Nostalgia and movies
– Timon and Pumba, The Lion King
We all have heroes and heroines from movies we saw as kids. Some of these movies we can re-watch and they take us back, even just for two hours, to that time, when things were so much simpler. Much of the appeal of those movies comes from the nostalgia accompanying our memories of when we first saw them, and what things were like back then. Movies and songs can be really powerful in the way they evoke certain emotions from us.
For me, ‘The Little Mermaid’, ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’ are some of the movies from my childhood that manage to take me right back to the first couple of times I saw those movies. And I still cheer when I see Shahrukh running towards Camp Sunshine with Raghupati Ragav playing in the background. Shahrukh has clearly mastered those dramatic running sequences. These movies still make me laugh, cry, sigh and sing-along.
And I can’t help but reflect on how Indian movies have changed since the days of ‘Kuch Kuch Hota Hai’. I know this may make me seem like an old fudfy-duddy but honestly, I really don’t enjoy most of the newer Indian movies. Maybe some might call the older movies cheesy, even I quickly lose patience with the seemingly never-ending ‘running-around-trees-while-singing sequences’, but at least they didn’t have the actors ‘getting down’ to Raghupati Ragav in a club like Hritik and Priyanka did in Krissh 3. That’s not on my nostalgic memory lane.
I finally got to see ‘Rogue One’ a couple of weeks ago, when I was back home and I was thrilled it managed to inspire the same sense of awe as the original Star Wars movies. In itself, the movie was wonderfully crafted and paced and while the central characters were completely new to the series, it was not just the self-references to the previous episodes, but the central message of sacrifice for a greater cause that evoked the nostalgia. And imagine there was not a single make-out scene in a modern movie that continues to break box office records! Good narratives still matter.
So it’s nice that there are still movies that you can enjoy that can take you back to your childhood days. I know we should be moving forward, forging onwards, setting goals and trying to achieve those goals. But life also needs some constants and most of what is evoked nostalgically is centred around the particular constants formed in our early years. They will never get old because they’ve become part of who you are.
For me, and perhaps many people my age, we’re in the throes of adjusting to adulthood. Getting used to living on our own, doing our own grocery, driving ourselves around and doing you know, ‘adult-things’. And a few years from now we’ll be responsible for keeping our patients alive, defending our clients in court or keeping our business afloat. So with our futures quickly hurtling towards us, it’s nice to escape for a few hours into a nice movie that makes us connect to our younger selves. In a sense, were are completing our narratives.
So what movies take you back to your childhood? When last did you look at those movies? I can guarantee that those movies will be the ones that can cheer you up when you’re having a bad day.
