Re: The Hindi Movies Thread I tell you what? There are sometimes those moments in life which you cannot describe, like the first time you balanced the bicycle and rode it or may be proposed someone or watched that first porn movie and may be seen the Taj Mahal et al. These moments are beyond comprehension and such moments may be different nature and magnitude for different people. Dhobhi Ghat is nothing but compilation of such moments of four characters.
Now don’t get me wrong, but I will have to give a few references to Mr Satyajit Ray, this does not mean that I am really comparing Kiran’s work with Mr.Ray’s, but this work does scratch the surface of what Mr.Ray did. I will tell you why.
The movie had got no story, yes it does not. It just introduces us to four different characters from different strata of society and a few phases of their lives and how they affect at least one other character.
So my reference to Mr.Ray comes to the way the characters are introduced. Kiran here takes her own sweet time to introduce the each character and how she does that is the one of the main reasons one should watch the movie. You just do need to be told any story about someone, there are no melodramatic moments, no need of cooked up humor tracks, in fact there was no back ground score for most part of the movie.
In spite of all of this, within moments of introduction of each character you start feeling like them. Like for example in the very first scene where Arun, a modern painter played Aamir meets Shia, an investment banker in US who is on sabbatical to pursue her passion of photography. They have sex that night and that next morning Arun wakes up before Shia and starts musing. You start thinking like Arun the moment he is shown on the screen, you know that he is uneasy, he did not like what happened, he just apologizes to Shia and she moves away pissed. You instantly connect to Arun and at the same time empathize with Shia, it is not a one night stand but you are left with a desire to know why these two characters acted like the way they did.
Incidentally, all the main characters in this movie have an artistic inclination. I have already introduced you to a painter and a photographer, and they are relatively well to do. The other two are from the other end of spectrum and become muses to each of the above.
The first one of the muse is Yasmin (played by Kriti Malhotra). She is not an artist, but turns into one when she gets hold of a video camera. The beauty of the character is that, you will get to know about her whole life, her dreams, her feelings through her innocent video letters to her brother, which never get posted. Arun gets hold of them and watches them, when I say he watches them it is not mere watching; you actually get to know how he is feeling when he is watching those very personal video memoirs.
The beauty of the movie is that you could see yourself reacting through Arun, the moment you see a video memoir of Yasmin, your reactions would be instantly seen through Arun the painter. These are the moments that I was talking about in the beginning of the review; these are the moments that make Dhobi Ghat a special occasion in your life. You inadvertently get interested in Yasmin, what she is going through and why she never been able to deliver those “video letters” as she calls them to her brother. And you get just swept away with artistic brilliance when Arun completes the painting with inspiration of those “video letters”.
The second muse is Munna (played by Prateik Babbar) Dhobi in the morning, a rat killer in the night and an actor in his dreams. Shai wants to make his profession as her theme for photography and what transpires is an immaculate comparision between what Arun experiences with those Video letters and what Shai and Munna experience with each other.
Do you see Aamir Khan, Prateik Babbar, Monica Dogra, Kriti Malhotra in the movie? NO! What you see is Arun, Shai, Yasmin and Munna, how they feel, what they feel and in the process you inadvertently feel the fifth character that is Mumbai.
It is evident that there is a huge amount of thought that went into this movie. Say for example the cinematography the way director shows how Yasmin records her memoirs is really touching and involving. Even the painting that Arun finishes actually opens up a vacuum somewhere deep inside you. Now that is really some art! All the scenes involving rain were shot when it was actually raining, there were no sets, no jazzy lights, when you see each character you feel as if you are there along with them and this I must say is a great achievement.
There was hardly any background score, but whenever it is there it goes along with the mood. I feel Dhobi Ghat is not a movie, it is an assortment of feelings of the characters who are artistically inclined. If you are one with a healthy heart that aches to come out of the vacuum that it gets sucked into more often than not, Dhobi Ghat is for you. If you do not understand why your friend is so passionate about photography, or if you laugh at a person who madly goes to art exhibitions or the one who savor soap boxes then Dhobi Ghat is not for you. |