To me style is just the outside of content, and content the inside of style, like the outside and the inside of the human body -- both go together, they can’t be separated. - Jean-Luc Goddard.
Raincoat
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I was reminded of this quote as I was watching Rituparno Ghosh’s new movie Raincoat.
Rituparno Ghosh enters hindi film arena with a bang! and Raincoat is a lovely movie! and now you would all know why he is considered as heir to Satyajit Ray!
The story is of two separated lovers, Mannu (Ajay Devgan) and Niru (Aishwarya) meeting after 6 long years... and then its all for you to see, as the movie is a one-day stand in their lives, but which seems to tell about them and their whole life..
The game of lies, between Niru and Mannu which constitutes the most part of the movie engrosses us into it so much... that we also start puzzled about Niru’s existence with the same level of intensity as Mannu is thinking.. (the story always stays from Mannu’s point of view). Something seems to be absurd in what she is telling and what he is actually seeing.. and also very much clichéd (the empty, but luxurious life she is talking about, and a ever-flying husband, his Personal Assistant and so on..) But never do you exactly feel what it actually is, until it is revealed in the movie.
The dialogues are so good that it?s called ’’stagy’’! (alluding to the profundity of talks
in plays, which in India is considered more intellectual than cinema). Dialogues of such profound meaning are hard to find, that I was reminded of high quality talk-fests of yester-years like ’’Party’’ by Govind Nihalani..
Acknowledging Goddard’s above quote, Style seems to come so naturally and fluently along with the story in Raincoat.. Ghosh even plays with the audience at some moments of the movie.
For example, take the scene where Mannu is in his friend’s house and his friend is reading out a letter in which we hear a person requesting his friends for some monetary help for starting up his new business. and all we see is Mannu listening to him as he puts shaving cream on his face (an aside here is, I was wondering as to what I saw in the promos which said, devgan plays a ’loser’!).
After the friend reads out the letter, he just asks mannu ’’yeh, theek hai?’’.. and that?s all we had to know! Instead of knowing Mannu’s state through his words after he reaches his friend’s house, Ghosh chooses to show another moment explaining the same situation but in a far interesting way. This is what writing is all about. merging Style & Substance, unlike mindless Sanjay Gupta flicks, which ignorantly boasts of a slick look and style. As his friend hands out the plan to meet all his old friends in different regions of kokata, Mannu asks his friend about the address of his past lover.... and we see the intensity of the love not in ajay’s face, but in his friend’s. He is furious to know that he wanted to meet her.. And we come to know of Mannu’s another hidden objective in coming to kolkata...
Ajay Devgan shows all those nuances necessary for such a person who all thru his life has not succeeded in anything he wud have liked to. we all know about the ’’eye-thing’’ (brooding eyes, they say!) of Ajay and is way too evident and well-utilized in this movie portraying his anguish and pain...
Aishwarya Rai as the talkative Niru is excellent too! Niru tells Mannu once, ’’Main aisi
acting karoongi ki tere samajh mein nahin aayega ki main acting kar rahi hoon...’’. Niru succeeds in doing that.
The way she underplays her happy life with a trait of non-chalance and dismissiveness, that it seems so real that she does have a a very busy husband and is in fact inadvertently bored of this luxurious mushy-mushy life. As against, had she told Mannu that she is very very happy and excited, Mannu’s suspicion (along with the viewers) would have rose. This double-act performed by Ash is excellent!
Each character is beautifully portrayed by the director. Even Mannu’s friend, with such a small time of screen presence, comes out with strong characterization.
Annu Kapoor, as the Makaan Malik is great in the role of a crude person, owing his
crudeness to dealing with cheats.
And then there is this beautiful character of the friend’s wife, played by Mauli Ganguly...
She is empathetic towards Mannu, his persona and for all the depression in his life..
In fact, the exchanges between mannu and his ’’bhabhi’’ are the most thought-provoking and xlnt dialogues of the film.
Mannu: ’’shaadi ke din, ladkiyaan itne kyon rote hain?.. is liye ki, woh maa-baap ko chhod ke jaa rahe hain?’’
Bhabhi: ’’woh bahut roi thi kya?’’
Mannu: ’’mujhe pata nahin. main to wahan gaya bhi nahin tha. aap to aapki shaadi mein raasta bhar ro rahe the.. main sahi bol rahan hoon naa?’’
Bhabhi (after a pause): ’’agle baar jab bathroom pe ro rahen to, shower khula
rakhiyaega.. ladkiyon se bhi kuchh baat seekhni padti hai.’’..
she answers the question by a ’’tip’’ to him. [See Comment. only one comment ;)]
Even the second time when Mannu asks her about her ex-lover, she doesn’t give a direct answer. (she says: Ab tak unke pati aa gaye honge... aur aap ko lagta hai ki woh aap ke baare mein soch rahen honge?)
The 2 tips she gives to him, shows how she took her life after her love was lost, which Mannu duly acknowledges (’’aap bahut pratical hain!’’).
And the end is sublimely poignant and subtle that I was pondering over the characters for a long time, as to why they did this and that.. as to why the fate was in such a way that they might not meet again at all.. the way I used to rue over tragedies when I was a kid. Why did he have to write the letter and come back? Why could not he have told her?
By the time, bhabhi gives him a letter which she presumes he had forgotten in the pocket, I knew the end. (Ghosh himself told on rediff that the movie is based on an american short-story and he would not reveal its name. Then and there I zeroed in on the story... coz ’’gift of magi’’ was what that struck me immediately and that was my only guess (tht could be attributed to the limited number of short stories I read which I knew was a modern-american short-story. And yeah, O Henry is my favourite in short stories).. but I got so much engrossed into the movie that I forgot abt the interview until the last letter scene.
Needless to say, the raincoat is used as an important entity in the whole movie and also as a metaphor for hiding one’s inner feelings and carrying themselves well-off (esp. with loved ones), just as raincoat is used for potecting oneself from inevitable rain.
The soundtrack of the movie is a connosieur’s delight! the haunting voice of Shubha Mudgal will linger on one’s mind for long time.
The writing by Ghosh is one to be cherished and is a rare gem in recent times (original dialogues by Ghosh and translated to hindi). The way he blends humour in certain sequences in an otherwise grim story is classy. Watch out for the potshots Ghosh takes at hindi serials. Cinematography is also first-rate.
So, here is a movie with a simple, yet poignant story!!
Kudos to Rituparno Ghosh!
Go, Watch it!
That’s it for now.
Do add your comments! (and read my comment too.. only one!)
.. Rest of the Review Continued in Comments Section