It's a gloomy Sunday morning in Shillong with continuous rain from maybe last night. There I had my ticket for a film which I was eagerly waiting to watch for quite a while. I was expecting that a Sunday show at 11AM in this weather would have a pretty weak attendance but then I was surprised to see that the queue to enter the theatre was LONG, really long. Well the film's lead actors are crowd pullers for sure. I was kinda annoyed that the long line ahead of me was moving really slow and I was hoping that I don't miss the first few minutes of this film.
I was in and just shortly later when the lights were off and the film began (the thanking of certain people, the major brands, media partners, etc.) I was already in splits when for the first time in cinema a unique manner was employed by the film maker to make us - the audience realize that we were there to enjoy 'Barfi!' and leave everything else behind. And boy, I definitely forgot about the horrible weather for those two and half hours once I entered Barfi's world.
'Barfi!' - Films like these maybe come once in a decade or two. It's a rare film that is so different yet has all the ingredients of providing a long lasting smile on the audiences' faces after it ends. To sum it up, it is the story of Murphy aka Barfi who is deaf and mute but inspite of his challenges, he is the talk of the town, a mischievous prankster and is always being chased around by a cop throughout the film. He meets Shruti and falls in love with her and so does she fall for him but things go awfully wrong for Barfi when she chooses someone else instead of him and gets married. Several years later, their paths cross again but Barfi is now with his childhood friend Jhilmil, a girl suffering from autism. What happens next in this beautiful tale, well I can't say more. Barfi and his relationship with both Shruti and Jhilmil forms the crux of the story.
The film has some brilliant cinematography. Calcutta and especially Darjeeling look beautiful. The music by Pritam is a winner all the way. Definitely the songs go well with the narrative. The background score is also worth a mention since this film has minimal dialogues and it did remind me of Charlie Chaplin. The story of the film comprising of three different time spans presented back and forth in a non-linear manner has been written by the director himself and it boasts of a lot of comedy (the audience was genuinely in splits and clapped too), it's simple and at the same time does have moments where tears can't be stopped. All in all, a simple film beautifully and masterfully written and directed by Anurag Basu.The supporting cast comprises of old veteran Rupa Ganguly as Shruti's mother. She was impressive. The others like Barfi's friend, Shruti's husband, Jhilmil's father (Aashish Vidhyarthi) and Jhilmil's guardian were decent but the one who stood out was Saurabh Shukla as the cop who would keep chasing Barfi.
Now coming to the main leads:
A famous actress down South Ileana D'Cruz makes her debut in Hindi films and she does leave an impact. She plays Shruti Ghosh/Sengupta and is also the narrator of the film and she emotes beautifully.
Jhilmil Chatterjee an autistic girl has been portrayed by Priyanka Chopra....did I say Priyanka Chopra? Well as a matter of fact, one would not see Priyanka in it at all. Her mannerisms, body language, facial expressions did all the talking where she could have gone overboard but she nailed it with perfection and yes it would not be erroneous to say that she will win the awards this year for her BRAVE performance. It's a role where she will be remembered for a long time.
He is definitely turning out to be the most versatile actor of his generation and it goes without a doubt that Ranbir Kapoor can slip into any character and make it memorable. He plays the title role Barfi with such brilliance that left me completely dumbstruck. Its a huge risk for any popular actor to play a character without having any dialogues. He was left with his face, eyes and body to express and in the process he made Barfi one of the most lovable characters ever portrayed on screen. The scene where Barfi is heartbroken and he expresses his anger and pain (through sign language) to Shruti will go down as Ranbir's best scene ever. The awards are again his this year for sure.
Hindi movies nowadays target to achieve the so called 100 crores club and they dish out such crap that its painful to watch them. A film like Barfi! is priceless and made for the love and passion of cinema and it is definitely one of the best films to have been made in the past few years. It is a monumental piece of work by Anurag Basu who has managed to churn out career best performances from both Ranbir and Priyanka who take the movie to a different league altogether.
Barfi! a sure shot celebration of cinema and life!!! 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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