Rendezvous with "Barfi" :-)

Must admit after long I was excited to watch a movie. And after watching Barfi, am super-excited to talk about a movie, which is like a beautiful canvas, painted with all those unspoken emotions. Kudos to director Anurag Basu for visualizing and sketching such poignant moments, that you get to watch in plenty, throughout the movie. While the film is not entirely free of blemishes, but the positives are so inherently strong that it clearly outnumbers the flaws.

“Barfi” may be hyped as a film about people with disabilities – but  it is purely a love story at heart – falling in love, heart break and loving back the person who loves you the most. Don’t remember a Hindi movie, where love has been so beautifully portrayed sometimes through silence and such heart rendering moments in recent times. Set at the exotic location of Darjeeling, the story unfolds at a lucid pace, with romance and suspense at core. While a lot of hindi films focusses on tragic tales of these people, this films sets a completely different trend. It chooses to tell the same tale of love, joy, pain , jealousy but through the eyes of people, whose way of expression somewhat different.

Barfi, is a story set in 1970, covers three time period, and traces the journey of deaf and mute Barfi, mentally challenged Jhimil and near-perfect Shruti to bring home the point,  while one do not need to be perfect for discovering simple joys of life and all that is perfect necessarily do not transcend to happiness. One of the standout elements of Barfi is that in all those happy moments between the protagonists there is an underlying slithering pain. As a audience, there are so many moments when you are laughing while subconsciously your eyes are moist with pain. Those simple moments of joy between Barfi, Jhimil & Shruti are so delightful that it leaves you wanting for more.

A very special mention for film’s music and photography which forms the perfect backdrop of this fluid lyrical experience. Another outstanding aspect of the film is usage of props in the film be it mirror or mask. On the flip side, length of the movie is bit too long and there are some loopholes in the plot like Barfi s   sudden change of heart for Jhilmil looked a tad unconvincing.

Ileana as “Shruti” personifies best, what “first love” is all about – pretty face, beautiful eyes and long hair –  too good to be true and yet compelling enough to make you fall in love only to break your heart.This extremely talented actress speaks volumes through her eyes and lingers in your heart for long. Must say she looked stunning in those Bong saris and mascara-laced eyes.

Priyanka Chopra as “Jhilmil” grows on you, slowly but surely. She is extremely natural in her autistic act and portrays “innocence” beautifully, keeping the character as real as possible on screen, unlike her “fake” off-screen persona.

The supporting cast of the movie delivers a stellar performance be it Saurabh Shukla as cop, Haradhan Chattopadhyay as Jhilmils godfather or Rupa Ganguly as Shruti’s mom and enhances the overall quality of the film.

However “Barfi” belongs to Murphy who mis-spells his name as “Barfi” instead – who takes you  to his fairy tale world of love, joy and pain - Yet another superlative act of RK – whose performances are so captivating these days that it seems he can do no wrong – he chooses to act with his body language this time. His charming performance works in silence, knits weave around its audience and leave them spell bound in this web of magical act. Watching him perform is like watching someone you know in real life right in front of your eyes.

Kudos to Anurag Basu for such a masterpiece...Flawed yes but then but a little bit of imperfection works perfect for us. The best part about Barfi is that there is hardly a dull moment and despite being of experimental genre, it is highly entertaining. It’s works like a awesome dessert that is visually delightful, and melts beautifully in your mouth and leaves you with a lasting sweet taste. 

N.B Some films cannot be rated it is just experienced !!!!