With a title
that loosely translates into “Pain in the Ass”, one expects the defiant and the
irreverent. Thankfully, director Amit Masurkar is protesting against both the
money-spinning mindless Bollywood blockbusters as well as the
pseudo-intellectual aesthetic world cinema. The movie is filled with allusions
to the homegrown brands of directors like Anil Sharma, Mahesh Bhatt and Aditya
Chopra as well as the film auteurs like Tarkovsky, Truffaut and Bertolucci. But
while it alludes, it also evades the traps of either. What it does attempt and
achieve is far simpler- a realistic cinematic capture of life as seen and felt
by the subjective experience of the filmmakers.
The casting and
the acting is kept close to the plane of realism to the extent that the acting
looks unrehearsed. The deliberate pacing out of the background score lets the
audience to believe that the film was recorded like a documentary rather than
shot like a silver screen fictional film. The actors seem so natural and
spontaneous; as if the director had set out to look for non-actors. Touted as a
bro-mantic comedy, in parts it is acts as a powerful mockumentary on the phony
film industry as well as the backyard realities of aspiring script writers.
Masurkar reiterates his directorial vision in the dialogues, which are not
imagined but rather revisited from personal or observed memory. Seldom does one
hear the natural rhythm of human speech reflected in a cinematic projection of
life. The tone and diction, expletives and naiveties all encompassing!
The film seems
to drive home a simple truth about life- that we do not live life larger than
life, we live life in all things, small and beautiful. Out in the company of
Dulal (Naveen Kasturia), Ruma (Aditi Vasudev), makes conversations like reading
the names of lovers etched in the stone walls of a decrepit. On the other hand,
a dialogue espousing the profound philosophical conception of the futility of
life is comically delivered through the caricature of a director and through
the metaphor of a white handkerchief. The significant split between the two
bros is shot amidst the ambient sound of the outdoor location with the
innocuous backdrop of pigeons. There are more mid shots and long shots and the
use of wide angle lens to shoot a scene dripping with emotional tension and
internal and external conflict. The inversions and subversions are myriad and these
scream out the contemporary lens view on life – the simultaneous thirst for the
future and the need for fulfilment in the present, the simultaneous quest for
fame and the need for the possibility of freedom.
The young is
often distinguished by their ability to experience time and space in ways that
are significantly different form their successors. The transience and
transition of time and the transfer and texture of space both carry a
refreshing flavor, in the film. Consider the juxtaposed scenes of Dulal at
Ruma’s place enjoying the classical tune played by a guest and of Mainak
(Mayank Tewari) serenading Oona (Rukhsana Tabassum) on his bike on the way to
her house. The rapid editing pattern, which superimposes one scene and
character over the other is one of the most powerful visual medium of
communicating the contrasts in the two characters- the contained grief of Dulal
and the fleeting fun of Mainak. Ironically, the fast paced bike ride ends in an
abrupt anti-climax while the serene stillness in Ruma’s house becomes the new
avenue for romance. Then there is the comic book-meet-stock motion
photography-meet psychedelic manifestation of a drug-induced state of mind in
the animated sequence that narrates the death of Gonzo’s (Karan Mirchandani)
cat Fellini. The incredulous part is this: art and experiments with its form
has been employed for the sake of it. There is no symbolism, no metaphors, no
implications. It is a cineaste’s tryst with his art, a creator’s truth with his
subject. It is this energy and “un-intention” that creates mis-en-scen like the
one with Dulal at the fun fair with headphones peppered with disco lights. The
darkness of his inner emotions against the intense lights around him, the
stasis of his life versus the movement of the city, the mechanical construct of
the street gizmo identifiable with the mechanical persuasion of life by the
character. It is due to the bold and fearless spirit of the debutante that
constructs frames through thin plant stems and pink flowers, through hanging
handles in Mumbai’s local trains and through between the spread legs of the hot
girl in the bookstore.
The camera finds
its corners just as the creator seeks out his niche. The film finds its appeal
just as the audience roots outs its conventionality. Sulemani Keeda definitely
sows some tough seeds for the new age viewer to consume and crave for more.
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