I just watched the part in LOC where Anuj (my beloved Saif!) dies. I needed to do my crying somewhere. It's the only death in the movie (and there've been lots) that I wanted to cry for. He's so beautiful! And he's got this beautiful accent when he speaks English, because he was educated in Britain. It's incongruous sometimes because he speaks Hindi like an Indian, and the English words interspersed between the Hindi are all British-accented.

He died so stupidly! Running up a hill, with the Pakistanis right in front of him, and no cover, whether by fire or by rocks or trees. And he was being brash. It was actually very anvilicious.. like most of the deaths in the movie. He'd taken off his engagement ring and given it to his Colonel for safekeeping.. to return to his fiancee in case he died. And then he spoke to her on the phone, and she asked if he was wearing the ring and he lied that he was, and she said that would protect him. And then numerous 'come back to me Anuj' 'take care Anuj' 'be safe Anuj's. And before he ran up the hill like a fool, he said that it would be ok because his father'd read his palm and there was a long life line. Spoken like a true madman.

And after he dies, his friends go and bayonet two Pakistanis for about five minutes, and one of them refuses to stop because they killed 'his Anuj'.

But somehow it's still the only death that made me sad. Probably because all the other deaths were just as anvilicious, and he's the only truly beautiful man. Thank god that the rest of the soldiers are butt ugly, or I'd be depressed for months after this movie.

There are actually lots of problems with this movie. It's really pretty stupid, for being based on a true story.
There's a lot of swearing that's been censored, so their lips are just moving and half the words are silent. Damn, if only it wasn't censored - it would have been nice to widen my Hindi vocabulary a little.

Towards the end, each of the big stars dies one by one. And one of the guys - Abhishek Bachchan who actually was decent in this movie - dies saying "this heart seeks.." and he doesn't complete the sentence, because his victory call was "this heart seeks more". Which sounds better in Hindi especially because it's the tagline for Pepsi and Shah Rukh did the first advertisements with that slogan. But it's pretty cheesy.. he got shot in the heart, and then he's thinking of his sweetheart, and then he says "this heart seeks" and there's no 'more'.

Which reminds me, the only thing these men think of are sweethearts. And sometimes their mothers. It's a true story, for god's sakes. They could've made it a -little- less Bollywood. A little more diverse.. atleast one gay soldier thinking of his boyfriend? Ok so that's a little risque for Indian cinema.. but well, they didn't just have to think of sweethearts, and all spout cheesy oneliners on the phone, and be good little Indian sons. The cliches just annoyed me, despite me being pretty immune to Bollywood cliches. Just the fact that all of this happened, means that they could have tried to make it a bit more real and a little less of the heroics and the anvils...

And it's so annoying how everytime one of the important actors dies, it goes all slow-mo and cheesily morose violins. And each of them, before dying, does some heroic little thing like kill a bunch of guys during his last few moments.

And as with all war movies, I hate how one side has to be good and the other side has to be bad. It may be the idealistic pacifist in me, but the Pakistani soldiers are doing their job too. They're defending their country. The whole war is stupid. All war is stupid. And both sides are killing each other anyway - why do the dead Indian soldiers deserve to be avenged at the expense of the Pakistanis, more than the dead Pakistanis deserve to be avenged?

Oh. I just realised that the movie's called Line Of Control for a reason. The Pakistanis breached the Line of Control and entered Indian territory - I suppose it makes sense then that they're the bad guys.

And they do have a little towards the end where a soldier admonishes another for kicking a dead Pakistani, because they're also soldiers and sons and friends. It feels like an afterthought though, and it's just that bit because later on some soldiers say that the Pakistanis aren't humans.

Ok I'm just typing this as I go along the movie. Thus the incoherence of this post. And it ends very sadly.. showing all the ones who died. And I almost cried again, when I saw Saif. I have this habit of crying when hot men die, whether or not the role was good or the death was truly moving.. like Shah Rukh in KHNH. I cried much. =[

But it's still quite an annoying movie. And they could've done so much better with the cinematography.

The songs are really nice, though.

I've been watching this thing for the past 4 days.. it's so bloody long. This afternoon I even resorted to sitting in the guestroom and watching on a laptop when all other methods of watching were not possible. And the laptop ran out of charge and I didn't know where the power wire thingie was. So here I am trying to finish it before school starts and I don't have time for such damn long movies. I'm just gonna have to burn myself the KHNH vcds and watch later on. And I also have to watch Ek Hasina Thi, for Saif. He's a playboy sort in it, and wears lots of suits! What wonderful eye candy. KHNH rewatching is also for the same reason. And I shall ransack my mother's vcds for more Saif, hopefully.

Anuj is a nice name for a boy. I finally found an Indian boy name that I like, although it still isn't nice on the same scale as many girl names. Rahul's a nice name though. And Rohan. But I know a Rahul and a Rohan, and Rohan reminds me of LoTR now, although that one's pronounced differently.