Road, movie (2009): Visually Striking, Real ‘Cinema Paradiso’
Director: Dev Benegal
Cast: Abhay Deol, Satish Kaushik, Tannistha Chaterjee
Vishnu ( Abhay Deol ) a selfish, arrogant, urbane youth has no interest in his dad’s oil business. He grabs the opportunity to deliver a 1942 Chevy truck which was an old touring cinema with two Victoria projectors to Samudrabad, a seaside township. Along his journey Vishnu comes across a runway boy (Mohammed Faizal) who wants to leave his menial job and move somewhere else, a mechanic (Satish Kaushik) who wants to go to an elusive fair, a gypsy woman (Tannistha Chatterjee) looking for water in dry desert singing in a melancholy tone, an unscrupulous lust driven cop, a group of gypsy woman moving from place to place in search of water and a group of bandits who flourish by business of water in the barren land. On the course of their journey they show films to cops, people in a fair and to a group of nomads in unusual predicaments and sometimes their existence depended upon the quality of cinema they exhibited. As the journey ends Vishnu finds his own truth about life and moves on.
As the title reinstates, the film is about the road trip and how it changes lives of the characters involved. The movie, with languid pace of narration is metaphorical, where water and desert are very significant motifs. The conundrums of inter woven characters lost in their own realm are realistically unreal. The cinematography is top notch with every color adding flavor to story. Acting wise Satish Kaushik has produced a performance of his lifetime with Abhay Deol and Ms Chatterjee doing equally good. Director Benegal’s excellent job with screenplay is laudable too. The mellifluous music by Michael Brook( The music director of Into the Wild) is bound to remind you of Gustavo Santaolalla’s Babel.
Overall the film is amalgamation of astute directional quality, brilliant cinematography and good acting and going to haunt viewers for years to come.
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