Highway- Your take on the relationship between the main characters? - Page 2

it was platonic, they both found comfort in each others company ,their relationship was so pure and spiritual that you dont feel for one second that how could a rich girl enjoy company of her own kidnapper

Originally posted by: Star_girl

Also, can I say this again, Veera resoundingly claims that she DOES NOT have plans for marriage or relationship, but right after said claim, she says, almost subdued, she has no plans at all. And that, in a sentence, is the essence of their whole story.

"Shaadi ka plan nahi hain.. bachcho ka bhi plan nahi hain.."- she pauses, and this silence is significant- "Koi plan hi nahi hain.."

Went back to the scene described, and tried to again analyse it- I gave it loads of importance the first time I saw the movie, probably because I thought it was an important indication of the director's thought process.

I wonder that silence and the added statement was made to remind him that she wasn't rejecting him outright, but it was simply that the thought hadn't occurred to her before. If she left it at "Shaadi ka plan nahi hain.. bachcho ka bhi plan nahi hain..", it would probably have been seen a direct rejection of his earlier question as to what she planned to do (sarcastic as the original might have been!)

Picked up another scene that I thought looked important. When they're in the mountains with the goat colony, and the tribal woman out there braids her hair, and the look she gives him then.

At 1:53 of this song- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LijcpDrSNVI#aid=P8SGrxZZkeg

Can't embed a gif for some reason , but here's a direct link

gfycat.com/Cluttered Dark Funnel weaverspider (Remove the spaces between cluttered and dark and so on)

Good, I am so very glad to see that so many people cannot get Highway out of their head. 😆

It was the pain & misery that connected those two broken souls.
Labeling it with "romantic" or "platonic" will take away that profoundness, subtle unique beauty & depth with hints of Sufism (in context with soul searching) from it. Some things should best remained un-named.
They can be called "soul-mates" but under altogether a different vision of the bruised souls that connected them, not that run-of-the-mill word soul-mates that we all are familiar with.

Imtiaz has done some brilliant piece of casting with this film (actually he has corrected all his previous directorial mistakes by making a film like Highway!)...if it would have been anyone apart from a non-mainstream actor like Randeep and a newbie like Alia, the film would have come across as a clear-cut love story...a man-woman love story.

Originally posted by: poppy2009

PS: One scene where it was very clear that Mahabir and Veera are a couple was the one where she comes looking for him at the Chandigarh Bus-stand after he leaves her with the Police guys. The relief in her eyes (Alia was magnificient in that scene) and Mahabir's smile...that of acknowledgement and acceptance was very telling. The following scenes of them in the Bus just solidified the fact that Immy had portrayed them as a couple in the film.

Word- that scene, along with the very last one (young MB and Veera) are my favourites from the film.

So far, only one vote for double attraction, I wonder who it was 😊

I saw the movie online (I need to get a life and get over this film already!😆) and noticed something that I had missed or not remembered the first two times I saw it. Veera screaming out Mahabir's name towards the end of the film and breaking down in tears. If that wasn't a solid indication of the fact that she was in love with him, then I don't know what else is!

Originally posted by: poppy2009

I saw the movie online (I need to get a life and get over this film already!😆) and noticed something that I had missed or not remembered the first two times I saw it. Veera screaming out Mahabir's name towards the end of the film and breaking down in tears. If that wasn't a solid indication of the fact that she was in love with him, then I don't know what else is!

Even in the final reel of the film, Veera is shown as an independent woman, living happily in the mountains...yet the film ends with her vision of seeing herself and Mahabir as children again...together, not seperately.

So Imtiaz ended the film with the message that even though she has moved on with her life in every way possible, he still remains a big part of her life. You don't feel so strongly for someone with whom you had just shared a platonic relationship with, right?

There's a very good copy of the movie ( in 3 parts) online at Dailymotion that came in just a day or so after the film had been released. A tad surprised that the copyright folks haven't got to it already 😆 It's helped me a lot with my post-cinema analysis 😊

I agree with most of your points in the thread Poppy, but I'm not quite sure those scenes would point to love. Again this tends to be subjective, but they didn't give me the same feeling as say, the bus stand wala scene. If I had to debate it, I'd probably justify the scream as genuine regret and sadness for the way the man met his end, and the last reel as the scene of a dreamer (the smile at the end, living her sapna of being carefree in the mountains with a person who adored them as much as she did, the gaze up at the sky...)

The open hints were more from Veera's end. Given Mahabeer's characterisation as a brooding truck driver, I suppose we couldn't expect too many direct hints from him.

I sometimes wonder whether Imtiaz could toy with the idea of a sequel (based on the premise that MB didn't actually die, and the doctor and the policemen lied) and how they'd have managed together as a couple. Would be good as a short film, but there probably won't be enough meat for it to be a full fledged film. To add drama in the sequel would probably make it cliched and that would be disappointing for such a unique story.