Swades Review
Yash Trivedi
Recently, I watched Swades (meaning homeland in Hindi), an Indian Bollywood film released in 2004, and it honestly challenged my expectations. Swades begins with Mohan Bhargava, played by Shah Rukh Khan, working on a satellite at NASA. He eventually begins to feel nostalgic about his childhood in India, and guilt for having left his non-biological guardian, Ms. Kaveri, or Kaveri Amma (mother) in a retirement home. He returns home to find Kaveri Amma in a small village on the outskirts of India called Charanpur. While there, he also reunites with a girl called Gita, who was like a sister to Mohan from when they were kids back when he lived with Kaveri Amma. While he’s there, he becomes aware of his privilege in America, seeing all the poverty and suffering in Charanpur. Throughout his stay, he falls in love with Gita, but tries to persuade Kaveri Amma to come back to America with him. However, he gets extremely comfortable in Charanpur, and tries to improve it by installing a proper electricity system in the village. Shortly after he succeeds, he must leave since he has overextended his 3-week leave from work. He fails to get Kaveri Amma to come back with him, and Gita confesses her love to Mohan. After finishing the project at NASA, he decides to go and live in Charanpur permanently, to be with Kaveri Amma and Gita, while also continuing to try to help the electricity and poverty problem in India.
If I were to read such a description, I would not be very interested. However, because of the way romance is portrayed in Bollywood films, combined with the music, and the warm nostalgic feeling you get from watching life in a small village, I found this movie great!
All the characters feel extremely well developed. Even characters who were on screen only for a bit, or don’t have that big of a role feel important. The best example of this was Mela Ram. Mela Ram is a cook who, after finding out Mohan was from America, immediately tries to go back to America with Mohan to open a small restaurant. In the end, he helps Mohan with the electricity project but doesn’t go back to America. I think the best way to develop characters is to share their goals. Everyone in the movie has some kind of goal that they’re working towards. Mohan wants to develop Charanpur, Gita wants to develop the schooling system in Charanpur, Kaveri Amma basically just wants to have Mohan stay with them, and even the mailman (who is also a wrestler) just wants to do his job.
The music is also amazing. A. R. Rahman has been praised multiple times as being one of the best music composers in India. This is shown with the highlight of Swades being “Yeh Jo Des Hai Tera”, or, “This Country of Yours.” The song is soft, and perfectly fits the vibe of the movie. The best musical sequence paired with film has to be “Yeh Tara Woh Tara.” This translates to “This Star, That Star.” In the movie, there is an old Indian movie being played publicly in the village. Due to the electricity problems, the film shuts off during one of the songs, but Mohan is there to save the day! The village is on the outskirts of India, away from the city, so the sky is clear and the stars are in full view. Mohan then proceeds to show his interpretation of what the stars look like to him, in song of course– it wouldn’t be a Bollywood movie without it.
The romance was also done perfectly in Swades. The relationships progressed at a perfect pace, which usually does not happen in any movie. By the end of the film, Mohan and Gita had a proper relationship going through all the proper phases of doubt and embarrassment.
In all, I would definitely recommend this movie to anyone. It manages to combine elements of a romantic comedy, drama, and musical in classic Indian fashion, and it mastered the hardest part of all: the ending. It left me wanting nothing more and nothing less. After all of this, I’d rate Swades a solid 9.5/10. Sadly, the last 0.5 is lost to not invoking enough emotion. It was a little hard to completely connect to Mohan and his emotions. But, honestly, that was my only gripe. Thank you for reading, and I would highly encourage you to watch Swades yourself!
Page layout by Sara Rastin