Director: Mansoor Khan; Writer: Nasir Hussain; Producer: Nasir Hussain; Cinematographer: Kiran Deohans; Editor: Zafar Sultan; Cast: Aamir Khan, Juhi Chawla, Ravinder Kapoor, Goga Kapoor, Dalip Tahil, Alok Nath, Asha Sharma, Reema Lagoo, Ajit Vachani, Raj Zutshi, Ravindra Kapoor, Shehnaz Kudia, Charushila, Beena Banerjee, Nandita Thakur, Ahmed Khan, Arjun, Yunus Parvez, Viju Khote, Babbanlal Yadav, Arun Mathur, Seema Vaz, Mukesh (III), Shehzad Khan, Makrand Deshpande, Yatin Karyekar, Shiva Rindani, Brij Gopal, Usha, Afzal, Faisal Khan, Noora, Yusuf, Imran Khan, Charusheela Sabale
Duration: 02:38:37; Aspect Ratio: 2.520:1; Hue: 284.373; Saturation: 0.054; Lightness: 0.383; Volume: 0.128; Cuts per Minute: 14.254
Summary: The biggest box-office hit of 1988 relaunched
its producer/writer (and some sources claim
also director), and gave new life to glossy teen
romances shot in advertising styles (cf. Maine
Pyar Kiya, 1989). It also established the 90s
star Aamir Khan. The film combines a Romeo
and Juliet theme with the standard Nasir
Hussain pop musical. Raj (Khan) and Rashmi
(Chawla) fall in love, defying a major ancestral
conflict between their families. They elope and
create a kind of utopia in an abandoned temple
on an isolated mountain, living on love, fresh
air and burnt food. Having to buy provisions in
a nearby town (the ‘real’ world), they are
betrayed and die. The film presents the act of
falling in love as an illusory individuation, but
perhaps the only form of culturally acceptable
rebellion available. Its strongly neo-traditional
thrust is underlined by Khan’s nostalgic
evocation of classic Nasir Hussain heroes (e.g.
Shammi Kapoor, Dev Anand), in the teenage
hero’s dilemma: whether to follow the idolised
father, incarnated in the film’s hit song Papa
kehte hain, or to follow a different heroic
vocation and fall in love. The film rapidly
became a cult, fondly referred to by teenagers
as ‘QSQT’. Khan starred again in the follow-up,
Dil (1990).
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