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Shabd (2005)

Director: Leena Yadav

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From Time Out London

Former Booker Prize winner Shaukat (Dutt) hatches a plot to end his writer’s block: why not let his wife Antara (Rai) develop a relationship with her colleague Yash (Khan), who assumes she is single, and write a bestseller about the inevitable messy consequences? No prizes for guessing that events do not turn out as planned… An interesting delve by first-time female director Yadav into Fincher ‘reality game’ territory fails to engage as it lacks credibility from the outset due to serious miscasting, a resultant lack of chemistry between her leads, and an undue reliance on voiceovers and quirky graphics. Unforgivable is the illogical explanation advanced for Yash’s ignorance of the existence of Antara’s husband, given the Indian obsession with one’s marital status.

Author: AS 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out London Issue 1799: February 9-16 2005

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usman khawaja said...

Posted on Jun 23 2008 16:49 a whimsical wordplay or a SEXUAL awakening ?
This almost breaks every norm both socially and morally in the thickset tradition of bourgeois India,a famed author is getting to the saturation point where he has attained fame,wealth and sex as a beautiful wife who loves him,into this contented world seeps a seething rage of discontent as he wants to discover his limits and imagines what he has attained is not enough.
He encourages and at times almost forces his beautiful spouse to indulge in an affair with a younger man,he is interested in the behavioural reactions and also his arrogance ASSURES that his wife will not desert him ever ,rather reject the wayward lover and the plot could define his next book.
As nature has it things go awry ,the wife starts really liking the other entity,when he forces her to reject him ,the man takes it rather benevolently and the situation reverses with the author ending up as a pawn in his own game.
Ash plays the wife with a frustrating desPeration trying to comprehend the demands of her weird husband who she deeply loves ,while sunjay dutt as the obsessive -compulsive intellectual is both a figure evoking sympathy and fear as he is bent on destroying 3 lives for an experiment in theory.
This is a totally ingenious take on the institution of marriage and fidelity and crossing the limits if there is any such thing .
the acting makes you agitated at times as it is uncomfortable to see a man tutoring his wife to seduce another guy ,but the impetuously written lines and spontaneity of the script free these characters from any control and the movie flows impecccably as a gentle stream and at times becomes a tempest .
The music and lyrics are genius as they reflect the subconcious of the 3 characters in a unique manner .
This is one of the most origonal and well made sucesses in cinema recently and the maker with ash and sunjay dutt deserve a round of applause ,as they provoke you to think about our domesticated society and the mundane rules applied to relations without reflecting on individual choices and variations .
the words as shabd means has expressed a bitter and eternal truth here in the love triangle- that we really do not know what we want from life till it is taken away and then it might be too late .
That contentment is better than total satisfaction is the message but humanity always chases the unattainable and that will not change with words or without words .
USMAN KHAWAJA

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