Road Movie Reviews (Raja Sen)

Raja Sen - 3/5

A long and winding ode

All roads lead to roam. Dev Benegal's new film, armed with a syntax-challenging title, is one of those wonderfully shot ruminations of a young clueless man trying to find himself.

He -- by which we mean both protagonist and filmmaker -- can't quite find his forte, but takes us along on a fanciful, unpredictable little diversion, a very pleasant hitchhike through bleak deserts we really ought to see more of.


The film is about slackjawed young loner Vishnu , played by Abhay Deol , an apathetic slacker who really doesn't seem to give a damn about anything. All he knows is that anything would be better than his actual stinking legacy -- he's a hair oil heir -- and escapes by way of delivering an old truck across Rajasthan .


On his way he encounters a motormouth chaiwallah determined on finding a better life, a grizzled old mechanic who knows the ways of the world and points them forward, and a comely young widow looking to forget.

In short, a perfectly family-photograph sized entourage heading to a makeshift Oz mela down the yellow brickless road.


It is, as you'd imagine, a charming film. Thanks mostly to Michel Amathieu's starkly stunning cinematography, the frames are what you take away from the film, frames of a blue, graffiti-led truck wheezing to a halt in the middle of Kutch, of a kid in a bright yellow tee-shirt and of a fat mechanic struggling to stand but never to smile.

The film is textured lovingly, the colours are beautiful and its slow, sluggish pace initially enchants as much as it eventually exasperates.


Yes, exasperates. For this film -- this pretty little waterless detour of a film -- falters because of inconsistency and the lack of a cohesive storyline.

It's neat and pretty and quite charming, but after a while shots of a truck framed by arid landscape begin to seem tiresome. There are moments of genuine surprise and cleverness, but these are often cancelled out by overdone moments, like an excessive fair that appears out of nowhere, or the unforgivably theatrical shot of filmstrips blowing in the wind.

Read more from HERE

Road Movie Reviews (Raja Sen)

Raja Sen - 3/5

A long and winding ode

All roads lead to roam. Dev Benegal's new film, armed with a syntax-challenging title, is one of those wonderfully shot ruminations of a young clueless man trying to find himself.

He -- by which we mean both protagonist and filmmaker -- can't quite find his forte, but takes us along on a fanciful, unpredictable little diversion, a very pleasant hitchhike through bleak deserts we really ought to see more of.


The film is about slackjawed young loner Vishnu , played by Abhay Deol , an apathetic slacker who really doesn't seem to give a damn about anything. All he knows is that anything would be better than his actual stinking legacy -- he's a hair oil heir -- and escapes by way of delivering an old truck across Rajasthan .


On his way he encounters a motormouth chaiwallah determined on finding a better life, a grizzled old mechanic who knows the ways of the world and points them forward, and a comely young widow looking to forget.

In short, a perfectly family-photograph sized entourage heading to a makeshift Oz mela down the yellow brickless road.


It is, as you'd imagine, a charming film. Thanks mostly to Michel Amathieu's starkly stunning cinematography, the frames are what you take away from the film, frames of a blue, graffiti-led truck wheezing to a halt in the middle of Kutch, of a kid in a bright yellow tee-shirt and of a fat mechanic struggling to stand but never to smile.

The film is textured lovingly, the colours are beautiful and its slow, sluggish pace initially enchants as much as it eventually exasperates.


Yes, exasperates. For this film -- this pretty little waterless detour of a film -- falters because of inconsistency and the lack of a cohesive storyline.

It's neat and pretty and quite charming, but after a while shots of a truck framed by arid landscape begin to seem tiresome. There are moments of genuine surprise and cleverness, but these are often cancelled out by overdone moments, like an excessive fair that appears out of nowhere, or the unforgivably theatrical shot of filmstrips blowing in the wind.

Read more from HERE

'The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman'

Abhay Deol's Road, Movie is unusual is many ways. It tells a unique story, not one that we've seen on Bollywood screens time and again. And it has some beautiful music by Canadian guitarist Michael Brooke, who has lent his talent to such Hollywood films like Mission Impossible, Transformers, Phone Booth and Black Hawk Down.

Brooke has also worked with the late legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his album Night Song, for which he also won a Grammy nomination in 1996.

In an e-mail interview, Brooke talks about his work in his first Bollywood film.

You have worked with such astonishingly diverse stalwarts as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Edge and Robert Fripp. You have even worked on a blockbuster like Mission Impossible II and a path-breaking documentary like Inconvenient Truth. What made you sign up a Hindi movie?

I had some connection to the producers from the past, and I believe that Dev Benegal [ Images ], the director, was aware of my music. Also, the combination of the beauty and emotional resonance of the film and Dev's deep musical knowledge and creative ideas.

Did you do any homework as such, like maybe reading up on Indian cinema, or listening to Indian songs?

Not really, I have heard Indian songs before. I have been enjoying The Bombay Connection Volumes 1 and 2, collections of music from Bollywood films of the 1960s and 970s. Also, Dev gave me the brief of what kind of music he wanted, so it was not that difficult.

Take us through the composing process.

The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman. I was also in Rahman's studio in Chennai and after speaking to him, the lure of Bollywood became even more important for me.

When Dev came forward with this proposal, I knew it was a good opportunity. It was an interesting experience to compose music for the movie. I just went with the brief I got. I have used my invention, the infinite guitar, to create the background score because Dev wanted a more westernized music than Indian. So I just went with it.

Read more from HERE

'The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman'

Abhay Deol's Road, Movie is unusual is many ways. It tells a unique story, not one that we've seen on Bollywood screens time and again. And it has some beautiful music by Canadian guitarist Michael Brooke, who has lent his talent to such Hollywood films like Mission Impossible, Transformers, Phone Booth and Black Hawk Down.

Brooke has also worked with the late legend Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan on his album Night Song, for which he also won a Grammy nomination in 1996.

In an e-mail interview, Brooke talks about his work in his first Bollywood film.

You have worked with such astonishingly diverse stalwarts as Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, The Edge and Robert Fripp. You have even worked on a blockbuster like Mission Impossible II and a path-breaking documentary like Inconvenient Truth. What made you sign up a Hindi movie?

I had some connection to the producers from the past, and I believe that Dev Benegal [ Images ], the director, was aware of my music. Also, the combination of the beauty and emotional resonance of the film and Dev's deep musical knowledge and creative ideas.

Did you do any homework as such, like maybe reading up on Indian cinema, or listening to Indian songs?

Not really, I have heard Indian songs before. I have been enjoying The Bombay Connection Volumes 1 and 2, collections of music from Bollywood films of the 1960s and 970s. Also, Dev gave me the brief of what kind of music he wanted, so it was not that difficult.

Take us through the composing process.

The prospect of composing for an Indian film was very enticing, especially after I met A R Rahman. I was also in Rahman's studio in Chennai and after speaking to him, the lure of Bollywood became even more important for me.

When Dev came forward with this proposal, I knew it was a good opportunity. It was an interesting experience to compose music for the movie. I just went with the brief I got. I have used my invention, the infinite guitar, to create the background score because Dev wanted a more westernized music than Indian. So I just went with it.

Read more from HERE