Dhobi Ghat Review

Dhobi Ghat:

Cast: Prateik Babbar, Aamir Khan, Monica Dogra, Kriti Malhotra, Kittu Gidwani, Nafisa Khan.

Director: Kiran Rao

Shahini (Monica Dorga) the daughter of a builder and a banker by profession is on a sabbatical. Since she loves her camera, she decides to ‘lens through Mumbai’. She arrives without any baggage but soon acquires one. Mumbai touches her. Its fast moving peripheral indifference mixes with emotion draining situations. She ‘cans’ to tell a story and becomes a part of it. Unwittingly getting drawn towards one and drawing one towards her.

Yasmin (Kriti Malhotra) is a unsettled settler from Malliabagh. The town – metro sublimation fails to happen. First in awe of the city, she looks at the city with bewildered eyes. She captures moments in a video camera. Her ‘last letters’ video graphed are left behind in an apartment she was once living in with a husband who got her matrimony without romance, company without companionship and a degree of affluence without happiness. In her own solitary world – Mumbai is the impersonal backdrop. To her brother it is an invitation.

Arun (Aamir Khan) is an artist. He is the artist with angst and thus unwilling to be part of the mainstream. Living out of his cardboard boxes, he paints. He perceives himself as one who does not believe in making and keeping up relationships. His one-night-stand ends up with a bitterness stemming from his honest declaration on committed relationships. Mumbai gives him space. It gives him also the canvas to work on, play with.

Munna (Prateik Babbar) a dhobi, who doles on Salman Khan, kills rats in the slums and dreams of becoming an actor. He runs into the occupants of the higher life and thought style of Mumbai. Paradoxically he becomes the connect and the doormat.

Tushar Kanti Ray (the cinematographer) shows that the camera can convert a cliché into a Kafkaesque statement. It can evaluate emotions and not use words in exaggeration. Gustavo Santaolalla (music) plays not just with the instruments at his command but also with the emotions in the script.

The actors – each and all do not compete, they compliment. Wonderfully. This is a team effort. The manner of their chemistry is subtle and effective rather than glaring and effected. Both Monica Dogra and Kriti Malhotra are a class act. They are so camera friendly that they betray their experience. Hope to hear and see most of them. At a time when the Katrinas, Sonams, Deepikas are ruling the roost they come as a welcome chaffs. Fragrant flowers in a boutique of colourful ones!!

Prateik has a screen presence that is a gift. Sure inherited. From mom. He has a vulnerable persona and fits the role beautifully. His body language has the languid grace of an outsider by choice. Watch his wonderful addition to the galaxy. Watch Dhobi Ghat lest you miss out on a watershed.

Aamir Khan has always been a cerebral star actor. Cerebrally he has the advantage of comparison with most of his contemporaries. This time over, the script does not give him too much to speak. His face is required to do the talking. Saul Bellow said: “The face of man is the most amazing thing in the life of the world. Another world shines through it. It is the entrance of personality into the world process, with its uniqueness, its unrepeatability. Through the face we apprehend, not the bodily life of a man, but the life of his soul”. Aamir endorses it.

Dhobi Ghat is an interesting film. Tight script. Honest screenplay. Good execution.

Kiran Rao: Welcome. Looking forward to your next.

L. Ravichander