That’s a fitting title for a film as distant from grand and sensual romances of good looking people cinema generally serves us. The way characters make love in movies often makes one wonder why porn (and real life) couldn’t be like that – the actual act is dirty, noisy and doesn’t always end as we want it to, much like this film – that’s as real as it gets.
Aadish Keluskar’s Jaoon Kahaan Bata Ae Dil begins with the unnamed couple walking at Marine Drive, in a long unbroken shot that covers their meet-cute, the fighting, the backgrounds & the patch-up, and extends a duration I couldn’t keep track of. It sets the ground for the film, asking us to constantly negotiate between the artifice of filmmaking and the intentions of the narrative, and acts is a testament to the skill and understanding of actors (Khushboo Upadhyay and Rohit Kokate) that don’t miss a beat here.
Mumbai is third wheel of the relationship, the only named character moving the film forward – forcing the pair to find private spots in public spaces on their weekend date. ‘She’ is dusky, receptive, modest and looks older than her age, ‘He’ is cynical, foul-mouthed, and egotistical, and they feel complementary to each other like an unfortunate jigsaw puzzle, and the image they form is not very pretty.
The film has a critical self-awareness – as the characters discuss the need to watch films, while ‘He’ forces her to perform on him in the movie theater; later, ’He’ wants to ‘film’ the act and he wants to try something new, which she doesn’t feel comfortable about. And we become witness to the act, and it plays out in front of us, closer to reality than comfortable. That’s a problematic line the film treads, when trying to recreate exploitative situations, without trying to be exploitative itself, and that remains a question to be asked and answered individually with the gut.
Do I still want to continue looking at it, despite its obvious descent into depravity? The relationship is abusive, and despite everyone’s understanding of the situation outside the two, there are few reasons to believe things are going to be different later, but we continue watching.
The film, which for the most part captures the gritty realities, of how people actually speak without censorship, and how matter-of-fact sex generally is, take it’s most film-like turn at the end, employing a deus ex machina to provide a conclusion of sorts. Why are we still watching, asks a character at the end, and when does it all stop? It’s an uncomfortable piece of film here, one that knows it would rarely pass the moral and social codes of commercial cinema (“What’s the point” says ‘He’ when ‘She’ asks him to write and publish his ideas); yet the only reason this film exists, is only because the filmmakers believed it has to be made. That’s a foolishly brave thing to do.
hungryrj 