Five things I loved about Dor

It has been seven months since my last post. It has been an even longer time since I saw and fell in love with Nagesh Kukunoor's Dor. I thought about writing a post on it as soon as I saw it twice in two days, but for no reason, never did. Anyway being the procrastinator I am, it is never too late for anything in my life. So here are five things about Dor that made it my movie of 2006 and also one of my all time favourites.

Death and mourning:
When you lose a loved one, when does your life return to normalcy or more specifically, when is it ok for you to smile, laugh, be happy, have fun? What difference does it make if you mourn for a day or a week or a month or maybe even a year. Is the time really any reflection of your love for the dead? If you take lesser time to recover from your loss, does it mean you love the person any less? It was heartening to see Ayesha Takia's Mira ask the same questions of herself in Dor. It was even more heartening to see her break into that Kajra Re jig in the middle of the desert, forgetting the facade of widowhood for an instant, living her life as she wanted to. That probably answers it all- its never about the time you abstain from happiness, rather its the recurring memories, the melancholy emptiness, the unappeasable yearning you feel all through the rest of your life without the dead that really matters.

Unrequited love:
Everyone raved about Shreyas Talpade's wonderful cameo as the comical Behroopiya. But the most beautiful moment of the movie also belonged to him, when, in a state of inebriation, induced to bolster himself, he reveals how he has fallen in love with Gul Panag's Zeenat. There is realism in the way he expresses himself, fully knowing the futility of it all, there is a rare dignity in Zeenat's response, and there is great mirth when this heavy moment is swiftly brushed aside by him beginning to repeat himself.

The clichés and the not so clichés:
There are many things in Dor that suffer from the predictability that afflicts Indian cinema. By the way, that is more of an observation and less of a complaint. You know that Nagesh's character is going to take that ugly negative turn, and you sort of expect Girish Karnad's mother to do the volte-face she does. But you definitely are not prepared for the way Zeenat argues her husband's case. Never once does she claim he is innocent, nor offer any form of justification. She is singlemindedly selfish in the fact that all she wants is her husband,her life back, making for a rare characterisation. A lot of dialogues stand out, none more than when the grandmother tells Mira "Jo kuch bhi tu karne jaa rahi hain, woh ek insaan hi kar saktha hai. Farishton ke naseeb main ye sab kahaan?".

The places, the people:
I don't know if Nagesh Kukunoor tried to establish a visual metaphor by shifting from the plush, green locales of Himachal to the arid, barren deserts of Rajasthan to establish the disruption of Zeenat's life as she knew it. But, the role that these places play is as essential as the characters themselves. The silky sands of the desert, and the way they are exquisitely shot make up for a rewarding visual experience. Adding to this are the two stunning leading ladies- Gul Panag with her dimples, and kajal lined eyes, and Ayesha Takia with her innocent, almost cherubic beauty. And all that the development of their characters does is, make you like them even more.

The music:
I have heard very little of Salim-Suleman before this movie and their work lends a well-rounded completeness to Dor. The palpably sad Yeh honsla, the re-working of the folksy Kesariya Balam and the brilliantly used bass flute refrains complement every frame of the movie almost to perfection.

To sum it all up, Dor is a sterling example of what a correctly proportioned mix of the defining elements of Indian cinema can produce. As it plays out firmly grounded in reality, with a dose of melodrama that is moving and measured at the same time, with characters that could be you or me, with picture perfect visuals and a stirring background score, you can't help but succumb to the magic that is cinema.