Films Rang de Basanti (Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, 2006) and The Constant Gardener (Rakesh Omprakash Mehra, 2005)

Tonight, along with my parents as part of celebrating their wedding anniversary, I saw Rang de Basanti, just released a few weeks ago. I normally don't like "Bollywood" films, but the reviews for this one sounded good. I enjoyed it, though the first half drags a bit. There was one song, played twice including at the end with closing credits, Roobaroo by A. R. Rahman and Naresh Iyer, that I quite liked. I enjoyed the theme of late 1920s revolutionaries
Bhagat Singh and Chandrashekhar Azad fighting for India's independence, and how that story was weaved into a modern filming of a documentary about that story.

Last night at a friend's house, I saw on DVD The Constant Gardener, a political thriller based on a novel by John le Carré. I am not accustomed to watching such films, but found this one to be quite captivating. It tells a (hopefully totally fictitious!) story about greed and unbelievable insensitivity driving a western pharmaceutical company to test its drugs on an unsuspecting population of poor Kenyans.

Links of interest:

• imdb (Internet Movie Database) film entry, Rang de Basanti
  
• Rang de Basanti official film website
  
• imdb (Internet Movie Database)
  film entry, The Constant Gardener
  
• The Constant Gardener official film website