For those enchanted by the embellishments of the past, for those who love romance and for those who love cinema this is a must watch. This film is for all and specifically for film aficionados.
There are films, but this is cinema. There are directors, film makers. But Vikramaditya Motwane is a craftsman who painstakingly wove the whole canvas with bright colours and some pale ones too. There are shades of grey at times, while for the good part, it's extremely colourful. We don't have any song-dance sequences here, yet music plays such an important role in getting us the the theme of the film so well.
Based on the short story "The Last Leaf" by O.Henry, Vikram made a romantic and thrilling adaptation of it. I never imagined that Berhmann of "The Last Leaf" can be a guy as charming as Varun Shrivastav (Ranveer Singh). There are wails amidst joys. There are silences in conversations. There is a smile in death. Wow, I was amazed for most part and mesmerised by the pace of the film. The slowness seemed to be working in favour of the film. Yet, the first half just flew in a sly. I was so elated in the interval that though the expected was coming, I was joyous and wanted to clap for the sheer courage of the director. In the climax of the short story, the leaf becomes the film's hero and is referred as masterpiece. I was just not very much convinced by this point alone. While others I thought were in place and apt to the context too.
Dialogs were of pure hindi and referred to the era of 1950's. There is a reference to a similar kind of film "BAAZI" by Dev Anand and I think this was a tribute to that film. What a poignant reference to the song "Tadbeer Se Bigdi Hui", it seemed so wonderful. In times, where we live for making money, saving money, consuming money, the girl had time to write and the director too seems to have all the time in the world to write a magnum opus. I also suppose that the name of the inspector as K N Singh was taken from the name of the legendary K N Singh (the villain of "Baazi").
The performances in particular are somewhat subtle and special. I disliked Ranveer Singh in an earlier film of his and never watched any of Sonakshi Sinha's films earlier. In Lootera, I suppose that they have jostled up all their acting abilities and they have pierced the hearts with such fine nuanced performances. Sonakshi as Pakhi grows above the script and delivers a memorable performance. She performed this with an aplomb that's seldom seen in today's times. Ranveer as Varun brought subtlety to his character and did well. I can't assuredly say that he rose above the script, though he climbed the tree. He tried well and that was good enough.
Although I was laughing for the most part of the second half at dialogs, deep inside I knew what they meant. Ok, it may not be for everybody's liking coz everyone has their own choice of art. Coming to art, let me speak of the art direction. I was stunned with such detailing. The last film I saw that had stupendous art direction was "Jodhaa Akbar" and this film took the art direction further to a greater level.
The cinematography fell apart during nights. There was a lot of noise (grains) on screen and I think this film has been shot digitally and thus the ISO was higher and hence the grains. If this is the case, then it's quite appalling. Anyways, that was the only aberration I was not comfortable with. Barring this, the film has lot many positives.
Go watch this Love-Saga if interested in cinema, for mere film watching, you have other choices. There can't be ratings to a piece of art, to like or dislike is a prerogative that the mind possesses. I am going with 4/5 as I like the detailing above all else. Please forgive a few coincidences for the benefit of cinema.
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