MASAAN (A)
Director: Neeraj Ghaywan
Cast: Richa Chadha, Sanjai Mishra, Vicky Kaushal, Shweta Tripathi
Running time: 109 minutes
Neeraj Ghaywan’s Cannes-winning directorial debut Masaan has two stories set in Banaras which are interlocked with one dive, one boat ride and one spoken phrase. The first two are plot points and hence best left unmentioned, but the spoken phrase is what the film is about — “chhoti soch”. The two ladies in the two stories say those same two words at two points in the film. In different contexts, of course.
Masaan tries to delve into the mind of the new generation of small-town India that wants to rise above the “chhoti soch” around them and fly away. In fact, the film’s English title is Fly Away Solo. For both Devi (Richa Chadha) and Deepak (Vicky Kaushal), education is the route to get out of Banaras and more importantly out of their family businesses. If you can call them that.
Devi’s father Vidyadhar Pathak (Sanjai Mishra) sells “puja samagri” at the ghats while Deepak’s father and uncle burn the dead at the masaan (crematorium). Devi works at a coaching centre and wishes to study more while Deepak is studying civil engineering at a private college and is hoping for a campus placement. Before tragedy strikes. Strikes through their hearts.
The film actually opens with Devi going to a seedy hotel for what would turn out to be birthday sex with one of the students of the coaching centre. Their ecstasy is shortlived as the cops break in and the boy slashes his wrists in the attached bathroom. The top cop asks the father to cough up Rs 3 lakh in three months if he doesn’t want the word to spread.
Deepak falls in love with Shaalu (Shweta Tripathi) through their common friends. A Facebook interaction, a meeting during Durga Puja and a rising red balloon greenlight their young, innocent romance, peppered with the choicest of shayari. But they soon discover that they are from incompatible castes and, more importantly, Shaalu’s parents would never allow a boy from the dom community.
The best — and the worst — thing about Masaan is that it’s an extremely neat movie. It doesn’t look like a first film from any angle, whether it’s the pacing or the framing or just the storytelling. Neeraj has been an associate with Anurag Kashyap for years and you can see he’s been a very good student. Grabbing the attention right from the start he never lets the staccato nature of the narrative let the audiences off the hook.
But the neatness also robs the film of a first-timer’s carefree audacity. Every scene is copybook material — starting late and ending early — every action and reaction so delicately measured, every performance almost filtered through an equaliser. There is no single wild moment to latch on to. And that stops Masaan from being an Udaan or a Court or a Titli, which dared to dream a little bigger within their arthouse framework.
Of the cast, the pair of Vicky Kaushal and Shweta Tripathi impress the most. They are complete naturals in front of the camera and despite being part of a done-to-death love story, their chemistry oozes freshness right through. Sanjai Mishra is excellent as always but having repeatedly appeared in comic roles, his authority as a father lacks the tough tones. Richa way underplays her character and never allows anyone inside her head. Pankaj Tripathi is terrific in a cameo.
Even as the big B-movies (Bahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijaan) continue to roar at the B-town box office, Masaan deserves a watch. Not because it was the toast of a foreign film festival (Cannes) but because it captures our country in a state of flux still struggling to shake off gender and class inequalities.
Pratim D. Gupta
Masaan is a special film because.... Tell t2@abp.in
