Being Alive

The immediate impression that ‘Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara’ left on me was one of absolute refinement. It is, I’m afraid, too refined for most people. I hope I’m mistaken, and more and more people appreciate its virtues, which are considerable. Don’t get me wrong: it is, by no means, hard to follow or esoteric. Stories about characters going on a journey that eventually becomes one of self-discovery, that teaches them to live life to the fullest and appreciate every moment are nothing new. However, it is the execution which makes this movie vastly different from other such movies.

Kabir (Abhay Deol), Arjun (Hrithik Roshan) and Imran (Farhan Akhtar) are three friends since school. Kabir is about to marry Natasha (Kalki Koechlin). Before plunging headlong into married life, he wants to fulfil a pact he’d made with his friends in college: that they would embark together on an adventurous bachelor trip to any part of the world. The choice of destination would lie entirely with the first one to get married (in this case, Kabir) and the other two would have to follow him, no questions asked. Kabir is gung-ho, Imran is perfectly cool with it, Arjun, an ambitious careerist, is reluctant, whereas Natasha, possessive and insecure, is queasy about it. Nevertheless, after a few initial hiccups, the trip begins: a three week holiday in Spain.

Along with the physical journey through Spain, the three characters, unknowingly, set out on an internal journey after meeting Laila (Katrina Kaif), a comely diving instructor. Arjun, at the outset, has the most obvious problems: he is obsessed with money, driven relentlessly by work and heedless of the simple joys of life. There is a rather amusing scene in which he stops their car in the middle of the stunning Spanish landscape and strikes a deal with a Japanese businessman over a video internet call. A deep sea dive, with Laila personally teaching him to control his breath underwater, (he cannot swim and is hydrophobic) produces a sea-change within him.

Imran, I feel, is the most interesting character in the film. He is almost always joking around, has a roving eye for the opposite sex, secretly writes evocative poetry and has a special knack for getting under Arjun’s skin. But, as a Spanish beauty points out, there is a lingering sadness in his eyes that his smile cannot always mask. The film is punctuated with snatches of his poetry that remind me, oddly, of the initially muted voice-overs of ‘Y tu mama tambien’. Imran’s voice fills up the soundtrack reciting ethereal, elegantly sculpted poetry that hovers like a gentle breeze over the strikingly ochreous Spanish countryside.

Kabir is a straight arrow, a clean-cut boy with an equally clean-cut life. Except that it is organised and sorted out a bit too well for him by others, mostly, especially his marriage, while he simply stands by, in passive agreement. His problems are the least obvious and his is the most internalised of the three principal characters. It is a role tailored for Abhay Deol and he knows it.

Normally, I don’t mind Katrina’s lack of acting skills because her looks more than make up for it (unless you count Farah Khan’s last outing). This is probably the first film in which I actually sat up to watch a decent performance by her. I don’t know whether it’s the writing or her quiet, graceful performance or a mixture of both that manages to convey and convince us of the inner reserves of her pure zest for life.

The photography by Carlos Catalan goes beyond capturing picture-postcard images, it makes nature seem attuned to the countless moods of the characters as they navigate an ever-changing emotional landscape. The entire sky-diving sequence is a technical triumph, a virtuoso exhibition of photography and editing, as well as one of the emotional high-points of the film. The Tomatina and the bull-running festivals, too, are amazingly well-rendered.

The screenplay by Zoya Akhtar and Reema Kagti is very finely written and has a deliberate, measured pace. All the characters are enmeshed in it very well. But it is this same measured pace that seems too slack after a while. The movie does feel long and stretched out. It doesn’t help that the dialogues are pretty banal in many places and tend to dull the proceedings. Plus, their usual idea of practical jokes on the Spanish natives tends to get repetitive and humourless after a point.

However, Zoya Akhtar’s phenomenally assured direction tides over such glitches, supported, as she is, by one of the best technical teams in Bollywood. She is as good with her actors as she is with the technicalities of film-making. The look and feel of the movie is pure class, at the same time eschewing the usual cosmetic grandeur of big-budget Bollywood films.

I would have liked to see more of Nuria, the Spanish beauty who is swept off her feet by Imran. The one intimate scene she has with him is touching in the way they both console each other in their own way, even though neither one knows the other’s language. Add to that my own fixation for beauties rattling off in Spanish (Penelope Cruz, Maribel Verdu).

Where the movie does succeed is in creating a definite mood, a sort of leisurely, lyrical nostalgia borne out of friendship, love and the sheer need to feel alive and present in the world, abiding themes in almost all the works of the Akhtar siblings. Some of Javed Akhtar’s best poetry has been used in the film for that purpose. I’m no judge, but I have never been so moved by his lyrics, as I have been by his poetry in this film.

And that is the basis of my initial concern about the film being too refined for most people. It requires a certain degree of patience, a creation of atmosphere and mood, to fully imbibe and appreciate this film. In that sense, it is not conventionally entertaining. As much as we would like to ignore it, the fact of the matter is that common people, still drunk on the hysteria of ‘Delhi Belly’, ‘Double Dhamaal’ and ‘Murder 2’ will be hard pressed to appreciate the finesse of such a film. It’s a pity. I hope it’s not the truth.