her with those soulful eyes and just capture all that love! Lol Jackie became my sister's fave hero when she watched this for the first time, however she didn't go paagal like me and sit all summer watching Anil's 80's-90's roles!
Meanwhile Naren is looking for his lady, he keeps following Baig every where and asking for her, in another epic mushy scene Baig says she's dead and Naren says he'd go to the ends of hell to find her, awwww. Naren spots Rajjo in the town and in one of the most spectacular and most poignant running scenes ever Naren chases after her, while she runs and looks longingly back at him, I love running after scenes, this one takes the cake coz a chorus of the great song "Kuch Na Kaho" echoes in the background while Naren runs after her. Jackie intercepts him and punches him in the face then runs offBest Running after ever!

The Anilackie jodi doesn't get much screen time, as Jackie gets to beat up everyone when they do come together its crackling chemistry as in one scene Anil goes to grab Jackie who was gonna take his knife out, instead Anil has a gun, the stares they give each other are so powerful.
Another quibble I have was the ending was a bit silly they didn't need to bomb up the building and have tons of shots of stuntmen on fire! But it did give an excuse for Danny and Jackie to kick some ass and live up to their titles as strong n silent type warriors!
The performances were great, of course Anil captured my heart at 2 years and even now at 18. My journalism teachers say find something critical to take about but I can't here because I just whole-heartedly love this movie.
The romance angle was simple subtle and epic not in a Gone With the Wind way, though the scenery and snogging were like that, it was more heatfelt and real than other epics coz they really do love each other but they are just caught up in a time where they are just so polar opposite from eachother.
I loved that Vidhu brought back Pran, he was so cute and crusty and just Pran-ly. Ppcc you do raise a point, as ANil is turning into a Pran-esque character actor which is a good career to emulate.
1942 A Love Story is a good movie, I try not to say that as a Anil fan, but as a journo I would defintitely recommend this movie its epic, mushy, sweet, subtle and just plain great!

Romance at its most epic!