I
was never and am not a meticulous story book reader. And I am the only
person to be blamed for it. For the fact that I could not extract the
quintessence of words in black and white. Rather, I always wanted
someone to recite the abridgment of it for me. And I would envisage
glowing characters, at times from real life, enacting the narration. It
unquestionably excited me much more. I still remember, when Devdas
released in 2002, my previous generation’s individuals, did not liked it
much. As they witnessed Bimal Roy’s creation which harmonized with what
Sarat Chandra Chatterjee penned down. But for me, Bhansali’s creation
was more alluring as he imagined and explored the characters in his own
way. For me that’s what clicked. Hence, I always enjoyed movies, that
was directly adapted from various written creations. Parineeta, 3
Idiots, Kai Po Che to name a few….
And it was only yesterday that I
came to know about a story being translated to a visual experience
called “Lootera” inspired by American author O. Henry's short story 'The
Last Leaf.'
I read the synopsis of “The Last Leaf” before I went
today for “Lootera.” To me “The Last Leaf” was quite depressing as it
recounts the story of a dying girl, who glimpse through her window pane
the falling leaves of a tree during winter and believes that she will
die on the day when the last leaf from the tree falls of. Wondering, how
this gloomy story can make audiences sit in the theater for 2 and odd
hours, I went ahead to experience it.
And as I said, earlier, the
biggest attainment of a storyteller is to visualize a story in his own
way. And most importantly, convince people to believe in his
visualization. He did it, flawlessly. Vikramaditya has already made a
big mark with his first presentation “Udaan.” And this one takes his
imaginative triumph to larger leap. Stitching a strong, credible,
realistic and pragmatic love story in the back drop of early 1950’s,
Varun (Ranvir) and Pakhi Roy Chowdhury (Sonakshi) were the ideal characters that could have recited this story. The appear, the attire,
the shades of the adjoining milieu made perfect reason to the viewers to
get convinced with these two characters. Shot extensively in “Rarh”
Bengal and Mystic Dalhousie, the camera job of Lootera has witnessed us
some of the spectacular scenic beauty of India with change in the
season. The story got a big assist in its reading on screen because of
this splendid camera work. But it’s not only the cyclic change in season
and characterization that makes “Lootera” prosaic and poetic. “Lootera”
has a perfect blend of sensible story, poetic scenes and surroundings,
lyrical music, that speaks out the most in circumstances of long pauses
between the charecters, in it. Love stories not essentially need to have
an ending with “Yes” or “No”. There is a lot that’s in between them.
Human emotions trapped in love and fear is a very rare permutation seen
in movies. The brawl between head and heart is the most vulnerable. This
one deals with it and deals virtually. “Not all love stories have a
happy ending” is true. But not necessarily they all need to be
depressing, disheartening and miserable. Yes, agreed, there will be an
epoch of pessimistic human emotion, when one bump into unexpected
destiny of love. But not always they rule over and come out victorious.
Life, in its course, finds out optimism. And then flows in it. Motwane’s characters undergo this course in an untarnished way. His characters,
as are real, are not saint. Yet they are not dejected either. They,
even after all odds that had happened in their life, never left hope
from life.
“Lootera” speaks about life. Speaks about existence.
Speaks about hope. Speaks about being there, ever after. Speaks about
the eternal love that’s makes its presence felt even after you are not
there. Who knows, maybe this one narrates the story of one of us!!! :)
