Film: The Lunchbox
Starring: Irrfan khan, Nawazuddin Siddiqueui, Nimrat Kaur
Director: Ritesh Batra
Producer: Guneet Monga, Anurag Kashyap ,Arun Rangachari
Banner: Dar, AKFPL , Dharma, UTV Motion Pictures
Music: Michael Kaczmarek
In Mrinal Sen's "Khandhar" desolation
was defined and epitomized as much by Shabana Azmi's face and
physicality as it was by the architectural ruins where Sen shot his
dirge-like tale. In "The Lunchbox", debutant director Ritest Batra - is
this really his first feature film?! - does not seek easy escape routes
for his characters' destiny of drudgery.
The film is set in the heart of Mumbai
where everyone is busy making a living...or just trying to live. Right
away, this extraordinary film catches your attention with the way the
sounds and the relentless rhythm of that City That Never Sleeps are
captured and put on screen.
While remaining purely cinematic there is something completely "non-cinematic" about "The Lunchbox".
It is stripped-down of all affectations.
The secrets of lonely hearts are not laid bare through conventional
cinematic devices - the use of background is so sparing that you often
end up listening to the music inherent in everyday routine: the way the
trains move in the sweltering afternoons, the sound of auto-rickshaws
bustling through byelanes, the sizzle of onions frying in a suburban
kitchen, the sound of the television playing as a nuclear family of
three lonely people dine in deathly silence.
Not just Ila (Nimrat Kaur), the cooking,
cleaning suffering housewife, even her preoccupied husband (Nakul Vaid)
seems so lost in the act of existence. Even their little daughter looks
so forlorn with her rag-doll, as though she needs a good cry but is not
sure if Mama will be there to console her.
And to scare you there are whispers of a woman jumping to her death with her daughter. Ila won't ....never! Right?
Holding back the rituals of grief is a
well-worn suburban ritual that Batra's screenplay understands only too
well. Every individual in Batra's universe is disconnected from an inner
tranquillity and distanced from the people around him or her.
It is no coincidence that Ila, our
forlorn heroine who thinks of suicide but holds herself back, connects
the best with an unseen aunty living with her comatose husband in the
floor above. Aunty (Bharati Achrekar giving a vigorously expressive
performance through her voice alone) never turns off the ceiling fan
that whirrs above her inert husband, fearing if stops, so would his
breath.
These little life-asserting pretences we
indulge ourselves into believe that we lead meaningful lives is the
crux of "The Lunchbox". Hence Ila strikes up an illusory bond of empathy
with the almost-retired office-goer Fernandes (Irrfan Khan).
It starts off with a wrongly-delivered dabba to a lonely widower in a typical non-government office.
The initial delight of two strangers
communicating facelessly soon turns into an intriguing relationship of
empathy. The tragedy of two lonely people, one married in a loveless
partnership and the other still wedded to his dead wife's memory and
bonding over burp-inducing tiffins filmed with gourmet dishes, is
punctuated by the omni-presence of an annoying intruder, played by the
very wonderful Nawazuddin, who keeps barging into Fernandes' meditative
melancholic interactions with his faceless culinary benefactor.
Among the three protagonists, Nawazuddin
as the deceptively shallow Sheikh has the toughest role. He must seem
frivolously jovial and insensitive to Fernandes' lonely existence,
though he is anything but these things. Further, he has a happy life.
And that should and does fill him with a guilt he cannot express.
In many ways the bond that grows between
Fernandes and Sheikh is far more tenable and real than the one
Fernandes discovers in the aroma of the freshly-packed tiffin that lands
up every day on his table.
Fernandes' loneliness is not of the same
breed as Violent Stonheim in "36 Chowringhee Lane". He is alone,
trapped in memories of happiness but also surrounded by noises and
smells of a normal life. That little contact he makes with a family in
the building opposite his own, through his window, is emblematic of his
empathetic solitude.
Yes, this man has hope.
Food, which contours the tragic love
story of Batra's film, is used almost as a reminder of life in the face
of death. When Ila's mother (Lilette Dubey nailing her character's
abject desolation in just two deftly-written sequences) finally loses
her husband, she talks of hunger rather than loss.
Bereavement and loss affect individuals
in very strange ways. What "The Lunchbox" says in a language that exudes
the scent and comfort of the familiar is that we can strive to fill the
emptiness inside us by cooking feeding, remaining busy with motivating
acts of daily gratification. But we are finally left with nothing to
hold on to. This frightening thesis of existence is laid bare in "The
Lunchbox" with compassion and warmth.
This is a sad film. But it isn't depressing.
As the two protagonists whose souls
collide and then come apart, Irrfan and Nimrat give exceptionally
sorted-out performances even as their characters grapple with the chaos
and complexities of feelings that alas, do not fit into compartments as
comfortably as the food in a tiffin carrier.
Irrfan's bearing suggests age that won't
accept defeat. He is a portrait of stoicism in the face of solitude.
Does this actor ever disappoint?
Michael Simmonds' camera doesn't miss a
thing. It seems to capture every moment of the characters's inner and
outer lives merging the two levels of existence and yet keeping them
apart.
I came away from this profoundly moving tale with two of the most unforgettable lines of wisdom I've heard in a film.
One of them comes from Nawazuddin who
says: "Sometimes the wrong train can take you to the right destination."
And then there is Nimrat, so noble and restrained in her suffering
within a pitiable marriage, who opines: "Very often we forget our
memories because we have no one to share them with."
The memory of food, friendship and forlornness associated with "The Lunchbox" would stay with me for a very long time.
Some films scream for attention. This
one gets it without trying. What a gentle, tender, soft and sincere love
story! Is this really Batra's first film?! He demonstrates an
astonishing mastery over the craft. And yet "The Lunchbox" is all heart.
Nawazuddin, Irrfan and Nimrat are so
much in character that you wonder if these people were born before the
script. The film celebrates the extraordinary ordinariness of their
lives with a stark sincerity that takes away every morsel of artifice
inherent in the act of filming made-up lives.
If this is not the best directorial debut since Satyajit Ray in "Pather Panchali", then I am probably missing something vital.