Amar Singh Chamkila is a musical movie written and directed by Imtiaz Ali starring Diljit Dosanjh and Parineeti Chopra. The music is composed by A.R. Rahman.
In 1988, Amar Singh Chamkila and Amarjot Kaur were killed during an assault at one of their concerts. “Amar Singh Chamkila” tells us the story of their lives and the difficult situation India was experiencing at the time.
He became known for his music, his rhythm… and also for the stories he told through his songs, for the sentiment, but also the reality behind the lyrics.
Netflix brings us this film from Bollywood, a film that could only have been made in India, with this unique mix of realism and joy, colorful and yet pale in a bitter social portrait.
Despite having a couple of splendid musical choreographies, it’s not a musical but combines the dramatic or almost tragic.
About the movie
Rhythm, color, and a very complicated story to tell because “Amar Singh Chamkila” knows how to combine the biography of this duo with the turbulent social reality it depicts, filled with conflicts and instability.
Netflix brings us this film without dubbing, in which it shows a bit of the wonderful complexity of a wonderful country, also its more bitter, cruel, and viscerally real side, this time from the life of a singer who, through his lyrics, grasped all this complexity and brought it to life with the cheerful, unique, and unmistakable rhythm of Indian music.
The movie poses quite a challenge and delivers what it aims at perfectly.
“Amar Singh Chamkila” contains fun bits of comic-style animation, snippets of comedy (not many) mixed with high doses of realism. It is indeed a film with intent, we won’t deny that, and it aims from the start to bring an idea to the screen and do everything possible to convince us of that idea, with characters that are totally driven to prove the thesis the movie is based on.
It has just two musical choreographies, and the first one clearly shows what the movie is all about: after the couple’s murder, everything is joy in the next scene, with a Bollywood-style number full of color and joy.
A commendable film because it’s well-told, rhythmic, colorful, and has a very interesting story to tell.
Although it’s also very sad.
