The problem with rating a movie is that the higher you go up the ladder of excellence, more the accessibility of the movie (and thereby its rating) starts to move from ’basic hygiene’ to a host of ’extraneous factors’ beyond the control of the movie maker. Its very similar to eating food. You might prefer Amul over Rollick with a decisive degree of surety. But when you get inside of a parlor, one moment you might prefer the strawberry and yet the very next it might be chocolate. Its the same with Music too. Which brings me to the movie under discussion - ’the Good Road" ! The ’basic hygiene’ is very much in place so ’whether you’d prefer it over the Lunchbox’ may purely be a matter of whats your mood like or even what time of day it is !
So what’s the story about ? Well I don’t really know. Maybe its about David (played by Ajay Ghei) and his family’s ’journey to hell and back" wherein the 3 take to the Road, accidentally split to 3 different routes and unite once again at the end after a ’harrowing’ time ! Maybe its about Pappu, the truck driver, who along with Shaukat, his ’understudy’ embarks on that ’unendingly numbing’ routine of running his truck and dodging coppers to earn his bread; looking out for a new lease of Life all the while. Or even the lost lad who by the admission of his father "grows up" just by spending a day on the Road - metamorphosing from the lost boy who when asked to search for his dad in a crowded ’line hotel’ coolly replies "Maaro Dad handsome che aane Mom beautiful che" !
Who’s the protagonist ? I’m afraid I’m not sure of that either. Hailing from the great Indian ’Muddle’ class, I might say its David. And yet the movie begins with Pappu (Shamji Kerasia), revolves around him and ends with him too !! He seems to me to be the flag bearer of all that Gyan Arora’s film stands for - ’Simplicity & Optimism’. The ’choice of protagonist’, as it were, is substantial since in many ways it determines how much the viewer appreciates the theme the movie maker seeks to convey.
What I am sure of is that the entire ’ensemble’ has put in great performances especially Mr Shamji and the two kids. Also, whether its Pappu squatting on a milestone to smoke a bidi or roadside dhaba owners trying to push substandard products or drivers/chaiwallahs giving that trademark ’deaf and dumb deadpan’ expression when being questioned by David/constable, a lot of ’homework’ has gone into the niceties too.
The Good Road portrays a very positive and optimistic India where truck drivers assume responsibility of lost kids, where the Police assiduously assist the common man in finding his lost kid and where pimps try to dissuade little girls from joining the ’oldest’ profession in the world. In some ways this is the only area where I couldn’t really identify with the movie - its overwhelming optimism. Also, bear in mind that the movie is in Gujarati which may well be as good as a foreign language to many of us. And if you are able to sit patiently for one and a half hour only on the video and subtitles, this is usually a fairly reliable indicator of how good a movie is.
I suppose the Oscar nomination overshadows the intrinsic appeal of the film since inevitably a lot of effort is now being wasted to justify/attack the choice. While I feel there is very little to choose between the two movies, I’d probably go with the jury here since (1) this is a low budget movie compared to Lunchbox and sans big names; therefore deserves more credit ’quality per paisa spent’ wise (2) this is more a story of the ’infinite’ lower class than anyone else (that largest chunk of Indian population nobody makes movies on; Nattha kya gaya gaonwaale to lut hi gaye :-P) and finally (3) this might encourage aspiring "small budget" moviemakers to give us more movies for "masses".
I hope this is a sign of things to come. Kahan gaya mera Kamera ? :-P