Bombay Talkies

Four film makers, four films and four having totally different backdrops and emotions. The bollywood tribute to the Indian Cinema’s 100 year celebrations, Bombay Talkies is indeed a beautiful collaboration of various tastes and is thoroughly enjoyable for its simplicity, boldness and humor. After English Vinglish, this was one movie where I could smile throughout.

The Karan Johar movie discusses the issues in modern relationships where people don’t communicate much. It has been conveyed in a bold and humorous way by using a gay character in the plot. Dibakar Banerjee’s film traverses through one day of a struggling actor and the unexpected incidents that happens on that particular day. Zoya follows a pleasing, but a slightly less charming story of a small boy who gets inspired by the attitude of Katrina Kaif in following his unconventional dream. Anurag Kashyap comes up with a humorous short film where man comes to Mumbai to meet Amitabh Bacchan to fulfill his fathers last wish.

Karan’s film is something really out of his safe zone and also he hasn’t gone for any safe plays here when compared to his last bold attempt KANK. His three actors Randeep, Rani and Saqib Saleem were superb in their portrayal. Dibakar Banerjee was my favorite for his selection, complexity and the way he made his actors fit in to those roles. The way Nawazuddin played the role of Purandar was really amazing especially in those concluding scenes. The other actor who made an excellent performance was Sadashiv Amrapurkar. Zoya’s film mainly works because of the innocence of the child artist, Naman Jain. Anurag’s film never really reveals its nature till the end and some of you may get disturbed for such an ending; but I found it quiet enjoyable.

With different directors of different style painting in one canvas, Bombay Talkies also offers a chance to analyze the style of each director and also shows how good they are even with moderate budget. With offbeat and commercial cinema merging somewhere in almost all languages, let’s hope for an even better 100 years for Indian cinema. My rating for Bombay Talkies is 4/5. A smile is guaranteed at the end.