What better movie than this one would mark the 100th one on the butcher’s table (my blog). But I feel that I’m rather too small to criticize this sort of a movie as movies of such kind would wash the shores of world cinema once in awhile. I hardly knew that such a movie existed a week back. It was making some steady buzz among the elite group and the not-so elite ones too - most of them were not shy to admit that they have not understood it. I thought that it would be on the lines of ‘Memento’ as I was also unaware of the philosophy behind the paradox, ‘Ship of Theseus’ by the Greek legend Plutarch (source: Wikipedia). In fact even now I don't exactly seem to understand the philosophy behind this paradox as it appears a bit naive to me in the routine context of things. Let me reserve the rant until the end... :)
This movie tries to rephrase the paradox by bringing in three unique strands of life, people from different walks painting the screen with their own color, thus making the paradox a bit more complicated! First it is the story of a blind photographer, Aaliya Kamal (Aida El-Kashef), who manages to capture the essence of life through her photograph but when she gets her sight back, she realizes that she has lost the magic in her photographs and is unable to cope up with her new sense of sight! The second one is that of a Sadhu, Maitreya (Neeraj Kabi), who fights for animal rights as he believes in the philosophy of co-existence. But when he is diagnosed of liver cirrhosis, he resists medicines as he believes that animals are used to test the effectiveness of medicines in the laboratory. Finally, the life of a stock broker, Navin (Sohum Shah) who breathes money, encounters a scenario where he believes that he could make a difference in a common man’s life by getting him justice, but lands up with egg on his face as his suddenly found idealistic views doesn’t gel well with the ever-green practicability of this world!
So at the end of it all, we, as the audience feel liberated, in the sense that, throughout the movie we tend to travel with the characters as director Anand Gandhi ensures that the ordeal is the way to salvation! But honestly at certain point I felt restless and was not able to understand the inner meanings that were carefully cusped into so many scenes. The dialogs were too intellectual and it would have a profound meaning if understood correctly. One e.g. would be the explanation given by a character about the ant and the bacteria, which by the time he completes, we tend to lose the context, but then the analogy is very deep!
The performances were natural and straight from the heart - be it the chirpy and enterprising Aida or the calm and composed Neeraj or the pragmatic Sohum. Their characters were so well conceived and portrayed on screen that we don't feel that they were acting. The work on the supporting cast was tremendous as well - one example would be the old man without the teeth who appears in Neeraj’s episode, though he appeared in a couple of frames, he added to the intensity of the scenes.
Cinematography by Pankaj Kumar made it appear like a poetry! The shots were intentionally kept long such that the average duration would be 2-3 minutes. The long duration of shots helped in immersing the audience into the movie and the experience was rejuvenating after the ordeal.
Editing and sound design is another area where the film scored heavily. Sound was recorded live and hence it adds to the authenticity. Even very minute hiss and clicks were captured with poise and added their 2 cents to each scene.
This is a movie that is conceived and narrated by someone who has sworn in to follow movie as his religion and thats what he has also claimed in an interview. If someone is really keen to ponder whether there exists a parallel and sensible world to the placid world of current commercial movies, then they can have a stab at this!
Rating: -
Verdict: For experimental and parallel genre enthusiasts!
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