The Daily Travelogue

Someone I really like once said. "While describing life's journey, it should be almost impossible to seperate fact from fiction - the truth from the myth - the man from the legend'. I completely agree.

Friday, March 02, 2007

He is back! He is back!! (Movie Review: Nishabd )

'Some love stories are never meant to be understood'.

With a tagline like this, I really thought it was going to be a fairly arbit and experimental movie that will invariably achieve its high before the end and then simply drag on. After all RGV has not only enthralled us with some his work but also bored us to death and at times derived nefarious pleasure through some of his other works. That makes RGV movies like your next assignment at work. You never know what's going to hit you.

Nishabd is a movie you absolutely fall in love with the opening scene. The tall, defeated figure of Amitabh towering amidst some of the beautiful greenery in Munnar sets the tone for this love story that will weave you in its magic for the next 120 minutes.

The plot can be summarized in one sentence: Amitabh, aged 60, falls in love with his daughter's best friend, aged 18, who has come home for holidays.

But then if movies like Nishabd can be expressed in one line 'plots', then Shakespeare can be said to be nothing but just a permutation and combination of 26 alphabets. However, the fact is that the plot can be accurately summarized by the above one line. And that's the beauty of the movie. It’s like a beautiful photograph. You can describe a photograph by saying it captures the sunrise in snow capped Himalayan peaks. But the only way to do justice to it is to watch it yourself – and you realize there is no reason to judge it - - not because it cannot be, but because there is no need to. You know and it knows. It is beautiful and its just perfect.

Amitabh Bacchan (Vijay) delivers one his finest performances till date as the Old Lover to his daughter-aged Jiah Khan (Jiah). Only other actor who could have done justice to this role is Naseerudin Shah. But Amitabh Bacchan brings so much more than just acting the part here. You don't see him as Vijay but see him as Amitabh and it's much more engrossing that way. The dinner scene where Amitabh starts laughing and doesn't stop till the next day is one of the most hilarious scenes in Hindi movies. And its with almost no words. Nishabd :)

The other 2 central roles of - Revathi, who plays Amitabh's wife and his daughter, played by Shradha Arya are there to provide momentum to the story and they both do an excellent role. The transformation from best friend to Amitabh's daughter after knowing the affair has been portrayed with remarkable credibility and with the just right mix of anger and grief by Shradha Arya. Revathi demonstrates what she is capable of as the woman scorn and resigned to the fate of a loveless life ahead. Top drawer performances by both.

And lastly we come to Jiah Khan, who plays Jiah. She comes like the smell of wet earth after the first rains. Appearing nonchalant and casual, but thoroughly intense in her own way, she delivers a power packed performance as the Lolita. Jiah Khan not only matches Amitabh in all the scenes but at times even scores a millionth of a point over the Sexagenarian.

The only way I would have wanted to change the movie is to put 'Rozana' towards the end. It absolutely absolutely deserves its place there and would have provided a beautiful medium to connect with Amitabh's emotions. Why Why Why, oh dear Ramu, did you not put it there...!!!

The part after separation is too short but that was not the subject which RGV meant to deal with and has done well to keep it short.

With Nishabd, RGV again proves that either you love his movies or hate them. I find it picture perfect. Don’t miss it.

1 Comments:

At 2:12 PM, Blogger Unknown said...

you liked Nishabd? ALshough I don't have any problems with the story but the first half was too slow man.. main sote sote rah gaya
tum sahi main Guni ho bhai :-)

 

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