Film: "Hawaizaada"; Cast: Mithun Chakraborty, Ayushmann Khurrana,
Pallavi Sharda, Naman Jain, Jayant Kriplani, Natasha Sinha; Director:
Vibhu Virender Puri; Rating: ****1/2
Do you ever wonder what it
would be like to fly? Then see "Hawaizaada", a film that soars into the
skies with its overweening ambitions and miraculously manages to stay
airborne as it chronicles the life a man who wanted to fly.
Debutant
director Vibhu Puri's very accomplished film, a tribute to the
scientist who apparently manned the first aircraft that civilizations
has ever flown, is a stunning feast of visual splendour, compounded with
a script that's tightly and judiciously written to accentuate the
audacity and eccentricity of people who can float in the future.
Straightaway
it can be said with great pride that Vibhu Puri's debut is a homage to
the art and visual aesthetics of Sanjay Leela Bhansali. Every frame is
reminiscent of several Bhansali creations, notably "Devdas" and
"Saawariya", the former for the theme of unfulfilled love (with
Khurana's capricious love interest Pallavi Sharda forming a fusion of
Paro and Chandramukhi's two-layered character from Devdas) and the
latter for the rich bold use of flamboyant colours to highlight the
heightened opera-styled emotions.
"Hawaizaada" attempts an
almost-impossible marriage of a visual splendour with emotional
surrender. The characters, be it the whimsical aimless Shivkar Talpade
or his kooky mentor Shastry , or the Britishers who scowl at any attempt
by Shastry and Talpade to create inventional history....these are
people who don't believe in holding back emotions. When they feel show.
Period.
The year is 1895. The possibilities of recreating that
era in present times seems far-fetched and unlikely. Thanks to Puri's
art directors(Subrata Chakraborty0, Amit Ray), music composers(Vishal
Bhardwaj pitches in with a zestful lavni filmed on the gorgeous Sharda)
and most specially his incredibly gifted camera-person Savita Singh(who
happens to be Puri's wife), the director has constructed a world as
unthinkable on paper as the theory of flying a plane must have seemed to
Talpade's contemporaries.
Thank God for the dreamers,back then and now.
"Hawaizaada"
is a film with tempestuous ambitions. Co-writers Vibhu Puri and Saurabh
R Bhave use Talpade's dream of flying as a metaphor for anyone from any
era who has dreamt of breaking free. The pronounced but Amuted metaphor
is extended into Talpade's extend family of repressed character, again
very Devdas-like in its operatic structure. There is the growling
father(Jayant Kripalani), tightlipped mother(Natasha Sinha), smirking
brother(Mehul Kajaria), dominated bhabhi(Priyanka Sethia)....They all
long to ,well, fly .
Encircling this wide arc of wannabe fliers
who are piloted into the epic plot by Talpade's navigational dreams,
couldn't be an easy task. Vibhu Puri manages the seemingly impossible
maneuvering skilfully joyously and playfully through lives in an era
when oppression was a pre-condition.
Soaring on a dream,
"Hawaizaada" transports us into an enchanting world of a dream-reality
where anything can happen. Birds can sing, humanbeing can
fly....whatever! Fuelling the impossible dream is the central
performance by Ayushmann Khurrana. He breathes animated life into
Shivkar Bapuji Talpade, the audacious 19th century scientist who dared
to fly. Khurrana plays Talpade as a trippy dreamer, a Devdas drunk on
his dreams.
Mithun Chakraborty as Talpade's mentor is goofy
eccentric and endearing. This is the actor's most effective performance
in years. As for Pallavi Sharda, though admittedly that well-toned
gym-produced physique doesn't jell with the film's periodicity, she is a
revelation doing an amalgamation of Paro and Chandramukhi from
Devdas.Besharam is forgotten and forgiven.
Going back in time is
never an easy task in cinema. Many have failed to court periodicity
convincingly. "Hawaizaada" gets away with its flight into the mind of
the man who dared to fly. This miniature masterpiece leaves us
exhilarated and exultant. Thank God for the dreamers, past and present.
Thank you, Shivkar Bapuji Talpade. Thank you, Vibhu Puri.
