The crowd at Paradise theatre came in lured with expectations of perhaps something else. 'Entertainment"? It was like a cat startled at watching itself in the mirror. Julius Caesar had a point "for the eye sees not itself, But by reflection, by some other things".
The eyes of the middle class of a city super of saturated hopes and dreams saw realities was perhaps the ideal surrounding to experience Bombay Talkies. Voyeuring a glimpse into the "other things" first drew a few hoots (at Rani Mukherjee's bare back), then a few nervous titters at the advances of Avinash (Saqib Saleem) and then silence followed by whistles for the Randeep Hooda kiss.
Dibakar Banerjee evoked a conversation next to me that ended in "arrey yeh wala to samjha hi nahin".
The audience really did not know what to do with what they saw in the reflections of themselves. That I think is where the tableux succeeded. Stirring thoughts (and perhaps reflections). It was palpable and perhaps as visceral as the audience erupting in Lagaan.
I loved a Bollywood movie after quite a few months. Every director brought a little of his and her self into their exposé. They brought a little slice of themselves to the party and left a lump in the throat for the characters.
Karan Johar had to let people deal with a homosexual's revelation and the loneliness of a city that has prosperity and loneliness as interchangeable currencies.
Dibakar Banerjee brought Lal Mohan babu to the party in a Lower Parel chawl wrapped in Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Marathi lore. And of course the emu. The joy of a child's smile and the folly of a dream receding into vastness in the end is what I'd make of the city as well. (I wonder how many remembered Satyajit Ray and got the Rabindra sangeet inspiration though)
And then of course the poignance of Zoya Akhtar's storytelling. Sometimes I marvel at her repeated success of recounting a story from the man's perspective as a woman (remember Zindagi Na Milay Dobara?). Shot to begin like a Horlicks or a Complan ad, I hope it rattles a few parents thinking... Cross dressing little boys would perhaps evoke a different response had she not woven it so gossamer that a viewer smiles a few tears of joy for the triumph as the curtain comes down.
Of course it needed an Anurag Kashyap to reveal that in Bombay "hagney ko bhi dui rupiya lagta hain!" and to highlight the cow belt influence that makes the city.
I like the simplicity of each premise and what each little story stirred within and left behind. It is a movie that can be discussed and analysed ad infinitum... and yet entertain the plebian. I loved how the stories completely avoided the super rich and the super mendicant. A middle class quartet that plucks heart strings. A of course stirrs "other things"
I perhaps lucked it out watching it in the mirror
