"3 Idiots" (2009 Film): A Visual Culture Analysis
Introduction
The contemporary world, with constantly developing economy and competition between various states and corporations, puts significant pressure on every stakeholder of this process. The contemporary standardization in educational systems of different countries, which is connected with globalization process, puts significant social expectations for the young generation of people, who are trying to find their place in the rapidly developing world. Very often parents, peers and traditional practices existing in the educational system result in excessive stress posed on an emerging personality, which leads to instability of the mental state of an individual, preventing from effective learning and sometimes resulting in irrecoverable steps, such as suicide.
The Indian film “3 Idiots” by Rajkumar Hirani depicts the universal problem of external pressures dictated by social and economic standards, as a cause of globalization, which induce inappropriate mental pressure on a person, preventing the person from achieving sustainability in the rapidly developing world. The Narrative of the FilmThe feature film by Rajkumar Hirani, “3 Idiots”, tells the story of Indian students, who are enrolled in the educational process of an engineering college. The narrative of the film is focused on depiction of the pressure, which is experienced by contemporary students throughout their university career. The setting of the film is represented by the Imperial College of Engineering, one of the best engineering colleges in India. The film depicts the traditional practices taking place in this higher education establishment, such as the humiliating ceremony of first-year students initiation; rather depressing introductory speech of the director of the educational establishment, who demonstrates the cruelty of the social selection process; and the conventional teaching methodologies adopted by the educators, who encourage mindless memorizing without profound understanding of the learning material. The story begins when three students, particularly Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi and Ranchodas 'Rancho' Shamaldas Chanchad occur in one room of the college dormitory.
The first two characters, Farhan Qureshi, Raju Rastogi, represent a frequently occuring type of students, who are at loss in their life choices and appear in the college due to the will of their parents. The parents and the older generation in the film represent the systematic traditions, which are dominant in the society. The older generation is shown treating their children as corporations into which they invest funds in order to achieve benefits in the future. Parents of Farhan Qureshi and Raju Rastogi spend much of their money to make their children engineers. However, they do not ask their children about what they want in their lives. Their children are making a great effort in following the educational standards in order to obtain the desired engineering diplomas, while Farhan dreams of becoming photographer and Raju has better abilities in literature. On the contrary, Ranchodas 'Rancho' Shamaldas Chanchad demonstrates leadership characteristics of his charismatic personality and true knowledge in engineering demonstrated in practical application of the knowledge, which is enhanced by his personal dedication to engineering. The most important …
