15 Park Avenue

How I wish I could write a review of this movie! But I know I can not. I can not because writing a review, which could do justice with this movie, would demand much more competence and experience than I suppose I have. So I am going to write my general feeling and opinion about it which is based on the impression the movie has created in my mind. Please don't expect a detailed analysis or technical insights in this post.

To start with, it is a beautiful movie. Mind-blowing with all its possible limitations! Absolutely Amazing despite a few imperfections the professional critics would come up with!

I recommend you to watch this if you are interested in meaningful cinema and if your perception of fun doesn't belong to the genre of 'keep-your-mind-at-home' type. I will suggest you to watch this movie in theatre. I'm sure you'ld find it worth your while and worth its cost as well as its opportunity cost. For me this movie was an audio-visual treat that had made a heartfelt effect. This effect is still fresh. I can still feel its sweet fragrance.

Now let's talk about the movie as such. What's so great about this movie? Well, where should I start from?

Konkana Sen Sharma: I admit I don't have appropriate and adequate adjectives to adorn her with. I am afraid my adjectives will only understate the sheer genius of her acting. She is a sensational phenomenon. She leaves you bedazzled by her brilliance. She impales your heart by her penetrating performance. She gets you transfixed to your chair and doesn't even allow you to blink your eyes as long as she stays at the screen. She plays the role of Mithi, a schizophrenic girl who has delusions about her husband and kids who don't exist in reality (obviously!). She gives life to Mithi, she makes her breathe, she makes her so irresistably real! That's what an actor does to a character that is otherwise nothing but a collection of words on a piece of paper. In this movie there are many moments made momentous by her impeccable histrionics. Watch her when she says "Who are you who look like my parents?" while resisting her being taken away. You will not be able to forget the ferocious yet poignant look in her large watery eyes. Look at her while she comes back from the asylum. You will not be able to forget her defeated, shattered image. She looks like an innocent flower untimely withered by the sadistic scorch of a revengeful sun. The pathos stays in your mind. She stays in your mind.

Konkona has a courage to look ugly on the screen, without hiding those two eyes! And it matters a lot to me. Here I remember Nargis with great fondness and respect. No actress has done till date what she has done in Mother India. I want to write about her sometime. With the same feelings I also remember Raj Kapoor in Jagte Raho, an absolutely amazing movie and an absolutely brillaint performance! An actor need not always look pretty if he/she wants to make the character real. Konkona very much looks like Mithi would do in her real life. She does it very honestly and very convincingly. And it takes more than just a 'no make-up' look to achieve what she has achieved. Her theatrical skills are incredible. You have to see Mithi to get a glimpse of Konkona's genius.

Shabana Azmi: Shabana Azmi plays a beautiful and a very complicated role. She is Mrs Mathur, Mithi's elder sister in the movie. She is a divorced woman, an ambitious professor of physics with kind but impetuous disposition. She looks after her ailing sister and old mother. Bound by her familial obligations, she is bound to ignore the courtships of his colleague she likes. She consciously tries not to punish her family for her sacrifices and she rejects the label of 'saint' etc but in weak and trying moments her anguish belies her otherwise poised countenence. There was, I think, an immense scope in this role and consequesntly a menacing responsibility attached to it. But Shabana delivers it with perfection, panache and above all, control. Her mind is torn apart by heart-rending conflicts and such is the force of her acting that we feel the stress in our minds. She takes us in a different plane. We shuffle between our postures in anxiety and apprehension while she effortlessly goes on. We feel sorry for her. We empathize with her despite the conspicuous lack of a background score. Only she could have done it. We admire her without her doing much melodrama. Shabana has done justice with her reputation as a great artist. We want more of her.

Waheeda Rehman: Oh what an actress! I have seen her in Pyaasa but it was this movie that made me realize her potential.

In 15 Park Avenue, she looks so tender and so vulnerable that you unconsciously get cautious of her. Her frailty and fragility scares your soul. She looks like someone precariously standing at the edge of a cliff where even a slight touch could push her into the abyss. She trembles like a dry leaf. "It is so awful to be old and helpless", she says and she sends the shiver down your spine by letting you see imagine for a moment the horrors of senility that is more horrible than senility itself. Look at the naked shock at her face when Shabana shouts at her and says that it was her family that stops her from doing things she would have done otherwise.

Rahul Bose: Odd man out in this ladies' movie! We again get to see the same 'goody-goody' sophisticated, urban gentleman who fails to make any mark in the intimidating presence of the scintillating triumvirate. Sorry Rahul I can't ignore Mr and Mrs Iyer while writing about you. I found the similar character in 15 Park Avenue too. You were great in the former but not so great in the latter despite your being almost the same. More presicely, because your being the same. The similitude in the roles you choose to play is disconcerting and disappointing. Every artist has limitations but within those limitations an actor must display a minimal variety in his roles. So unlike Konkona, you hardly do anything but be yourself! That's what you have done is this movie. Do you call it acting? I don't think so. Enacting oneself can hardly be called acting. Every man at the street enacts himself. Big deal!

There are moments when you try to act but you try too hard and you nearly make a mess of the scene. Any discerning spectator will be puzzled by your inexplicable pauses and postponed responses in heated scenes. Why would a husband be so irritatingly and provokingly devious to his wife while answering her simple questions? Why would he unnecessarily let himself be suspected by his circumlocution and evasion? Your acting in those few scenes indicates insincerity on the part of Joydeep which is incongruous with the portrayal of his character. That reminded me of second-rate suspense movies in which the actors deliberately stammer and glance sideways to create cheap mystery.

Anyways, you manage to save the wicket. You stayed put at the pitch. You shared the screen with these formidable women and that, I understand, could be pretty unnerving. Keeping that in mind, you didn't do that bad. You did rather good. You deserve this much credit. But you don't play awesome shots which was expected from a man like you who, Media says, is an actor of great caliber.

Aparna Sen: I should have started with her. I would certainly have if her daughter had not overwhelmed my mind by her pyrotechnical performance. She is the mother of this movie. I have few words to say in her praise. She has proved again that she is a consummate director. She has an understanding of the subtle nuances of human emotions and human relationships and she portrays her characters with meticulous care and credibility. She respects the intelligence and sensitivity of her audience too. There are dialogues and situations in the movie that substantiate my feeling. I am sure you will notice the fine treatment of such emotions especially in Shabana's dialogues. All I would like to say that as a movie-goer I am thankful to her for making such a beautiful movie. Hats off to you, Ma'am.

Schizhophrenia: I am not sure whether schizophrenics behave like mentally retarded people. I am not sure if they urinate at the carpet. I am not sure if they don't recognize people they see in their hallucinations. I am saying all this because the review at rediff.com says that this movie makes the understanding of the word schizophrenia clear in our minds. I beg to disagree.

But still, unlike other movies, the patient is not shown to be a dangerously smiling psychopath who does all sorts of somersaults with his eyeballs to prove that he is really sick.

The End: This is controvertial and deliberately made so. I repeat - consciously and deliberately. If you understand this point, you would find yourself less judgemental about it.

Apart from the classic reason of leaving 'the end' at our imagination, the writer-director might have other motives to choose such an open-ended end. I think that the director didn't want to do anything dramatic to bring about a more palatable and popular end. Most of the directors do it. And it is ridiculous. However we are habituated to it. We take it as a necessary rule of the game. But our being habituated doesnt make it less ridiculous. On the other hand we are not habituated to such endings. We felt betrayed for not been told the whole story. But there is more to human life than a story can contain. That's the point and we must know it.

And without a spectacular upheaval it was almost impossible to conclude the story in 3 hours. There were many lose threads in the movie and a conventional end would have involved doing things that would ineluctably have threatened the quality of the movie. The director chose to be uncompromising about it and I respect her for that.

Verdict: A don't-miss movie.