05th Mar 2007 17.05 IST
By ApunKaChoice
Ram Gopal Varma's film 'Nishabd' has got diverse reactions from critics. While some have called it Ramu's best work till date, others have panned the movie outright.
Just when the naysayers were claiming that the best of Ram Gopal Varma is well past him, the filmmaker has returned with his movie 'Nishabd'. Given its unconventional theme, the movie, expectedly, has got a very poor box-office opening. But box-office is not a yardstick to judge a film's quality. It only gauges its popularity with masses.
Critics, whose job it is to dissect and evaluate, are apparently divided over 'Nishabd'. Noted film critic Subhash K Jha has given the film four stars out of five.
In Jha's own words, the film "leaves you speechless".
"The luminous language of 'Nishabd' makes you grope for new words to describe the experience of watching a film that unfolds like the petals of a wild but tender flower…Nishabd elevates the traditional language of cinema to the plane of unrhymed poetry."
Our own AKC critic has given the film four stars out of five. (You can check the movie review at Nishabd .)
On the other hand, trade analyst and critic Taran Adarsh has given the film just two stars. Adarsh found the movie too slow in the second half.
"The penultimate reels are a downer. The man cannot erase Jiah from his memory and the film ends on this note. Besides being a bold ending, it comes across as too abrupt," writes Adarsh.
Another critic Rajiv Masand more or less agrees with Adarsh. Masand, too, found the movie slow in parts but he says the slow pace adds to the feeling of loneliness, which the film is about. He gives the film 3 stars.
"A compromise ending to a bold, brave story. For the most part, Nishabd is watchable because it's held together by a truly awe-inspiring performance by Amitabh Bachchan," writes Masand.
Film critic Nikhat Kazmi believes that Nishabd 'might' have "ended up as landmark cinema if Ramu had dared to break the mould a bit more and not been wary of the moral police."
On the other hand, rediff.com critic Raja Sen found 'Nishabd' "a powerful film".
"Overall, Nishabd is a powerful film -- more than you might initially think. It humanises a strong, scandalous subject and succeeds in making it alarmingly commonplace, extremely possible," writes Sen.
In a television interview, Amitabh Bachchan himself has said that he was surprised to see that Ramu has made "such a sensitive film".
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