Friday, 30 November 2012

BARFI! (2012)


Barfi-the cinema of toy trains and paper planes, of love and magic, of big laughs and quiet tears, of bells and accordions. The cinema of bright lights and bright lives, burning for an instant before burning out. Barfi is one of those rare films-a tearjerker which earns its tears and its laughs honestly. No gimmicks, no deux ex machina suddenly solving all of life’s problems. The story grows out organically from the characters, how they would behave in the situations that they are put in. It gives us three characters and two love stories, all so likable that we are torn at the end, because not everyone can have their happy ending.

The story, which takes place in Darjeeling and Kolkata, is about a deaf-mute man called Barfi (Ranbir Kapoor) and the two women who come into his life-Shruti (Ileana Di Cruz), a soon-to-married woman who comes to Darjeeling for a vacation, and Jhilmil (Priyanka Chopra), the autistic grand-daughter of one of Darjeeling’s richest men. Barfi was born to a driver of Jhilmil’s family, and his mother passed away soon after his birth after getting electrocuted by a Murphy radio. His father names him Murphy. But he can’t pronounce Murphy. When he says his name, it comes out Barfi, and everyone knows him as that. This Barfi, despite being deaf and mute, is the most colourful character in all of Darjeeling and is the talk of the town. Flamboyant, irreverent, mischievous, with the heart of a romantic and guts to match, he is a charmer, and it takes him less than ten minutes to lodge a place firmly in our heart.

He is smitten by Shruti the first time he sees her, and makes an elaborate show of giving her his heart. She shows him her engagement ring. He turns back a huge clock-tower back by a few minutes, asks her to forget what he said, and asks to be her friend. All this is done so beautifully, with so little dialogue and with such a sly, delightful humor that you are bound to be hooked. Their love story is sketched so beautifully in a few set-pieces and a song or two that it recalls THE ARTIST. Indeed, the film is much indebted to silent cinema for much of its thematic material and Chaplin-esque humor, turning the disadvantage of having a mute hero on its head and making a beautiful thing out of it. Another woman in Barfi’s life is Jhilmil. They play with the sunlight reflecting off shards of glass. They practice spitting out watermelon seeds as far as they can. She doesn’t speak much, and he can’t hear anyway. Their love story is one of small pleasures, of little moments combined majestically into a whole.

Regarding the craft of the film, I cannot but begin with the phenomenon that is Ranbir Kapoor. Here is the future of Bollywood, with the past of Bollywood firmly ingrained in his veins. I know of no other actor of his generation who could have portrayed Barfi with such a light touch, without making him a caricature, sketching the joy, the happy-go-luckiness, the innocence, the pain, the loneliness, the desperation of the character so well, with no dialogue at all. Look how he rages against Shruti when he realizes she will not marry him. He can’t say a word, but he doesn’t need to. We see his pain in his red eyes, his shock at her betrayal portrayed brilliantly by a rapid series of hand gestures, which you will understand despite not knowing any sign language. His frustration is palpable.

Priyanka submerges herself completely into the character, adopting Jhilmil’s mannerisms like a second skin. In a time when the most popular actors of the Hindi film industry play outrageously oversized versions of themselves in every single film, and rake in the moolah, it is heartwarming to see this woman constantly challenging the limits of her abilities and her range. Look at how she tries to dress like Shruti, in her attempt to impress Barfi, and how she portrays her embarrassment when Barfi discovers her doing this. Magnificent. Ileana, in the presence of these two extraordinary performances, is hopelessly outplayed. She looks like a million bucks, both as Anglicized young woman and as Bengali bou, and has a versatile range of expressions. However, her dialogue delivery and diction still leave a little to be desired.

On to the visuals-beautiful, striking, unique. Anurag Basu had a certain visual aesthetic in mind, certain motifs and certain thematic consistencies throughout the film, such as the bright light of the sun coming in short bursts through the windows of a moving train, or the accordion players who are there for every plot point, or the bright, sparkly visual opulence of the jhau-naach (that is what I think it is called, I am not certain). All this helps to create the sense of semi-realism, of a sort of retro dreamland which is apt for the mood of the film. Also, it is obvious why Darjeeling and Kolkata were the choices for the film’s setting, because these places have a sort of timeless elegance, and since the film mostly takes place between 1972 and 1976, an old, magical, romantic locale was necessary, and there could not have been a better choice. The music, if bad, could have ruined the film, since the film has so little dialogue for such long durations. But thankfully, Pritam is surprisingly good, abandoning his usual generic pop-rock hooks for an earthier, classic sound full of accordions and violins, perfectly complementing the moods of the film.

The film is an excellent choice for the Oscars. I have nothing but respect for the sly intelligence of the nomination board. So much of the film is devoid of dialogue that the Academy voters won’t even have to refer to the subtitles much. The film is homage to classical Hollywood romance and silent films, and as last year evidenced, the Academy is in the mood for nostalgia. Ronnie Screwvala at UTV is a master lobbyist and will leave no stone unturned in creating a buzz around the film. GANGS OF WASSEYPUR, although a masterpiece of Indian cinema, is 5 hours long and much of the dialogue will be wasted during translation, no matter how good the subtitling. KAHAANI is a generic twisty thriller, with metaphors best understood by Indians, and in particular, Bengalis. PAAN SINGH TOMAR, I have not yet seen, but a biopic of an Indian runner is hardly what the Academy looks for in a foreign film, which is supposed to be some deep meditation on life, mortality, love and the messiness of human life (I’m just referencing recent deep, and there’s a bittersweet elegance pervading the film, which may turn out to its benefit.

Of course, it isn’t perfect, and the mystery at the heart of the film, which takes up sizable screen time, and is supposed to be the glue binding the whole fabric of the film together, is remarkably asinine and clichéd. The film would have benefited if the screenplay had further abandoned the concept of a plot, and had been a string of episodes strung together, a lovely song of the open road. Also, the film is too long. It should have been about twenty minutes shorter, and some of the needless slapstick scenes could have been clipped.

Despite its few flaws, the film is a heartbreaking, heartwarming rollercoaster of a film, and deserves all the praise it gets and then some. Highly recommended.
8.0/10.

No comments:

Post a Comment