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Dance Like A Man
Cast: Shobhana, Arif Zakaria
Direction: Pamela Rooks
Rating:
***Glum. He's a rum bum, downing Anaconda-sized pegs to get over the blues. Occasionally, his wife downs a stiffy, too, in a jiffy. Trained Bharata Natyam dancers both, there was a time when they aspired to superstardom, only to hit skid row.
Pamela Rooks' Dance Like a Man, adapted from the stage-play by Mahesh Dattani, may be bleak and pessimistic. Redeemingly, it's also perceptive and poignant. It has a lifelike story to tell, a potent comment to make on gender prejudices, besides firing salvos at the charlatans presiding over various culture-vulture committees.
The ageing losers (Shobhana-Arif Zakaria), forgotten by the Bangalore elite, live in a decaying ancestral mansion, travel in an antique Benz, bicker and flicker like candles in the wind.
Right now, they're trying to locate a mridangam player for the arangetram of their daughter (Anoushka Shanker). The Karnataka Chief Minister is expected to show up. Maybe.
The romantic blarney between the daughter and her yuppie fiance (Sameer Soni) does grate on your nerves. On the other hand, whenever Sunny Joseph's camera rests on the older couple, this English-language chamber piece pulls you by the collar into a real world that's recreated evocatively.
A brocade shawl, chintzy bric-a-brac and a thin scrapbook of newspaper cuttings are the only reminders of the glory that could have been.
The wrap-up, exposing a deep and dark family secret, even if it's somewhat on the lines of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, does move you deeply. And that is Rooks' prime strength. Despite the preponderance of confusing flashbacks, she still cajoles you into caring for her characters teetering on the verge of tragedy.
Plus, the classical dance interludes are presented aesthetically.
Doubtlessly, Shobhana is excellent, conveying the various nuances – from self-pity to self-pride – with amazing accuracy. Arif Zakaria, as her loser husband, is terrific. The other performances are, well, nothing to waltz about.
This dance-a-thon is a class act, recommended strongly for the discriminating viewer.
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'Dance like A Man is not a usual film'
By: Meghana Kurup
October 9, 2004
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Cricket
