Release date:
|
February
12, 2016
|
Director:
|
Abhishek
Kapoor
|
Cast:
Language:
|
Tabu, Katrina Kaif, Aditya Roy Kapur, Mohammed Abrar Sheikh, Tunisha
Sharma, Aditi Rao Hydari, Rahul Bhat, Lara Dutta, Akshay Oberoi, Cameo: Ajay Devgn
Hindi
|
Abhishek Kapoor set himself a tough task when he decided to
adapt Great Expectations for a Hindi
film. His chosen text is the most challenging of Charles Dickens’ classics: it
is dreary, gloomy and depressing despite the final crumb offered in the form of
a happy ending.
The original is the story of the wealthy Miss Havisham who is so
shattered when her groom does not turn up for their wedding, that from that day
forward she remains dressed in her bridal finery, keeps her home decorated as
it was for the celebrations and lets her wedding cake lie rotting on her dining
table. She gives vent to her bitterness towards her cheating lover by training
her foster child, an orphan called Estella, to break the hearts of men. Pip –
the hero and an orphan himself – is smitten from the moment he meets the little
girl. The book travels with them into their adulthood, which is marred by the
manner in which old Miss Havisham has affected the young woman’s ability to
love.
Abhishek – who earlier made the lovely Rock On!! (2008) and Kai Po
Che (2013) – transposes Dickens’ saga from 19th century England
to present-day Kashmir. Miss Havisham becomes the handsome Begum Hazrat (Tabu),
reclusive resident of the lavish haveli Anjuman; Estella is her daughter
Firdaus Jaan Naqvi (Katrina Kaif), who is sent off to study in England – a
mandatory move in most of Ms Kaif’s films, designed to explain her accent; and
Pip is Noor Nizami (Aditya Roy Kapur), brother of a poor local handyman’s wife,
who grows up to become a famous artist.
Though faithful to the book, Fitoor
is a not a carbon copy. Thankfully not, since Miss Havisham is Dickens’ most
troubling female character, epitomising the ‘neurotic, frustrated, eccentric
spinster’ stereotype or that oft-visited cliché of the evil, destructive witch
in European fairytales perpetuated through generations of misogyny by artists
and society as a whole. This film avoids the lure of the striking, haunting
imagery Dickens used to represent her. There is no worm-eaten cake lying in a
cobweb-ridden hall in Abhishek’s version, no ugly old lady in a decaying gown,
and the mansion is far from decrepit. Quite to the contrary, Anjuman is still
rich and beautiful, and the child Noor is smitten from the day he first sets
foot in it when his brother-in-law is summoned to do some odd jobs at the
house.
He is as enchanted by Firdaus, the cold, distant,
well-turned-out girl-woman who rides a horse on those sprawling grounds and
mocks him for his poverty. She is, to him, the unreachable star, an enigmatic
creature whose allure lies as much in her aloofness and snobbery as it does in
the hand of friendship she condescendingly extends towards him at one point.
She moves away. They grow up. They meet again. He is now a grown man
in love.
If you can tolerate the extreme sexism in Dickens’ portrayal of
Miss Havisham, Great Expectations is
actually an ideal choice for contemporary Kashmir. In Fitoor, the Noor-Firdaus love story is not just about gender
relations or social disparities. Hazrat does have a reason to hate men, which
is revealed much later in the film, and Firdaus at one point does refuse to
hook up with Noor, harshly telling him, “Shaadi
do darjon ke beech hoti hai (A marriage can only take place between two
people of the same class),” but Abhishek and Supratik Sen’s writing takes it
beyond that.
In their vision, Hazrat is a metaphor for an older generation in
Kashmir, justifiably embittered by the actions of the state but unjustifiably
plotting to bequeath that bitterness to their children, denying them their own
pursuit of happiness, going so far as to encourage them to sleep with the enemy
in their quest for revenge against the Indian state. Yet the state is not a
homogeneous entity. It is not just scheming members of government. It is also
made up of people, soft, gentle, in love and longing to be loved.
The new generation is, of course, represented by Firdaus; the
heterogeneous state, both by the man who jilted Hazrat (played by Akshay
Oberoi) and sweet, sweet Noor.
So far so good, except that Abhishek and Supratik appear not to
have trusted viewers to get the point without being spoon-fed. Their
interpretation is robbed of much of its depth by their needless decision to
bestow dark red hair – not a natural Kashmiri colour – on Hazrat and Firdaus.
Come to think of it, it’s silly. The interplay of their dyed tresses and
auburn, autumnal Chinar leaves – an eternal symbol of Kashmir – is so literal
that it makes me want to shake a fist at Team Fitoor in exasperation. C’mon, we got it! You should have trusted
us.
This might have been forgivable if it weren’t for the casting
of Firdaus. Katrina is woefully inadequate in Fitoor, trying to convey Firdaus’ sorrow and confusion with
expressionlessness. To make matters worse, her screen companion through much of
the film is an actress who has the ability to eke out feelings from a log of
wood. This is not Tabu’s best, but in a role that could have been easily
over-played and caricatured, she elicits some degree of empathy even for her
decidedly unlikeable character. Aditya as Noor is efficient, but that’s about
it.
It is hard to comment on the supporting cast since they are all
playing very limited characters. The only exception is the adorable Kashmiri
child actor Mohammed Abrar Sheikh
who, as little Noor, fits perfectly into the setting. This is not to endorse
the belief some film buffs hold that only Kashmiris should play Kashmiris and
so on (this subject demands a long discussion for which we do not have space
here), but it shows a casualness towards detail when the child playing Noor has
a precise Kashmiri accent but Aditya speaks differently.
The film’s technical embellishments are all in place. Anay
Goswamy’s visuals are impressive without being overwhelming, the costumes are
attractive, and the music by Amit Trivedi (songs) and Hitesh Sonik (background
score) is adequate within the context of the film.
Tabu’s makeup artist deserves kudos for lending age to her face
intelligently, rather than with standard Bollywood crutches such as thick
spectacles and white hair on unchanged skin.
The production design is well thought out, travelling from
Anjuman’s wintry insides to the fiery warmth of the spaces Noor occupies in Delhi and London, as he swings between hope and despair. His striking art works and the
scenes in which he creates them are among Fitoor’s
high points.
The dialogues are inconsistent though. While many are lyrical,
there are weirdly suggestive undertones (clearly unintentional) in a reformed
terrorist, once helped by little Noor, telling the now-grown-up chap: “The
memory of the phiran you gave me has kept me warm through many nights.” Err,
didn’t the filmmaker replay that line to himself before retaining it in the
film?
This, however, is a mere aside. Fitoor’s primary problem is that it fails to conjure up the sort of
passion that it should have and could have with less literalness and better
central casting. Perhaps we have been spoilt by Vishal Bhardwaj’s brilliant Haider (2014), another Hindi adaptation
of an English literary classic transported to Kashmir. Fitoor certainly can’t be accused of the laziness with which Wazir recently scraped the surface of
the state’s agonising reality, but it also lacks the wealth of meaning and
emotional resonance of Haider.
There is a bomb blast in the film at a crucial point – the
build-up to it is so underplayed that the explosion comes as an absolute shock.
It is one of Fitoor’s most memorable,
most effective moments, yet the occurrence fails to inform the later actions of
those personally affected by it. Therein lies Fitoor’s defining flaw: it is inconsistent in dealing with the
political context of its chosen geographical setting.
The pain, the rejection, the searing desire for revenge, the
all-conquering power of love – none of it is adequately conveyed in this film
which, by the time its final scene rolled around, left me as cold and detached
as Estella’s heart was when she first met Pip.
Rating (out of five stars): **1/2
CBFC
Rating (India):
|
U
|
Running
time:
|
131
minutes
|
This review has also been published on Firstpost:
Anna
MM Vetticad,Anna Vetticad,Indian cinema,Bollywood,Hindi cinema,Fitoor,Abhishek Kapoor,Tabu,Katrina Kaif,Aditya Roy Kapur,Aditi Rao Hydari,Lara Dutta,Ajay
Devgn,Charles Dickens,Great Expectations
.JPG)
