FILMIKHABAR

Critic's Rating:

Story: Vishnu has a bleak future before him. He must join his father in the family's oil business and try and boost the sales of the stinking oil in small town India. He sees his chance to escape by offering to transport a ramshackle truck, with a make-shift cinema, to a distant museum that lies across the expansive desert of Kutch. His companions: a chai-wallah chokra, a gypsy girl and a burlesque mechanic.

Movie Review: Dev Benegal gave Indian cinema the seminal film, English, August and followed it up with a not-so-happening Split Wide Open. He returns after almost a decade with Road, Movie, a film that tries to follow the footsteps of English, August by exploring the enigmatic beauty of mofussil India, through the eyes of a virtual outsider. If the earlier film, based on Upamanyu Chatterjee's riveting debut novel, viewed the backwaters of a slumbering, lumbering, giant-like India through the mindscape of the cosmopolitan civil servant, Agastya Sen (Rahul Bose), then Road, Movie unravels thirsty, feisty and forlorn India from Vishnu's (Abhay Deol) point of view. Needless to say, there is a similarity between both Agastya and Vishnu. Both are outsiders and both have a desire to connect with an unfamiliar world as they embark on a journey of self-discovery.

But the similarities end here. For, Road, Movie is no English, August. It's less engaging and low on story, although, the characters are rich and the canvas is colourful. The film works slowly and sensuously, drawing you into its folksy tale of a Sheherzade-like journey through a landscape dotted with mean cops and marauding gangsters from the water mafia that rules the parched desert. As Vishnu drives into the interiors, with his make-shift cinema and his bottles of oil, he picks up three companions: a pesky dhabha boy (Mohammed Faisal) in search of a better life, an aging mechanic (Satish Kaushik) in search of a mela and a sultry gypsy girl (Tannishtha Chatterjee) in search of water. Their first stop is a village, ruled by a brutal cop (Veerendra Saxena), who is willing to let them go, only if they show him a movie. Their second encounter with a water ganglord (Yashpal) is still more hilarious and ends with them bartering all his water for their stinky oil. In between, there is a bit of stolen romance along with a surrealistic mela....In short, a film that celebrates the power of cinema, people and plain and simple survival.

The performances are eye-catching. Abhay Deol, once again proves he's hell bent on travelling the less-travelled road, while Satish Kaushik breathes life and soul into the character of the mela-hunting man from nowhere. Michel Amathieu's cinematography creates unforgettable frames of sheer beauty and the screenplay crackles with some crisp humour. Don't go looking for run-of-the-mill cinema and you will enjoy Road, Movie which is does lack story and drama.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/movie-reviews/hindi/Road-Movie/moviereview/5641243.cms

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