Tamasha Review (2015)

This film’s first half is, in a way,(I say this with extreme caution) a character focussed version of Godard’s Pierrot Le Fou (1965) where the leads played by Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor meet in Corsica, after an extended prologue consisting of Ranbir Kapoor’s childhood and his fascination with storytelling. This singular opening montage is something quite brave for a filmmaker to do considering how extended it is, especially in today’s time when people feel anything over 5 mins is slow and boring.

When the leads (DP and RK) meet in Corsica, they make a pact to not reveal their true identities and play along as filmy characters, dramatizing and improving, literally and in the film, the course of what they wish to do. This part of the film is in stark contrast to the film’s second half where the characters’ life nosedives because the filmmaker intended to do so in order to express his ideas and themes. Which is not a problem except that these ideas and themes are not especially new, in terms of what they say. It is still the same old, “Follow your passion and you will be happy”, except here the realisation of that quote is preceded by corporate jobs, mental issues, angry shoutings and some genuinely great acting by both Deepika and Ranbir Kapoor, in that order, because I would like to give her the importance that the film doesn’t give, as it mainly focusses on Kapoor’s character and doesn’t focus much on her, notwithstanding the 2 sec portrayal of her and her family’s business.

She’s, of course beautiful, and brilliant in an anti-author backed role which she elevates with her acting. In the scene when they both reunite after 4 years, we can see her subtle disappointment, when Ranbir talks of the restaurant instead of how he felt. And coming to him, he does a great job, not surprising given it is well written role. The sudden mood shifts his character suffers quite reminded me of Vikram in Anniyan (you know which scene). Returning to line 18, the theme is still the same “Follow your passion”. The problem is that:

A) Ranbir’s Character is well off, and hence this isn’t so much an issue though he balances this by giving him a strict father who wouldn’t let him live on his family’s money

B) It is also not a self-discovery journey, more so a self-realisation journey, so it isn’t entirely convincing as he just needs to confirm his passion for stories and storytelling.

The problem is these kind of films don’t focus at all on the realist aspect. Yes I know Cinema isn’t meant to be realistic and all, but how the hell am I not supposed to gap in surprise when Ranbir ‘s character reveals he has been jobless for 6 months and it isn’t revealed how he survived. Which on the other hand Godard's Pierrot Le Fou does show us (though in a humorous way)

The camera work is quite beautiful and lively especially in the first half, embodying the free spirited nature of Ranbir and Deepika, but becomes more formal and comprises of classically composed shots and frames typifying the monotonous nature of Ranbir’ s life.

The music by AR Rahman is brilliant especially the song by the auto driver (can’t remember which one) and the song “Mattar Gasthi”. The background score is beautiful even if it’s used in a typical way.

The more beautiful aspect of the film is how it is a beautiful ode to storytelling and shows us how important storytelling is to us, in our monotonous lives and how it the one that keeps us going despite the stupidity of life itself And symbolic of this, I felt that, the film was quite lengthy and slow paced and stagnated, despite only a runtime of 139 minutes. A character tells in the story. “Why do the good moments remain only for a short period of time”. The Corsica portions of the film breezes by us while the “Monotonous life “ portions of the film seem to go for quite long. Is this indicative of the film’s own qualities of being good only in the Corsica portion and go into mediocrity with the latter portion or is it indicative of the Ranbir’s Character’s life itself? I will never know.