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Friday, April 26, 2024
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BOLLYWOOD BEYOND THE CLOUDS
EDITOR'S PICK
'Beyond The Clouds': Simply a masterpiece (Review By Subhash K. Jha ; Rating: *****)
There came a time in this cyclonic tale of squalor, despair and redemption
where I thought I would simply be blown away by the shrillness of the drama.
Majid Majidi pulls out all stops to show us the underbelly of Mumbai, warts,
moles and all.
The camera pans the suffocating crowds with easy grace, embracing the bizarre
bazaar of racketeering and low-living with a kind of sighing interjection that
is the opposite of hopelessness. Admittedly, cinematographer Anil Mehta does for
Majid Majidi's Mumbai what Subrata Mitra did to Satyajit Ray's "Pather
Panchali".
Without romanticising the despair, he shoots the frames with a beam of optimism.
And Dhobi Ghat never looked more intriguing. There is a key scene of sexual
violence silhouetted against the flapping white bed sheets spread out for
drying. This would have looked laughably put-on were it not for the director's
propensity to cut to the chase while chasing the drama of despair.
Silhouettes play an important part in bringing alive the dark mysterious tragedy
of Mumbai's underbelly. At one point, Aamir brings home the womenfolk of the man
who has ruined his sister's life and watches them bond through a bedsheet put up
as a temporary partition. In the shadows, we see three feminine figures dancing,
laughing and bonding.
All these metaphors suggesting love, lyricism and empathy in the midst of crime
and deception could have given the film an aura of heavy handedness. Majidi uses
the shrillest notes of storytelling to suggest the bathos of life and the sheer
absurdity of seeking and miraculously finding compassion in a world denuded of
simple kindness.
The message of hope and humanism shines like a beacon of light in the charged
electric screenplay written by Mehran Kashani where the drama of the damned is
not an affectation but a way of life. Right away from the very first shot
showing a run-down hoarding for a cellphone company, Mumbai's heartbeat throbs
life and breath into every moment that Majidi's narrative exhales over frames
that seem to embrace life in all its inglorious colours.
In the very first sequence, we see our hero hopping off a car in a distance
across the road. Aamir is not up to any good, he never will be. Or so we think.
The quality of life bequeathed to Aamir and his elder sister Tara (Malavika
Mohanan) is such that beauty, harmony, compassion and other luxuries of a
desirable existence are hard to obtain.
And yet, this is where the humanism of Majidi's cinema comes into voluptuous
play. In spite of the abject, seemingly irredeemable darkness, there is that
spark of light igniting the soul.
The film moves through two different narrative zones after the protagonists --
the siblings -- are separated by a crime. Aamir finds himself looking after and
caring for the family of the very man (Gautam Ghose) who brought on disaster in
his life.
In prison, Aamir's sister Tara learns a lesson or two in humanism through her
unexpected bonding with a little boy. I wish Malavika, playing the pivotal role
of Tara, had held back a bit. She tends to let go of her emotional mojo in
almost every sequence, making her character seem more hysterical than it should
be.
Gautam Ghose as the man who brings disaster on the protagonists brings to his
complex dark role some shades of unexpected empathy.
But let's not beat around the bush. It is debutant Ishaan Khatter who stands
tall in a film where life dwarfs even the bravest. Ishaan's Aamir is impetuous,
volatile and self-destructive. The character's redemptive journey is undertaken
by the debutant actor with an honesty and vigour that are unmatched by anything
we've seen in a maiden performance.
Yes, a star is born. Ishaan is undeniably the hope of tomorrow... Or is it
today? Majidi places a hefty level of faith in Ishaan's raw uncorrupted
personality to bring out the ugliness of Mumbai's underbelly.
At one point, when Aamir is about to barter his soul to the devil, I could
clearly see the fear of doom in his eyes. This is an actor of no ordinary
skills. Ishaan projects vulnerability and hurt in moments when brutality reigns
supreme.
The sound design is so outstanding that I could hear voices in the backdrop,
discussing mundane matters in squirts of randomness that come and go to create a
sense of uneasy rhythm.
In the prevalent chaos, and just when I thought brutality is the predominant
mood, on comes A.R. Rahman's exquisitely quiet piano interludes in the
background, a little at a time, reminding us that tenderness is just around the
corner even when life sucks out all that is desirable, and life... Well...
simply sucks.
Adapting the higher scales from the musical notes, Majidi's symphony on the
underbelly of Mumbai plays out at an impossibly shrill pitch without losing the
core cadence. The director is not alone in pursuing that pitch-perfect
shrillness. Ishaan Khatter knows how that is done.
Actor Ishaan Khatter, set for his big screen debut, comes with no formal training in his field, but he is ready to learn on the job, to listen to the call of his heart and to bat comparisons with his star brother Shahid Kapoor. Excerpts from the interview:Read More
Malavika Mohanan pushed herself for 'Beyond The Clouds'Malavika Mohanan, who will be making her film debut with Majid Majidi's maiden India-set project "Beyond The Clouds", says she pushed her boundaries to stay true to the Iranian filmmaker's vision.In the film, Malavika will be seen essaying role of Tara -- elder sister of Ishaan Khatter's character Amir. She lost around eight kilos in just 15 days for a jail sequence. And when the shoot was in progress she decided not to wash her hair for 10 days. Read More
