Taare Zameen Par - Nikhat Kazmi's Review for Time of India

By Nikhat Kazmi for Time of India, Click Here for Original.

Taare Zameen Par (drama)
Cast: Aamir Khan, Darsheel Safary
Direction: Aamir Khan
Critic rating:



AND we thought only Iranian filmmakers understood that Children were of and from Heaven. But that's because Iranian cinema is replete with delightful, soul-stirring insights into all that's wrong in the adult world, through the unaltered vision of a child.

Kudos to Aamir Khan for proving us wrong by giving us a brilliant dekko into the mysterious, magical mind of a child who really doesn't know why befuddled adults are hell-bent on mutilating everything's that beautiful, innocent, free and fulsome...All because they feel there is no faayda (profit) in it.

Ostensibly, the film is about children with special needs and the story revolves around the efforts of a dyslexic child to fit in, adjust and perform in a 'normal' world where competition is the norm and regimentation the principle.

A world where it is natural and 'normal' to rap eight-year-old knuckles and discipline with verbal abuse and physical battering, if a child gets his spellings wrong, forgets to do his homework or fails to give a copy book answer. But the canvas of the film is so sensitive, so vast, so meaningful, it includes any and every child in its ambit. So much so, Taare Zameen Par becomes the story of any and every child who is being robbed off his childhood by insensitive parents and teachers who believe their job is to create race-winning rats for the rat race rather than Einsteins, Edisons, Agatha Christies and Leonardo Da Vincis.

Please note that this piece has been reproduced from Time of India, Click Here for Original.

Eight-year-old Ishaan (Darsheel) is a happy-go-lucky child with a fertile imagination that can see fish flying but fails to grasp the difference between B and D. When asked to solve his three times table, he confidently picks up his pencil and sees a war of planets on the firmament of his mind where planet 3 smashes into planet 6 and beats it into smithereens.

Naturally, the answer of 3 x 6 is 3 for our little genius. But that's between you and me. Berated by the teachers, his parents send the kid away to a boarding school and deliver him to a living hell, where he faces ridicule and begins to lose all self-esteem in his effort to fit in. It takes an unconventional art teacher (Aamir Khan) to bring him out of his solitary confinement and unleash a whole new energy force that blinds the boring world with its colours and configurations.

The story is simple and connects instantly with every adult and child in the auditorium, even as the climax is predictable and plays heavily on your emotions. But what uplifts the film is its very simplicity, sensitivity and its performances. On the one hand, there is the non-filmy script which doesn't make anyone the villain...even the adults are victims of ignorance. On the other, there is the towering portrayal by young Darsheel who trapezes between lively and lost with great agility.

And holding it all deftly together - the tears and the smiles, the lows and the highs - is Aamir Khan who makes a measured directorial debut. Almost as measured and meticulous as his performances. Of course, the second half does get a bit repetitive, the script needs a bit of taut editing, the trauma of the lonely child seems a shade too prolonged and the treatment simplistic. But the film never does stop tugging at your heartstrings.

We recommend a mandatory viewing for all schools and all parents.