This write up is a reaction to reading Bhardwaj Rangan’s critique of Gulabo Sitabo. He mentioned about three things in his review. One, that the men in the movie are too ‘thin’ as characters. Two, the women are stronger by the same measure and three, the cinematography by Avik Mukhopadhyay is brilliant.
Bhardwaj Sir himself taught me that a film critique should be built around one’s own pesona. Every single line written (or spoken) in a film review will have an invisible “In my opinion” slammed at the beginning of the sentence and that precisely gave me the strength to voice my thoughts.
I agree with him about both the cinematography and women character part. The cinematography is absolutely brilliant. It’s so nice you keep on watching it just because the visual is so soothing. Literally চোখ জুড়িয়ে যায় (soothes them eyes).
Point is, I disagree with him about the male characters being thin. In my opinion, they are just ‘one dimensional’. Which basically means, all the energy, thoughts and effort a person possesses, are all directed towards achieving one single objective, and in some cases, no objective at all.
Popular Bollywood movies frequently give us those kind of characterization. Imagine Baazigar by Shah Rukh Khan. A 25 years old man is living in Mumbai with the sole goal of taking revenge. Getting the wealth back was not that important if you look closely because he never made use of any of that money. It was just by-product. We frequently take these kind of characterization, because, yes, in some cases, characters CAN be one-single-dimensional.
Mirza by Amitabh Bachchan is that one dimensional character. He has no goal, no motto except for getting the haveli. Like every other Bollywood rom-comm, the objective is to somehow get to his heroine - the haveli. Amitabh Bachchan, in this role, have surpassed all the performances I have ever seen of him. The character is so real, so real, it reminds me of Tulsi Chakraborty or Chhobi Biswas.
The other side of this is Bankey by Ayushman Khurrana. (I guess the name came from Bankey Bihari, another name of Sri Krishna. The Krishna temple in Mathura is called Bankey Bihari temple.) He has no motto or objective in life. He has a girlfriend with whom he spends time - but again, not too serious about getting married to her or spending time more frequently with her. He doesn’t even care about family, doesn’t know which classes his sisters are in, does not love his job much either.
Now, although Bankey seems a very important character, and the movie SEEMS like a rivalry between Mirza and Bankey, (I believe) it’s not. Bankey was just another obstacle between Mirza and the haveli, just as much as the begum was. This becomes aparent when Bankey and Mirza again meet when begum comes back to the haveli for her birthday, Bankey and Mirza does not indulge in any chit chat. And Bankey just ends any possibility of a conversation saying : Go home, Mirza. And that I think, is sheer brilliance in the director’s part.
Bankey and Mirza just happened to happen together. There’s no true rivalry, no true bonding either. That’s what makes the character portrayal great, that it’s such a mirror to real lives.