The concept of an older man falling for a much younger woman is not an alien concept to India, and certainly not to Indian culture please, where we had younger females married off forcefully to much older guys in the earlier days, in the name of tradition. Anyway that is a separate issue altogether. Even in much contemporary times, we had this recent event, of a professor falling in love with his much younger associate, and the mess that accompanied it. So let us get out of that sanctimonious no this is not part of our culture mode. Also this is not the first time, that such a theme has been attempted in Indian cinema. Way back in the 70’s we had K. Balachander’s movie “Guppedu Manasu”, where the lead character seduces a much younger girl, and has to live with the consequences. There was the 80’s Mamooty- Shobana Mallu movie “Kanmarathu” where a girl student falls in love with her much older benefactor. In Bollywood too we had movies like Lamhe which depicted this issue. So in that way what Ram Gopal Verma’s Nishabd is attempting is hardly path breaking as far as the story is concerned, at least for some one like me, who has been consistently following cinema all over the decades.
Again let me make this clear, Nishabd has no relation whatsoever with Lolita. That book by Vladimir Nabokov is too dark and complex, and even some one like Stanley Kubrick, had to overcome censor hurdles when directing that movie. So forget about adapting it to Indian context. It is just altogether impossible. So even then all things considered, Ramu had a potentially interesting theme at hand. Even considering all the critical reviews it got, I walked in, only for the sake of RGV and **Amitabh Bachan.
Was I disappointed?
In a way no. For starters, while Ramu, excels in the gangster-horror mode, he makes a mess when it comes to subjects involving emotions. I had seen him make a mess of a very interesting theme, of a fan’s attraction for his heroine, in **Mast. The very same theme, which was handled wonderfully by Hrishida way back in Guddi, was messed up royally by Ramu. Also the previous AB-Ramu collaboration, Sarkar, was nowhere even remotely close to Satya, Company or even Ab Tak Chappan. For me the last really good movie, Ramu directed was Company, and post Bhoot onwards, its just been a very disappointing performance. Also Ramu’s career often resembles a tango dance, one step forward, two steps backward. He comes up with a masterpiece, and then he follows it up with equally crass duds. So all things considered, I did not have great expectations from this movie.
The plot revolves around a 60 plus photographer Vijay( Amitabh Bachan), who lives on a sprawling tea estate in the wonderful locale of Munnar. He lives with his wife( Revathi) and daughter( Shraddha Arya) in that area. The trouble starts when his daughter’s friend Jiah( Jiah Khan) comes from Australia. She comes from a broken family, her parents are divorced, and seems to have a perpetual allergy to wearing clothes. Predictably as the nymphet lolls around wearing the briefest of dresses, or shorts showing off her legs, Vijay is attracted towards here, and keeps on clicking her photographs. And after some time Jiah also finds herself attracted towards him, and so begins a love story, which we are not supposed to understand, and just see it. So far, so good, I don’t have any issues, and neither do I want to spend my time over why and what.
The problems with Nishabd are far too many. For starters the theme is a very sensitive one, and it is something that needs to be handled with kid gloves. Unfortunately, Ramu, still seems to be in a gangster movie mode. The over the top, in your face style, with cutting dialogues and a loud background score, works very well for a movie like Satya or Company. The same approach for a topic which is sensitive in nature backfires completely, which is what happens for most of the movie. Also after discovering, that they are in love, the pair, starts to behave like a typical Hindi movie love lorn pair. Declaring their love for each other, getting into fight with family, again that would work for a normal boy meets girl story. The “Pyaar Karnewala kabhi Darte Nahin” sort of stuff, works for a standard Raj meets Simran kind of story, when you apply that same narrative style to this sort of theme, it ends up like a caricature.
But the major drawback of the movie, is it’s central point itself. What makes an older guy and a much younger female fall in love? While from Jiah’s point of views, there seems to be some valid reasoning, of being the child of divorced parents, missing a father figure etc. What makes Vijay fall for her, is not just clearly explained? There is nothing to imply that his family life is unhappy, nor there is anything on the emotional angle, involved. I mean if he was really attracted to her spirit, nothing is shown in the movie to suggest it. Instead all Ramu does is, continue his voyeuristic approach to females, as he keeps focusing on Ms. Khan’s legs, legs and only legs. Yes Jiah is shown either drenched, or in shorts or in even shorter dresses. And if this is what attracted Vijay, then it should have been a “Lust Story”. The problem is Ramu seems to be confused between lust and love, so while the camera focuses on Ms. Khan’s figure for most of the time, then suddenly as if to justify that this is a love story, we have Vijay’s character explaining why he fell in love with her. So what we have is something which is neither here nor there. And also for a movie supposed to be a sensitive love story, the background score is jarring, it just keeps intruding so much.
The few positives of the movie. One is Amitabh Bachan’s performance. Even taking into account a role written very sketchily, he still manages to come up with an impressive performance. Alas, things have not changed much. In his hey day, directors used his talent, to sell their movies, rarely exploiting it. Even now, they still use his name to sell their movies, but not many have been really able to exploit it properly. Jiah Khan makes a good debut, and apart from her leggy show, does put in a decent performance. It is sad to see a wonderful and talented actress like Revathi, being wasted in a role which could have been done by any two bit actress.
And the technical aspects are pretty good, especially the cinematography, which beautifully, captures the lush green locales of Munnar. But again, it underscores the fact, that while Bollywood might have advanced technically, the art of handling emotions is yet to be learnt. We have seen Karan Johar making a mockery of infidelity in Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna, and now Ramu messes up a potentially interesting theme in Nishabd. Its just not enough to boast of taking Bollywood to next level and talk about daring themes. The execution should be proper, or else it goes horribly wrong. In a nutshell, the verdict about the movie is “Some love stories are best left alone”.