TMC reviews… Dhobi Ghat

by Devil’s Food Cake

I’d heard a lot more about Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat [Mumbai Diaries] than I knew before seeing it. It was too arty. It wasn’t Bollywood enough. It was depressing. It left things unresolved. So walking into the theatre, I was ambivalent about what I was about to see.

My ambivalence, though, was pointless. Rao has written and directed a beautiful film, a real snapshot of Mumbai life. Though films in the same vein, and on the same subject, have been made before, there is a kind of stark beauty about the Bombay we are shown here, a quiet loveliness about this city of dreams and the stories contained therein that is neither forceful nor underwhelming.

Dhobi Ghat follows four central characters: the eponymous dhobi (washerman), Munna, who is dhobi by day but an aspiring Bollywood star away from the ghat; Shai, an Indian-American investment banker on sabbatical in Mumbai; Arun, an artist; and Yasmin, a young wife who and recent arrival to the city who films her experiences for her brother back home. The four characters have little in common, but find their lives mixed up with each other’s anyway – it’s a small world in the big city.

And what a city. The Mumbai we are shown here is a picture of stark contradictions: most memorable perhaps is the scene where a fascinated Arun watches the rain through his window while Munna, only a few blocks and an entire world away, tries desperately to stop his whole home from flooding. Make no mistake, though – this is no misery-laden Slumdog-alike. Rao’s Mumbai is a city of contradictions – good and bad, hope and total despair – but you come away for an appreciation and a kind of love for the city you see – an understanding of what it’s like to want to be there.

The technical aspects of the film were also fantastic: the cinematography is raw, rough, giving the viewer a kind of look-see into the lives of the characters that feels almost voyeuristic, and which really draws the audience in. The film’s score, interestingly, was composed by the critically acclaimed, Academy Award-winning composer Gustavo Santaolalla, of Brokeback Mountain fame, and is a perfect accompaniment to an excellent movie.

While Prateik has, quite rightly, received high praise for his portrayal of the sweet, yearning Munna, it was Kriti Malhotra’s Yasmin that I loved best – her portrayal of the innocent and hopeful wife who realizes that her world is not what it seems is the most involving and charming of a very fine bunch.

The story itself is not the kind of overt drama one usually expects from Indian cinema – but that’s not a bad thing. Whether you’re a Bollywood die-hard or a newcomer to Indian cinema, Dhobi Ghat is worth a watch or two.

Dhobi Ghat premiered at the London Film Festival and is showing currently at cinemas across London. It screens in a mixture of Hindi with subtitles and English.