Well writing a review on this film after so many year’s of its release doesn’t make sense.But I just wanted to share my feelings and thoughts about this film. Chandni bar is a bold and real portrayal of thousands of bar girls who work in bars of Mumbai to earn money and support themselves as well as their families.
It is essentially a heart breaking story of a bar girl named mumtaz, her journey of pain and sorrow in the riveting world of night bars of Mumbai. Madhuir bhandarkar has brilliantly shown the life of a bar dancer and her problems and her struggle of life.
His direction is simply superb. The story of the film is completely new and different and the treatment of the plot is brilliantly real and hard hitting. I have never seen such a film like this. Dialogues are superb and the foul language of lower class people of Mumbai is used extensively in the film to give it a real and authentic look and that is commendable.
All the characters are brilliantly written and are completely real. THe screenplay is completely engaging and it never drags or moves away from its basic premise and it holds u till the very end. Editing is smart and sets and costumes are real and authentic.
The performances by the entire cast is first rate especially tabu’s friend ananya khare . Her expressions and her body language both were outstanding. All the girls of bar were superb and so was tabu’s husband. His acting was just marvelous.
The whole film leaves a tremendous impact on ur mind especially some scenes like tabu’s rape scene and after that the scene where she tells her bar mates about it and the reaction of ananya khare on it is simply chilling, the scene where ananya trains tabu, the scene where tabu’s husband kills her uncle, the scene in the hospital when tabu sees her husband’s body, the scene where tabu goes to her husbands friends to ask for her money, the sodomization of tabu’s son and the climax.
All the scenes are mind blowing and impact. But the real hero of the film is undoubtedly tabu. Her performance is simply outstanding. Her anguish.her fear, her happiness, her helplessness, her hatred every feeling is brilliantly portrayed by her expressions and her body language. She is completely exceptional in the role of mumtaz.
You can feel her pain, sorrow and could even smell her sweat . Her performance in the climax scene when her son shoots two boysis just heart breaking. She wanted to see her future in her children but she could only see her past in them .
This one dialogue in the climax suggests that mumtaz has lost the battle of life. I completely broke down after watching the film.I was shivering and I was shattered by seeing such a realistic film which I had never seen . Hats off to madhur bhandarkar for making such a mindblowing film. Truly exceptional and an unforgetttable experience