movie review

finally went and saw “maine gandhi ko nahin mara“. the name itself had made me think this wasnt gonna be a 14 songs-dancing-while-hugging-trees kinda movie but  seeing it made me feel that crossover movies still had a way to go. not in comparison to movies made in US or UK but in being able to exploit their innate potential fully.

like this movie for example just brought to peoples’ notice( yet again) how intense an actor anupam kher is.after all the roles he’s done for comic relief. btw,he’s anupam p.kher now…surely he attributes winning the best actor to this move in  the name change,eh wot?

but the rest of the cast was pretty loosely structured. we have all these people acting in movies who really make it look like acting and nothing more. for eg the guy who’s playing urmila’s fiance in the movie was almost reading the directions and dialogues off the script-misaal ke taur pe: i’m supposed to be uncomfy right now so i have to look down and fidget! yeah right.

but the basic concept of a person suffering from dementia and the family being at a total loss and often at loggerheads to figure out what to do with him and ,yet not have to put their own lives on a hold was brought out quite effectively. it seems that the director jahnu barua’s been around for quite some time but it took him a while to come into the notice of “those who matter” because he wasnt making mainstream stuff-ergo obscurity. and it took felicitation from his own community members to bring the movie into some amount of prominence. this movie had come and gone at the theater and people saw it wasnt a kalyug and moved on but today when the assamese community turned out almost en masse to celebrate one of their own becoming famous globally, the others stopped for a look-see and stayed on till the end and maybe even went home with something gleamed from a movie for a change. it wasnt just a time pass as usual.

honestly though, the movie’s not a cinematographic winner. neither is the acting or the direction going to make a difference in your life. but that’s not what it was intended for. it meant to get a message across and in some or the other form it did. kudos for that alone. when was the last time a home delivery or a bunty aur bubbly did the same?