Once in a while comes a movie that leaves you lost for words and impels you into thinking a great deal about where cinema can take you. And seldom do we give that sort of recognition to a Hindi movie. Until someone, and I'm talking about Batra here, changes the general conception of Hindi cinema and delivers a grand little film about life and its aggravations. I'm here to disclose - alright, jabber - about a little gem that made me want to hop into the screen, into the story with its characters and have a talk with them. Batra's The Lunchbox is not only the best Hindi film in about a decade or so but also one of the best romance-dramas in a while to make its way to the big screen.
We often see the city of Mumbai being delineated as an unostentatious character but rare is a movie that actually exploits that attribute. That's precisely where The Lunchbox grasped my attention. Batra works up a script with a minimalist plot to serve as our guide through the city's beguiling streets and creates characters that are so tangible that you'd mistake them for being actual people. There is one dotard, Saajan Fernandes, who is retiring from his job of thirty-five years next month. Fernandes is a frigid recluse who likes to do things his way. He lives alone, his wife's been dead for a long time and the neighborhood kids aren't taking a liking to him. Not that he minds that one bit. He's been living the same life for a long time, it seems, since his daily schedule doesn't change much. Always the same train, always the same seat and always the one cigarette he allows himself after he gets back home from work.
Ila is a glum housewife who isn't enjoying her life either. A mother of a young daughter, she finds solace in cooking new dishes to send to her husband, who is at work, for lunch. She has devised a sagacious way of communication with her elder neighbor, who lives upstairs and with whom she exchanges recipes and stories.
Aslam Shaikh is an ebullient and talkative young trainee who is up for Fernandes' job when he retires. Shaikh wants Fernandes to train him, build him into a workhorse, but Fernandes is reluctant, unrelenting.
One day, Ila decides to try out a new recipe. She whips up a palatable meal for her spouse but the tiffin ends up on the desk of Fernandes. The dabbawallahs - tiffin carriers - of Mumbai are infamous for never getting a delivery wrong. This a story of what happens when they do. Fernandes is dumbfounded to find his lunch so tasty. Ila is stunned to find the tiffin empty. Both realize something is amiss. On the insistence of her neighbor, Ila decides to write a letter to Fernandes and thank him for doing justice to her dishes. Fernandes replies, a cold, bruising letter, but Ila writes back. A strange bond develops between them when they talk about their personal lives and what are their views on anything that fancies them. They advise each other, sympathize with each other and occasionally share a joke or two. It's an escapade neither of them wants to give up. Until the time they decide to meet up.
The Lunchbox is a rare piece of cinema that revels in the most inimitable detailing. Crafted with great elegance and dexterity, Batra creates a movie that at once disarms us with its honesty and then amazes us with its simplicity. The characters don't indulge in anything out of the ordinary, like we'd expect them to, and instead scour their routines to find something that'd delight them. Like in a scene where Fernandes buys a street-side painting because he's fascinated by the work put in by its artist. Or when he learns and marvels at how carefully Shaikh cuts his vegetables and with great skill. These are little things, you see, little things that make someone's day. We aren't following the lives of some influential people. These characters are like us, they are us. They're thrifty. They do what we do, say what we say. It's a careful perusal of the city and the people that live here. It's also a vey affectionate obeisance to them and to the dabbawallahs, who are integral to the film.
My favorite sequence of the movie was the talk after Shaikh's wedding. Shaikh and Fernandes have a conversation and Shaikh cheekily confesses to have travelled without a ticket the first time they travelled together. He fears what Fernandes may think of him. He doesn't want to lie anymore to the one person who he is comfortable being with. The scene is rather mellow but it's written, directed and performed adeptly. Phenomenal!
Irrfan Khan, who plays Fernandes, is on some sort of a mission here. He's flawless. I can't describe his performance any better. I'm trying to find a word to describe just how brilliant his performance really is but my vocabulary shames me. It's his personal best. Fernandes is someone whom we've known all our lives, someone who happens to be in every train, every bus we travel in. Khan does a remarkable job of playing him that way. In one scene, after he's pleased with his day's work, he writes to Ila saying that he treated himself to a taxi ride home. I chuckled at that small moment when a small sentence said something really profound. And, at that moment, I realized that I often do the same thing and so do most of the people in the city. That's his triumph, you see. He succeeds and how!
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is incredible as Shaikh. Shaikh often doubles up as a comic relief but Siddiqui manages to be charming and immensely genial with his antics. He has plenty of room for extemporization and he manages to make Shaikh as warm as the romance between Fernandes and Ila. You won't believe it's the same guy who played a murderous druggie in the Gangs Of Wasseypur saga.
Nimrat Kaur makes her debut with this film but it seems like we've known her for a long time. Ila's conflicted and undervalued. She's a bungled distraction for her husband. Kaur manages to give an enchanting performance that never lets up. Like her exchanges with her brash neighbor, her performance is often insightful and always delightful.
The Lunchbox should've been sent to the Oscars as India's official entry for the Best Foreign-Language Film award but it couldn't make it. Which is a shame, because it would've been the best chance any Indian film ever had in the span of five decades. Still, it is the best Hindi film in a long, long time and it would be felonious to spurn it.
If you haven't already watched this small masterwork of a debutant, please do so. And if you do go for it, I'd advise you to go on an empty stomach. Because The Lunchbox glorifies the hot tiffin and the women who make it, and it's impossible that you'd walk out of it unsmiling. Dig into this nummy concoction.
Bon appetit!
We often see the city of Mumbai being delineated as an unostentatious character but rare is a movie that actually exploits that attribute. That's precisely where The Lunchbox grasped my attention. Batra works up a script with a minimalist plot to serve as our guide through the city's beguiling streets and creates characters that are so tangible that you'd mistake them for being actual people. There is one dotard, Saajan Fernandes, who is retiring from his job of thirty-five years next month. Fernandes is a frigid recluse who likes to do things his way. He lives alone, his wife's been dead for a long time and the neighborhood kids aren't taking a liking to him. Not that he minds that one bit. He's been living the same life for a long time, it seems, since his daily schedule doesn't change much. Always the same train, always the same seat and always the one cigarette he allows himself after he gets back home from work.
Ila is a glum housewife who isn't enjoying her life either. A mother of a young daughter, she finds solace in cooking new dishes to send to her husband, who is at work, for lunch. She has devised a sagacious way of communication with her elder neighbor, who lives upstairs and with whom she exchanges recipes and stories.
Aslam Shaikh is an ebullient and talkative young trainee who is up for Fernandes' job when he retires. Shaikh wants Fernandes to train him, build him into a workhorse, but Fernandes is reluctant, unrelenting.
One day, Ila decides to try out a new recipe. She whips up a palatable meal for her spouse but the tiffin ends up on the desk of Fernandes. The dabbawallahs - tiffin carriers - of Mumbai are infamous for never getting a delivery wrong. This a story of what happens when they do. Fernandes is dumbfounded to find his lunch so tasty. Ila is stunned to find the tiffin empty. Both realize something is amiss. On the insistence of her neighbor, Ila decides to write a letter to Fernandes and thank him for doing justice to her dishes. Fernandes replies, a cold, bruising letter, but Ila writes back. A strange bond develops between them when they talk about their personal lives and what are their views on anything that fancies them. They advise each other, sympathize with each other and occasionally share a joke or two. It's an escapade neither of them wants to give up. Until the time they decide to meet up.
The Lunchbox is a rare piece of cinema that revels in the most inimitable detailing. Crafted with great elegance and dexterity, Batra creates a movie that at once disarms us with its honesty and then amazes us with its simplicity. The characters don't indulge in anything out of the ordinary, like we'd expect them to, and instead scour their routines to find something that'd delight them. Like in a scene where Fernandes buys a street-side painting because he's fascinated by the work put in by its artist. Or when he learns and marvels at how carefully Shaikh cuts his vegetables and with great skill. These are little things, you see, little things that make someone's day. We aren't following the lives of some influential people. These characters are like us, they are us. They're thrifty. They do what we do, say what we say. It's a careful perusal of the city and the people that live here. It's also a vey affectionate obeisance to them and to the dabbawallahs, who are integral to the film.
My favorite sequence of the movie was the talk after Shaikh's wedding. Shaikh and Fernandes have a conversation and Shaikh cheekily confesses to have travelled without a ticket the first time they travelled together. He fears what Fernandes may think of him. He doesn't want to lie anymore to the one person who he is comfortable being with. The scene is rather mellow but it's written, directed and performed adeptly. Phenomenal!
Irrfan Khan, who plays Fernandes, is on some sort of a mission here. He's flawless. I can't describe his performance any better. I'm trying to find a word to describe just how brilliant his performance really is but my vocabulary shames me. It's his personal best. Fernandes is someone whom we've known all our lives, someone who happens to be in every train, every bus we travel in. Khan does a remarkable job of playing him that way. In one scene, after he's pleased with his day's work, he writes to Ila saying that he treated himself to a taxi ride home. I chuckled at that small moment when a small sentence said something really profound. And, at that moment, I realized that I often do the same thing and so do most of the people in the city. That's his triumph, you see. He succeeds and how!
Nawazuddin Siddiqui is incredible as Shaikh. Shaikh often doubles up as a comic relief but Siddiqui manages to be charming and immensely genial with his antics. He has plenty of room for extemporization and he manages to make Shaikh as warm as the romance between Fernandes and Ila. You won't believe it's the same guy who played a murderous druggie in the Gangs Of Wasseypur saga.
Nimrat Kaur makes her debut with this film but it seems like we've known her for a long time. Ila's conflicted and undervalued. She's a bungled distraction for her husband. Kaur manages to give an enchanting performance that never lets up. Like her exchanges with her brash neighbor, her performance is often insightful and always delightful.
If you haven't already watched this small masterwork of a debutant, please do so. And if you do go for it, I'd advise you to go on an empty stomach. Because The Lunchbox glorifies the hot tiffin and the women who make it, and it's impossible that you'd walk out of it unsmiling. Dig into this nummy concoction.
Bon appetit!
Went to watch the movie with my mother and absolutely loved it. Both of us did.
ReplyDeleteThere are little things that make you smile.
It's plain sad how most people fail to understand this thought-provoking genre.