Aditya Pancholi, Manisha Koirala, Preity Zinta

While on an interview assignment for All-India Radio, Amar Varma meets Meghna, the woman of his dreams. In spite of Amar's repeated efforts to get close to her, Meghna rejects him. The crestfallen Ama...( read more  read more... )r returns home to Delhi and consents to a family-arranged marriage. But then the enigmatic Meghna suddenly reappears, and Amar discovers that she's a suicide bomber whose mission is just one day away…

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74% liked it

6,687 ratings

Unrated

Directed by: Mani Ratnam

Release Date: January 1, 1998

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DVD Release Date: February 25, 2003

Stats: 422 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (422)


  • March 29, 2009
    Mani Ratnam is endlessly creative and apparently knows no such thing as boredom or exhaustion. Dil Se's vitality endures successfully its exaggerated length, breathing through some of the lower points of the film. That's the highest praise I can give it. It's always on the go, ev...( read more)en during its most contemplative moments.

    Amar, a journalist, meets Meghna, a mysterious woman, on a train platform. Destiny keeps bringing them together and pushing them apart for a long time. Amar is constantly in passionate pursuit of Meghna, who is torn between her emotions and her secret terrorist mission.

    Dil Se allegedly attempts to exemplify the seven stages of love, which range from infatuation to death. I didn't quite get this while I watched, but afterwards, when I read it, it made sense, and it would be interesting to re-watch Dil Se with that in mind. So in few words, it's a story about love in many forms: gooey, melodramatic love, passionate love, sensual love, obssessive love, sublime love... the film's tone, its overall mood, changes in accordance to each of these faces of love and, therefore, it may seem inconsistent and a little flaky... It's a film likely to be misunderstood. In truth, I find it a very ambitious project, and Ratnam executes it with creativity and conviction.

    This was the first truly Bollywood product I ever saw. After some research I've discovered Shahrukh Khan has appeared in -many, of course- incredibly diverse films playing incredibly diverse characters. Here in Dil Se he is a captivating, tireless screen presence, while managing to play a man humbled by a love too strong and invasive for him to understand. Amar's dynamic personality is dominated and squashed by his love for Meghna. Manisha Koirala's performance is good but perhaps it could've been much more complex; her character Meghna was a challenge. I also believe this is Preity Zinta's debut, and she is nothing less than adorable in it.

    Objections against Dil Se... the story is so unlikely. These things here could hardly happen in real life. Amar and Meghna face some really unbelievable situations and have unbelievably mindless attitudes towards life and love. Amar risks his life countless times for a woman whose love he has no real proof of... he abandons everything and everyone to pursue her... and meanwhile we're watching and we're kind of laughing at him. It's important to understand Dil Se is not a human drama in the strict sense of the word, it's very fairy-tale like, it can almost be called a fable. One could say it takes a lot of reading and reflecting before watching Dil Se to really understand it... sadly, that is true. It's most certainly a very peculiar movie. Unless there's a lot of interest invested on it, it's difficult to entirely take it in.

    Last and not least, there's A.R. Rahman's awe-inspiring score and the visually stunning interludes that accompany most of the songs. There's terrific singing from Sukhwinder Singh (Chaiyya Chaiyya and the train scene that I never tire of watching), Lata Mangeshkar, even Rahman himself, etc. The composer immediately elevates the entire movie with a collection of pop hits... the good kind...

    Maybe I'm just a child who's discovering Bollywood, but to me Dil Se is a perfect example of love for cinema. It is quite long, but it took me much of that duration to really notice and say... what time is it?! Watch it :)

    I realize this is just about the highest rating this film has got on flixster!
  • October 11, 2008
    An interesting movie with a fairly well story plot. Shahrukh Khan and Preity Zinta stars.
  • August 16, 2009
    Foarte frumos filmul
  • July 2, 2009
    es una buena pelicula.. mostrando a SRK entregando todo por la persona q ama... incluso la vida para poder estar juntos...
  • June 22, 2009
    Wonderful SRK film with the beautiful dance on the moving train with the stunning Mailika Aurora Khan...
  • June 7, 2009
    love the music and songs only haven't seen the movie
    just music is mindblowing
  • April 18, 2009
    heard it's really good! Apparentlyt it gave SRK a break!
  • April 17, 2009
    it was interesting...
  • April 17, 2009
    he died :-( which makes it sucky.
  • February 9, 2009
    Wonderful picturizing

Critic Reviews


Comments


  • technicalflavor
    July 16, 2006
    It is indeed a case of truth proving stranger than fiction with the release of a film on terrorism at the very height of a global terrorist scare. One would think that this fact could only aid "Dil Se" by heightening the impact on the audience. Unfortunately, this is not the case. "Dil Se" is a valiant effort on Mani Ratnam's part but gets lost somewhere along the way in a weak screenplay and sketchy characterizations.
  • mysteriousprincess991
    June 21, 2006
    :P yey im 1st 1..... umm dis movie... is acee cz nosh finks so lol

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