Soul Stirring Cinema Not Many Remember

Have you watched Stanley Ka Dabba? Weren’t you moved by the endearing capacity of that kid to endure his sorrows? How about Oye Lucky Lucky Oye, Lucky’s suave demeanor and his glibness qualify him as the sexiest con man Bollywood has ever seen, right? While watching Do Dooni Chaar, didn’t you jump off your seat exclaiming that is how you fidget with your father over the music in the car?

We all watch movies for recreation but sometimes the stories that unfold on the 25mm screen are so enchanting that they stay with us for a very long time. They make us introspect, ponder on the complexities of life and appreciate the beauty of the smallest of things. Today I am going to write about five such movies that touched my heart and remain an all time favorite.

Mumbai Meri Jaan

Mumbai Meri Jaan poignantly captures the aftermath of a bomb explosion and how each one of the characters redeem their lives eventually. In a single blast we all stand to lose not only lives but the will to live as well, it induces fear amongst us, evokes cynicism towards people of a different creed and manifests loathe for the police for having failed in their job. The beauty of this movie lies in its earthiness, the natural mannerisms of the characters. Someone does not want to travel in the local trains, someone does not want to work with a Muslim fellow, someone’s loss brings forth the realization that they have been a voyeur for others’ grief and someone is simply trying to face themselves in the mirror. The movie ends with Rafi’s song ‘Yeh hai Bambai meri Jaan’ the fitting conclusion being that it indeed is an uphill task to live a metropolitan life.

Mr and Mrs Iyer

We have all heard tales of communal violence pitting people against each other however this movie brings to us the story of two different individuals who are drawn to each other in the wake of a communal riot. On her way to Kolkata with her toddler son, Meenakshi Iyer is acquainted to Raja a friend’s friend and her chaperone for the long journey. The bus driver takes another route and consequently the bus is halted because of a curfew in the light of outbreak of communal violence in that area. Raja reveals to Meenakshi that he is a Muslim which leaves a conservative Tamil Brahmin Meenakshi shell shocked. She conceals his identity by naming him as her husband to a Hindu mob and he guards her at every unfateful turn of their journey. The woman who once regretted drinking the water he had offered her, experiences a heartache on his departure at the end of their journey.

Paan Singh Tomar

Not every runner ends up being as celebrated as Milkha Singh. This biopic introduces us to the life of a man who traverses the journey from being an exceptional athlete to a bandit. Every character that he assumes during his life is purely to satisfy the smallest of wants in a life of bereavement. To break free of penury and despondency, he joins army, to quell a humongous appetite while being in army he participates in military sports so as to secure himself unrationed food and finally to avenge the violence inflicted on his family owing to a land dispute he becomes a rebel. Irrfan Khan adopts the the character and the rustic language brilliantly and it is hard to take your eyes off him.

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro

Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron is a classic which is entirely forgotten. In this black comedy two photographers accept an assignment from a sensationalist journalist to secretly shoot a corrupt builder. What seemed to them their golden ticket to fame embroiled them in a series of unfortunate events finally unfolding into a side splitting climax of the dramatization of Mahabharata. Two men embarked a journey to make every wrong right end up being wronged at the hands of unethical elitists yet they uphold the undeterred spirit of the common man as the movie ends with both of them humming ‘Hum honge kamyaab’ (We shall overcome).

Lunchbox

Lunchbox is the story of two secluded souls who are brought together by an exchange of letters in a tiffin box. A housewife attempts to revive her husband’s feigning interest in their marriage by cooking him a delectable meal for his lunch box. However the Harvard accredited Dabbawalas commit a folly and deliver the lunchbox to a widowed accountant instead. The arrival of the estranged husband in the evening brings forth the realization that her hope ridden lunchbox has reached the wrong hands. The next morning she sends a letter within the lunchbox thus sowing the seeds of a companionship which finds her an ally to share her dreams with and to the man an opportunity to redeem his words and heart back. Imagine, letter a primitive form of communication originates a captivating relation between two strangers, a relation  which is even deeper and meaningful than the one brought to life by marriage.

This post is a part of the Miss Lovely Activity in association with BlogAdda.

Miss Lovely, an off-beat film directed by Ashim Ahluwalia is set in the lower depths of Bombay’s “C” grade film industry. It follows the devastating story of two brothers who produce sex horror films in the mid – 1980s. A sordid tale of betrayal and doomed love, the film dives into the lower depths of the Bollywood underground, an audacious cinema with baroque cinemascope compositions, lurid art direction, wild background soundtracks, and gut-wrenching melodrama. Miss Lovely is scheduled for commercial release on 17 January 2014.