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Release
date:
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March 15, 2019
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Director:
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Tigmanshu Dhulia
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Cast:
Language:
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Ali Fazal,
Shraddha Srinath, Reecha Sinha, Ashutosh Rana, Rajeev Gupta, Deepraj Rana,
Sikander Kher, Sanjay Mishra
Hindi
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Love across social
barriers and parental opposition is a theme as old as the hills in Bollywood.
Instead of merely revisiting it though, as generations before him have
done, writer-director Tigmanshu Dhulia chooses to use it as a hook to pay
tribute to his beloved Bollywood and to Allahabad. It is a challenging task
since, sometimes, there is only a fine line between recycling and an ode. In
his hands though, for the most part that line is thick, firmly drawn and
distinctive, with immensely entertaining results.
Dhulia (Haasil, the Saheb Biwi Aur Gangster series, Paan
Singh Tomar, Raag Desh) and his
co-writer Kamal Pandey place Milan
Talkies’ heroine in a conservative Brahmin clan in the pilgrim city. Her
fiance is from an educated family, so Maithili a.k.a. Janak Kumari (Shraddha Srinath)
is required to pass her college exams before the marriage can take place.
Towards this end, her uncle (Rajeev Gupta) hires the resourceful, morally
ambiguous Aniruddh Sharma a.k.a. Annu (Ali Fazal) to help her cheat her way to
success.
When he is not
illegally sourcing university exam papers for the student populace, Annu is
preparing to be a Bollywood director by making a film with his limited
resources and local talent. The two youngsters meet, sparks fly, and what
follows is love, rebellion and mayhem.
The film’s title
goes beyond being just a reference to a theatre the couple frequent for their
meetings away from prying eyes. Every word, line and shot in Milan Talkies is a bow to classic Hindi
cinema, its everlasting beauty and even its clichés. Mughal-e-Azam gets pride of place in the narrative, in a
goosebump-inducing scene that could draw a tear from the eye of a committed
cineaste. Elsewhere, Sanjay Mishra’s character stands framed by a window with a
poster of Pakeezah behind him, as he
leans down on the sill and looks in on Maithili who is seated languidly in the
adjoining room.
DoP Hari Vedantam’s
work shows a passion for Bollywood that parallels Dhulia’s obvious love for it.
The Holi song once mandatory in Hindi films, the chase across rail tracks, the
escape on a train – they all find a spot here, without trivialising this film
industry and, for the most part, without making light of the disturbing social
scenario on which Milan Talkies
trains its spotlight.
Contemporary Hindi
filmmakers seem by turns indifferent to caste, ignorant of it or afraid of
open discussions about it, as evidenced most recently by Dhadak, the tepid Hindi remake of the Marathi blockbuster Sairat. Dhulia, however, shows no fear
in highlighting the self-defeating egotistical nature of brahminical
patriarchy. Here though, his apparent keenness to pay obeisance to Hindi cinema
gets the better of him briefly as the plot of Milan Talkies suddenly and uncharacteristically echoes the romanticisation
of benevolent patriarchy so famously done by Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ)
in 1995.
(Spoiler alert) The difference between the
two films lies in the fact that “Ja
Simran, ja jee le apni zindagi” (Go live your life, Simran) was the
culmination of a thread running right through the deeply regressive though
beautifully packaged DDLJ, which was
from start to finish the story of a man determined not to marry the woman he
loves without her father’s permission, whereas Milan Talkies is until that point and even after it an all-out snub
to such nonsensical traditionalism. The scene in which Annu unexpectedly
becomes intent on Maithili’s “gharwaalon
ki marzi" (her family’s consent) is a complete break for his character
and for the film itself which had, until then, given her agency in the most
trying circumstances. (Spoiler alert
ends)
The return to
no-holds-barred defiance right after that scene hopefully means that that
moment of inconsistency in the script was more a misstep on the part of the
writers rather than a sign of lack of commitment to non-conformism. Either way,
it does manage to subtract from the resonance of the song that follows shortly,
written by the brilliant Amitabh Bhattacharya: “Dhat teri teri zamaana / humko
tthenga fikar / apna bheja hai
tamancha / dil hai pressure cooker.”
(In short: To hell with you, society / we care a fig about you.)
Still, the energy,
insightfulness and sense of humour in everything that came before it is so
impactful that three-quarters of the battle has already been won by then.
(There is a needless comment on mardaangi
in another part of the film, which again is incongruous in the face of its
overall gender politics.)
Dhulia and Pandey
manage to bring Allahabad alive in Milan
Talkies with affection, a funny bone and yet no ambiguity about its
failings. The music by Rana Mazumder and Akriti Kakar is brimming with
infectious verve, that is perfectly balanced out with the challenges in
Maithili's situation in particular. This is epitomised by the tension Dhulia
manages to whip up around her in a world where even the simple act of watching
a film could be rife with danger for a young
woman, despite which there are admirable individuals who manage to break out.
Holding this
enterprise together along with the director are his top-notch cast. Each one is
in spiffing form but a special mention must be made of Dhulia himself whose
ease with comedy as he plays Annu’s father in Milan Talkies is a reminder of how undervalued he is as an actor.
Ali Fazal is by now
an old hand, equally undervalued by Bollywood despite his engaging personality
and acting capabilities.
Debutant Shraddha
Srinath who plays Maithili is a find. Her good looks are a bonus, but what
truly makes Maithili work is the manner in which she slips into the character’s
tricky mix of combustibility and sweetness without allowing the effort to show.
Maithili is one of Goddess Sita’s names. Mythology tested this
woman unjustly and in ways that are beyond the endurance of any normal human
being. In Dhulia’s Allahabad in the 2010s, she is still being forced to walk
through fire simply for the right to live a normal life and be happy. Milan Talkies is lots of fun, but there
is so much more to it than meets the eye.
Rating (out
of five stars): **3/4
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CBFC Rating (India):
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UA
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Running time:
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141 minutes
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This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Poster
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