Dansh(*1/2)
Genre: Dark Drama
Released: 2nd September ’05
Director: Kanika Verma
Cast: Kay Kay, Sonali Kulkarni, Aditya Srivastava
( Exceptional, Brilliant, Good, Average, * Avoidable)
Dansh is a dry movie which begins on a historical note, proceeds with grimness and ends finally confused. It is a sincere movie which has all the right intentions but all wrong ingredients.
In short: Not worth your time and patience.
The highlights:
None.
The let-downs:
Direction. Kankia Verma has failed her movie as a director and the movie has failed her. Being passionate alone does not a good movie make. Right intentions are not enough to convince the audience, substance is needed too.
Screenplay. Being an adaptation of Roman Polanski’s Death and the Maiden, originality of the story could not be the forte of the movie. Surely, the screenplay could have been. It is not.
The proceedings run out of steam on quite a few occasions. Kay Kay is a great actor; Sonali and Aditya are good too. Still, they have not performed their best and lack the required intensity in many sequences. Blame it on the screenplay and direction.
The limiting factors:
Audience cannot connect to the story in any way. Thanks to its faulty screenplay, Dansh neither remains a niche product meant for classes nor a commercial cinema for the masses.
A little more about the movie: Over a few pegs of Rum, a doctor (Aditya) and a soon-to-be-politician (earlier an extremist, played by Kay Kay) find good friend in each other. Kay Kay’s wife Sonali Kulkarni was blindfolded and raped in an army camp during Mizoram violence a few years ago. She strongly believes Aditya is her culprit but Kay Kay thinks otherwise. As the night unfolds, so does the movie bringing about more frustration for Aditya. Audience is kept guessing whether he is the culprit or not. All this against a backdrop of politics.
The making of the movie seems to be hurried through and is good only in parts. Probably, to counter Siskiyan (movie by Guddu Dhanoa on the same theme) the movie was wrapped up in a hurry and released earlier.
Acting is good (again in parts). Camera is fine. Background score average. The movie falls below expectations and is avoidable.
Read the review of play ’Raat’ by me and you will find the difference in story telling that makes all the difference. The play was much better than this movie though on the same theme.