Khamoshi: The Musical

Definitely Sanjay Leela Bhansali's first and finest, Khamoshi relates the story of a deaf couple and their relationship with their caring and loving daughter, Annie who is not deaf and whose greatest love is music. The film involves many conflicts resulting from this difference between Annie and her parents and her relationship with a young musician. The film's strength lies in the marvelous script, the exceptional performances, and the paradox of deaf parents whose daughter aspires to become a singer. Bhansali's direction is outstanding and evidently perfectionist; he pays attention to the smallest of details, he knows how and when to excite. This is one of the greatest first-time works by a director.

The dialogues are brilliant, the proceedings are unexpected and serious, the depiction is simple and realistic, and the narrative style is very good as well. Bhansali's way of portraying relationships is very impressive, whether it's Annie's relationship with her parents or her beloved Raj, whether it's her dad Joseph's relationship with her mom Flavy, or her family's relationships with close friends and neighbours like Marry and Willie. The film is filled with many great moments, many heart-breaking and many heart-warming sequences. It has romance, drama and even comedy, and most importantly, it has music. And what a music it is. Every song is pure magic and is effectively pictured on-screen. "Yeh Dil Sun Raha Hai" is beautiful and touching, "Aaj Main Upar" is energetic and is wonderfully sung by Kavita Krishnamurthy, and other songs, including the melancholic "Bahon Ke Darmiyan", are equally memorable. The background score is another integral aspect of the film's mood.

Bhansali extracts some of the best performances from each and every actor of the unit. The film belongs to Manisha who is astonishing and intense in one of the finest performances we've seen in mainstream Hindi cinema. She carries every scene brilliantly and acts with great conviction. Striking a balance between restraint and temperamental emotion, she delicately lets us sense the struggle, the confusion, the pain and the suffering of a girl who is torn between her love for her parents and her love for music. One must note her breakdown when she is thrown off home by her father and starts a long monologue behind the door, screaming and using sign language, while her father can neither see nor hear her. I could really feel her pain and anger. It was sincere, heart-breaking and powerful.

Nana Patekar and Seema Biswas offer a credible chemistry. They really look like a loving married couple who go through the bad and the good just as it comes. Patekar is, once again, simply astounding as the proud, decisive, happy, kind-hearted and loving Joseph. Damn what a performance, so natural and real, and so well infused with sensibility, honesty and humour. Biswas is nothing short of spectacular in this role. Her acting is superb, and she gives an excellently balanced, compelling and moving portrayal of a woman who suffers from her handicaps but still loves life. Salman Khan plays his relatively small yet significant part with sincerity and spontaneity and lends some comic relief with his feel-good character and strong screen presence. Helen is splendid as the lovely and frank Marry, admirably managing to make a remarkable impact with only a few brief scenes. Raghuvir Yadav provides great support as Willie. The girl who plays the young Annie is adorable, and boy does she resemble Manisha (another proof to Bhansali's exemplary craft).

All in all, Khamoshi: The Musical is a must-watch. Made with simplicity, graciousness and artistry, it does not go overboard and does not try to overdo or misuse its sensitive subject, and that's the reason it is so touching, powerful and poignant. The film flows very well though it may not appeal to everyone as it's a bit dark and too cruel in some portions, but it will definitely be appreciated for its brilliance and remarkable emotions even by those who perceive it to be overly serious. I personally find it beautiful, crafted, optimistic, entertaining and unforgettable. A real gem.

This film is a true masterpiece. Though it may seem slow-paced at first, especially for our fast-paced times, it profoundly touched my heart. It goes beyond just entertainment; the performances of these remarkable actors speak directly to the soul.

Nana Patekar's portrayal is extraordinary, immersing himself so completely in the role that his expressions alone convey deep emotion. Manisha Koirala is equally impressive, bringing her character to life with grace and emotional depth. While I may not rewatch this film often due to my selective taste, its one-time magic and lasting impact make it a genuine work of art.

This is form of art. Wonderful storyline, super acting by everyone. Salman charms you throughout the film, manisha makes you fall in love with her, and whatever I am going to say about couple Nana Patekar and Seema will be very little. People say Salman can't act or Salman doesn't do art films, well this is the film that will shut everyone's mouth. Sanjay Leela Bhansali Excels in his debut direction. Songs are addictive especially Aaj main upar and Baahon ke darmia. The cinematography of Baahon ke darmia is excellent.

On the whole this is treat for movie lovers.

Just a amazing movie great work vision by Sanjay Leela bansali great performance by nana Manisha salman.

Khamoshi: The Musical (1996) : Movie Review -

Silences more than half of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's filmography. SLB's career will always be divided into two categories: content-driven cinema and larger-than-life spectacles. The content category will have Khamoshi, Black, and Guzaarish, while the likes of HDDCS, Devdas, Bajirao Mastani, and Padmaavat will lie in the second category. Khamoshi has to be his most close-to-tragedy conflict coming from a human angle because I feel that situations like Black, and Guzaarish are quite rare to find (that's what makes them better, actually). The metaphor in Khamoshi is pretty clear to everyone who's watching it, but SLB didn't present it verbally. "Beyond Silence" too suffered from the same problem, I guess. Having a normal child is the happiest thing for deaf and mute parents, but that can be the saddest thing too, because it separates her/him from their problematic world. So, sometimes it is better to have a disabled child because he/she can at least be with you forever, and they can carry on with life with the same problems. Khamoshi uses music and love/marriage to highlight the same issue, just like Beyond Silence; otherwise, it's a totally different and much more diverse movie than the OG German film. Indian films should always be superior because the use of songs gives them an edge. For instance, Hollywood and Bollywood can both make visual grandeurs. Let's say Hollywood has Ben-Hur (1959) and we have "Mughal-e-Azam" (1960). Both are huge, but MEA has evergreen music and video songs that Ben-Hur didn't have. That's one thing where we are ahead. With the right use of it, we can overtake any original film with a remake. Beyond Silence could use nudity, and Khamoshi couldn't. That's not my issue, anyway. The problem is that a film like Khamoshi, a story, which is set in a small village/beach/house, shouldn't go big with its scale. Now, that vision of SLB spoils the generalism and reliability of Khamoshi. The best scenes in the film don't have any big scales or sets. The musical touch boosts the metaphor further because it's a very sensitive human conflict perfectly matched with parental issues. The daughter wants to make a career in music because she is normal, but sadly, her parents can never hear her music. The idea of romance is quite different in Khamoshi than what we saw in Beyond Silence. This one's pure and slightly misjudged romance, and that too because we have such dramatic situations. Whatever flaws it has are covered by the emotional segments in the film-there are four major emotionally engaging scenes in this film, and that Nana's speech in the church in the climax surpasses them all. It's a genius idea to have the speech verbally delivered by another man. It can never create the same emotional impact when the character himself narrates it. What's overdone is the pregnancy routine of the girl, which has been too dated for Hindi movies. "Mujhse galti ho gayi.. Bachcha gira do." I mean, that stuff has been pushed even before Bhansali was born. Nana Patekar gives another striking performance. Nothing much challenging was left for him after the kind of films and roles he had done before Khamoshi, but still, he discovered a new soft side of him as an actor. Koirala is superb in those emotionally challenging scenes, while Seema Biswas did make me believe that she was deaf and mute. Salman looked young and handsome in a typical chocolate boy role, but somehow he got that one of the most important emotional scenes at the end of the film. SLB should work with talents like Nana, Seema, and Raghubir again instead of working with today's mediocre bunch of supporting actors, and he should also go back into that content-cinema zone again, even though his last three such films didn't do well at the box office. That's sheer bad luck, man. Let him earn money with big-scale movies with mediocre content so that he can save money to spend them on such high quality projects. I am always there, silently waiting for him to come back.

RATING - 7/10*

By - #samthebestest.