Dhobi Ghat
Dhobi Ghat – Mumbai Diaries
If you live in Mumbai, then look around. This collection of stories is happening around you. We tend to use this line for a few movies because they are made so close to reality. I am not using this line because this movie was made so close. I am using this because the movie is all reality without even an inch of cinematic exaggeration. I usually watch a movie and tend to digest it before I set out to write a review of it. But with Dhobi ghat I have to just vomit. Because this is a movie that has overwhelmed me with such subtle brilliance that I am going to live in the sweet hangover of the movie for a while.
The movie has four characters as shown in the trailers. Defining each character and connecting the stories of each one of them is the movie. There are 100 ways of doing it. This movie does it in a very obvious way but the presentation is so real and the feelings aroused from each unspoken word and expression is so deep that it moves you in many different ways. Prateik plays Munna, a dhobi. Monica Dogra plays Shai who is an investment banker from America on sabbatical. She is working on a project on traditional businesses. Aamir Khan(Arun) plays a painter, lost in his own world and a loner. Kriti Malhotra plays Yasmin, a housewife. Each character is very strong and you understand them very well given the way they are introduced, the places they belong to and you start relating to them because you know a dhobi like Munna or you have an NRI cousin like Shai. The movie starts with a one night stand between Arun and Shai. Arun wants to be on his own and Shai becomes curious about the exotic painter and is attracted to him. Munna meets Shai as a dhobi and starts helping her touring the city. Shai is a typical American born person who does not judge for what Munna is and the kind of attention and concern he gets from Shai makes him fall for her. The beauty of this whole episode is the way not one word is exchanged on Munna’s feelings for Shai or Shai’s feelings for Arun. The experience was like watching a brilliant painting with myriad hues and on close attention you see the minor details to realize what the artist has captured on the canvas. Meanwhile Arun discovers an old box in a house that he has recently moved in. The box has a few ornaments and video diary of a sister capturing Mumbai and her experience of the new place for her brother. The sister is Yasmin, a simple girl who has come to Mumbai after marriage and is lonely in such a large city. Her camcorder is her only respite. Arun starts getting so involved with her video logs that he starts feeling each emotion of Yasmin as his own.
The movie disappointed most people with its ending. But I have to say that I disagree with all of them. The movie finishes in such a culmination that is so atypical of the regular movies that we see. There is nothing dramatic about the movie. It leaves you in the end with so much for imagination but each character reaches a point of realization. The scene where Munna chases Shai’s car down in traffic, takes a small notebook from his pocket, tears the page with Arun’s address on it, gives it to her and gives her his customary half smile and walks away leaving Shai teary eyed is a scene that says so much without a word being spoken. The purest form of love only knows giving, isn’t it?
The movie brings out so many things that we fail to see in our daily lives. Or maybe we do see them but fail to recognize them. We are usually driven by what we want and what we badly want is always a touch out of reach. What we chase is not something we always get. The way we feel about someone is generally not the way that person feels about us. And then there is this point of realization that opens a can of beans. Love is so beautifully explored in the movie that it has to be said that its a work of genius. Unexpressed and unfulfilled love is subtle but to bring out that subtlety out of characters in a movie and conveying a strong message is unheard of. This is a feat that Kiran Rao has achieved. The scenes where Shai is secretly taking pictures of Arun and when Munna leans in to kiss a sleeping Shai but backs out leave you with a message that has been taken in by the eyes straight to the heart. Not one word said. I was wondering why Aamir was roped into a character that had far little for an actor of his prowess to do. The final scene which has him running out of the house, sitting on his knees crying justifies the role and Aamir brings his quality to that scene.
I salute Kiran Rao for bringing this movie beyond finesse into our lives. I will keep raving about it for times to come. I’ll leave you right now just to bask in the hangover of a movie that said so much in one hour forty five minutes without many words. I heard some people call this an art movie. This is just art, in its best form!!
A word on the finer aspects of the movie, great editing by Nishant and the background music was apt and intriguing. Great job done on that by Ayush Ahuja and team. Watch it, because you will probably encounter something like this if you havent already experienced it. This is the Mumbai we love!
If you live in Mumbai, then look around. This collection of stories is happening around you. We tend to use this line for a few movies because they are made so close to reality. I am not using this line because this movie was made so close. I am using this because the movie is all reality without even an inch of cinematic exaggeration. I usually watch a movie and tend to digest it before I set out to write a review of it. But with Dhobi ghat I have to just vomit. Because this is a movie that has overwhelmed me with such subtle brilliance that I am going to live in the sweet hangover of the movie for a while.
The movie has four characters as shown in the trailers. Defining each character and connecting the stories of each one of them is the movie. There are 100 ways of doing it. This movie does it in a very obvious way but the presentation is so real and the feelings aroused from each unspoken word and expression is so deep that it moves you in many different ways. Prateik plays Munna, a dhobi. Monica Dogra plays Shai who is an investment banker from America on sabbatical. She is working on a project on traditional businesses. Aamir Khan(Arun) plays a painter, lost in his own world and a loner. Kriti Malhotra plays Yasmin, a housewife. Each character is very strong and you understand them very well given the way they are introduced, the places they belong to and you start relating to them because you know a dhobi like Munna or you have an NRI cousin like Shai. The movie starts with a one night stand between Arun and Shai. Arun wants to be on his own and Shai becomes curious about the exotic painter and is attracted to him. Munna meets Shai as a dhobi and starts helping her touring the city. Shai is a typical American born person who does not judge for what Munna is and the kind of attention and concern he gets from Shai makes him fall for her. The beauty of this whole episode is the way not one word is exchanged on Munna’s feelings for Shai or Shai’s feelings for Arun. The experience was like watching a brilliant painting with myriad hues and on close attention you see the minor details to realize what the artist has captured on the canvas. Meanwhile Arun discovers an old box in a house that he has recently moved in. The box has a few ornaments and video diary of a sister capturing Mumbai and her experience of the new place for her brother. The sister is Yasmin, a simple girl who has come to Mumbai after marriage and is lonely in such a large city. Her camcorder is her only respite. Arun starts getting so involved with her video logs that he starts feeling each emotion of Yasmin as his own.
The movie disappointed most people with its ending. But I have to say that I disagree with all of them. The movie finishes in such a culmination that is so atypical of the regular movies that we see. There is nothing dramatic about the movie. It leaves you in the end with so much for imagination but each character reaches a point of realization. The scene where Munna chases Shai’s car down in traffic, takes a small notebook from his pocket, tears the page with Arun’s address on it, gives it to her and gives her his customary half smile and walks away leaving Shai teary eyed is a scene that says so much without a word being spoken. The purest form of love only knows giving, isn’t it?
The movie brings out so many things that we fail to see in our daily lives. Or maybe we do see them but fail to recognize them. We are usually driven by what we want and what we badly want is always a touch out of reach. What we chase is not something we always get. The way we feel about someone is generally not the way that person feels about us. And then there is this point of realization that opens a can of beans. Love is so beautifully explored in the movie that it has to be said that its a work of genius. Unexpressed and unfulfilled love is subtle but to bring out that subtlety out of characters in a movie and conveying a strong message is unheard of. This is a feat that Kiran Rao has achieved. The scenes where Shai is secretly taking pictures of Arun and when Munna leans in to kiss a sleeping Shai but backs out leave you with a message that has been taken in by the eyes straight to the heart. Not one word said. I was wondering why Aamir was roped into a character that had far little for an actor of his prowess to do. The final scene which has him running out of the house, sitting on his knees crying justifies the role and Aamir brings his quality to that scene.
I salute Kiran Rao for bringing this movie beyond finesse into our lives. I will keep raving about it for times to come. I’ll leave you right now just to bask in the hangover of a movie that said so much in one hour forty five minutes without many words. I heard some people call this an art movie. This is just art, in its best form!!
A word on the finer aspects of the movie, great editing by Nishant and the background music was apt and intriguing. Great job done on that by Ayush Ahuja and team. Watch it, because you will probably encounter something like this if you havent already experienced it. This is the Mumbai we love!
Nicely written man! you do have that edge..
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