In case you couldn’t tell from the previous 6 posts, I really love this movie.  But I don’t think I fully appreciated it (even after writing multiple papers referencing it, reading a couple books, and every article out there), until I started this minute by minute breakdown.  It really is just perfectly constructed.

(part 1 here, part 2 here, part 3 here, part 4 here, part 5 here, part 6 here, part 7 here, part 8 here, part 9 here, part 10 here, part 11 here, part 12 here, part 13 here, part 14 here, part 15 here, part 16 here)

I left off with Kajol getting in the car with Shahrukh, and finally apologizing to him.  This is a landmark in their relationship  He has just helped her out, again, and was misunderstood by her, again, and he finally blew up and laid it out that he has no interest in her, he is just trying to be nice, and she is being rude.  And then he backed his car up and revved the engine until she got in, rubbing it in that he doesn’t like her, not even enough to want to talk to her, but he is still willing to help her out because he is a decent guy no matter what she thinks of him.  And then she gets in and apologizes.

His reaction is not gracious and noble.  Instead, he pretends like he didn’t hear and makes her say it again.  She says it again, almost smiling, and then he says (for the first time!) “Bade bade deshon mein aisi choti choti baatein hoti rehti hai, Senorita!”  She almost smiles at this, and then asks him a sincere question, for the first time: “Why do you say ‘Senorita’?”  And he gives her a sincere answer “My first girlfriend was from Spain.”  She nods and accepts this, no huge judgey reaction for once, and then asks a follow-up question, “Why did you break up with her?”  Shahrukh takes a moment, and then gives a seemingly sincere response to that as well, “She hated Indians.”  He turns it into a lighter moment a second later, leaning over and adding, “You like Indians, don’t you?”  Kajol ignores this, and just asks, “When will we get to Zurich?”  Shahrukh immediately goes into another chatty speech, “What’s in Zurich?  This is the real Europe!”  And then he turns on the flirting again, “It is so beautiful, so pure, but someday I fear it might become dirty….”  Kajol ignores him again, and just asks if he can drive faster.  He responds to her concerns, “No worries!  The train doesn’t leave until tomorrow morning.  We have a whole day and a half to get there.”  Kajol interjects that maybe they should still go faster, he stops her again “What has happened, has happened!  You’re with me, nothing can go wrong!”  And then of course, the car stops dead.  And Kajol has her one acting miss-step in this whole film.  Because she throws herself around in that thing like it is a roller-coaster, which is a bit of overkill for just “car jerks itself to a stop.”

You know the “nice guy” trope that has started being named and called out in the past few years?  The idea that if you are a “nice guy”, that is, show some basic human decency towards a woman, she “owes” you something?  This scene is why DDLJ is not part of that.  Plenty of other Indian films are!  The whole idea of “stuck-up girl ignores hero until he rescues her and then they are in love and she follows him around like a puppy” is super common.  The worst recent example I can think of is Himmatwala (the new one, not the old one).  By the way, Himmatwala is the only movie I have seen in my life that was so bad, I actually considered leaving at intermission.  Not just because of how stupid the romance is, but that is a big part of it.  Tamanah literally “whips” men.  She has no respect for anyone, is a spoiled brat with no apparent inner life.  And then she is trapped by a tiger, through her own stupidity, and Ajay rescues her, and then she is immediately in love with him for ever and ever and willing to debase herself as needed to achieve his goals.  Blech!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHAKW-lgBfs

(this is their first meeting.  Romantic, right?  I really should have just walked out at this point and saved myself another 2 hours of agony)

So let’s look at what happens here.  Shahrukh has just blown up at Kajol for failing to appreciate all he does for her, and she is feeling guilty and grateful.  He could have been all noble, he could have taken her apology immediately and continued to lay on the guilt, say he “understands” her, that he is just glad she appreciates him now, to continue to make her feel less-than.  Heck, even before, he didn’t have to blow up at her like he did.  He could have played the nobility card, been all calm and mansplained how wonderful he was and why she should appreciate it.

But instead, he blows up in a completely immature and uncalculated manner.  It makes her feel sorry and guilty, but it doesn’t make her feel small.  They are still equals.  And when she says “sorry”, he doesn’t play the Big Man-little woman vibe, he plays the “little girl-little boy” vibe, and makes fun of the very childish way she said “I’m sorry”, by replying with a similarly childish “I’m sorry, what?”

And finally, FINALLY, Kajol sees that she has been acting like a little girl just as much as he has been acting like a little boy.  She doesn’t throw another fit, she doesn’t accuse him of being immature and dangerous, she doesn’t shut down and refuse to play, she just smiles a little and repeats her “sorry”.  And they manage to have an actual conversation for the first time.

Most of the change here is on Kajol’s side.  Shahrukh is still babbling and throwing out over the top passes and so on, just like he did in their very first conversation on the train.  But this time, Kajol just ignores the passes as part of how he talks, and instead asks questions, trying to get to really know him.  But Shahrukh is changing also, because he actually answers her questions.  Of course, he has to keep retreating back to flirtation.  But he does tell her that his first girlfriend was Spanish, that they broke up because she didn’t like Indians, that he has a plan for how to get them to Zurich and has worked out the timing, and that he is enjoying driving alone with her through Europe.

It makes you wonder what would have happened if she had responded that way the first time they were alone together.  If she had laughed a little at his jokes, asked him questions, let him in just a little bit.  Would they have been together long before this?

I don’t think so, actually.  Kajol is the one with the bigger problems so far, and the biggest change in this scene.  But Shahrukh has changed just a little bit as well.  Tina (Sheena?) responded to him with questions and smiles, and he came back with more lines and made-up stories.  But Kajol has been so bitter and so angry this whole time, she challenged him long before this scene to prove his worth and sincerity.  She’s been breaking through his facade of glibness and charm just as he has been breaking through her surface primness and anger.

Actually, in an odd way, Kajol is being the aggressive one here.  Shahrukh is keeping things light, surface, flirty.  She is the one asking personal questions.  He is responding to them, but it scares him.  You can see it in the way he answers the questions about his girlfriend.  He is revealing a part of his past, and his feelings, and it makes him nervous.

I don’t think they are both consciously thinking about this, about any of this, but we have gotten to know their characters so well by this point that it all follows naturally.  Shahrukh didn’t “choose” not to press his advantage, not to make her feel guilty and grateful, not to try to use it to pressure her into romance.  He is just a straight-forward guy who sees women as people and Kajol as an equal, and looking at her as a lesser person who needs to be controlled and taught to respect him would never occur to him.  His goal is simply to do what he has to do to help this woman who has fallen into his protection, and maybe have a nice conversation to entertain himself while they drive.  And then somehow he keeps revealing things about himself he didn’t mean to reveal, and he keeps acting happier and free-er than we have seen him up until now, and he can’t stop trying to make her smile.  Shahrukh the character doesn’t see it yet, but we the audience see that this is much more than just another girl he is hanging out with.

From Kajol’s side, I think she is aware that he is making things easier by being so bratty and immature.  And she is responding by being as nice as she can, actually asking questions and having a conversation.  But what she doesn’t see is that the questions she is asking reveal first that she really wants to know about him, especially his romantic past.  And that she is testing him as a potential protector.  She isn’t asking how long until they get to Zurich just because she wants to know how long.  She wants to find out if he knows how long it will be, what the timeline is, if he has a plan.  And it doesn’t feel like she is hoping to catch him in a mistake, it feels like she is gently nudging around the edges, to see if he really deserves to be considered a man who can take her under his protection.  This dance is going to continue for the next few scenes, as she continually doubts his qualifications, and he struggles to prove them to her.

Of course, the car stopping dead is a pretty good sign that she should be doubting his qualifications.  Poor Shahrukh doesn’t come off very well there.  But apparently she doesn’t hold it against him, because the next thing we see is the two of them walking down the road while she tells him about her family.

Oh!  I forgot to talk about the visuals!  This is the first time they have been going the same direction in the frame.  Before, they were either confronting each other from opposing sides (the “apology” scene in the park, most of “Ruk Ja”, the first running for the train scene, the argument they just had by the side of the road), or she was looking ahead while he was coming up from the side (their conversation locked on the train compartment, just now on the train platform, back in the shop when she was buying the bell).  The closest they have come before this is the second conversation on the train platform when they started out walking together, and Kajol kept stopping or walking ahead, trying to keep them out of step.

(see how they are confronting each other in the frame, once again he is coming from the right and she from the left, but also notice how childish and angry his posture is.  This is not a man coming down and bringing on the patriarchy, this is just a boy losing his temper.  And it’s better that way.)

But once she gets in the car, they both look ahead, at the camera, or glance to the side at each other, in equal amounts.  They are equally interested in each other now, and equally willing to show it.  Oh, and the red theme is picked up as well, they are still in mutually red outfits, and they are framed by the car’s red window-shield.  It has the same effect as the umbrella in “Pyar Hua, Ikrar Hua”, bringing them together under a shelter, providing a quiet visual implying a future shared household.

There’s a reason Shahrukh has dialogue about driving through Europe, and the “purity” of it.  Europe in the background of their car is a purposeful choice.  This sequence could have easily been shot in India, or even in a studio, but Adi chose to do it on location.  In my synopsis of Airlift, I talked about the “bubble” of the diasporic community, which Akshay’s character starts by rejecting.  Shahrukh and Kajol here are a classic example of that “bubble”.  They are two Hindustanis speaking Hindi together as they drive through Switzerland.  If nothing else, this is what they have in common, but it is a connection that they have both been rejecting, Kajol because she doesn’t want to admit that a Hindustani boy could be that flirtatious and wild, and Shahrukh because he doesn’t want to admit that he could be interested in such a proper Hindustani girl.  But he acknowledges the foolishness of that assumption when he jokes about European “purity” and “sullied”ness.  It’s an obvious riff on all the metaphors for female virtue/land purity in all the classic Indian films, most obvious Ram Tera Ganga Maili.  But he says it as a joke, because obviously the pure/sullied binary is made-up.  She is neither pure now, nor would she be “sullied” later if she gave in to his advances.

(“Pure”.  Did you really think I was going to mention Ram Tera Ganga Maili without including this still?)

And his acknowledgement that his girlfriend broke up with him because he was Indian brings it all together.  Up until now, he has been pretending that being Indian is not part of his identity in any way.  Of course, we the audience know that isn’t entirely true, because we saw his behavior with his father, which was clearly that of a loving Indian son.  But in everything he has done out in the world with his friends, he has appeared Western.  And for the first time we learn not only that he has been identified as Indian, but that he has suffered for it.

Oh!  And this also goes back to the home/world divide of the diaspora.  Within the “home” of the car, Shahrukh is finally able to be something closer to what he was within the “home” of his interactions with Anupum.  And Kajol is able to relax and be closer to the casual and modern girl she lets herself be within the safety of her “home” with her family, and now in this new “home” of the car under the protection of Shahrukh.

Which brings me back to the two of them walking together after the car has broken down.  They are no longer forced together by the frame of the car.  But they are still walking in step.  Only about a foot apart, in exact alignment.  And she is telling him about her family.  She is inviting him into the part of her life that we, the audience, know is closest to her heart, and where she is most herself (do you think her friends know the Kajol who sings “Mere Kwabon Main Jo Aaye”?).  And he is listening.  For once, Shahrukh is interested in what someone else has to say, not trying to be the charming and chatty center of attention.  We have never seen that before, not with any other girl and not even with his friends.