In a cinematic universe filled with cartoonish action films, formulaic rom-coms and trade analyst sequels – Anand Gandhi’s noteworthy debut feature titled “Ship Of Thesues” is an immensely engaging cinematic poem that challenges your mind, your faith and your intellect.
Its sometimes glorious and deeply moving, other times pretentious and a little bit obvious that it falls just short of achieving true greatness, doesn’t stifle it from becoming one of the most intriguing independent films to have come out of India in the last decade or so.
The first five minutes into this movie and you know exactly what sort of a movie you’re dealing with.
Here’s the kind of film which takes the path of a completely offbeat, parallel approach to film-making, whilst giving us more and more fruitful moral principles, abstract ideas and preachy philosophy to be chewed up on in the process, which is intentionally put there to elevate the screenplay by at-least a couple of notches above that of an artsy special interest film.
And you can count me on that fact – that this ain’t merely an artsy/overtly preachy special interest film! Neither this a seminal masterpiece, a term which most of the audience used to describe it when it hit the theaters some 6 months back.
It lies somewhere in between truly great spiritual enlightenment and in-your-face philosophical preach that fails just a little bit on the story telling front if not for anything else.
This is the kind of film which audiences, most of them, shy away from more often, thinking that it would be too inaccessible a dialogue for them to indulge in 9 times out of 10 as opposed to all the other commercial films lying there in the open.
So is Gandhi’s “Ship” voyage inaccessible.? No. I mean Yes and No. I have a few reservations on this film which I’ll tread carefully along with the review. But for starters this movie do merit a heightened discussion on an automatic pilot for the nobility aspect of its screenplay it entertains stimulatory provocation all the way through. Plenty of ‘em infact.
The main theme which cusps this film tightly to its rudiments - is an identity crisis - “That if all aging parts of an object gets replaced by newer parts, will it then be fundamentally the same object as it was to begin with.?” - the good ol’ medieval Ship of Thesues paradox, told in the form of three different individual chapters stemming from different hemisphere’s in the society, which culminates to form the shape of an intellectual, the so-called emotional wallop of a climax.
The chapters that of a blind photographer, an ailing monk and a young stock broker who encounters a deeply moving paradigm shift, tries to draw allusions with the original Thesues’s Ship paradox i.e., by throwing up an analogy that if one part of the human organ replaces the other part, will it then reproduce the original individual with the same characteristics implanted/embedded.?
Gandhi skillfully uses long pauses, minimalism, mannerisms and prodigious silences in between in the first chapter of the movie whilst rendering a fascinatingly engulfing psychological tale featuring a blind photographer at the helm of things and routinely following her mundane lives closely, simultaneously complimented by an array of transcendent picturesque visuals and metaphors carved out splendidly by the cinematographer Pankaj Kumar.
Cinematography kind of camouflages the inherent weakness of this sumptuously rendered film.
The film falls into a more or less obvious format in the second chapter which is where my main problem with this film starts to creep in. What we see is a heightened conversation ensuing between that of a monk and his trusted consigliore advocate and the more the conversation plays itself, the more I get acquainted with the psychological underpinnings, the more I get the feeling of familiarity weighing the narrative down by the scuffle one way or the other.
Cusped gradually out of the story, we see an ailing monk and his advocate discuss the meaning and purpose of life with one another, throwing light to the downright principle of Dharma/Righteousness, as to whether or not such a phenomenon should or should not be followed or exists or pretends to exist in the cosmic universe.
The monk have filed a petition against animal protections act in the country and somewhat to my surprise the narrative paved its way to the conversation part but not the court procedural part. The Disciple of deity abstains himself from the use of Homeopathic medicines which, as presumed by the monk, is tested prima facie on the animal’s body only.
That forms the basis for the Dharma paradox that whether or not it should be followed or not for a disciple of deity.
The conversation fluctuates itself in between a heightened inaccessibility and engaging enlightenment tumultuously for once giving us a hilarious one-Iiner - I’ll let that discover by yourself – in the process. But the main problem with that narrative stems from the fact that we’ve seen it somewhere before in some other movie and in entirely different circumstances. I’m not blaming plagiarism but I’m blaming Ventriloquism. (Remember the exchanges from Richard Linklaker’s “Waking Life?”)
I’ve seen that kind of a dialect in so many other films leading up to this film and even when its subtly preachy the actors makes it a solid enough chapter worthy of a revisit.
Then comes the stock brokers chapter, which I strongly believe is the weakest chapter of the lot. It’s a little bit disappointing that all these chapters makes analogy with the organ transplants only notwithstanding the holistic, umbrella theme cusped gradually out of the initial tit-bits.
Couple of problems with Ship Of Thesues lies in the fact that the allusions are connected with organ transplantation predominantly and more so that it leads up to a predictable, rather abrupt climax.
It’s wonderfully underplayed make no mistakes about it by the scriptwriter/director, but as I have acquainted myself with 100’s of short documentary films in India, I expected a rug pulling of a suspense to unravel out of the story but not an obvious, in-your-face revelation.
The storyteller took a meandering, easy on the eyes route to reach his rudiments; a slight quibble to Gandhi’s impressive debut i.e., “Ship Of Thesues” if not necessarily a vocal criticism.
Ship of Thesues requires immense patience from its viewers – there’s no two ways about it. But the more you commit to this movie, the more it reveals itself, it slowly yet stealthily grows on its viewers whilst ending up making a subtle yet powerful enough impact on its inhabitants / the audience en-route to that rather abruptly twisted final revelation which I was talking about.!
It’s amazing how a story like this could be conveyed without much dialogues especially in the beginning chapter that is also ably complimented by some astounding Kubricksque visual metaphor’s that are used time and again, the kind of metaphors which requires tons of acquaintanceship and knowledge with special interest breed of cinema and also requires ton load of patience from the viewers part as well.
May be that’s why it blows me when I come to know that this movie was directed by a debutante in the field who had previously directed some saas-bahu serials for heaven’s sake but not some Mythological serial! Really.? Saas-Bahu serials.?
Struggle and character-perplexity makes for great stories. But most struggle-based movies are conveyed through dialogues only, the kind of “Houston we’ve a problem” Hollywood dialogues which just easily explains a phenomenon albeit authentically.
What I found so amazing in Anand Gahdhi’s narrative, of all the other superlative technical things, is the manner in which he communicated even to a layman audience like me, the innermost perplexity that its pivotal character is bestowed with or chewed up with, without ever using an ounce of dialogue not even once in the entire opening prologue.
When it paved its way to the second and third chapter - things do tumult a little bit albeit subtly.
At a running time of 2 hours and 20 ode minutes this movie is slightly long than it seems like. If it’s worth the watch. then watch it for the theme, the performances, the direction and the astounding visual impetus provided by cinematographer Pankaj Kumar.
A solid debut to begin and one which increases my curiosity to watch Gandhi’s next ventures. I’ll judge his prowess with respect to how well he follows up this movie in the years to come.
Just a piece of advice. Be open-minded when you take time to see this film. It’s not your typical, mainstream, masala entertainer.
My rating? 4 out of 5. See it.:)