Dhobi Ghat Review

Dhobi Ghat, alias Mumbai Dairies is a tale of the City of Dreams, Mumbai and its inhabitants. Veering around four dysfunctional characters at the wake of city Mumbai, the movie enigmatically depicts the vacant quest of human soul and the ubiquitous city bearing witness to their futile pursuits. A film solely dedicated to the exponentially dilapidating state of Mumbai, the characters have played the catalyst to depict the strange vibe of the city that relates and alienates the characters in the process.

The story talks about four individuals, each of whom is an immigrant whom the city binds and breaks up at strategic points. Shai, an investment banker from the New York City is on a sabbatical doing research on marginal businesses and occupations of Mumbai. A chance encounter with the moody and exceptionally talented artist Arun at his painting exhibition led to a commonplace wine spilling occurrence that succeeded a one night stand. Eventually, Arun comes across some tapes shot by the early tenant of his newly shifted apartment in the cramming narrow gully of the city. The tapes are some unpracticed home videos shot by Yasmin Noor, a newly married Muslim girl, a migrant from UP as video dairies addressing her dearest brother Imran. Arun’s dhobi guy Munna starts developing an inclination for Shai and pines for her feelings despite knowing her to be an uptown girl he can never hope to woo. As Shai gets dismissed by Arun, she becomes almost obsessed by him and hooks up with this new dhobi guy in a bid to reach Arun. As their worlds collide with each other, they desperately start seeking an anchor vainly in the incessantly unstable sand grains of the thronged city. The dysfunctional foursome lingers on to accomplish their unfinished business entwined into compelling relationships, only to be struck by the city’s mercurial mood swings and caught into its alienation index.

Aamir Khan as the eccentric up-market painter Arun is a commendable attempt made to portray the character of a successful artist in search of the unknown. A self-proclaimed loner, the character of Arun is of an intriguing painter who exhibits unpredictable mood swings which makes him all the more enigmatic. With furrowed eye brows and disturbed temperament, Arun extends an overt exhibition of his agonizing parting with his son and an utter disgust to persevere. After an intense involvement with Shai, the next morning Arun does not hesitate to display his discomfort as Shai tries to get comfy on his daybed cushion, symbolically attempting to get comfortably close and connected to Arun. Arun’s eccentricity get delineated with his growing involvement with Yasmin as watching her video letters started making him relatively exultant, a stark change unmistakably noticed by Shai on a later encounter. As he gets increasingly absorbed in Yasmin, the final revelation of her suicide took a heavy emotional toll on him. Obsessed and shell shocked, he shifted to a new apartment, but this time the visible skyline from his new lair was no longer the packed, congested one, but a wider one devoid of presences that will impede the line of visibility. The masterpiece that he sketched at the climax in the massive blank canvas pictured his muse at the side with an illustrated visual of the city and its never-ending saga.

The dhobi guy Munna in his ‘wannabe actor’ attitude represents the subaltern section of the society who subsist a ramshackle survival. He washes soiled clothes collected from the neighborhood apartments and goes out on a mouse hunt in the dark of the night. Though, his means of livelihood, one that of washing the dirt and other that of ravaging the garbage are starkly diverse, but play the same scavenger role of cleaning-up, clearly depicting the purgatory state he is trapped in, between big dreams and base living. With a decaying shack as his abode, Munna is shown to be weaving thoughts of a better life, pepped by his tormented passion for the upscale lady. Prateek Babbar’s innocent facial appearance, strong physical built, gullible nature, unrefined verbal communication and unkempt body language made his role completely believable and befitting. His naïve thoughts get expressed as he shies and blushes at the occasional teasing of his cousin brother and his absent minded euphoric smiles in the rain and the breeze as he lives the fleeting moments of elation that mirrors his magnifying nascent adoration for Shai.

Yasmin, a newly married girl from a minority community, an immigrant from UP and new to Mumbai, is an innocent housewife with a girly charm about her. In an effort to correspond and demonstrate the city to her dearest brother, she goes on shooting random city scenes and communicates to the camera in a hope that they will reach her brother someday.  From the first clip to the final, a subtle and sublime change takes place in her as she metamorphosed from a cheery, jovial spirited girl to a lonesome, troubled soul. She pours out her existential trauma through precise hints and revelations in the video letters as she involuntarily scrawls the anecdote of the pained souls of the city. The striking note in her character surfaces as she chooses death over existence being stampeded by the unbearable burden of the stiff social decorum and the blighted state of the city life. Her videos left behind marks out the ignorance, denial and pain inflicted on her, that she suffered silently all through. Being unable to revert back to her parents to seek sanctuary, she becomes a scapegoat of the compelling social norms of marriage. As she gradually turns away from the camera into the blinding lights of the Elephanta cave, her symbolical obliteration into the radiance of enlightment becomes vivid.  

Shai’s character as a foreign entity, expertly juxtaposes both vulnerability and strength as she puts up a brave show on the face of the emotional crisis she experiences. Interlinked by luck and destiny, she connects with Munna as he aids her in her penchant for camera work. Her playful smiles, petite support and adherence to Munna on occasions acknowledge her fondness for him, but her blinding passion for Arun overshadows the line as she jumps headlong into a quest for nothingness. She follows Arun silently, feeding herself with know how about him and develops a queer psychological addiction towards him. Her detachment with both Arun and Munna exposes her dependability on both as she strolls around the congested slum gullies lost. Munnas final act of his submission to her as he surrenders Arun’s address brought her to a realization that finally unwinds her from all the mortal bindings into a state wherefrom she can behold everything clearly.

The docile lady next door is a living replication of the city as she stays stone cold to all happenings, yet registering everything to the core. Her presence in both Yasmin’s videos and during Arun’s stay in the apartment cements the fact of the city’s timeless existence. Like Yasmin stated, she, like the sea devours every secret inside her without divulging anything but a cold stoic stare. The city captured in all possible moods of grey, blue, rainy, shadowy, sunlit, bleak, clamor and buzz is ever-present throughout the course of action and finally finds place in the artist’s masterpiece painting.

The background score of Dhobi Ghat is terrific as the mostly classic instrumental tracks did a commendable job in amplifying the typical desi aura of the movie on the context of a universal theme. As Shai descends the stairs chasing Munna, the backdrop discourse of the worldly “Maya” and “Moh” aptly suggested the earthy vulnerability of humans.

In closing, Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat is a short artistic film that has multiple layers of depth that have to felt to appreciate the kaleidoscope of emotions understated. On face value, it is an extremely slow-paced film without a concrete storyline which evidently leads to blind ends.