My Fantasy Girlfriend - Elizabeth Russell

I had bought a DVD of the Bollywood classic Lagaan 4 or 5 years ago, but had somehow never got around to watching it. I finally put this right a few months back, thinking that it would be the kind of 'wholesome family entertainment' that would make ideal Christmas viewing. I was quite right. It is absolutely charming, and the nearly 4-hr runtime fairly flies by.

And I was, of course, utterly smitten with the female protagonist, the spirited young Englishwoman Elizabeth Russell. There's something about lacy white blouses and straw hats..... and perhaps the suggestion of tension between the exterior primness and restraint and the passionate nature concealed within (I always maintain that Picnic At Hanging Rock is the most erotic film I've ever seen - don't laugh: I am quite serious!).

It may help that the actress who plays her, Rachel Shelley (I gather she has gone on to become rather famous through the American TV series The L-Word), is about the only person in the film required to do any real acting; the other Brits, anyway, are all one-dimensional upper-class twits. And it is a very affecting character she portrays - intelligent, principled, courageous, dignified, self-sacrificing (she falls in love with the dashing young Indian farmer who leads his village's opposition to the injustices of British rule, but accepts that she should not seek to part him from his local sweetheart).

I've long had a little bit of a weakness for Bollywood (during the 1990s, Air India always seemed to have the cheapest London-New York airfares, so I flew with them several times - always enjoying the curry meals and the seemingly never-ending inflight films). Lagaan was one of the first and best of Bollywood's occasional attempts in recent years to produce a 'crossover' film that can succeed in international markets: it has a big budget and Western-style production values; the cheesiness of the more run-of-the-mill Bollywood product is restrained; and it even has a decent script. It was the pet project of its star, the strikingly handsome Aamir Khan.

The film centres around a game of cricket (now, of course, one of India's great national passions; but back in the 1800s, a still-mysterious import of the British rulers) played between a group of Indian villagers and the British soldiers from the local garrison. The people of the village of Champaner, assailed by a drought, are unable to pay the annual tithe - the lagaan of the title - demanded by the British, and plead to be granted an exemption. The dastardly British captain in charge of the district (an over-the-top performance from Paul Blackthorne, but Bollywood likes its villains to be one-dimensional) threatens them instead with an increased tax; but then, on a whim, he proposes a wager that if they can beat the British in a cricket match, he will remit the tax for 3 years, but if they lose, they will have to pay double - an impossible imposition that would destroy them. The fiery young Bhuvan (Aamir Khan), to the horror of his fellow villagers, accepts the wager. One by one, he wins them over to the necessity of playing and winning this match, and recruits them on to his rag-tag team. The situation looks hopeless for them, since they have just a few months to learn the rules of the game and develop their skills in it. Fortunately, they are helped by Elizabeth, the sister of the wicked captain, who, appalled at her brother's cruelty and inspired by the spirit of fair play, begins to secretly coach the villagers in the finer points of the game.

The momentous contest - a two-day match between the villagers and their colonial oppressors - occupies the whole of the final third of this long film. It is impressively staged, cleverly incorporating almost all the key elements of the game of cricket, including some of the rarer or more subtle quirks of the rules. It probably helps if you know and love the game and can recognise all of these references, but it is by no means essential. The drama and excitement of the various situations comes across powerfully even if the rules of play are a mystery to you. It is perhaps the film's greatest accomplishment that it makes you accept wholeheartedly the villagers' viewpoint - that the climactic cricket match is nothing less than a struggle for their survival. It is also, of course, a potently symbolic assertion of independence from colonial rule. It is a little uncomfortable to have one's own nation portrayed in such unrelentingly negative terms - but I suppose we deserve it. At least we are partly redeemed by the saintly figure of Elizabeth. Brit-haters, however, will no doubt warm to the film more easily than Brits.

All the usual Bollywood elements are here - humour, romance, a bit of skullduggery, a few song & dance numbers - but it's the charm of the principals (Shelley, Khan, and Gracy Singh as the girlfriend who not unnaturally becomes resentful of the growing warmth between Bhuvan and Elizabeth) that holds it all together. It's pretty undemanding stuff, but thoroughly delightful.

And, talking of colonial oppression..... I had wanted to look on YouTube to see if there were some clips from the fantastic cricket match finale I could add to this post...... but we have no YouTube in China at the moment (and, the way things are going, I fear we might never get it back). Dag nabbit!