L'Ombrelle bleue

Bharadwaj comes up with another interesting piece of cinema that's somewhat different from his other works. 'Omkara' was the last Bharadwaj film I'd seen and 'The Blue Umbrella' clearly excels that. Compared to 'Maqbool' and 'Omkara', 'The Blue Umrella' is a much more abstract and symbolic piece and yes, one of the main characters is played by an umbrella.

Based on Ruskin Bond's novella, it is a very simple storytelling but uses a lot of symbolic elements and makes minimum but brilliant use of technical props. The cinematography welcomes us to the beautiful location and to the character's lives and minds. Each frame of the simplistic setting of North Himalaya is a treat to watch The use of colours is very effective and adds to the abstract nature e.g. what does the blue umbrella symbolize? What do the characters Kishore and Biniya represent? Well, that's for you to figure out. In my opinion the film symbolizes beauty, greed, love, pride, desire and forgiveness. The songs are charming with lovely lyrics that will very much appeal to children. The dialogues are witty and clever.

About acting, the young Shreya is mature and very subtle as Biniya. I was amazed by Kapur's performance. I had last seen him in films like 'Maqbool', 'Dharm' etc, but here he was mind blowing. I can understand why he's referred to as one of the best actors as he seemed to quite naturally pull off Nand Kishore.

This is one of the purest films to emerge from India in recent times. Though it's categorized as a children's film, it's not. It has a powerful message, is a visual treat and film-making at its simplest but most efficient.

I must say after seeing omkara(vishals earlier movie), i knew that he had skill in the field of direction, but blue umbrella is a milestone in his career personifying his art. based on the Ruskin bond novel, this movie is a work of art, all packed with children singing "tesu" songs, depicting the rural India. The story although seems timid, but bhardwaj shows how small problems go big in the rural world. I would Have to go so far to say that the Indian audiences may not be as ready for the movie as bhardwaj thought they were.hence declaring it a flop for the masses. but in the true art sense it is a work of guts. and to top it all we receive a mind numbling performance by theatre actor Pankaj Kapur. who literally plays with your mind throughout the film. On an over all basis this movie marks the change of Indian cinema, or you can say the return of the parallel cinema once started by men like satyajit ray...

I would just like to comment on the plot synopsis written by Michelle Sohn. I disagree with the comment 'The film blends the extremely colorful and gaudy images with Bollywood-style song and dance!' Where does Michelle Sohn find 'GAUDINESS' in the movie? As an avid watcher of Hindi movies, I really do not approve of such words in a fine example of cinema! I had the misfortune of watching stupid and senseless movies like transformers, Premonition, The wedding singer etc. and i believe they are much more 'gaudy' than this movie. I request IMDb to please employ people who know how to write a good plot synopsis without restoring to jingoism. A final word to Michelle Sohn- I think Indian movies far outshine American movies so please don't write reviews if you are not really interested in our movies!!!!!!!!

Blue Umbrella is beautiful. The umbrella, the concept of the story, the background of the movie, the people, the symbolic values – they're all beautifully presented. Pankaj Kapoor says in the movie that one shouldn't measure the profit loss behind watching a sunrise. In the same way, there's really no evaluation of this movie because of its intangible beauty. It also showcases the culture of mountain people, how they deal with crime and punishment. It gets quite intense and still doesn't let go of its simplicity. Its joy to watch the kids dance along the streets and also the adults in a marriage ceremony. Pankaj Kapoor and the director have both done a great job!

Cinema is a very powerful medium.Like any other powerful media it needs to be harnessed well or the results can be go awry. For all the power it has, it is not after all so easy to captivate the audience, strike a cord and forever etch it in the viewers memory. Vishal Bharadwaj's Blue Umbrella does just that and in my opinion does a bit more!

It takes a simple village tale woven by Ruskin Bond and makes it to an amazing movie. Cinematography is amazing and the first scene is proof enough. Pankaj Kapoor gives another performance worth remembering. Bhardwaj knows close-ups with such powerful actors work well and we see lot of closeups in the movie. It goes without saying Kapoor's expressions during close-ups are just brilliant and something to look out for. The filmmaker also gets the best of the child actors and the screenplay, the gait all seem add to the rhythm of the cinema. And more than all these it is a movie about humans, their desires, their failings and emotions.

All in all wonderful cinema!!! Please do watch it!!