Khamosh, Vidhu Vinod Chopra’s sophomore feature film direction, is a film-within-a-film made in the tradition of a classic whodunit. A film-crew has come to the beautiful town of Pehelgaum (in Kashmir) to shoot a movie. Things however take a dramatic turn when a supporting actress (and a wannabe heroine) mysteriously commits suicide. In comes a military man who is convinced that the lady has been murdered, thus kick-starting a chain of events that results in a few more murders with the blame being serially shifted from one person to another. As the murky plot unfolds, we realize that hardly any character is capable of occupying a moral high-ground; rather, ugliness and deceit define most of them, irrespective of what their public veneers suggest. The movie boasts of a terrific ensemble cast – Naseeruddin Shah, as the no-nonsense military man who makes unraveling the killer his personal agenda; Amol Palekar, as a famous actor and a mild-mannered man; Shabana Azmi, as an award-winning actress and a somnambulist; Sadashiv Amrapurkar, as the director; Ajit Vachani, as the film’s lascivious producer; Pankaj Kapoor, as the producer’s alcoholic brother, to name a few. It’s not that the plot is completely bereft of discrepancies, but they never came in the way of my enjoying this delectably suspenseful and tightly structured murder mystery.
Director: Vidhu Vinod Chopra
Genre: Thriller/Mystery
Language: Hindi
Country: India
4 comments:
Needless to say, Shubhajit, I have not heard of this film beyond what you convey here, but am nonetheless happy that you enjoyed what has become an all-too-conventional plot thrust these days (film within a film). But if the transcription bears some originality, and the performances are memorable, it's a winner, even with the discrepancies you mention.
Yes, film-within-a-film approach is not a new one. But, if tackled well and with intelligence, it can result in compelling viewing. Thanks Sam for stopping by.
please review dark knight(2008)
In order to review Dark Knight I'll have to watch it again, since some time has passed since I last watched it.
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