Saturday, September 15, 2012
Barfi
Sunshine Boy
Ranbir Kapoor is the wonder boy of Bollywood
today—a star who manages to go against all image-building rules. If he were a conventional star, Anurag Basu
would probably never have got him to sign up for Barfi. So completely has Ranbir immersed himself
into the part, that you can’t imagine anyone else doing it.
The same would go for Priyanka Chopra, who
sheds her glamorous persona, and plays a child-like Jhilmil, without
any self-consciousness. The third side
of this unusual love triangle is the radiant Ileana D’Cruz, as a young woman
led by her heart.
Basu’s film may often trip over into treacle,
but his three characters remain endearing. The love story is told with a
back-and-forth narrative style, with a hint of crime and suspense, unfolding in
Darjeeling, Kolkata and some parts in a village— an age of innocence and
fairy-tale sparkle created with solid production design and shot beautifully.
Murphy (Kapoor) is the deaf-mute son of a
chauffeur (Akash Khurana), and called Barfi in all Darjeeling, because he
quacks his name out sounding like that—the name comes from Murphy Radio, whose
cute baby mascot was advertised heavily in the seventies when a large part of
the film is set, giving the filmmaker a chance to play around with period props
and costumes.
Barfi falls in love at first sight with the
beautiful Shruti, who is engaged to a suitable man, but is drawn to the
mischief and charm of Barfi. Her wise
mother (Rupa Ganguly) gently guides her away from what she thinks is a doomed
life with a poor and differently abled man.
(It’s only in the movies that lack of money is never a constraint, and
poor people live in pretty barsatis.)
Meanwhile, there’s the autistic (retarded
actually) Jhilmil who is unwanted by her parents, but for her wealth. Barfi happens to take her under his wing,
and then she refuses to let go. The
local cop (Saurabh Shukla) gets caught up in all this intrigue, and, chasing
Barfi up and down crowded streets and rooftops, complains that his waistline
has reduced.
It is an idealised universe of the filmmaker’s
imagination, and there is the nostalgic desire evoked even in the viewer for a
world in which love is all it takes.
Basu does tend to overdo the cute quotient, but the actors just carry it
off. In a harsh, cynical world, maybe Barfi
is a small, very welcome shower of sweetness and light.
Labels: Cinemaah
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