DVD Bumm Bumm Bole

For friends, who may not be familiar with the original source of the movie "Bumm Bumm Bole", it's an Official remake of Majid Majidi's world famous Iranian masterpiece "Children of Heaven" or"Bacheha-Ye Aseman" released in 1997, which was also nominated in the Best Foreign Film Category at the Oscars. Majid is one of the most renowned new age directors of World Cinema with a simple but unique vision of film- making. Influenced by his magical art, Priyadarshan, the man behind many recent hit comedies, returns with his own version of the classic featuring the incomparable Darsheel Safary in the lead role.

Keeping its remake status in mind, I would like to review the movie in two different sections here. One, as an individual piece of art attempted by the Indian team of film-makers and Two, as the Official Remake of Majid Majidi's emotional gem.

As a children movie alone, "Bumm Bumm Bole" is not at all impressive as it should have been, considering its unusual emotional storyline about a brother and sister. It somehow comes out with the same results as previously seen in "Sikander" released in 2009. In fact it even starts exactly in the same manner as "Sikander" where a child gets killed in a bomb blast planned in the busy market. And after this clichéd opening, the movie keeps moving at a slow pace till its climax, without any crescendo kind of impact created by the director. Besides this, the concluding moments showcasing a children marathon race, simply fall flat in absence of any emotions, thrill or excitement factor put in by the writers. Moreover the over exposure of the brand "Adidas" in several scenes, looks quite over the top, irresponsible and unexpected from the well known director, Priyadarshan.

However, the major flaw of the movie remains that instead of sticking to its original plot of the shoe exchange between the two kids, the screenplay tries to incorporate many other unwanted sub-plots into the narration which look forced and completely misfit. For instance, What is the use of showing a rape attempt, bomb blasts, terrorist link ups, encounters and cold-blooded murders in a movie which is supposed to be a Children's FLICK. Does the director thinks that these all elements are necessary to fit-in, even when you are making a film around two innocent and poor kids. And does he consider it to be fine enough to be watched by the kids in the age-group of 5 to 15. I sincerely doubt it and would strongly like to vote against any such venture which plays around with the psyche of all those "Still not stuffed young minds".

Hence for that matter, "Bumm Bumm Bole" was a big unpleasant surprise for me as it was not at all interested in talking about its main storyline revolving around the two kids. On the contrary, the brilliant performances of both Darsheel Safary and Ziyah Vastani do not turn out to be that powerful, mainly due to the other sub plots interfering in their scenes together at regular intervals. Both Atul Kulkarni and Rituparna Sengupta also try their best to contribute in this prestigious project, but their underwritten characters don't allow them to do anything exceptional on the screen. As a result, the final outcome is not able to touch the viewer emotionally and he just moves out of the theater unmoved and unimpressed.

Interestingly, as I see it, the movie can be easily edited out again to get a completely different version, which only depicts the relationship between the two children and their parents. And that I think would be more precise, complete and to the point version, as demanded by its innocent theme written by Majid Majidi himself. Also this new edit would in turn reduce the over-length of the movie which happens to be another drawback of this dismal attempt by the Indian team.

Now comparing "Bumm Bumm Bole" with its Original Source "Children of Heaven"….. it sadly stands nowhere around the excellence achieved by the simplistic vision of Majid Majidi. In other words it's extremely difficult to be as simple yet impressive as Majid and his movies. In this context, I also remember the quote of a well known film-maker which says that, "Cinematic masterpieces get made accidentally and they cannot be ever remade as a version with the same genius."

That's exactly the case with "Bumm Bumm Bole" where it seems nothing close to its Original Iranian classic and just remains another version attempted by a successful director of Hindi Cinema. Priyadarshan very carelessly wastes the innocent plot of two kids using the same pair of shoes for their school among the other rotten sub-plots in the script. Strangely, he never cares to elaborate on the time structure of the two school shifts and neither he focuses on the relationship between the four family members in specific. Also the premises of the story remains confused between Assam and Kashmir with people wearing misleading outfits in the backdrop. Still, the cinematography is excellent and the two kids are a pleasure to watch.

Summing up, I would like to inform that few years back there was another Hindi Version of this Classic made in the year 2006 with the title "Salaam Bachhe". It was a kind of B-C grade movie which completely followed Majid's masterpiece scene by scene. Strictly speaking where this 2006 version was A Brutal Murder of the Original, the present 2010 version is a Soft Murder of the same.

So watch "Bumm Bumm Bole"….only if you want to ruin the immense pleasure, satisfaction and joy of watching Majid Majidi's "Children of Heaven".