[May contain spoilers, many of them.]
It’s not particularly difficult to identify what kind of film Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan is trying to be. The effort is practically visible. Its characters wear sunglasses picked off a shelf from a designer store. Their clothes are dapper, summery. They travel in a beautiful blue van through some gorgeous, sun-drenched ghats. And their wonderfully trimmed faces (with a touch of make-up) do not show any signs of fatigue or age. Charming. We get a few lines that ruminate over presumably meaningful stuff, like death, life and grief, many of them over a drink of coconut water overlooking streams impossibly blue and lush green trees. We are supposed to swoon, catch these bits of wisdom before they flit through the air and disappear. But the only problem is, we don’t.
Karwaan is a film that proves, among other things, a useful fact: That good-looking films don’t always end up being good cinema. A relationship with a film cannot be built if one doesn't understand from where it originated, why this story needed to be told. Really, there is absolutely no excuse for writing a character who goes on unfounded rants in Hindi whenever he bumps into foreigners, or a coy guy who takes orders (or ‘requests’, if you may, although they don’t sound so) on the phone from a sobbing woman he’s never met. If these are attempts to make us like these two, then one should get the idea that the makers are trying hard to find a footing without straining their imagination too much. And how marvellous to be proved right. For the most part, this film seems to meander through sequences where the characters do things that, I would like to believe, are essential for us to understand them. Only this doesn't happen. These bits seem jarring, alienating us from them. Who are these people? Where do they fit into this world? Why are we supposed to sympathise with them? We don't know. But the film rolls on assuming we do, and so do we.
It's not as if the makers don't try to get us to like them. As if this were a cleverer idea than writing a coherent story, the makers toss in a few painful moments (some unexpectedly hitting their mark) where humour is forced into the story to give it some more juice to keep us invested. These attempts feature a fast-talking character at his brusquest, inviting bewildered looks from the people he comes in contact with. When he’s not jovially expressing his disgust at women wearing ‘skimpy’ clothes (which he does on at least two occasions), he pretends to be mute just so he wouldn’t have to pay for petrol. (Incredible how this callous little detail is played for laughs.)
For all that goes wrong with the film, one thing is for certain: Karwaan’s premise is undoubtedly more interesting than most Hindi films’. Two dead bodies get mixed up, and a software engineer from Bangalore has to travel to Kochi to drop off the ‘wrong’ dead body and pick up his father’s, the ‘right’ one. It could have made a splendid black comedy, but the makers settle for a road film instead. Given that the pleasures of a road film can equal a black comedy’s if done right, this doesn’t seem to be a poor decision at the outset. However, when the characters come into the picture, things do start to look shaky. For one, it often feels as if three different characters written for three different films were plucked out and placed in one, and a blue van was thrown into the mix as an afterthought so that they could be together. These characters have – unsurprisingly – gloomy pasts, and this quirky road trip will – again unsurprisingly – prove to be more eventful and life-changing than they originally thought, wringing their pasts out slowly and allowing them a chance to make peace with them.
If only we were living in the early 2000’s and all of this sounded new. We are, unfortunately, eighteen years into the 21st century. But, this doesn’t deter the makers from approaching it like a brand-new concept, putting together something around the ‘comic’ sequences and ironing it with monologues about life and death to ensure all the elements stay in their place. Half-baked developments are introduced without a good reason. A romantic angle for one character (handled a little insensitively later on) and an encounter with a past flame for another is hardly relevant to the story, which I thought began with a guy trying to arrange for a proper burial for his deceased father from whom he was estranged, but ironically enough these parts are among the film’s most engaging. I am not completely sure the writers intended for it to be so, but much like in life, unpredictability has its own rewards.
It’s not particularly difficult to identify what kind of film Akarsh Khurana’s Karwaan is trying to be. The effort is practically visible. Its characters wear sunglasses picked off a shelf from a designer store. Their clothes are dapper, summery. They travel in a beautiful blue van through some gorgeous, sun-drenched ghats. And their wonderfully trimmed faces (with a touch of make-up) do not show any signs of fatigue or age. Charming. We get a few lines that ruminate over presumably meaningful stuff, like death, life and grief, many of them over a drink of coconut water overlooking streams impossibly blue and lush green trees. We are supposed to swoon, catch these bits of wisdom before they flit through the air and disappear. But the only problem is, we don’t.
Karwaan is a film that proves, among other things, a useful fact: That good-looking films don’t always end up being good cinema. A relationship with a film cannot be built if one doesn't understand from where it originated, why this story needed to be told. Really, there is absolutely no excuse for writing a character who goes on unfounded rants in Hindi whenever he bumps into foreigners, or a coy guy who takes orders (or ‘requests’, if you may, although they don’t sound so) on the phone from a sobbing woman he’s never met. If these are attempts to make us like these two, then one should get the idea that the makers are trying hard to find a footing without straining their imagination too much. And how marvellous to be proved right. For the most part, this film seems to meander through sequences where the characters do things that, I would like to believe, are essential for us to understand them. Only this doesn't happen. These bits seem jarring, alienating us from them. Who are these people? Where do they fit into this world? Why are we supposed to sympathise with them? We don't know. But the film rolls on assuming we do, and so do we.
It's not as if the makers don't try to get us to like them. As if this were a cleverer idea than writing a coherent story, the makers toss in a few painful moments (some unexpectedly hitting their mark) where humour is forced into the story to give it some more juice to keep us invested. These attempts feature a fast-talking character at his brusquest, inviting bewildered looks from the people he comes in contact with. When he’s not jovially expressing his disgust at women wearing ‘skimpy’ clothes (which he does on at least two occasions), he pretends to be mute just so he wouldn’t have to pay for petrol. (Incredible how this callous little detail is played for laughs.)
For all that goes wrong with the film, one thing is for certain: Karwaan’s premise is undoubtedly more interesting than most Hindi films’. Two dead bodies get mixed up, and a software engineer from Bangalore has to travel to Kochi to drop off the ‘wrong’ dead body and pick up his father’s, the ‘right’ one. It could have made a splendid black comedy, but the makers settle for a road film instead. Given that the pleasures of a road film can equal a black comedy’s if done right, this doesn’t seem to be a poor decision at the outset. However, when the characters come into the picture, things do start to look shaky. For one, it often feels as if three different characters written for three different films were plucked out and placed in one, and a blue van was thrown into the mix as an afterthought so that they could be together. These characters have – unsurprisingly – gloomy pasts, and this quirky road trip will – again unsurprisingly – prove to be more eventful and life-changing than they originally thought, wringing their pasts out slowly and allowing them a chance to make peace with them.
If only we were living in the early 2000’s and all of this sounded new. We are, unfortunately, eighteen years into the 21st century. But, this doesn’t deter the makers from approaching it like a brand-new concept, putting together something around the ‘comic’ sequences and ironing it with monologues about life and death to ensure all the elements stay in their place. Half-baked developments are introduced without a good reason. A romantic angle for one character (handled a little insensitively later on) and an encounter with a past flame for another is hardly relevant to the story, which I thought began with a guy trying to arrange for a proper burial for his deceased father from whom he was estranged, but ironically enough these parts are among the film’s most engaging. I am not completely sure the writers intended for it to be so, but much like in life, unpredictability has its own rewards.
What saves the film from being a completely bland fare is the considerable charm of its three leads. (Although it’s been a while since a film has forced Irrfan Khan to ham.) Till the end, Karwaan maintains its distance, its few rewards limited to the surface. I walked away without feeling a thing for any of its characters. That disappointing feeling, I believe, can be cured by a drink of cool coconut water.
[Not For Reproduction]
