Ala Barfi!: Love will keep us alive...

Okay, so I watched Barfi last night at a multiplex near my house. And here I am writing a few words about it. (Without divulging the story for those who haven’t yet made it to the theater).

Barfi sits precariously but happily on a border that divides parallel and commercial cinema by definition and it is hard to categorize it into a genre. Without a hero/heroine mouthing a song in playback to an invisible orchestra, without the jhatkas/item numbers, the dhishoom-dhooshoom fight sequences and the glitz/glamour that  hallmark our Bollywood talkies, or even without the dark serious trends of the typical "arty" ones, it tugs at your heart for a new name. Go on, call  it a romance, a comedy, a drama, a tragedy...you really don't know which one suits the emotions that grip you while you watch it.

We have had incredible films from Anurag Basu in the past like Life in a Metro, Kites and Murder but this one is of a different league altogether. Barfi is a celebration of life. Of unconditional love and trust between two characters, who are both challenged in different ways. I realized one basic thing at the theater. And here it is...

Anurag Basu did not create this piece of work for money. No one makes a Barfi for commercial success. For Basu, battling leukemia since 2004, it must have taken a limitless hunger for life to craft something straight from his heart. Indeed, it takes very little to keep happy in life.
Maybe just love? Seriously, is it that simple?

To speak or not to speak...

In its absence of dialogues between the lead characters, Barfi capitalizes on your sensibility to listen with your heart. As a student of literature, I pride myself in being a judge of good drama, usually hinged on a strong script of powerful words. There have been exceptions to the rule though.

Waiting for Godot and The Birthday Party are classic modern examples of drama that have put silence into smart use. But then, they represented the angst and meaninglessness of an existential absurdity that their playwrights, Becket and Pinter, respectively, wanted to sketch.

Anurag Basu has laced his film with strategic pauses and silences, which are more effective than spoken language. However, his intention is not to paint any crisis. Nor a lack of emotions. But an abundance thereof - resulting in a nakedness of soul and a love, which "makes breath poor, and speech unable" to quote the British bard. Sometimes speech fails to communicate - ending up lost in a babel of empty phrases. This, to me, is the central theme of the film and mentioned by one of the central characters Shruti (played by Ilena D'cruz) in as many words.

Ranbir Kapoor plays Barfi Bahadur, a deaf and mute Nepali boy who can only utter a mumbled “barfi” - the protagonist. Priyanka Chopra enacts Jhilmil Chatterjee, an autistic girl whose silence is punctuated with urgent cries of “barfi” – this one word is perhaps the only dialogue they share and the piece of sweetness (barfi is an Indian sweet variant) that holds the movie together.

At the end of the movie, when the credits come rolling through the screen, it is this sweetness that will roll down your eyes as tears… I know I wept like a child at the theater not even caring this time that the lights were on and the cleaning boys were standing close to me with hoovers and bins in hand – watching me cry softly even as I smiled at the screen.

Then there was good old love to add to this silence. Barfi and Jhilmil play out a strong duet of speechless love, which is mighty captivating, I say! Again the back-and-forth narrative technique makes it rather improbable to have a structured conversation between the rest of the characters in the film. Narrators keep changing as well. Sometimes it is the police inspector Sudhhangshu Dutta, sometimes it is Shruti.


To live or not to live...

A total lack of a lachrymose portrayal of life’s hardships is also one to enjoy in the movie. Another man takes away Barfi's lady love; his father becomes jobless, suffers a stroke and eventually dies; he is falsely charged with kidnapping and murder and chased by the police; his second lady love goes missing. But Barfi never loses his zest for life. There is zero sentimentalization of love and that is so refreshing! Little acts of naughtiness, goodness and madness add up to the tiny nest of happiness that the film is all about.

Ranbir Kapoor is an unusual choice for the central character.  But somehow his chocolate-hero look gels well with Barfi's innocence, the slanting eyes bringing out well the Nepali origin of his character. He amazes your senses with talking eyes and a mouth that smiles throughout the film. As the film progresses, you realise that, you have been smiling at his Chaplinesque antics and laughing along with him. Such is the magic that he or Barfi spills into you. Priyanka Chopra once again proves her histrionic mettle underplaying every bit of her glamorous avatar to the hilt. It is not easy to depict autism specially when there is a risk in overdoing the peculiarity associated with it. She is unrecognizable with a curly mop of hair, a waddle for a walk and baby knickers peeping out of a frilled frock.

Technically it is a cinematographical wonder… Ravi Barman has captured the exotic locale of Darjeeling and its old world charms replete with the familiar toy train, the iconic Keventers, the winding roads, the Goodricke plantation -- turning it into a lyrical backdrop. Music by Pritam is fresh and breezy. The opening song prepares you for a roller-coaster laughathon that awaits you as the film unfolds. Mohit Chauhan enthralls with melodious "Ala Barfi!"  Nikhil Paul George is uncommonly brilliant with “Main Kya Karoon” and “Aashiyan” reminding you that helplessness indeed marks the first stirrings of love. So does Arijit Singh with “Phir Le Aye Dil”.


To notice or not to notice...

Let my cheesy gushing over the film not make you think that the film is flawless. It abounds in stimulants that could turn a dispassionate or a clinical critic (not me!) off. Like Barfi's inability to listen and speak is treated in the same cursory manner as one would treat left-handedness or a minor defect in someone otherwise physically perfect. The viewer is wooed to believe that Barfi has no problem sailing through life despite his defects. Unrealistic portrayal, many would say. So the execution stands dangerously near a quick sand of romanticizing people who are not 'normal'. This of course is balanced out with PC's controlled performance. Also the relative absence of dialogues in the film lends it a silent motion picture effect - and an impression that Barfi can actually speak but doesn't because of the mute mode the film is shot in.

There are anachronistic disasters too. A recent number plate is shown on a vehicle and the police inspector wears Ray Ban glasses. The Kolkata of 1972-78 is represented by a young Jyoti Basu painted in red on a public wall though they could have done better than just that. A radio croons a Salil Choudhury bangla number in the background and a Murphy advert gets replaced by one for Avon bicycles on the billboards to indicate the passage of time...again, a below average execution at that. However, you are hardly in any mood to take these into consideration when the rest of it overpowers you emotionally! Or at least I wasn't.

Go watch Barfi!!

And fall in love - again. It's never too late!