Cast: Ananya Panday, Lakshya, Aastha Singh, Elvis Jose, Paresh Pahuja, Manish Chaudhary, Iravati Harshe, Charu Shankar, Atul Kumar...
Cast: Ananya Panday,
Lakshya, Aastha Singh, Elvis Jose, Paresh Pahuja, Manish Chaudhary,
Iravati Harshe, Charu Shankar, Atul Kumar
Directed by: Vivek Soni
Music by: Sachin-Jigar
Chand
Mera Dil isn’t convoluted like some of the reviews are mentioning; its
anything but convoluted, for that matter (because, as we all know,
convoluted films don’t make a lot of money — something that is Dharma
Productions’ primary, if not their only goal, at least recently).
Chand
Mera Dil is a problematic film. It pretends to care about Ananya Pandey’s
character and her side of the story, but ends up giving her character no heed.
Everything her character goes through is sidelined just to provide more screen
time to the male protagonist (albeit, the protagonist), which
is used as a tool to essentially force the audience to empathise with his
character and to hate her character — which, seeing how the youth acts nowadays
at the slightest suspicion towards a woman’s character, is not a difficult
thing to hate. Aarav isn’t portrayed as a hyper-masculine
character at all throughout the first half of the film — there is literally
zero signs that he is insecure about how “manly” he is — which basically
deceives the viewer and serves the purpose of making the viewer empathise with
him more and more, but then, contradicting itself, the film goes on show how
depressed Aarav is, and sends him on a 30 minute "Devdas: drinking to numb
myself” montage. This destroys whatever perception the viewer has of his
character. Chandni is portrayed as a strong, independent woman — which, on
retrospect, might’ve been subtle mockery — and her decision is completely valid
based on the material conditions that made their marriage fall apart, but the
film gives the viewer, virtually force-feeding hate, enough reasons to hate her
character, because the film is explicitly biased: it is a predominantly
man-centric film which pretended to be a neutral examination of a
relationship.
This
film reminds me of Love Aaj Kal (2020, dir. Imtiaz Ali) and
how it fell into the mess it created itself by the end. Like the aforementioned
film, Chand Mera Dil starts off as something completely
different, an objective film (which is itself an oxymoron) of
sorts, but as it slowly starts to unravel itself and the core is revealed, one
realises how similar it is to the onslaught of hyper-masculinity Bollywood is
subjected to.
There
are certainly lot of things to like about this film which are, unfortunately,
cached by the problematic nature of the film itself. The cinematography is
beautifully done, something that is sort of a rare sighting in present-day
Bollywood; the influence(s) are explicitly visible: Wong
Kar-wai’s influence is perhaps the most evident one, with the
step-printing effect and the neon lighting; there’s also a visual reference
to N. Took the Dice (1972, dir. Alain Robbe-Grillet). The
film’s cinematography gives off a very intimate as well a cold feel: the close
up shots feel excessively intimate, where, conversely, the static zoom-ins
inside minimalistic places (apartments, lobbies, offices, the college) — which
place a great deal of emphasis on the walls and their muted colors — give off
an excessively bleak and detached feel, which compliments the script (and helps
us empathise with Aarav, as its usually him who’s placed between the giant dull
walls).
The
performances compliment the cinematography. Both Ananya Pandey and Lakshya,
visually, fit their respective characters extremely well. If you
were to imagine somebody in such a scenario, it would probably be someone who
resembles these two actors.
Ananya
Pandey undoubtedly gave a better performance than her co-actor. She emotes more
subtly, as opposed to Lakshya, who is more physically violent with his emoting;
it is Ananya Pandey’s subtle performance than ends up staying with you after
the film is over, while Lakshya’s performance, though it was good, invokes a
sense of déjà vu.
The
direction from Vivek Soni feels premeditated as if he were trying to prove a
point, making the film feel very polemic in a sense. The ending, which plays
like a crescendo with the camera movement being all jagged and the performances
being at an all time high, basically forces the film to fall apart. Everything
that the film established becomes arbitrary, making one question the need for
this film, or the length of the film. Vivek Soni’s direction (as well as his
writing) feels rushed at the end, even if this were always the end he had
planned for. His direction is, regardless of the issues with his script,
commendable; it’s definitely not something we’ve never seen before, but the way
he presents the film (both in terms of its editing and its choices)
surprisingly works well.
Aarav and Chandni’s passionate college
romance is struck by adulthood far too soon, forcing the two young lovers to
balance their ambitions with responsibility and realize the evolved meaning
of love.
By Ravit Mishra
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