Screenplay by: Amol Gupte.
Directed by: Amir Khan.
A drop of a red paint falls on a canvas. Then a finger comes and adds some yellow color to that drop. The drop shows some light turbulent mixing of smaller pigments of yellow and red, then that same finger starts mixing those colors. Then appears a creation of color on canvas as seen by Ishaan (Darsheel Safary), an 8-year old kid who just destroyed his graded exam solution of non-art subjects. Well, because he failed in those. There is something that drives Ishaan away from the books and exams to painting, to catching fishes in the gutter, to jigsaw puzzles, to almost anything that catches his eyes. He mentions his teacher that the letters in the book are dancing. That would make him dyslexic. But not dumb. Perhaps his vision is different than an average human being. When he has been send to a boarding school hundreds of miles away from his home then it appears as a child departing from his parents in his flip book. Can we help Ishaan? Perhaps professor Nikumbh has the answer. You have to watch Taare Zameen Par, to know what that answer is.
Amol Gupte wrote the screenplay for this beautiful and powerful film. He also was a creative director and I guess that is the basic need of this film. The number one thing expected from any filmmaker is to create sympathy for his protagonist. May it be emotional, but definitely has to be psychological. Amol Gupte puts you right where you are able to observe through Ishaan's eyes at a kid sitting on his father's shoulder and slurping a shaved ice cone. So much indulgence that it makes you unaware of the cone in your 'own' hand that melts and falls. There are so many sequences like those and Amir Khan (also the debutant Director) understands the conveyance need of those visuals as much as Amol Gupte and creates an impact. Slow motion gives us time to understand Ishaan's fast grasping. The connection of images, surreal, if I may, of the solar system to the math problem in Ishaan's exams is simply brilliant. How Ishaan thinks and imagines and applies it to his real world creates sympathy. Not to forget the confrontation by professor Nikhumb to Ishaan's parents is one of the scenes with convincing words. Perhaps convincing for any parent. There does exist get-beaten-first-followed-by-triumph-later-superhero psychology which works. Amol Gupte and Amir Khan both have done a great job.
But how much ever you write or direct a movie, it is useless without the actors who make you feel what they are feeling in all the situations in the movie. Darsheel Safary as Ishaan falls short at nothing. He is an actor that has not been bound by anything. He excites at fishes in the gutter, he fights a bully twice his size, he feels guilty and apologises to his father at first and gets angry with strained eyebrows later at revelation of father's lie. He cries with the sorrows that you will feel and laughs with joys that shake you. Sight of a dawn over mountains and a lake creates an image in his mind that later shows up on a canvas that screams his urge to see what people don't see and you will stand beside him all the way. He deserves all the accolades he stands nominated for.
Amir Khan has chosen a unique tale of parent-kids relationship, that is sad, because that relationship has been ignored long enough to make a movie but at least now we have a movie. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy give music to songs written by Prasoon Joshi that add to the surreal environment of this child. This movie is a great attempt to look at every child because he/she is special beyond our comprehension.
My Rating: 8/10.