Masaan Movie Review drirected by Neeraj Ghaywan

Masaan Movie Review drirected by Neeraj Ghaywan

 

 

Cast Team of the Movie :-

Sanjay Mishra as Vidyadhar Pathak

Richa Chadda as Devi Pathak

Vicky Kaushal as Deepak Chaudhary

Shweta Tripathi as Shaalu Gupta

Pankaj Tripathi as Sadhya Ji

Nikhil Sahni as Jhonta

Satya Kam Anand as Vikram Mallah

Vineet Kumar as Doctor Chaudhary

Niharica Raizada in a special appearance

 Review :-

Masaan (meaning “crematorium”) might just have been as forgettable as any average story, had it not been for the Ganga and the river banks of the holy city of Varanasi that witness life and death. For India, the Ganga is no ordinary river. It has beauty, mystique and sacred significance. If used well, it can also be a most powerful character.

Neeraj Ghaywan, debut director of Masaan, understands this and has woven it intimately into Varun Grover’s tight screenplay. Several crucial moments swirl around the Ganga, beautifully shot without succumbing to visual exotica, and after you leave the cinema, they linger in your memory, like the flames dying slowly in the cremation grounds where so much of Masaan unfurls.

Masaan.

The film opens with Devi (Richa Chadda) watching porn on her computer during the day. Soon, she leaves her dowdy room, dressed in salwar kameez and carrying a backpack. She changes into a sari at a public toilet (Sulabh Shauchalay, no less) and meets Piyush (Saurabh Chadhary). They’re obviously posing as a young couple when they rent a cheap hotel room.

Inside, with curtains drawn, the two stand, shy and awkward. Within seconds, they are in bed, in the throes of what is obviously their first passionate, sexual encounter. And then, the cops start banging on the door.

Masaan is about five unremarkable residents of Varanasi. In stark contrast to Deepak and Shaalu's endearing romance is Devi (Richa Chadda), who decides to have sex with her boyfriend because she's curious to know what it's like. That plan, as the film's trailer shows, goes horrifically wrong when the police interrupt the couple. Inspector Mishra (Bhagwan Tiwari) takes a video of a barely-dressed Devi and threatens to put it up on YouTube if Devi and her father Vidyadhar don't cough up Rs 3 lakhs in three months.

The man at the pyre is Deepak (Vicky Kaushal) and he looks calm because there's nothing unsettling about dead bodies or burning pyres for him. He belongs to a caste of corpse burners, the dom. By day, he studies engineering and when he isn't a student, he joins his father and brother at Varanasi's burning ghat.

These five lives don't intersect, but they're connected by the shared feeling of being trapped in Varanasi. This is poignantly ironic when you keep in mind that Hindus believe death in this pilgrimage centre promises the soul liberation from the karmic cycle. In life though, freedom comes at a steep cost in Varanasi.

Winner of two prestigious prizes at Cannes Film Festival, Masaan belongs to the growing tribe of Indian independent films that have garnered praise and accolades in the foreign film festival circuit. 

Like Court and Titli, it presents viewers with a view of India that is solidly rooted in reality and feeds the current curiosity that the rest of the world has about contemporary Indian society. From the dialect in which Deepak speaks with his family to Shaalu's pristine Hindi accent, Devi's desire and Inspector Mishra's guiltless corruption, Masaan presents a snapshot of everyday India. Depending on where you live and your social circle, it's both familiar and exotic in its normalcy.