1st watched 5/21/2009 – 7 out of 10 (Dir-Raj Kapoor): Wonderful romantic musical drama about a tormented artist and his search for true love. The story begins with him as a disfigured older man and then he tells the story starting with him at age 10 encountering a girl named Neemi, whom he befriends and wants to perform on stage with at his pretend theater. That girl leaves before she's able to do this and leaves him heartbroken. Ten years later as he's going to college he encounters another girl, whom he names Neemi in remembrance of his former friend, but then she also leaves before accomplishing the task. After failing a test in college, he boldly leaves his family to start a theatre, though this is against his family's wishes. He opens a theatre company but is still searching for his Neemi. He thinks he finds her but his best friend also is in love with her and this causes him to disfigure himself by setting the stage and himself on fire. This is a compelling story that is well played, but it is almost overly-dramatic especially the scene with him leaving the family(probably because this is just not done in their culture). The movie does end on a good note, although I won't give away the ending. The total film is really well put together. If you can handle the many Indian musical numbers you should enjoy the movie. The story, in itself, is enough to recommend the movie despite it being a little bit overdone.
