Tamasha, November 2015

It’s a classic Imtiaz Ali magnum opus. It has everything you absolutely LOVE about his films and some of the things that occasionally frustrate you in his films.

But, more importantly, it’s a classic Imtiaz Ali because it’s not meant to be loved by everyone. It’s strictly for a certain breed of people I call ‘hopeless romantics’. If you’re one of them, it’s one of the best movies of the year to watch. If you’re not, well, then you won’t be missing much.

And to put it out there, before I get into it. I loved the film!

The film tells the story of Ved (Ranbir Kapoor) and Tara (Deepika Padukone) who accidentally meet in Corsica, France, and decide to not reveal their true identities and spend a week just ‘being’… together, flowing, floating… only living from one moment to the next. The holiday ends and without exchanging any details, they go their separate ways – Delhi and Kolkatta. Post Corsica, the story revolves around Tara, who gets busy with her professional life, but all the while  missing Ved. Four years later, as work takes her to Delhi, she again accidentally meets Ved. She has realised that she is in love with the man she met in Corsica and is excited to meet him again. They start dating and become a couple. However, she soon realises that the man she met in Corsica, seems to have got left behind in Corsica (literally, what happens in Corsica stays in Corsica!). She makes the hard decision to break-up with Ved, honestly telling him the reason for it. Ved takes the break-up really badly and through a tumultuous set of emotions between Delhi and his childhood home Shimla, he sets off on a journey of finding himself again, and in that finding the man that Tara had fallen in love with. He finds Tara and they live ‘liberated’ ever after.

In many ways, it’s one of the oldest love stories, with the theme of ‘love will set you free’. And that ‘you can’t love someone if you don’t love yourself first’. It is the journey of finding love, which is the journey of finding your own self.

Even, the metaphor of the robot life vs. the clown life is not new. Of not letting your brain rule over your heart. Of chasing your dreams, based on what you feel and not what the world tells you. Etc Etc. Nope. None of this is new, path-breaking or remotely interesting.

But, what makes this film is not the story or the dialogues or the mood or the cinematography, or even the location or the characters. What makes the film is Ranbir and Deepika (not Ved and Tara) and their chemistry - both when it’s firing like crazy and equally when it grows cold. The magic of this movie lies in the journey of various emotions through the movie, nothing else. 

You feel every emotion they feel throughout the film. In Corsica, you feel completely liberated when you can do anything, be anyone… even choose to not have sex when you easily can! You feel something missing in your life after Corsica, as Deepika goes about 4 years of getting on with her life and professional career. You feel anxious and excited when Deepika meets Ranbir in Social, Hauz Khas in Delhi. You feel that it’s a happy ending after all at that very moment. But immediately after, you feel deep frustration and disappointment, on realising that this relationship is not working out, and shocked that the fairy tale Corsica romance was perhaps not real. You feel Deepika’s conflicted emotions in dumping him, yet not being able to let go. You feel the onset of insanity in Ranbir as he tries to grapple with his break up, that is stirring something much more fundamental inside of him. He is not upset because a girl dumped him. He is upset because she is right. Deep down he knows that the reason she is leaving him, is the very reason he has left himself a long time ago, without even realising it. You feel Ranbir’s angst and his pain that comes from a deep awakening of the soul. You feel his frustration at not being able to resolve it, not being able to get to the truth about himself. Why should this be so damn hard! And yet is. And you can feel that. You can feel Deepika trying to help him but Ranbir is angry. Ranbir is angry, but not with her. He is angry with himself. She knows she can’t help him and that breaks her heart. He knows she can’t help him and it breaks his heart too. He knows only he can find the truth for himself.

And that’s why he has to go back to the past, go back to his roots, go back home to discover the truth for himself.  He has to meet the neighbourhood story-teller that once made him believe in a life larger than his own reality. He wants to find that belief again. He wants to find his faith, his religion, his reason to exist. Only in going back to his childhood, can he start again…

And he does. He does start his life all over again. This time on a truth of who he really is – a master story-teller himself, where he can imagine the world to be the way he wants it, and not live in a world that is prescribed to him. Because who’s to define what the real world is, anyway. The supposed ‘real world’ in which he lived all these years had felt the most fictitious to him!

And finally, just like that, you feel happy again, at peace again and liberated again…just the way you started out in Corsica at the beginning of the movie.

There are several beautiful moments throughout the movie, anchored on stellar performances by both Ranbir and Deepika. Ranbir proves clearly once again that he is a powerhouse of talent. Throughout the movie, he displays a stream of multiple conflicting emotions, done brilliantly. This is the Imtiaz + Ranbir combination that we know works. We’ve seen it in Rockstar. But the refreshing performance comes from Deepika. She is nothing short of brilliant in this movie.  

The climax scene infact, is appropriately, the grand finale of both Ranbir and Deepika’s ‘jugalbandi of emotions’. And the beauty of this scene is that it’s literally just a few seconds. When at the end of a successful theatre production, he moves from bowing to the audience to bowing to Deepika (who is standing insignificantly near the exit of the hall) to doing a full ‘sashtang pranam’ to her. He looks at her and she smiles at him. And in that brief moment, we realise something for the first time - that Deepika’s love for Ranbir  is much greater than his love for her, even though it was Ranbir’s story being told all this while. It is Deepika’s love story told through the lens of Ranbir’s journey.

It is Deepika who is willing to lose him forever by telling him the truth when she dumps him. It is she who is risking everything, only for Ranbir to find himself. She is ready for him to hate her forever just so he can be who he really is. She is not afraid to give him the tough message, even when she is feeling the pain herself. She is herself, vulnerable and emotional, but she is not weak. She knows what she needs to do. And she needs to do it for him, for love. She knows he needs to go through the process (no matter how painful for both of them), to emerge on the other side…

And it is only then that he realises what she has done. She has saved him,  from the world and from himself. She was his knight in shining armour.

Some of the frustrating bits of the film emerge in some of the exagerated theatrics, like the obvious metaphors of the robot vs. the clown as a choice of life, the camarederie-providing auto driver and his rockstar performance interludes, the gang of bhangra-makers representing happy or sad emotions, and in the cliched portrayal of the father as the bad guy, representative of a heart-less, anti-individual system (it’s always easier to blame someone else for your problems in life rather than owning it up as the screw-up of your choice!)

We recognise these exagerated parts from Imtiaz’s earlier movies – remember Heer (Nargis Fakhri) getting cancer, but then also becoming pregnant and a bundle of misery at the end in Rockstar (see my earlier review http://www.books-booze-boxoffice.blogspot.in/2011/12/rockstar-2011.html ). Or, in Highway, Veera’s (Alia Bhatt) child molestation history being revealed at the end as a hindsight explanation for her desire for freedom and escape.

But, even as you forgive these parts for everything else that is right with the film, the one unforgiveable aspect in Tamasha is the sound track, despite A.R. Rehman. In Rockstar, every song was a master-piece carefully crafted to deliver an emotional ride that was individually unique, and yet together created the world and emotions of the film, making it live with us for many years after the movie. Unfortunately, Tamasha only has Matargashti, as the anthem of the movie (aka Sadda Haq of Rockstar, but more like Hawa Hawa in feel), which works, and to an extent Agar Tum Saath Ho (aka Tum Ho). But, after that, Safarnama tries to do a weak ‘Phir Se Ud Chala’ and Tu Koi Aur Hai a weaker ‘Aur Ho’. The other songs like Wat Wat, Heer Toh Badi Sad, Parade Instrumental don’t create any impact. The music lets us down and will be the one reason why this movie, otherwise so beautiful, will not live with us for as long as it deserves.

Despite all of this, what matters is that after a long time, we have an out-an-out love story in Bollywood, that allows us the rare indulgence of just feeling our own emotions, without having to explain it or justify it. It is a refreshing, modern day love story, that reminds us that the pursuit of love itself could be a worthy cause in itself, right up there with the pursuit of a career, of justice, of wealth, of independence, safety, etc etc. Why did we forget that?

And just for that, we say ‘Thank You Imtiaz Ali’ for continuing to write and make love stories in a world plagued by and obssessed with war and hate. Thank You for making the world inside of us as imporant as the world outside of us. Thank You for suggesting (as crazy as it may sound!) that sorting our own selves out could be more powerful than trying to sort others out.

More power to you.

PS. Don’t miss the very last scene of silence, when Deepika and Ranbir on their respective headphones are doing the moves on a hill top in Corsica. Priceless!