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Director
: Khalid Mohamed
Music : Himesh Reshammiya
Lyrics : Sameer
Starring : Tabu, K.K.Menon,
Bhumika Chawla, Rahul Bose, Riya Sen, Jimmy
Shergil, Ashmit Patel, Divya Dutta, Natashha,
Karan |
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 It
would be the easiest thing to dismiss this enrapturing
ensemble - piece as just one more attempt by a film
critic to crossover to the other side.
It would also be the
most unjust and creatively destructive thing to be dismissive
of Khalid Mohamed's third feature film.
With SILSIILAY Khalid
has truly blossomed as a raconteur of ravishing devices.
SILSIILAY is an ambrosial outing into the hearts of
several extremely mercurial and beautiful women, all
trying to come to terms with the eccentric metabolic
activities of the body that we often describe as love.
An episodic excursion
into the heartland of human relationships, SILSIILAY
is an expertly assembled collage of contemporary and
tradition values all cemented by cinematic conventions
such as songs (Himesh Reshammiya belting out what sounds
like naughty homage to phillum music) and, yup, some
sweaty sweltering dances too.
But do not undermine
the director's strengths as a storyteller. The satirical
filming of the typical love duet between Rahul Bose
and Bhumika Chawla or the way he shows the fan-star
relationship displays the director's keen eye for humorous
details in day-to-day life.
In his earlier films
FIZA and TEHZEEB Khalid Mohamed erred in bringing his
complex women-centric films to a comfortable culmination.
In SILSIILAY he goes all the way to the finale with
a flourish and finesse that makes him one of the more
interesting moviemakers of modern Hindi cinema.
More urbane than opaque,
more metro-centric than massy, SILSIILAY is that above-ordinary
experience which gives us characters who are real and
yet cinematic. The gallery of woman is, as usual, peculiar
to Khalid's sense of aesthetics. Every woman in SILSIILAY
from Tabu to Divya Dutta is a fey and fabulous creation,
more remarkable for what they don't say rather than
say.
The dialogues (Khalid
Mohamed) are exceptionally expressive. When Neel (Rahul
Bose) meets actress Zia (Bhumika Chawla) for the last
time she comments on how her dog still seems to love
him.
"Thank you for
one peg of whisky and two pegs of sarcasm," Bose
retorts.
Sarcasm is just one
of the moods that the narrative embraces with intimate
impunity. Moving through its triple-tiered cake about
the ache of human relationships SILSIILAY journeys with
bridled ecstasy into the land of the lusciously love-loran.
Story No 1 has Bhoomika
Chawla (totally transformed from dull to dynamic) as
an actress on the brink of a breakup. At the end when
she fakes a suicide her sister Divya Dutta says, "I'm
crying because you are not."
Desensitized femininity
is a theme that runs through the film. "How long
will you take this behaviour?" Tabu's stepson (newcomer
Karan) goads her in the film's final and by far the
best story. Tabu as the desolate Muslim wife Rehana
trying hard to overlook her husband K.K. Menon's Philandering
ways brings an extraordinary quality to the proceedings.
In her characterization and performance, not to mention
the extraordinary cinematography, this episode echoes
Guru Dutt's SAHIB BIWI AUR GHULAM and Satyajit Ray's
CHARULATA.
It's easy to miss Khalid's
sensuous allusions (for example Nargis in Mother India
on the tv as Tabu sits forlorn waiting for her husband)
and look at the film's self-consciously avant-garde
format as an affectation.
However the three women
and even peripheral characters such as Natassha as Riya
Sen's promiscuous roommate in the second episode, all
add up to a microcosmic magnificence, exuding strength
and frailty in palatable serio-tragic measures.
The middle story where
the small-town girl Riya Sen must choose between her
dangerously undependable lover-boy (Ashmit Patel) and
her quietly loving and compassionate boss (Jimmy Shergil)
is weak in comparison with the other two stories, mainly
because Riya Sen is miscast as the wide-eyed innocent
(a la Konkona Sen in Page 3). The character called for
Raima not Riya Sen.
Also the unnecessary
necking petting and smooching in the middle story jars
in a film that's high on aesthetics. Why go for the
obvious when understatement is a feasible option?
Santosh Sivan's cinematography
gives each of the three episodes a distinctive colour
mood and flavour and yet brings them together in one
cohesive clasp. The songs come on once too often. But
the eloquent alaaps and ghazals in the Tabu episode
make up for the excesses.
To imagine this film
without Tabu is to look at Agra without the Taj Mahal.
In her 25-minute role she brings 25 eternities of profound
emotions. Expressing the outward calmness of a sea secreting
turbulence Tabu again proves herself the last of our
classic actresses.
The hint of eroticism
between the lonely wife and her stepson is controlled
and restrained, not only by the director but also the
actress who conveys the feeling of a pond awaiting a
pebble to destroy the surface placidity.
Bhoomika Chawla as the
spunky actress who decides to have a child out of wedlock
is a revelation. She adds juice to this moist-and-delectable
sensuous and silken soufflé of warm and live-in
emotions.
The men don't stand
a chance. Still, Rahul Bose creates space for himself.
He's warm and likeable. But you wonder why Khalid is
so partial to the women characters often at the cost
of portraying the men as conceited caricatures.
Shah Rukh Khan as the
narrator brings in a gloriously gamboling quality to
a film that takes itself far less seriously than its
tormented characters may outwardly seem to suggest.
Throughout the narrative
focuses on the lighter side of the heavy burden that
is modern urban relationships.
Chockfull of unforgettable
characters SILSIILAY is yet another step forward for
mainstream Hindi cinema. Khalid Mohamed's 3-tired drama
is nothing like Mani Rathnam's YUVA. But in one detail
the two are the same.
They both tell us to
look for love before it's lost forever.
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