I went for the 21:40 show yesterday and was a bit taken aback to see only the last row of the hall filled-up (on a Sunday night in Delhi). Sometime into the second half, the "Aha" moment occurred. Delhi 6 is not a feature film. It is a pantomime with some dialogues. The director has chosen to weave a story around deep characterisation supported by some mesmerizing music peppered with a few dialogues. One doesn't need a second guess to see the effect of this technique on the Indian audience. After being treated to seminal works like "Singh is Kin(n)g" and "Welcome", which require you to leave your brain at the popcorn counter, the average Indian audience just couldn't bear the "cognitive load" the movie placed on him.
The movie was exceptionally metaphorical. Be it the loose brick in the wall that estranged the brothers which the ladies of the house used for gossip or the clever twinning of Ramlila with the original story, right until climax where the mask of the "kala bandhar" burns with the effigy of the ten-headed Ravana, or the flight of the dove, Masakali to signify the ephemeral nature of human emotions, the director screamed at the audience to "look into" his movie, not just gloss over it. (It's another matter that the audience responded to him with the thundering silence of empty halls). He has displayed exception craft in handling his characters and their nuances. Each character has a part to play. No one hangs in loosely. (Let's give the Hero's performance a miss here, shall we?).
I especially liked the visualisation of the song "Dil mera...". It delicately and neatly captured the incoherence of dreams. It was a near-perfect anatomy of a dream - a motley mix of people, places and things one likes and wants; chaotic; all in one place, at once. I was awed by its quintessential realism. Frankly, I dream like that. I don't dream of Swiss Alps and Caribbean beaches filled with bikini-clad women dancing in lockstep to my two left feet.
On the whole, I liked the movie for the sheer respect the director gave his audience by treating them as thinking beings than hedonistic mortals. You do not have to be a connoisseur to love this piece. Just have your feet on the ground, eyes and ears wide open. Oh! Don't forget your brain at the counter, though. You'll need it.
2 comments:
you are about the only person to have liked the movie - but seemed like you enjoyed it. Was it the lack of hindi dialogs that made it easier ? ;)
Guru did put it aptly, you seem like the only person who enjoyed the movie. Despite his treatment of the movie which i agree with you on...I couldn't stand the storyline.
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