A thought so simple, it sweeps you into a stratosphere of supreme sublimity, images so deft, dark, and bewitching they transport you into a world of yummy yearnings, and performances so clever and yet artless, they make you wonder why our stars don’t jump the fence dividing mainstream and ‘other’ cinema more often…Paheli leaves you with all these thoughts. Plus a smile.
Welcome to the folk-fettered world of Amol Palekar’s slight and tender triangle about a man, his neglected wife, and a thoughtful ghost.
The flick’s frisky and risky folk-flips are so endearingly naïve, it could have fallen into a hilarious heap on the floor. To the director’s credit, the sharp contours of the folk tale and the wispy and profound inner world of the people who live lives of real pain within the morality tale come across in wave after wave of charming montages which sweep you along the windswept landscape.
Paheli is luscious and lyrical. Its pronounced use of light, colour, and sound lends an exquisite texture of ripened tenderness to the goings-on.
The simple tale is told with a long-forgotten flourish of folksy frothiness. Muneesh Sappal’s supple art work and especially Ravi Chandran’s camerawork furnish the film’s framework with a unique blend of nostalgia and modernity.
That’s the stirring synthesis which Palekar’s film targets to achieve. Here’s the story of a lonely and neglected wife in an avaricious business family that is located in a time long gone by. She could be Meena Kumari in Sahib Biwi Aur Ghulam, or she could be Shabana Azmi in Deepa Mehta’s Fire.
Rani Mukherjee’s Lachchi is timeless in her desolate resonances. Wisely, Sandhya Gokhale’s screenplay is constructed through Lachchi’s perspective. When the ghost gently confesses to Lachchi that she can choose between asking him to stay or leave, Lachchi breaks down.
“No one has ever asked me what I want.”
It’s a heartstopping moment, embracing the tormented neglect and solitude of womenfolk in patriarchal set-ups.
Seen in that light, Paheli is a story of feminine solitude and redemption told with that twinkle-eyed quirkiness which comes naturally to a filmmaker from the other side of the filmmaking fence.
Palekar isn’t fearful of falling. He lets his narrative hang by a thread, knowing it can hold in place by dint of the imaginative affluence.
In doing the folk tale with a compendium of songs and dances, Palekar doesn’t resort to the ‘formula’ film. He goes beyond, and deeper, into our folk traditions. When the characters break into those beautifully tuned and choreographed songs, time doesn’t stop still. It moves forward in a glow of fluent flow, denoting the primeval passions and emotions of mankind in colours that are subtle and sensuous.
Here’s a film and filmmaker which aren’t abashed about returning to Hindi cinema’s starkest roots. Paheli takes us to the innermost recesses and rhythms of folk-art with gallons of giggles and glamour to prop up the pulsating cadences of life that’s as elegiac as it is contemporary.
There are arresting amounts of lucid drama, such as the early sequence where the traveling bride gorges blissfully on ber, only to have her dull, workaholic husband remind her of decorum…
As the dull husband and the playful, passionate ghost, Shah Rukh Khan is a revelation. Though at times ‘Shah Rukh Khan’ peeps out tantalizingly, he remains steadfastly in character, playing the two roles of flesh and spirit with a jokey irony that scoffs at convention even as the two characters display a dynamic deference for the rules of destiny.
Rani’s Lachchi is matched by Juhi Chawla as her sister-in-law, who brings out the abandoned wife’s tragic dignity so well, you wonder why we don’t get to see more of her in the film.
But the absolute scene-stealer is Amitabh Bachchan, who, as the eccentric shepherd who solves the riddle of the double husband, comes on screen in the last reel, bringing with his persona the velocity and humour of an actor who has seen it all, and can yet surprise you.
Portions of the wispy plot could have done with some filling-out. The comic sequences with Rajpal Yadav are too stagey to blend into the love story. Also, the camel race seems to be a case of buying time before the inevitable confrontation between love and loyalty, feelings and failings…
The on-location periodicity of the narrative is maintained with prismatic candour. The striking Rajasthani vistas never distract from the characters’ commitment to creating a climate of credibility within the format of folksy fantasia.
Naseeruddin Shah and Ratna Pathak Shah’s voices for the two puppets serving as the narrators are a masterstroke.
Watching Paheli is like being in a vital area of artistry without the lights blinding the energy that emanates from the heart of the characters. A unique blend of poetry and prose, spontaneity and pose… Paheli takes the cinema of Shah Rukh Khan into places where we never thought it would go.
The archetypal Rahul that Shah Rukh played all along has been relocated. The spirit is willing, and the flesh is definitely able.
Here’s a movie that provides a meal ticket into a milieu that you thought would never really surface from the mounds of make-believe emotions which have taken over mainstream cinema.
Sincerity needn’t be affiliated to authenticity. Sometimes fantasy can provide an ideal excuse to tell the truth about the quirky quality of human existence.
Paheli proves it.
Also Read: Throwback Interview: When Shah Rukh Khan Told Subhash K Jha Why ‘Paheli’ Was So Special
