Okay so finally I know from where to start discussing the film. Long post ahead. And I'm going to use a lot of 'love' and 'beautiful' in the discussion below so it might look repeatative.😆
The first thing I loved about this movie is the setting. Very smartly thought by Motwane, by making the story based in Bengal, he used the zamindari system and the old world charm to the fullest. I think the art and the production designer have done a fabulous job in the movie. Whatever you see in the movie is actually how Bengal is even during the olden days, not how its portrayed by Sanjay Bhansali in Devdas. The old haveli had beautiful indoors and once again, pat on the back of the art director because it was all recreated in Mumbai. From the start, Motwane establishes how rich pakhi's father is by showing us a glipmse of the whole house during the scene where Pakhi's dad takes Pakhi to her room and calls a doctor. Its a very simple but smart technique of showing the background of the zamindars without showing much of the costly furniture or jewellery right at the beginning of the movie.
Then again, during the puja, he shows Pakhi coughing. Once again he establishes the fact that she is already sick. Nothing happens suddenly, we all know from the beginning that pakhi does have an illness. Then Motwane shows the next few scenes with sheer beauty- the conversation between Pakhi and her father, the story of the Raja and the parrot and how Pakhi is her dad's parrot...and the scene crops up once again later towards the end of the film, where Pakhi tells how the tree is her parrot. I found that small scene very heart touching and beautiful.
There were these small scenes which weren't that important to the main story but gave us an insight about the attitude of the zamindars back then, like how the zamindar was ignorant about the law that his friend kept on warning him about, the way he shouted back to the people from the treasury that he is a zamindar and no one can take his belongings, the way he invited only Varun to share a drink and not Devdas since for him Varun was the main architect, the scene showed how zamindars would still maintain distance and not mingle with everybody. Even when the light bulb is damaged, the way the electrician explains him the working of the bulb, shows that even if the zamindar was educated, he was ignorant about such small things.
Next comes one important aspect of the film that really surprised me a lot, the characterization of Pakhi. She is a girl from the 1950's, educated from Shantiniketan but having a modern approach to life. She inspite of being from that period of time where women were very homely and traditional, you see Pakhi as a restless and outspoken girl , quietly learning how to drive, very smartly putting the blame on her driver ( This once again showed the divide between the rich and the poor and the condescending attitude of the rich back then). But again, inspite of being so smart and outspoken, she was innocent and naive at the same time. The scenes where Pakhi innocently asks her father why will the Government confiscate the property like a small child or th scene where Pakhi smartly tries to show how bold she is by lighting the cigarette and then suffering showed how naive she was. And I really liked how they properly used the song 'Kemon Boka Monta Re' at that point of time. I also liked how Motwane showed the lifestyle of Pakhi in the movie.
I am used to seeing such characters in many of Rabindranath Tagore's novels where the female lead is educated yet lives a boring life. Same was the case with Pakhi. She was educated and wanted to become a writer. At a time when women where married off at a young age, there was Pakhi who wanted to express her thoughts through words, restless about small things like a bulb, where she kept on playing with the switch lighting the bulb on and off (I loved that scene) and not having any apprehensions about going to a stranger's room and expressing her feelings for him. And that too for a time period like 1953. Another thing which i felt was that her name was an ironical one. She wanted to be a writer, in the sense she really wanted to fly as a Pakhi and follow her dreams but her wings were chopped off quite early due to her illness and yet, she tried writing whatever she could even when her illness became a serious issue in Dalhousie.
Then comes the whole painting part. By now I saw this style of Motwane where he establishes a particular thing in the story right from the begining, like how he establishes the zamindars to be righ, Pakhi to have been suffering from an illness, in the same way he also establishes the setting of O Henry's The Last Leaf by showing Varun drawing leaves of the tree on the canvas. The way he draws the leaves and Pakhi laughs seeing that, becomes useful during the climax of the film where Pakhi recognizes who had stuck the last leaf on the tree by the way it has been drawn. I loved how Motwane added some of his own thoughts to O Henry's story. Another thing which i realized during the end of the movie, Pakhi had promised Varun that she would teach him how to paint, but yet in the last scene Varun makes the leaf the same way he made it during the first day. It showed how Pakhi took painting as an opportunity to spend some time with varun because Varun really didn't learn much from the painting sessions. This just showed how much Pakhi was in love with Varun and wanted to spend a lot of time with him.
I loved Vikran't portrayal of Devdas a lot. I had watched one of his TV shows earlier called Dharam Veer and found him to be really good. So it was refreshing to watch him again, but this time on the big screen who added a bit of fun to the story. I really wished to see more of him in the film. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE the scenes where they show the visuals with the radio playing Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui. The way first devdas plays the song on radio and then Pakhi goes to her room and plays the same song...and the whole haveli is filled with the music of the song and that line 'Apne pe bharosa hai toh yeh daav laga le' perfectly sets up the upcoming sequences where he plans to loot the Zamindar. Brilliantly executed!
That's all for now. I have a lot more to say but for that I have to think a lot again😆 so maybe tomorrow I'll continue with the post.
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