Bombay Talkies Review

Okay, so I really do not get how this movie did not make more noise. I though Karan Johar as splendid at marketing! (sorry, not sorry) This movie brings together four celebrated directors: Karan Johar, Dibakar Bannerjee, Zoya Akhtar and Anurag Kashyap, who each contribute one story celebrating 100 years of Indian Cinema. And no, this does not celebrate the masala and the love triangles or have any item songs. This movie is raw and brave and brilliant.

The first story, by Karan Johar, speaks of revelation. Rani Mukherji's character Gayatri is a happily married working woman, when she gets close to a gay man Avinash (Saquib Saleem) at work. And not long later you see her friend and husband (Randeep Hooda) bond over songs, the melodious song 'Ajeeb Dastaan Hai Yeh', while being sung by a beggar girl on a railway bridge, means something else suddenly, and Gayatri realizes her husband and Avinash are not just 'friendly'. Given that it is a Karan Johar story, it comes off as a surprise too, with nothing but the hard-hitting reality and an absence of long lost relatives or long ballads. This is a story about finding your own sexuality, love and adaption, and the old Bollywood songs form a connection, and break ties, in their own way.

The second story, by Dibakar Bannerjee, is about connection. Purandar, played by Nawazuddin Siddiqui, is a poor man, in the search for a job. But that does not worry him as much, as what really gives him happiness is narrating new stories, usually about movies they can't watch, to his sick daughter at the end of he day, but he's running out of stories to say. While on his way back from a job he couldn't get, he happens to land a chance to play a very small part in a big movie being shot, nd he seems to find himself in a way he never has before. You find out he was related to the theater earlier, and being a junior artist means something completely different to him.

The third story by Zoya Akhtar is about passion. A young boy is not interested in any of the thigs young boys usually are in, and after he dresses up like a girl and dances in front of his sister at home one day as he is obsessed with Katrina Kaif and Shiela Ki Jawaani and her dance, you become almost sure of a possibility of his transexuality. He decides dancing is his passion, Katrina Kaif is his goddess, thinks his sister is lucky to be a girl, and uses this to help his sister to gather some money.

The last story is about hope, and by Anurag Kashyap. It is a sweet story about a dying father who, like the rest of us, is a big time Amitabh Bachchan fan. He sends his son on a journey off to Bombay with a murabba, said to be Bachchan's favorite, and needs him to make Bachchan have half of the murabba, so that he can have a tiny bite of the remainder murabba for the rest of his life, but also may live longer. He narrates that he had done the same for his father, a Dilip Kumar fan, with a bottle of honey.

If you need another reason to watch this movie, check out this ensemble : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VByWs3tTyGk

This is a bold as well as sweet movie about our cinema. Even if you're not a Bollywood Junkie, you'll realize how you too are affected by and connected to the cinema.