BEYOND THE CLOUDS
From the first shot, Majid Majidi’s first Indian film demands absolute attention. The opening frame’s aspect ratio is jarringly close to a wide-screen display and not the stretched out width of cinema screens. But don’t be quick to prejudge this as a mistake or a bad call. Majidi’s filmmaking choices are decisive, because our attention is forcefully pushed to the intertwined story of estranged siblings Taara and Aamir.

Aamir (Ishaan Khattar) is a spirited teenager, peddling drugs to a local buyer who runs a brothel in Mumbai. The brothel is a place of small, vivid details. Here, deals are struck without hassle or harassment. A woman fixes her rate (a mere 500 rupees) and leads her client to a small room, telling her 10-year-old girl to go stand outside the room (the room has no door, just a curtain). Another curtain shows us silhouettes of teenage girls, whose teeth are examined before they are sold off.

It is business as usual as Majidi manages to mix the rawness of reality with a sense of everyday calm — as if this is normal life to the city’s underprivileged. The ones desperate to make it big often do dangerous things, and soon Aamir’s arrogance lands him in hot water as he immaturely makes Taara (Malavika Mohanan) a victim of his mess. In a few short beats, Taara ends up in jail, and Aamir is forced by circumstances to take care of the man responsible for her jail time and, later, that same man’s family who can only speak Tamil.

The immaculately directed Beyond The Clouds is a near-brilliant motion picture while Nanu Ki Jaanu is a collection of half-baked, unimaginative ideas

Majidi’s immaculately directed film is award season bait — and for a good reason: Beyond The Clouds is a cinematic masterclass. Majidi directs the audience’s emotion with perfect balance of creative and technical aptitude, aided by A.R. Rahman’s score, Anil Mehta’s outstanding cinematography (compositions, shot sizes and lighting are on par with any master’s work) and crisp editing by Hassan Hassandost (Children of Heaven, Song of Sparrows).

Information about the characters are revealed in bits and pieces when necessary to the story, leaving Majidi enough time to build separate narratives for Aamir and Taara (the screenplay is by Majidi and Mehran Kashani, with Hindi dialogue by Vishal Bharadwaj).

Taara, limited to a smaller piece of the story, changes drastically from an independent young woman to a surrogate mother as her circumstances evolve. It is a role she wasn’t mature enough to grasp when Aamir was growing up. Aamir, still adolescent in both mind and body, walks a delicate line between black and white throughout the film; his change, unlike Taara’s, is a repercussion of his own deeds.

The film’s cast is uniformly excellent, although I did feel a slight disconnect between the emotional timings of the actors. Irrespective, Malavika — a major force in the making — and Ishaan are excellent finds. Just when you want more, Majidi cuts Aamir and Taara’s story short by a few scenes, ending the film on a suggestion that things may lead to a more satisfying ending.

The director’s choice to place an imperfect end to an imperfect set of characters may be emblematic. However, it also robs some of the emotion away from a near-brilliant motion picture.

NANU KI JAANU
Nanu (Abhay Deol) is a land mafia agent in Delhi who terrorises old folk into giving away their apartments. Despite his day job, Nanu is a good enough guy with a surprisingly clear conscience.

One day, Nanu sees a girl lying on the road — a victim of a hit-and-run — and takes her to the hospital. The girl (Patralekhaa) doesn’t pull through, and ends up haunting Nanu’s posh sky-rise apartment, taking up permanent residence in his kitchen. A bubbly person when alive, the apparition decides to scare away Nanu’s bad habits by breaking his beer bottles when he isn’t looking (apparently, that’s his only problem).

Abhay, who seems to be the only professional actor in the film (with exception to Himani Shivpuri, who plays his mum), chose the wrong movie to end his two-year hiatus. Nanu Ki Jaanu, a remake of the Tamil film Pisaasu, is a collection of half-baked, unimaginative ideas directed and cinematographed from an amateur point of view.

Published in Dawn, ICON, April 29th, 2018