The monkey metaphor

Last night i saw Bollywood regaining its lost maturity. We have seen many movies & tele-series in the 7os & 80s that had hidden puns & metaphors on public life. Rakesh O Mehra revives the glory of Nukkad, Mungerilal, Jaane bhi Do Yaaro & the likes. It would be unjust NOT to compare Delhi-6 with scripts that were brimming with social meaning. 

I went into the movie expecting good songs & a messy story. However I came back amazed at the depth of the script, although it was quite messy. In addition R. Mehra was quite up to his act with a vivid portrayal of each character. 

What caught my attention throughout the movie was that each character had a strong sense of purpose & definition in the movie. Screen time was not a criteria for etching out the depth of meaning each character was imbibed with. A local moneylender, the neighbourhood idiot, a helpful halwai: all were woven into the script, and still stood their own ground as a performance. I was wondering if this was a theatre act & not a movie. It would have still done excellently!

The script was shoddy in terms of its sequence. One thing did not lead to another and the jumps were hard to comprehend. But one must give a standing ovation to the scriptwriter who took the effort to take up a normal Bollywood story of the homecoming of an NRI & weaving it with an urban legend. The very portrayal of the story around this central theme is catchy!

The art direction is par excellence! Using Ramayana as a narrative to the ethics of the story, a reverred local tree and the likes add life to the storyline. Rahman's music is also commendable & runs well with the speed of the movie. What's more interesting is that most of the songs are not shown in complete length. Rather, they are inserts into the movie's moods.

The two points are still about the movie's script & direction. However its the story that took my mind by storm. The depth of the script lies in the urban legend of the kala bandar, a monkey-man who took the imagination of Delhi-ites by storm. The script aptly presents each character's version of the imaginary monkey as a statement on the person's life / state of mind. It then goes on to bring out the mass hysteria that results. I am not sure if it should have touched the communal line, since I am not quite aware of the original monkey story that happened in Delhi. It may have carried the story too far, but it does succeed in capturing the meaning. The demon that lies within us is the true root of all our ramblings. The moral of the story is not effectively brought out since it jumps around too much, but the sequence to the same is commendable.

Atul Kulkarni gives yet another mind-boggling performance as the local fool who plays along the tunes of the neighbourhood in order to feel one with them. His dialogue delivery at the climax is truly breathtaking!

The same should be said of Vijay Raaz as the typical Delhi policeman. His acting actually makes us despise him and laugh at him in the same breath!

The central character of Abhishek Bachchan is not too strong in the movie. But that is expected when stalwarts of cinema & theatre are given their due in small but well framed roles of the community people. Every one of them presents a classy performance!