Film Review: Karwaan
Cast: Irfan Khan, Salman Dulquer and Mithila Palkar
Director: Akarsh Khurana
Rating: Three and a half stars
A slice of life movie, deadpan humor and introspective journey embedded in the 35 mm frame to uncover road journeys is a rarity nowadays. The Akarsh Khurana helmed Karwaan starring Irfan Khan, Salman Dulquer, and Mithila Palkar is coming of age cinema exploring an introspective journey dealing with the life’s complexities, confusion and a comedy of error sort that makes it a worthwhile fest. In short, the film is all about human understanding beyond the drudgery of a routine life and humor-laden narration that many youths of this generation will identify with.
First thing first, Karwaan is about dead bodies changing places from different destinations with the three characters, Avinash, Shaukat and Tanya meeting in the unlikeliest of situations. There is no love lost initially with such contrasting characters screwed by life and complexed equation with families where the biggest Indian fallacy is powerfully brought to the fore, work vs passion. Salman Dulquer as Avinash is super impressive and effortless, be it the complex relation he shares with his father or the lack of understanding with Tanya, today’s girl. The off beat hero doesn’t take too kindly of a girl’s active sex life and one scene bearing tremendous impact is Tanya unfazed attitude of doing a pregnancy test. Mithila Palkar as Tanya simply owns the scene in the most natural manner and shows that she has a brilliant future as an actor. This girl will go places in the next few years and will emerge as one of the most bankable talents in the country.
The film speaks about life, deaths and screw-ups executed in a sensitive and poignant fashion as the camera moves and pans on the three leading protagonists. Existence serves as a dichotomy of sort in this movie and shows that be it millennial or Gen X, we all battle our securities and confusions. It’s jarring and will shock the audience in the most subdued fashion. Who better medium to deliver this message than our own Peter Pan, Irrfan. The guy is simply brilliant and the one-liners or deadpan humor is brand Irrfan that simply lifts the film during the moments it reaches a low ebb. He nails the punch lines be it on death, relations and such tackiness made sexy through the sheer delivery power, “Lo Yaar, Allah Miyyan Se Milne Jaa Rahe The Allah Miyyan Ne Apne Paas Hi Bula Liya Sach Much…Bhai..mayyat par romance mat kar!â€�
The director has broached several issues that makes for quite an interesting debate on how we are alien to our respective mother tongues in India or that matter, actors belonging to different faiths playing characters out of their cultural boundaries to deliver a strong Pan Indian message in today’s times.
Of course, there are several scenes that stand out right from Irrfan reciting poetry to the ailing man’s wife in the hospital, the photography sequence when Tanya weighs on Avinash to share the moments of life right from the job his Dad’s pressurized him to take and the losing interest for his photography’s passion. The scene where Avinash teaches Tanya about the real, unedited photography unlike the whole Instagram scene is telling and capturing her with a fag is a Kodak moment to be cherished. A slice of life is all about loosening a bit and rightfully Tanya tells her co-passenger to chill and have some drinks at the stalled wedding. It’s all about making moments counting and stop being conscious.
There are few glitches like the narration’s slow pace in the start before the film enters the premises and the unnecessary sub-romance plot which no doubt introduces Kriti Kharbanda injecting a certain freshness. At places, the screenplay seems patchy and lacks a certain tautness which slackens the pace to a minimum level.
Karwaan’s strengths as a down-to-earth and real movie far outweigh the minuses where new filmmakers and actors are experimenting and exploring new genres, lending not only a dash of realism but bringing to the fore many layers of our relationships. The film boasts of pivotal roles right from Akash Khurana and Amala Akkineni adding to this fantastic journey which is definitely not your run-of-the-mill fare that deserves to be watched. Cinema is changing and it’s content-driven not formula that will define film-making in future.
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