Peepli Live

After most of the Indian movies falling flat even with huge stars as the cast, comes a movie with no ‘big names’ but a good content, an Aamir Khan production, Peepli Live.

Peepli Live is a movie that takes you in the lives of Indian living below the poverty line. It focuses on the lives of farmers of India. Farming contributes to the Indian economy and in this movie, some shocking facts about the lives of farmers are revealed.  

The story revolves around two residents of the village of Peepli, Natha and his brother Budhia.  The brothers lose their family land to the bank since they are unable to repay their loan which makes them beg the local politician, Bhai Thakur for help. Bhai Thakur not only insults them but one of his cronies also mockingly tells the brothers about the existence of a government policy that gives monetary benefit to farmers who decide to give their lives. Natha and Budhia take this idea seriously and Budhia gets Natha to volunteer to commit suicide for the family. A local reporter hears them talking about it and writes a story about it in his newspaper. He also manages to convince an English Channel reporter, Nandita Malik to cover his story. She breaks the news on her channel and in this way other channels rush to cover Natha’s suicide story.

This movie basically tells the reality about the lives of farmers and also how stories can affect a politician’s seat in the local elections. It also shows how the media takes up a story and makes it something huge. The competition shown among the news channels is what we see today. It shows the life of reporters who run after a story to get their channel the ratings. The story may or may not be important but it is something that is MADE important because the media creates such hype. The politicians’ blame game; how they start blaming each other or a party blaming another party was also portrayed in a very real way.

Overall, a real good movie, Anusha Rizvi and Aamir Khan score high in the casting as well! Natha’s character was played beautifully. Indian art movies never disappoint the viewers because the cast adds so much more to the movie coming off as realistic.