Barfi!

Yes so it’s inspired and does not deserve to go to the Oscars. Yes, it is a bit shameful on the directors part but at the end of the day Anurag Basu reached out to my mother, my neighbors’ granny and to a million others in a way in which Charlie Chaplin, and The Notebook did not!
While Barfi’s periphery was inspired, let’s not take away from the fact that the core, the story about Barfi, Jhilmil and Shruti was original, heartwarming and honestly portrayed without which, even editing a bunch of dvd’s together would not have worked.

If Ready, Wanted and Rowdy can proudly do a 100 crore plus business then what are we angry about? About the fact that Anurag Basu did not openly give credit or the fact that we expected more from him? Isn’t the panel that chose this film to be sent as India's official entry for the Best Foreign Language Film nomination for the 85th Academy Awards in February 2013, then equally redundant?

Barfi’s (Ranbir Kapoor )spirit is as fresh as the winds of Darjeeling, the twinkle in his eyes are as bright as the clear skies; his smile is as electrifying as the steam engine that run through the winding roads. Being mute and deaf is not his disadvantage, but a privilege to flamboyancy.Shruti(Ileana D'Cruz) while visiting Darjeeling with her family falls in love with Barfi and his world. Jhilmul (Priyanka Chopra) is an autistic child whose family due to social stigma give her up to a special care center. Barfi is about how their perception of life ends up defining their love.
It is also about reinstating that Ranbir Kapoor truly is a Prithviraj! That Priyanka Chopra when paired with a DIRECTOR can perform, that you don’t need loud music and a hundred other things to accentuate emotions… silently.

Barfi’s music is a bouquet stirring emotions. 'Main kya karun' is a melodious track which makes you fall in love with love. Where 'Itti si haansi, itti si khushi, itta sa tukda chand ka' makes me feel content with life, 'Phir le aya Dil' reminds me parts that I’ve left behind.'Kyon' makes me want to hold someone's lil finger and stare at the sun with my eyes shut :)

Anurag Basu definitely deserves credit for giving us some beautiful moments like when Barfi makes fire flies float in soap bubbles, the cinematographer S Ravi Varman has made it mesmerizing by shooting it from jhilmil’s viewpoint…When Barfi covers up Jhilmil’s legs with her skirt and offers a lecher his legs to stare at instead…There’s a scene in particular when as a last resort Barfi goes looking for Jhilmil in the autistic centre. She’s in hiding, unsure of her feelings. Dejected on losing her again, he turns away, seeing him walk away she starts calling out to him - but he can’t hear her. The only other person who can is Shruti, as she’s walking away with Barfi and hearing Jhilmil call out, she has to make a choice in that moment - to walk away pretending she heard nothing and live with Barfi, the love of her life, or to acknowledge the scream and have him turn back to Jhilmil the love of his life. This for me was the ‘Ah!’ moment of the film and I assure you a guaranteed tear jerker for many machos I sat amongst.

To make the experience a little distractive, I wish as a director Basu had also paid attention to other minor details like hair and make up, the wig, it’s net at times were engaged in a dialogue independent of the scene! The flashback voice over was so nonchalant that many a times, the emotion escaped me.

There is one thing that that I strongly disagree with, Anurag’s claim of unedifying love. Looking back, when Shruti reasons that she weighed her love against life, while Jhilmil accepted love in that moment and for all its purity -that is what love is about. I do not agree. Jhilmil did not have the ability of deciding with all sensibility, to understand life, it's implications or the complications. Had the comparison been between two women at par and then one choose being in the moment, that would've been different.

So come let’s stop being exceptionally critical and raise a toast to the warm feeling that Barfi lit, cause a lot of us are far better at pulling out dvd’s of inspiration then at being half as good in putting them together.

I read a beautiful line somewhere which sums up Barfi for me “Silences seldom spoke so eloquently.”