Poster image sourced from here
Director: Kiran Rao
Cast: Aamir Khan, Monica Dogra, Prateik Babbar, Kriti Malhotra
Rating: 0.5/5
Dhobi Ghat, the much awaited directorial debut of Kiran Rao, is a film that intends to view the city of Bombay through the lives of its protagonists. The film examines the effect of the city on the confluent lives of four characters from different backgrounds.
Characters
Arun
Arun is a successful painter (played by Aamir Khan). He is divorced and his wife and daughter (who never appear in the film) have moved to Australia. Arun is an introvert and plays the 'pensive artist' - something that Aamir Khan attempts to achieve by incessantly scowling and smoking cigarettes. He moves into the former home of Yasmin (one of the other characters), where he finds her undelivered 'video letters' to her brother. Arun plays the brooding enigmatic intellectual. It takes him less than the first ten minutes of the film to get Monica Dogra into bed.
Yasmine
Yasmine is a Muslim girl from Uttar Pradesh (played by Kriti Malhotra) who has come to Bombay after getting married. She is also the previous occupant of Arun's flat. We only see her life through video recordings she makes for her brother (found by Arun). These recordings (video letters) document Yasmine's life, emotions and become the subject of Arun's obsession. Yasmine is innocent, naive, helpless and is the victim of a forced marriage - something that eventually causes her suicide.
Shai
Shai is an investment banker(played by Monica Dogra) based in America. She is on a sabbatical in India. She meets Arun in the beginning of the film. Following a one night stand and a rejection, she grows obsessed with him. Shai is also an aspiring photographer and she spends most of her time taking pictures of the city and (secretly) of Arun. She also becomes the subject of Munna's (Prateik Babbar's character) obsession - whom she befriends in the course of the film in the hope of uncovering information about Arun.
Munna
Zohaib a.k.a Munna, is a Dhobi by day and a rat killer by night. He is also an aspiring actor. Originally from Bihar, he lives in the dhobi ghat, along with his mother and drug-dealing brother - Salim. Munna is both Arun as well as Shai's Dhobi. His acquaintanceship with Arun encourages Shai to befriend him - with whom he falls in love with. However, events through the course of the film make him realize the class difference between him and Shai, forcing him to relinquish the idea of having any sort of future with her.
Dhobi Ghat attempts to depict the city of Bombay through its characters, but all it does is obsess with them instead. This by itself isn't necessarily a flaw. However, Kiran Rao's characters do not do anything even remotely significant, to make us want to watch them. We only know that they're from different backgrounds, because the characters themselves claim so.
Munna, the dhobi from Bihar is familiar with 60s American rock music. His interactions with Shai include watching movies in multiplexes and having drinks on the promenade. Kiran Rao fails to realize that an individual coming from a dhobi background will not blend in with the urbane crowd. When Shai flirts with him, he reads it precisely as flirtation - like a more westernized individual would. From the start of their friendship, Shai looks at Munna longingly, with desire. Considering her encounter with Aamir Khan in the beginning of the film, one would be lead to believe that she is promiscuous. However, there is no romance that occurs between Munna and shai, simply because of his dhobi label. An investment banker from America and a dhobi from Mumbai's dhobi ghat cannot function on the same plain simply because their conflicting backgrounds make them function in completely different ways. They're like apples and oranges. Prateik Babbar's body language and mannerisms are that of an urbane youth. He behaves like an apple, when he's supposed to be an orange. He does not seem the least bit out of place in urban areas such as a multiplex. Moreover, we see Munna indulging in western behaviour such as contemplating holding Shai's hand during a movie - One might argue that the massive influx of western culture into the mainstream could make this possible. However, one s keep in mind that his background makes him an outsider in those surroundings and to perform such an act, one would be required not to be conscious of the happenings around him. To suggest that an individual from the dhobi ghat frequents multiplexes is absurd.
Aamir Khan's character does everything, from painting to scratching his head with the air of a star. He incessantly frowns and tries to appear 'thoughtful'. We see that he is dissatisfied, but we never learn why - as if to say that by default, an artist is always contemplating something of the utmost importance. We never even see these 'important thoughts' materialize into anything - there are no instances where Arun says anything remotely insightful. We only see him haphazardly throwing paint onto a canvas. This is less so because artists generally keep to themselves and more so because Kiran Rao lacks the capacity to script it.
The sub-plot with most promise in the film is Arun's interaction with Yasmine through her video diary. The only significant occurrence in the film is Yasmine's suicide. However, this does not materialize into anything. The fact that Yasmine's video letters to her brother are undelivered is ignored, even after we learn of her suicide. Arun does not make any attempts to deliver the tapes to the brother himself, preventing the story from developing further. All that materializes from Yasmine's suicide, is Arun's new collection of paintings.
Dhobi Ghat has been praised for its camerawork. However, this can only be attributed to the fact that it is unconventional. Yasmine's segments are all shot with a hand-held camera, aching to be called Goddardian. The rest of the film is visually uninteresting, with the camera focusing on the actors, almost completely neglecting Mumbai. Kiran Rao has filmed inside the Dhobi Ghat, but it isn't the Dhobi Ghat that she captures, it's Prateik Babbar pretending to be a dhobi. The films tells us nothing of Mumbai (except for abstractions such as - The air around Marine Drive smells of peoples' desires). Prateik Babbar's character is also a rat killer, but we hardly see him killing any rats. Even instances that have the potential to be visually potent are ruined by the actor-hungry camera, making the film a bland embarrassment.
