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So far, most of the films I've covered here give us at least seven or eight minutes before jumping into one of the songs. Not this one. You have two minutes to get ready.
The opening credits are fairly understated. As the names are being displayed, portraits of classic Bollywood stars are shown. None of these folks appear in this movie, but since our story is about someone wanting to become a legendary screen star it kind of fits. Once those are complete, it's time to boogey. The scene opens on a street vendor's cart. A shapely young lady leaves some money on the cart, then dramatically raises her arms and plops a hat on her head. She flounces off to the left and everyone starts staring at her as the music begins. "Rangeela Re" ("Get Colorful") begins and we have our first good look at Mili, our heroine for the show.
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As usual, there's a lot of colorful costume changes and people getting into the act. This song also features a short rap from a 5 year old boy. Other noteworthy moments are when a group of children somehow get a platoon of soldiers' weapons from them and march threateningly at them. Not kidding.
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After a while, we see Mili looking up at the sky while dancing and making an annoyed face. We soon see her mother waking her up, and she realizes that it was just a dream. Mili is mad for having such a good dream ruined, but her mom says that she's late for work and needs to get up.
Dad is wandering around the house looking for some paperwork. He seems to be a bit of a free spirit as well, much to Mom's dismay. Mili and Dad team up to annoy Mom a little by singing and goofing around. Mom kicks them all into gear to get ready to start the day.
We're also introduced to Motilal, who seems to be a bit of a prick. He's pretending to read one of his schoolbooks but he's hiding a comic book inside (ah, the classics). He taunts Mili for failing a few classes and makes fun of her dreams of being an actress.
It
looks as though she's already made some progress, as she is one of the backup
dancers in a movie. We go to the set of her current shoot where the girls are
rehearsing. The Director (TD from here on) moves around doing that "looking
through your fingers to frame the shot" thing, then yells "Cut!" The DP tells
him that the camera wasn't rolling, and we get a few other examples that suggest
TD has no idea what he's doing.
Over with The Producer (TP from here on) we find out that the leading lady for the movie hasn't arrived for the day yet. In fact, she's over three hours late. Understandably, he's mad. Of course, when she does eventually show up he praises her for being punctual and welcomes her warmly.
Our starlet has her mother with her, and she's very bossy and pushy. They settle in to discuss the scenes for the day. When TD asks if she has studied her scenes, her mother interjects that her daughter doesn't know anything while the Starlet gives TD prissy looks. Unphased, TD describes what they are to do that day. Or at least, he tries to. The mother and daughter keep interrupting him with orders for drinks, snacks, and so forth. Exasperated, TD decides that they'll just shoot the song first, then worry about the story elements later.
