Dealing with SUICIDE
The subject of suicide has not been alien to movie fans.There have been a significant amount of productions that explore it from its implications to its consequences.There also have been films centred on suicide as a representation in a matter of aesthetic interest. On World Suicide Prevention Day, we take a look at how Bollywood has dealt with this delicate subject.
3 IDIOTS
This is the first film that comes to mind in the category. India has the highest rate of student suicide and 3 Idiots deals with it in a very sensitive and intelligent manner. Ali Fazal shot to fame after his role as a depressed engineering student Joy Lobo, who commits suicide after his project is rejected. The film also showed one of the main characters, Raju Rastogi’s (Sharman Joshi) failed suicide attempt in this movie after being unable to choose between betraying his friend or letting down his family.
KARTHIK CALLING KARTHIK
This is one of the rare film in Bollywood that has dealt with suicide due to mental illness. In the film, Karthik Narayan (Farhan Akhtar) who suffers from schizophrenia, plans to take pills and commit suicide because of depression and disappointment with his life. In this movie the main character attempts suicide twice and fails only to reconstruct his life again.
MASAAN
This was one of the very few films that has been able to capture the innate mentality of small town India. This movie has two parallel stories set in Varanasi, one of which is about Devi’s (Richa Chadda) fight with morality after a sexual encounter with a friend Piyush, ends in tragedy. Piyush locks himself into a bathroom and commits suicide after cops barge into their hotel room and threaten them because of their “indecency”. This film leaves a deep impression on you.
ANJAANA ANJAANI
Romanticizing depression might seem like the worst idea ever, but that’s the central theme of Anjaana
Anjaani, in which two depressed, suicidal people make a pact to commit a joint suicide on New Year’s Eve. It tried to make suicide seem somehow romantic and not an act of complete desperation/the culmination of living with an untreated and severe mental illness.
MOHABBATEIN
It explore the area of suicide for love. It was Chopra's second directorial venture after Dilwale Dulhania Le
Jayenge. The story revolves around a strict school principal who forbids the students from any kind of romance — anyone he catches falling in love will be expelled. This is because his daughter commits suicide as he doesn’t approve of the guy she is in love with.
BAAZIGAR
This movie doesn’t deal with suicide head-on. Throughout the movie, people think that Seema Chopra (Shilpa Shetty) had committed suicide due to a failed love affair but in the end it is revealed that it was a ploy by Ajay Sharma (Shah Rukh Khan) to extract revenge.
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