REVIEW: Kay Kay's Via Darjeeling

A very 'Please LOOK at me. I am INTELLECTUAL' film

Cast: Kay Kay Menon, Sonali Kulkarni, Parvin Dabas, Vinay Pathak, Sandhya Mridul, Rajat Kapoor, Simone Singh and Prashant Narayanan

Director: Arindam Nandy

To make an open-ended film that provokes thought, forced intellectualism is not necessary. That is exactly what we thought during the second half of this Kay Kay Menon starrer film.

In spite of some strong performances, the movie could have been much better than what it is. For one, it could have considered the viewer as an intelligent being. To show the similarity of the plot with Rashomon, Rajat Kapoor did not actually need to pick up a DVD of the film and hold it in his hands for over a minute. The audience could have figured that out themselves. And if not, what's the harm? Couldn't the plot have held itself without the similarity with the masterpiece?

So what is the plot after all?

Kay Kay Menon (Ankur) and Sonali Kulkarni (Rimli) are a newly wedded couple on their honeymoon in Darjeeling when Ankur disappears. The police are summoned and inspector Robin Dutt (Vinay Pathak) comes to investigate the case. A visibly distraught Rimli tells him about the suspects – a driver who'd fought with her husband and a man who'd been following her throughout their trip.

Cut to a room full of friends apparently in Calcutta. We have to accept it is Calcutta only because the characters have Bengali names and some phrases in the language are thrown in their conversation.

The story is narrated by the inspector who's now transferred to Calcutta to the group of friends gathered around a table. There's Rajat Kapoor, a newspaper editor, his wife played by Simone Singh; a successful television actress Mallika played by Sandhya Mridul and Prashant Narayanan (Kaushik), an aspiring filmmaker who's recently come back from NY.

This particular group of friends who have their own issues in life start thinking about a possible ending to the mysterious disappearance of Ankur in Darjeeling months back. And then is when the movie starts getting a little pretentious.

The logic vanishes midway

The first two possible narratives presented by Rajat Kapoor and Simone Singh respectively, are logical and when related to the characters who narrate it, makes a lot of sense. The insecurities and anxieties of the editor and his wife take form in the stories they narrate. While Rajat Kapoor condemns the wife, Simone Singh's version makes the husband the villain.

Somehow in the course of their 'adda'-a Bengali concept of friends gathering and chatting, the relationships between the friends also come to the fore. The hidden desires and hatred become prominent. And then suddenly it is all downhill from here.

The director seems eager to confuse the audience with the convoluted plot, and ends up being pretentious. After all, it's known to happen – when we don't understand something, we more often than not believe it's too above us to understand. You know the term – OVER head transmission, wonder why nobody thought of under the feet?

Couldn't the story be good by itself?

Then there is this huge poster of Satyajit Ray's Kanchenjunga on the wall. Now that's what we call forced symbolism. Kanchenjunga and Darjeeling connect we got. Most Bengalis and people who've watched the film, also probably got the similarity between the two movies as far as unraveling relationships is concerned. But did they HAVE to put that poster up there? Couldn't we have understood the similarity part anyway? Or is it that by putting forth the similarity the movie will all of a sudden become as brilliant as Ray's masterpiece? Well, maybe we are digging too deep. Maybe the filmmaker just had this poster and wanted to show it off.

So what happens next?

Another set of possibilities which become a little too confusing. Though some really good performances make the movie watchable still. Kay Kay Menon is always good, this was no different. Same goes for Vinay Pathak and Rajat Kapoor. What or rather who surprised us was Prashant Narayanan. His was a small role which he played brilliantly and though his narrative made very little sense, his performance was enjoyable.

The film could have been a good topic for a modern play. And probably it would have worked really well too in a theatre. But as for the big screen, we don't think the subject fits. You'll say there are so many films that are open ended – take Aparna Sen's 15 Park Avenue for an example… but that's what, Sen's movie was not trying too hard to be intellectual.

VERDICT: Why watch something like Rashomon when you can watch Rashomon? Why watch something like Kanchenjunga when you can watch Kanchenjunga? But if you like Bengali folk 'baul' song mixed with rock, go for the last five minutes. The song's really good!

Rating: 2/5