REVIEW: Kay Kay's Via Darjeeling
The director seems eager to confuse the audience with the convoluted plot, and ends up being pretentious. After all, it's known to happen – when we don't understand something, we more often than not believe it's too above us to understand. You know the term – OVER head transmission, wonder why nobody thought of under the feet?
Couldn't the story be good by itself?
Then there is this huge poster of Satyajit Ray's Kanchenjunga on the wall. Now that's what we call forced symbolism. Kanchenjunga and Darjeeling connect we got. Most Bengalis and people who've watched the film, also probably got the similarity between the two movies as far as unraveling relationships is concerned. But did they HAVE to put that poster up there? Couldn't we have understood the similarity part anyway? Or is it that by putting forth the similarity the movie will all of a sudden become as brilliant as Ray's masterpiece? Well, maybe we are digging too deep. Maybe the filmmaker just had this poster and wanted to show it off.
So what happens next?
Another set of possibilities which become a little too confusing. Though some really good performances make the movie watchable still. Kay Kay Menon is always good, this was no different. Same goes for Vinay Pathak and Rajat Kapoor. What or rather who surprised us was Prashant Narayanan. His was a small role which he played brilliantly and though his narrative made very little sense, his performance was enjoyable.
The film could have been a good topic for a modern play. And probably it would have worked really well too in a theatre. But as for the big screen, we don't think the subject fits. You'll say there are so many films that are open ended – take Aparna Sen's 15 Park Avenue for an example… but that's what, Sen's movie was not trying too hard to be intellectual.
VERDICT: Why watch something like Rashomon when you can watch Rashomon? Why watch something like Kanchenjunga when you can watch Kanchenjunga? But if you like Bengali folk 'baul' song mixed with rock, go for the last five minutes. The song's really good! [READ: Via Darjeeling music review ]
Rating: 2/5
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It seems your definition of a good movie starts and ends
with roshomon. Please spare us from your opinions and i bet
you can do a better job of being a film critic than this. Is
comparison the only way of judging a movie? The critique was
merely dismissive and therein lies the fault.
Suranjana,
request you to be more mature when you review music and
cinema together. It's not that easy. Moreover, doubt
whether youve understood kanchenjungha or roshomon or have
any idea of their structure. Advise you to watch them again
before writing your second review on any film. I have seen
via darjeeling and loved it for the sheer guts of doing this
kind of cinema in india. Need more journalists with guts to
review and understand it. Lack of knowledge is surely one of
your strong points, i must say.