Film Photography: Ritesh Batra Continues History on Slow Burning

An instant photo – this is what brings together two strangers in the new Ritesh Batra film, simply titled Photograph . The photograph in question may be instantaneous, but it is a film that takes its time, quietly puts its story and takes us into the worlds and lives of its two protagonists. There are captivating moments, winning dialogues and small touches that make you smile, but unfortunately, the film never meets to provide a fully satisfying experience.
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Six years after his excellent start The Lunchbox Batra tells another story in Mumbai about two unknown strangers who are linked by a strange quirk of fate. Rafi (Nawazuddin Siddiqui) is a photographer at the gateway to India. a migrant from a small village in Uttar Pradesh, who sleeps in a small room with four other men. Miloni (Sanya Malhotra) is a brilliant student preparing for her CA final. She belongs to a family of upper middle clbad Gujarati in Mumbai. Both are what you could describe as "solitary souls"; they are surrounded by people but lost in the crowd. Their origins could not be more different, yet their orbits cross when Rafi convinces her to let him take his picture. Miloni, introverted by a mistake, disappears without paying.
But luck, this beautiful thing, connects the two. Rafi uses Miloni's photo to concoct a story for her grandmother, who makes her sing emotionally for her to be married. The girl on the picture is his fiancée, he's lying. His name? The sounds of an old song by Lata Mangeshkar float in Rafi's room. "She's called Noorie," he writes.

Batra draws on nostalgia to draw us into history. Old Hindi movie songs follow one another, Miloni wants a soft drink from his childhood, a scene takes place in a post office, single-screen cinemas are undermined for romance and we see Rafi shopping in & # 39; & # 39 ;. kirana – the kind of small local establishment that is hard to spot in the big cities now dominated by supermarkets. A wise conspiracy, Rafi's brave grandmother (a formidable Farrukh Jaffar) is delighted to have settled in and arrived in Mumbai to search for the girl. Rafi, in turn, looks for Miloni and persuades her to go ahead with her lie until Dadi is in town.

This could be the plot of a Bollywood boiler, but the treatment of Batra and his two main players is different. Miloni is suffocated by her family who chose her way of life. Accompanying Rafi's charade – as unlikely as it may seem – is an act of rebellion on his part.

As it turns out that part of the problem of Photograph is the character of Miloni. She is without charm, in a gentle way. She has a melancholy air, but her impbadive personality is hard to understand, despite Sanya Malhotra's hard work to integrate. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is more convincing, but the part hardly stretches his acting muscles. The dynamic between Rafi and his unconventional grandmother is more charming than the film's "love story", which makes it difficult to stay invested in the journey as it unfolds slowly … very slowly .

It's a shame because the film was shot Batra lovefully travels the city to distil its uniqueness: from its tiny slums to its tea rooms, chatty taxi drivers and infested cinemas rodents. The problem is that everything is at the service of a scenario that seems too light. The writing does not pack the emotional urgency of The Lunchbox and the characters are not so convincing. The central relationship is of delicate quality, but it never flies. Batra keeps the story on a slow burning; how would you like it to flicker from time to time.

In the end A photograph seems strangely vague. I go with two and a half years out of five.

Rating: 2.5 / 5