Film: Jab We Met - Geet, call home

So here is my first post about what I find inexplicable - in this sequence from Jab We met.

Geet is stranded in the middle of the night at a railway station, with all her luggage left in the train and she is being teased by shady characters.

Now this one is an educated, city bred, independent girl. Question is why doesnt she bother calling home? and informing them of her situation, better still asking them to come and fetch her.. I would call my people first thing If I was in that situation. Most of us would. Geet does not. Is it because she does not want them to get worried? Come on, at that moment is her safety a priority or is it how her family would react. Her family of course has enough young and not so young Punjabi men who would have been able to tackle the situation.

Why doesnt she. Is it because, otherwise she would not feel insecure and to save herself she would not run in to Aditya's arms?  Did the story teller not have any other pretext under which he could get Aditya and Geet to meet again?

Of course, there is a another bit of abusrdity in she running out of the station and into the lonely streets of Ratlam. I mean she could have easily tried to find a policeman or at worst gone back inside the station master's office. When she runs out, she does not know Aditya is out there and with that knowledge she runs out. She just runs out in to the streets to feel more secure. Wouldnt staying back on the station been more secure.

But how would she then meet Aditya and how would the story progress :). Well, leaving this bit of running out from the station aside, main issue I have with this sequence is - Why didnt Geet call home?

What this blog is about?

"....all this is so humbug....!!".

Remember these conversations you would have with people around or even with yourself while watching something obviously irrational in a movie?

A very basic example that comes to mind is the done to death sequence from  Hindi films of '80s where 'The Hero' is never hit even though the villain gang has sharp shooters with the latest guns to their disposal even as 'The Hero' with hardly so much as a revolver is able to exactly target all of the villain gang - not to mention he is also able to protect and save his lady love or mother or sister or money or whatever there is that he is trying to protect from the villain gang

We have moved on largely from those kind of  formulaic "action & family drama & Romance & comedy" films.. Of course, they have been replaced by another kind of formulaic films about mushy love stories, family dramas, leave-your-brains-at-home comedies, meant-for-NRI-movies. Even then, that's not the problem I have with story tellers. Let them be as formulaic as they want to be, let the stories be repetitive and let the formula live on forever. No worries. Problem is sometimes films have impossible to explain moments. Read on.

Am sure all of us have many times felt at wits' end  trying to fathom the logic or reasoning behind some actions or non actions of characters in  films. Fact is, the story teller, (supported by his entire creative team from pre production, production to post production) sometimes, chooses to make the characters do things  which are logically inexplicable only for the sake of taking the story forward. In bad films, this done in an obvious manner, while even the leading film makers do it subtly in their good & successful films.

Funnily enough, sometimes the all important twist in the tale is brought about in the movies and the story is taken forward by resting on the shoulders of such irrational actions which the poor characters are made to do.

and this my dear reader is an insult to our intelligence.. where the people making the film choose to screw logic to get the story moving. In other words, these are the moments / scenes in our films where the story tellers choose to shoot the brain - or as the classic song from the film Satya goes.. Goli maar bheje mein, (kyunki) bheja shor karta hai!!!

Will start discussing the specific instances  from the next post..