Oh! The lives we live, the journeys we make,
Cramped emotions, crumpled desires,
Some dreams, many nightmares,
Greyed hair, wrinkled fingers,
Soured relationships, embittered memories,
Delicious and bitter, expectant yet resigned,
Routine yet hopeful, a mixed fare,
Like a Lunch Box……
Wow!! Nine and hundred sumptuous minutes. This is not just a film. This is
defining cinema. In the midst of FB times, when even Orkut seems distant here
comes an Ode to the concept of pen friends with Mumbai dabba wallah playing
postmen.
To cut the short story even shorter Sajan Fernandez (Irfan Khan) is to retire
in a month when by accident the wrong lunch box is delivered at his work table
and there begins a relationship.
Illa (Nimrat Kaur) who is battling with an indifferent life partner with tips
from her invisible neighbour Ms. Despande (Bharati Archekar) starts making
delicious food and sending them to the wrong recipient with a note and so
begins a relationship. Both of them have their respective baggage and are
fighting hard to leave it behind. While Fernandez is a widower, IIla has a
mother who is fighting hard to nurse her ailing spouse. Fernandez also has
Shaik (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) piling on him at his work space and kids in the
neighbourhood who paradoxically are at once interfering with his space and yet
enticing him into a warm world. Even as Illa drifts away clearly from her indifferent
husband she is slowly drawing to a precarious zone with the unknown Fernandez
who she has not even met but has been religiously packing food every day. They
then decide to meet and even perhaps examine the possibility of leaving behind
the world of GDP to Bhutan where life is measured from the perceptive of Gross
National Happiness. Does it happen? Is life cinema? Watch Lunch Box for
answers.
Ritesh Batra gives you an unadulterated cinematic experience. From the kho kho
designed management of the lunch box industry in Mumbai to the raw emotions
that defy age or are sometimes exactly inhibited by it, from a cinematographic
moment when the camera lingers on a toilet with a news of death in the
background, where even a guy shifting his seat in a Mumbai bus is a matter of
detail, this film is amazing stuff. The crew do exactly what is required. For
an audience that is so used to viewing things being enacted this is an
experience in seeing something happen. Debutant Nimrat Kaur does a wonderful
job. Be sure she is not going to be seen too often. She almost does a Tabu!!
What wonderful talent is being wasted in Sheik Nawazuddin!! When will we wake
up to give him pivotal roles. He shows that there is not just this much a guy
can do. Just bountiful in talent and crying for opportunity. There is also
Lillette Dubey adding moments of class. And in the midst of all this is rock
like: Irfan Watch how he reacts differently the first three times the lunch box
arrives, notice how he returns to his wash room on that eventful morning when
he is to meet this lady, discern the difference in his tone while addressing
everyone else and the voice he has for his letters, this guy is soul and more
to this wonderful film. Even if you do not like serious cinema go for this who
knows: Galat train kabhi sahi jaga pahuncha dete hai.
The promos the film is made of Oscar stuff….. I do not know the standard of
international cinema, but this is one of the very best I have watched in a
while. It is real, it is touching, it is not dramatic, yet it is gnawing. It
has tickle, it can hurt. It tells, yet leaves a lot untold. That I guess is
what art is about and our cinema notwithstanding, cinema is art.
To borrow from one of the letters in the film and this time addressed to Ritesh
Batra: I want to thank you for that.
L. Ravichander