Masaan

‎Masaan‬ means a place, where dead bodies are cremated. If you can stand the sight of actual dead bodies being burnt, right after a cute scene of an excited 21 year old guy, whose Facebook friend request has been accepted by his crush; then yes, definitely watch this one.

Its a dark, complex, hard hitting movie, which is set across the enchanting Banaras and the majestic Ganges; revolving around the life of simple human beings.

'Man kastoori re' by Indian Ocean, can be the sole reason for a music lover to buy a movie ticket. At Cannes, this movie by debut director Neeraj Ghaywan won 2 awards; and it is said that very few Asian movies have received 5 minutes of standing ovation during its screening.

The movie has flaws (the absence of that scent of regional tone in the dialogues was the most disappointing part), but the mindblowing performance by Sanjay Mishra & the strong, heavyweight performance from Richa Chadda will make it up.

If you support such good cinema, and want more 'daring' film-makers, then don't miss it.

Masaan is a story set in real Benaras which is better known as Kashi. Why did I mention real Benaras? This film makes you meet the other side of Kashi which is more active in the night than the day, the cremation Ghats where the dead bodies are burnt as per Hindu rituals. The cremation Ghats of Kashi has been mostly portrayed in films and serials as a mystic place but here the director, a débutant Neeraj Ghyawan and co-writer Varun Grover portrays the cremation Ghats as a usual business place where the bodies are burnt after dying. But, the film has a hidden treasure beyond the burning of the bodies in the cremation ghats. It's the burning of people griefs and the courage to let go their guilt to celebrate a new life.

The urge of arriving in life is portrayed by each central character of the film – Richa Chadha as Devi, Sanjay Mishra as Devi's father and Vicky Kaushal as Deepak. While Devi wants to get out of the narrow mindedness of the city and attain more liberty in the form of experiencing love and pleasure, the other character Deepak wants to break his shackles of being a pyre burning lower caste youth of becoming a civil engineer and dreams of marrying his upper caster girlfriend.

Sanjay Mishra runs a small shop at the cremation ghat and is trying to rejuvenate the cold relationship with his daughter and in order to protect her from a scandal; he breaches his own moral principles when he forces a child who works in his shop to take part in the dangerous game of collecting coins from the Ganges. The story brings twist in the each character's lives when they are forced to do a soul searching. Their soul searching brings dark moments in the film when you feel sad about their lives. But wait, there is light after the dawn and no grief is permanent. The films at the end leaves you with a message that Masaan is not only about burning the physical bodies but also about letting go your grief and making your soul guilt free.

The film is beautifully written with a strong message and a good débutant director attempt towards the serious sensible storytelling cinema. The music by Indian Ocean gels with the characters lives and the city's backdrop. The lyrics and music of the songs 'Tu Kisi Rail si gujarti hai' based on Dushyant Kumar's poetry and Man Kasturi re' are simply magical and has lifetime music value. All credits to the Director Neeraj Ghyawan who has been trained under Anurag Kashyap and the co-writer Varun Grover for such a beautiful story. Both the seasoned and the débutant actors have worked hard on their characters and that is evident from their acting.

I want to end this review for Masaan with these few lines in Hindi.. Jo Man ko Chu Jaye Use khubsurat ahsas kehte hai, Jo Atma ko Chu Jaye Use Masaan Kehte hai !

FIPRESCI, Un Certain Regard and standing ovation at Cannes, standing ovation in Ahmadabad and now a standing ovation in Bangalore, Neeraj Ghaywan's Masaan is a film that deserves high accolades for its exceptionally well written screenplay and execution. This year has been good for Indian cinema with some of the best films like "Court", "Killa" and "Kaaka Mottai" hitting the screens. Masaan joins this list of elite films. These films do not have big stars, big investments but the honesty in film-making and the content that they carry is something that Indian cinema has not attempted before, even attempted not this subtle. "More subtle, more the impact" seems to be the mantra of these films. From larger than life narratives these films bring in the shift to depict stories of ordinary people in mundane situations and their reactions. There is a kind of honesty and faith in the film which one can easily get engaged to. This not only brings the freshness breaking the stereotypical norms also gives out thoughts through the different layers the narrative has. The stories that narrate the connect of human emotions need to be explored more. "Masaan" deals with the connects of relationship in a very mature and subtle way. It keeps away from the usual melodrama. It thrives of modernism though tied with traditional values. "Its a bold film with values rather than bold visuals".. Each one of the characters has a story with real life turmoils. Some of the scenes are brilliant. Thanks to the film-making brilliance. Such experiments have an overwhelming and everlasting impact on the audience. You realize how cinema can be used as a powerful medium. You train yourself to care about good cinema watching films like "Masaan"and i think this is something such kind of films do beyond what they are normally expected to. The joy of having watched a satisfactory film is one of the best feelings any film-lover will want to have. It has become a rare phenomenon in Indian cinema. Commercial cinema has really cared about reaching the 100 Crore mark rather than providing satisfactory cinema. On one end we have the high grosser films and the other we have films like "Masaan" which mainly get tagged as "festival" films and in between films like "Piku" which is good cinema with a commercial appeal. I feel its time to get these festival films a commercial space. Its wrong for a good film to be bound only by festivals, it needs support from the theaters and mainly from the audience to thrive commercially. This would definitely help bring in a change of sense of cinema and help Indian Cinema grow.

Thanks to Bollywood for making such kind of movie. An abstract, artistic and full of emotions which portrays real life of Banaras. Film touches delicate issues of life and depicts how expression of those emotions could be dangerous especially in a small town in India. Story revolves around two youths when their life gets changed by death of someone close. But at the end, they understand the cycle of life and death and just tries to move on their life (which I suppose happened, because there's no proper ending of this movie and it was intentional!) Dialogues and songs are completely resonate with the theme of movie. Overall one of the epic movie of recent times with realistic story which leaves viewers to think about the ending and life!! A must watch non commercial realistic movie!

Now we know how long it took for Bollywood to come up with 2015's first best film: 7 months.

One should be prepared to give multiple chills to their spine as he/she goes on about watching and completing this compelling drama consisting of two parallel stories talking about life, love, and death. A young careless daughter (Chadda) of an aging professor (Mishra) from the highly conservative city of Varanasi finds herself committing a mistake while bridging the gap between love and lust, after having fallen for one of her coaching class students, which pushes the father-daughter duo into a horrible mess involving a corrupt policeman and his greedy, two-holed belly. The first five minutes of this story is enough to entice a normal person, and if you are a film fanatic, you'll throw away the popcorn for you want to concentrate.

The second tale, about adolescent love, is as charming as its two main characters. The most valid setting for an interior village in the holy city is perhaps what best describes one of the protagonists here: an Engineering student (Kaushal) who is the hope of a family whose generation-old work background has everything to do with the celebrated, open crematorium (translating to masaan in Hindi) that happens in the banks of the Ganges river in Varanasi. His transition from a sincere student into a bereaving mass of wreck is triggered when a girl (Tripathi) innocently enters his life. They fall in love, and watching this love unfold is a real treat. Sweet pleasure treat.

And if one feels unfinished with these stories, then there is great doses of poignancy to it. It is absolutely heartbreaking to watch the fate of these characters as they embrace dynamic equilibrium in their hopeless lives, just to move forward. The stories as a single entity reek of realism to the fact that such things still happen in this modern world where on one side of the globe people are talking about shifting to Moon or Mars. The whole idea is haunting and let us not go down the anachronism road, not that it is prevalent in the film.

Cast performance is brilliant. The way they act out the well-written characters shows how the makers have paid attention to details and have done good homework about the theme. Mishra, as original as ever in his typecast character, rules the frame whenever he appears. The newcomers also add panache (wrong word, I know) to the screen, especially Tripathi. Music and lyrics are supportive, too.

BOTTOM LINE: With a fantastic conclusion, Masaan is a heart- wrenching tale of people trapped in a conundrum we all call life.

VERDICT: 8 stars out of 10. Highly recommended!

Can be watched with a typical Indian family? YES

Sex/Profanity: Mild