Road, Movie

Dev Benegal's 2009 film was premiered on Channel 4, where I saw it. Radio Times, in their lazy and scant review, described it as 'plays out like an Indian Cinema Paradiso set in the deserts of Rajasthan', which is only partly true.

Almost nothing can stand up to Cinema Paradiso, that being in my top 5 films of all time, but Road, Movie certainly has its charms. The centrepiece is a colourful, ageing truck that is also a mobile cinema. This van is the ticket to freedom for Vishnu, a restless young man, who wishing to escape being sucked into his father's hair oil business (yes, this is a gentle comedy) and he has a buyer for it; a museum in a town by the sea.

To get there, he treks across the desert (gravelly, but still tough) and his journey and the characters he meets, including the mechanic called upon very early (it HAD to be a temperamental van!) who becomes the projectionist and general fixer-up of everything. There's also a young lad, a runaway urchin. These two could be seen as the Philip Noiret character and the boy in Cinema Paradiso. Then a visually striking gypsy woman, who becomes a romantic distraction for Vishnu, is picked up when they run out of water and she has some.

Bollywood films are the most watched in the world, apparently and so obviously various flicks are shown in sprawling communities, projected onto the walls of dwellings and such.

Shot in deeply saturated colour and looking very attractive, it's not a deep, meaningful film but a nicely distracting, accessible one, nostalgic about long strips of celluloid and the joy that they can bring - and one that western audiences can easily appreciate and enjoy.

It looks like it's generally unavailable in the U.K, at least as a region 2 DVD. I only found this region 1 on Amazon by typing in the director's name and not the film's title - as that brought up hundreds of connotations, but not the right one.

Hopefully now, Channel 4's airing will have it released properly. It certainly deserves to be.

Just came back from watching this movie and realized why Robert DeNero wanted these guys to send him a DVD of the movie. The movie is brilliant. The story is nicely written, the direction and cinematography is superb and the background score could not have been better. Now to the important part, the actors. Mr Benegal got together an excellent cast for the movie and they don't disappoint. Abhay Deol, as usual is awesome. Satish Kaushik and Yashpal Sharma, seasoned actors do their part well, but adding to this was the excellent performance by Mohammed Faisal(the boy) and Tannishtha Chatterjee. And the reason I am ranting about the actors is that there is one scene in the movie which could have either made or broke a masterpiece.

This movie is a masterpiece. Go watch it.

Rating- 9/10

The movie is awesome! A very brave attempt by the director!

The worst thing that could happen to a director is getting extremely shallow reviews. And which, unfortunately, happened with Dev Benegal. Although critics/reviewers appreciated the movie,but I believe, almost all of them could not decipher the metaphors, woven to form the story, which actually was the backbone of the discourse.Every character, every event in the story is well crafted. So, in this article, I just plan to throw a few hints on the metaphors used in the movie. For the sake of exhaustiveness of this article, I would like to mention that direction, cinematography etc. etc. are superb.

Superficially it seems that the story shows journey of a young boy, 'Vishnu' (Abhay Deol), from his home town to Samudrabad on road. But actually this was a philosophical portrait of 'The journey of life', and subtle metaphors were used as colors.Every thing is very cleverly shown. 1.Huge stress has been given on 'water'. Does 'water' signify water or something else? 2.What do those weird characters (group of water searching ladies, water lord etc.), portrayed by the director, signify actually? 3.Things, like the character of mechanic who always gives the right suggestion or the strange fair that suddenly appeared out of the blue an vanished in Shoonya, mean something ? Or probably are the side effects of Director's Block . 4.What does the 'Atma (means 'soul' in Hindi) Oil', that magically (and comically) solves every problem, signify? 5.At the very first thought, "Road, Movie", why this name?

.....and the list of all those riddles, which should spontaneously pop up in the mind of keen and intelligent viewer, go on . Solving and linking these riddles brings to you a great philosophical discourse.Special mention: The way in which the magic of the mesmerizing virtual world of film been picturized is simply admirable.

So Please go and watch out this awesome movie with the attention and respect that this movie deserves. (Originally posted at http://skepticeye.wordpress.com )

There are few films which give their viewer the freedom to interpret… Road Movies is one of such films.

Road Movie has depicted the struggle of the misfits to escape from reality, to escape into something which is fantasy and unreal. I don't want to disclose the plot of the movie; however there are some movies which don't need Plots.

Dev benegal have done a very brave Job in materializing his vision, I respect his hard work and determination as I know that it would have not been easy to put such dreams on 35MM screen.

Actors were real; Mohammed Faisal,Tannishtha Chatterjee, Abhay Deol and Yashpal Sharma were good. I liked Veerendra Saxena and Satish Kaushik was great.

Mesmerizing cinematography and assuasive background score had forced me to dream like the characters in the film.

My over all experience of the movie was so soothing that I once again fell in love with the art of watching cinema.

Finally, "Road, Movie"- critically acclaimed director Dev Benegal's much awaited 3rd directorial venture comes to Indian screens after 'wandering' over from a number of film festivals.

First look at the movie and you will know that the director isn't catering to a large strata of audience. The movie has a chugging along sort of pace, quite like the Truck that is the carrier of our protagonists. A feel of wanderlust will strike you if you have that sort of streak.

The movie is basically about a journey of self-discovery (Vishnu's). The wanderlust struck oil businessman's son discovers in this journey the meaning of relationships. His companions in this journey are a mechanic (kaushik), a tea-seller boy (Faizal) and a nomad (tannishtha). Along the way there are skirmishes with the police and water mafia.

The performances are sterling. Abhay deol plays to the hilt the selfish, city-lad. Mohammed faizal impresses as the tea-stall boy an Tannishtha Chatterjee is natural in her role of a wandering nomad. But the man who steals the show as the mechanic is veteran actor Satish Kaushik. Absolutely wonderful performance by him.

Besides the cinematography is absolutely scintillating. Never has the rajasthan landscape been so beautifully picturised on screen. Michael Brook's background score is beautiful to say the least.

A movie with international sensibilities but an Indian heart. Calling this Bollywood will be a shame. This movie belongs to world cinema. Quite easily this one belongs to the collector's shelf. Mr. Dev Benegal-- Take a bow, Sire!

Go on this journey or rather 'Wander' into it.