A movie with Irfan Khan and Nawazuddin Siddiqui, arguably the two best actors in contemporary Bollywood, is a must watch. There would be lots of critical acclaim for the actors and rightly so, but let me first speak of writer-director Ritesh Batra, whose name I had not heard before.
At a time when directors are raking in millions by successfully diluting the collective IQ of the nation to below 50, Batra deserves rich applauds for daring to make a movie in a style probably Satyajit Ray would have appreciated, focussing on the actual things that make for good cinema. A good story, perfect real life characterization, great acting, direction, cinematography, captivating camera angles capturing real life, among other things.
Saajan Fernandes(Irfan) is a boring, mundane but efficient government employee, nearing retirement, who has nothing exciting coming up in life. His wife is long dead, he has no kids and lives alone. Irfan has completely become the character. No one can say he is the same Irfan Khan who played Pan Singh Tomar that got him the national award. Just think of a routine, old government employee, they way they talk, the way they behave, almost lifeless at times, Irfan gets all this perfectly right. The scene where he buys a painting, where he explains that he is an old man, where he tries to hide a letter, are worth savouring. It is very interesting to watch the subtle changes in his behaviour, when something "interesting" does happen in his life.
He gets a dabba(lunchbox) from a hotel, through the dabbawalahs of Mumbai. In real life it has been extrapolated through live examples, that the dabbawalahs probably make one mistake in 6 million deliveries. However such a mistake forms the crux of this beautiful story. A dabba reaches Fernandes, made by a housewife Ila(Nimrat Kaur) and hence starts an unusual relationship through small letters in the lunchbox, where they share their experiences, insecurities and hopes in life. This would make one nostalgic of a bygone era where love and relationships did happen through letters!
Nimrat Kaur as Ila is absolutely brilliant, not sure why we do not get to see more of these actors. She plays the role of a housewife to perfection, the way she cooks and tastes the food, the mannerisms, the way she washes clothes and her attempts to impress her insensitive husband, her hopelessness, are all spot on.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui has probably got nothing wrong, since he started acting. He has proved time and again, that if you know your acting, you do not need a background, godfather, looks, dance, action, but just brilliant acting. Here he proves his mettle again, scene by scene, against an exceptional Irfan. An irritating trainee Aslam, who is supposed to replace Fernandes, displaying dignified sycophancy, Siddique again delivers with his expressions and dialogue delivery. The scene where he speaks out to Irfan for not training him, the scene where he expects the latter to offer lunch just through expressions or the one where he requests him to be his guardian, stand out.
The novel experiment of using the recognizable voice of Bharti Achrekar as the Aunty upstairs also comes off very well. Lillete Dubey as Ila's mother has just two scenes, but does very well in the second, emphasizing the vacuum and hopelessness at a certain stage of life and how we realize things were not exactly what we thought, when they happen.
The unusual camera angles, the attention to details,(example, the clear and crisp sound of an unfolding paper), the excellent research done on the dabbawalahs of Mumbai and the subtle nuances of a common man's life a Mumbai, in the packed buses, local trains and offices, dogged and romanticizing at the same time, have been done skilfully. All these underline the fact that the movie has been made painstakingly, with the attitude of a perfectionist. Life does not have a perfect ending, everything would not fit in logically, but we still need to hope and do the best we can to be happy, the movie seems to say this the end.
On the downside, I did not find anything glaring or worth mentioning. However since we are also catering to an internet and Whatsapp generation, that wants things very fast, the pace of the movie could have been slightly faster especially during the first half. But that could have diluted a few things that cinema connoisseurs would enjoy, so I guess this one should be watched for the craft of film making.
Such movies need to be watched simply for the reason that the Indian audience also needs to watch some real cinema. Otherwise no one would make these kind of movies that may not fetch 200 crores, but would live forever as classics and masterpieces. They need to seen because we need to have more of real actors like Irfan, Nimrat and Nawazuddin in India and directors who can at least come close to someone like Satyajit Ray.
They need to be seen so that we can proudly say that yes we make such movies too!
4.5 out of 5 stars for this one!
At a time when directors are raking in millions by successfully diluting the collective IQ of the nation to below 50, Batra deserves rich applauds for daring to make a movie in a style probably Satyajit Ray would have appreciated, focussing on the actual things that make for good cinema. A good story, perfect real life characterization, great acting, direction, cinematography, captivating camera angles capturing real life, among other things.
Saajan Fernandes(Irfan) is a boring, mundane but efficient government employee, nearing retirement, who has nothing exciting coming up in life. His wife is long dead, he has no kids and lives alone. Irfan has completely become the character. No one can say he is the same Irfan Khan who played Pan Singh Tomar that got him the national award. Just think of a routine, old government employee, they way they talk, the way they behave, almost lifeless at times, Irfan gets all this perfectly right. The scene where he buys a painting, where he explains that he is an old man, where he tries to hide a letter, are worth savouring. It is very interesting to watch the subtle changes in his behaviour, when something "interesting" does happen in his life.
He gets a dabba(lunchbox) from a hotel, through the dabbawalahs of Mumbai. In real life it has been extrapolated through live examples, that the dabbawalahs probably make one mistake in 6 million deliveries. However such a mistake forms the crux of this beautiful story. A dabba reaches Fernandes, made by a housewife Ila(Nimrat Kaur) and hence starts an unusual relationship through small letters in the lunchbox, where they share their experiences, insecurities and hopes in life. This would make one nostalgic of a bygone era where love and relationships did happen through letters!
Nimrat Kaur as Ila is absolutely brilliant, not sure why we do not get to see more of these actors. She plays the role of a housewife to perfection, the way she cooks and tastes the food, the mannerisms, the way she washes clothes and her attempts to impress her insensitive husband, her hopelessness, are all spot on.
Nawazuddin Siddiqui has probably got nothing wrong, since he started acting. He has proved time and again, that if you know your acting, you do not need a background, godfather, looks, dance, action, but just brilliant acting. Here he proves his mettle again, scene by scene, against an exceptional Irfan. An irritating trainee Aslam, who is supposed to replace Fernandes, displaying dignified sycophancy, Siddique again delivers with his expressions and dialogue delivery. The scene where he speaks out to Irfan for not training him, the scene where he expects the latter to offer lunch just through expressions or the one where he requests him to be his guardian, stand out.
The novel experiment of using the recognizable voice of Bharti Achrekar as the Aunty upstairs also comes off very well. Lillete Dubey as Ila's mother has just two scenes, but does very well in the second, emphasizing the vacuum and hopelessness at a certain stage of life and how we realize things were not exactly what we thought, when they happen.
The unusual camera angles, the attention to details,(example, the clear and crisp sound of an unfolding paper), the excellent research done on the dabbawalahs of Mumbai and the subtle nuances of a common man's life a Mumbai, in the packed buses, local trains and offices, dogged and romanticizing at the same time, have been done skilfully. All these underline the fact that the movie has been made painstakingly, with the attitude of a perfectionist. Life does not have a perfect ending, everything would not fit in logically, but we still need to hope and do the best we can to be happy, the movie seems to say this the end.
On the downside, I did not find anything glaring or worth mentioning. However since we are also catering to an internet and Whatsapp generation, that wants things very fast, the pace of the movie could have been slightly faster especially during the first half. But that could have diluted a few things that cinema connoisseurs would enjoy, so I guess this one should be watched for the craft of film making.
Such movies need to be watched simply for the reason that the Indian audience also needs to watch some real cinema. Otherwise no one would make these kind of movies that may not fetch 200 crores, but would live forever as classics and masterpieces. They need to seen because we need to have more of real actors like Irfan, Nimrat and Nawazuddin in India and directors who can at least come close to someone like Satyajit Ray.
They need to be seen so that we can proudly say that yes we make such movies too!
4.5 out of 5 stars for this one!
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