Plenty of films release every Friday (These days even Wednesdays & Thursdays!). Some are good, some are bad and some are entertainers while some are class apart- Special. Madras Café (MC) falls in the last category.
Coming from a director par excellence like Shoojit Sircar
who has the range to tell stories from a poignant romance amidst a war torn
& tense Kashmir (Yahan) to the rib-tickling story of a sperm donor (Vicky
Donor); MC is a sleek, gritty, precise and above all a ‘sincere-brave’ film.
Although claimed to be a fictional account (For obvious
reasons), the film is a narrative of the what went behind the assassination of
India’s ex PM. This- by itself- makes it a thrilling adventure to look forward.
These are subjects we have blamed film-makers to be immature to handle. Someone
has done it now, Its our turn to rise up and patronize that effort! However,
what makes the film even more humane and heart wrenching is how it reveals to
us the lives of all those faceless and nameless individuals (Officials of RAW,
IB, NIA etc.) who strive day in & day out to keep us safe and respectable
as a nation; as a society.
Without ever deviating from the gritty crux of the plot,
Sircar’s direction and the screenplay by Shubendhu Bhattacharya & Dusan
Tolmac effortlessly explores these “behind-the-scenes” people. The trauma they
endure, the politics they battle and the losses they suffer makes you want to
meet them wherever they may be, look into their eyes and say- “Thank you sir…Thank
you”.
I never thought I did endorse a John Abraham film! But Sircar
casts Abraham to do precisely what he can do best and even betters it. Likewise,
before MC, I was terrified to watch Nargis Fakhri “act” after suffering her
first outing but then again a perfect casting can turn perception on its head!
Cast as a tough war correspondent, raised abroad, Nargis never speaks a letter
of hindi and thus gets deliverance from the sin called- Rockstar! The
supporting cast is refreshing (Siddharth Basu, Piyush Pandey!) and extremely believable
when they mouth their lines. The action is top notch, the background score is
spot on and the fact that there are no songs in the film is the biggest proof
of how sincere the makers have been to the story and therefore to “us”-
the audience.
The “bravery” bit comes from the sheer initiative Sircar
& John Abraham (Co- Producer) have taken to make a film on this subject.
The protests and threats against the film are proof of the fact that here is story
that the powers above don’t want us to know! To invest so much time, effort and
money in such a film is commendable and proud moment for Hindi films.
After the success of “Vicky Donor”, Shoojit Sircar had the
luxury to make any number of “light on the mind” entertainers with big names,
plenty of dance numbers and a riot of color. Instead, he chose a story that
would make us ask questions, would make us think and wonder of what actually
happened back in that time and more importantly what could be happening now!!!
Not every Friday (Wednesday or Thurday) does such an
experience happen. Go take it.
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