Hrishikesh Mukherjee, one of the favorite directors of Indian middle class is known for its simple, subtle, sensible, emotional, and down-to-earth movies. Being lifetime student of Hrishida’s moviemaking, Young craftsman Nagesh Kukunoor rightly tributes to Hrishida with his recent down-to-earth middle-class venture called Dor.
Nagesh Kukunoor’s Dor (2006) is basically story of two different women grew up in two different cultures and environments and journey they have to go through for their beloved ones. One has courage to take on the unknown journey into heartland of unknown culture to save her love and another one has courage to break the barrier of century old traditions to listen her heart and make independent decisions.
Story
Zeenat (Gul Panag) is a self-sufficient wife of Aamir lives somewhere in hills of Himachal Pradesh. Meera (Ayesha Takia) is young lively wife of Shankar Singh lives somewhere in the desert village of Rajasthan. Both Shankar and Aamir go to Saudi Arabia for work to earn extra money for their respective families.
As fate decides, one day Meera in Rajasthan gets news from Saudi that her husband is dead after falling off the balcony of multi-story building. At the same time, Zeenat in Himachal Pradesh gets new from Saudi that her husband got caught by Saudi Police for the crime of pushing someone off the balcony and that man is native from Rajasthan. Zeenat came to aware regarding Saudi’s rule that if Shankar’s wife in Rajasthan signs Maafinama (Apology Letter) then Saudi government will have to pardon Aamir’s crime.
Zeenat has only two months to search for the Shankar’s wife in Rajasthan and make her sign the Maafinama. She takes off on unknown journey from Himachal Pradesh to Rajasthan and along the journey she meets jester Behroopiya (Shreyas Talpade). With the help from Aamir and Shankar’s picture, Behroopiya takes Zeenat to Jodhpur and subsequently from Jodhpur to Shankar’s village.
Zeenat visits Shankar’s family and discloses her identity. Doing that, she immediately gets rejected and thrown out from Shankar’s house. Fearing it could happen again, she befriends with Meera without exposing herself and meets her routinely every day at temple. Over the time, both women forms bonding together and Meera learns how to make decisions independently. After knowing Aamir will soon get sentenced to death, Zeenat discloses her real identity to Meera and ask her to sign the Maafinama. After initial rejection, Meera fights with her inner-soul and finally signs on Maafinama to save another human’s life.
Analysis
Dor is a complex tale of love, loss, faith, determination, and courage. Its all about humanity and story of two drastically different women, first one is self-sufficient, confident, and believes in whatever needs to be done, must be done. She leaves her own den and goes to place without knowing what’s lying ahead to save someone very dear to her. Another one is obedient, grew up in the environment where woman is nothing but showpiece of the house, and slowly and slowly learns how to make independent decisions after interacting with independent woman. She finally makes decision that can be done by only human and forgives her biggest enemy’s sin.
Director Nagesh Kukunoor has come long way from his Hyderabad Blues days. After masterpieces like 3 Deewarein (3 Walls) and critically acclaimed Iqbal (I personally thought it was too convenient than inspirational), he has become master of storyteller with Dor. After early experiments with his previous films, Dor is one of his most accomplished films to date. His crisp and refreshing direction is equally supported by Sudeep Chatterjee’s breathtaking cinematography and Sanjib Datta’s fine-tuned editing. The way Sudeep Chatterjee’s camera keeps central character in the middle of breathtaking natural beauty of Himachal Pradesh’s Hills and Rajasthan’s sand dunes and Sanjib Datta’s constantly edited scenes from Himachal Pradesh to Rajasthan (back and forth) while glimpsing into Zeenat and Meera’s life in first half an hour is treat to watch.
Dor belongs to none other than two main lead actresses. Ayesha Takia as Meera is cute, lively, and naive village girl. She seems natural and innocent while rendering Meera on the screen. Gul Panag as Zeenat is main pillar of the movie. She has done extremely well carrying movie’s main storyline, which is surrounded by her character’s pain, determination, and faith. Zeenat’s seriousness, maturity, and stubbornness are perfectly rendered by Gul Panag. Shreyas Talpade as Jester is memorable. He was extremely likable as character that requires diabolical mischievousness and being funny at the same time.
Salim-Suleman’s music compositions consisting classical, sensible, rhythmic melodies matches movie’s main storyline at every step. Their compositions like Yeh Honsla, Imaan Ka Asar, and Kesariya Balam are refreshing and blends perfectly with proceedings.
Conclusion
Many of us always think why Indian movies never won any Oscar. As it’s over- exaggerated, India makes more than 1000 movies a year in all regional languages and history of Oscar, Indian movies never won any Oscar. Is there any reason? The real reason is a movie like Dor, which are true Indian gems with its simplicity (no melodrama and excessively sentimental emotions) never gets chance to be appreciated by non-Indian viewers. Even though I personally think Rang De Basanti is better film than Dor, movies like Dor must be selected for India’s official Oscar entry to showcase real India and real talent behind Indian moviemaking. That’s how good this movie is. Do not miss it by any chance.