I know this review is a little late, considering the movie released in 2007. Phir bhi, der aaye, durust aaye
Dil Dosti etc...
Set in modern Delhi(Dilli university to be precise), the movie juxtapositions many oddities together. To begin with, the character Sanjay Mishra(Shreyas Talpade), is your quintessential hinterland hero, emotional, with his earthy middle class values, providing a background for his (very ruthless) ambitions. Quite a contrast to this is the aimless Apurv, spectacularly potrayed by Imad Shah...He's cold, aimless, aloof and his mind operates in a space which is distinctly grey, but at the sametime colourful. He exemplifies the new liberal man, who's defining character is his ability to negotiate in that ethical neverland...Although I should add that though Apurv comes across as cold, he never appears calculating or Machiavellian....Sanjay's girlfriend Prerna is what I would call a perfect example of misplaced westernism in the garb of modernity, the kind you encounter most in the metros...Ishita Sharma, who plays Kintu, symbolizing the neo-teens...at the verge of sexual liberation, but still consider it important to cloak their expletives in mish mash of codes(if you remember Juno, and the scene where her friend goes 'Phuket Thailand'...)....
Overall the film potrays precisely the kind of societal changes going on in India...Also worth mentioning is the understated presence of Ghalib and Faiz by virtue of their verses being used at the apt places for love and revolution respectively.An urban elite who are too cocksure about their 'modern' values, a small town guy who holds on to his imagined traditional values, ambitious but often confused by big city people and their elitist habits...And in the end of it all, the intellectually ambiguous Apurv reducing everything to 'Sanjay is dead, and I survived'...So at the end it all boils down to cold facts, and nothing else....
