Manorama is slow yet intelligent
Film noir in the true sense of the word, Manorama Six Feet Under has a dark, simmering quality about it, and ten minutes into the story you know there's more to it than meets the eye. Director Navdeep Singh, making no attempt to hide the fact that he's borrowed his plot generously from Roman Polanski's extraordinary film Chinatown, also borrows from that film its bleakness, its sense of impending doom.
Set in a nondescript desert town in Rajasthan, the film stars Abhay Deol as Satyaveer Singh, a suspended government officer and struggling crime-novelist who's hired by the wife of a local politician to play detective and spy on her cheating husband.
With every passing day, as he gets sucked into the case, Satyaveer Singh realizes that nothing is what it seems - not the wife, not the other woman, not even the nature of the offence he's been hired to expose.
Filled with more twists and turns than you're likely to find on the Western Ghats, Manorama Six Feet Under is both intelligent and exciting, but it's the film's sluggish screenplay that betrays it eventually.
Much like Polanski's Chinatown, this story too unfolds at a languid pace, but considering it's an experimental format, a mostly unfamiliar genre to Hindi film audiences, a tighter narrative might have yielded better results.
Pretty much abandoning the key theme of Robert Towne's Oscar-winning screenplay - the water scandal - around which the plot of Chinatown is essentially based, the writers of Manorama Six Feet Under concentrate instead on character betrayals in their own script.
Fortunately for them, they've got an ensemble cast of enthusiastic actors who deliver sparkling performances that keep this film from coming apart. Abhay Deol plays the first-time detective with a mixture of eagerness and trepidation, while Gul Panag brings an uncomfortable believability to her role as Satyaveer Singh's disappointed wife.
Raima Sen is excellent as the young lady who proves to be a vital piece in this never-ending jigsaw puzzle, as is Vinay Pathak who practically steals the show as the oily police-officer who always has the last word.
It's unlikely that Manorama Six Feet Under will appeal to all, mostly because it unfolds at a pace slower than a melting candle. But skillfully directed by debutant Navdeep Singh, the film works as a show reel for the talents of everyone involved.
I'm going with two out of five and an average rating for director Navdeep Singh's Manorama Six Feet Under, if you enjoy the unconventional, give it a shot.
Rating: 2/5
URBANEYE
I thought it was a fantastic effort. I enjoyed the slow
pace; it gave time to get to know the characters, their
quirks and relations with the other characters; perhaps it
reflected the spirit of small town india; slow, and
oppressive in a sense. All the actors were great in their
roles, especially abhay, who totally immersed in his role as
the lead.
i am glad the hero didn't beat up the bad guys at the end.
I agree that the pacing is different from usual indian fare,
and that's why i would encourage films like this, that have
a fascinating story to tell, with interesting characters. We
should not expect all films to conform to the norm.
kudos to all involved in making this film. I would give it
a 4/5 at least.
Masand saab,
you say that ns has borrowed liberally from the plot of
chinatown, yet you say the water angle is missing.
but the water angle is everywhere in the movie, the
emphasis on aquariums (everywhere - even vinay's room has a
fake one). The rain at the end when the story has unraveled.
So there is a lot of "homage" paid to chinatown.
And not in the way that bollywood usually pays homage.
and the water angle was only a part of chinatown's surface
narrative, the hidden narrative is about power and its use
and misuse. And ns has made the ending more hopeful than the
bleak chinatown (btw - i am a great fan of the ending
sequence).
i would say 3 starts, wonderful effort by a debut
filmmaker. Great casting, competent acting, and a lovely
script.