New Perspective. Review on 15 Park Avenue

15 Park Avenue

Cast:

Konkana Sen, Rahul Bose, Shaban Azmi, Kanwaljeet Singh, Waheeda Rehman, Dhritiman Chatterjee, Shefali Shah and others.

Plot:

Story of a schizophrenic and the travails of her & her dear ones.

Story:

It’s the story of a schizophrenic patient by name Mitali or Mithi, played by Konkana Sen. The plot revolves around the challenges faced predominantly by her much-older sister, Anju, played by Shabana Azmi.

Mithi lives with a twice-widowed mother, Mrs. Gupta, played by Waheeda Rehman. Mrs. Gupta marries Mr. Gupta, an army officer, for the second time after her husband, also an army officer, dies. She has a late issue, Mithali, who is 18 years younger than Anju.

Mithi is a lonely child who grows up to become a journalist. She is love with an Advertising executive by name Jojo, played by Rahul Bose, and dreams nothing else but to marry him, have five children and settle down.

Her schizophrenic condition worsens after she visits a small town in the Bihar-West Bengal border to cover electoral violence and gets gang-raped by political goons. She doesn’t recover from her trauma then on, at least till the “end” of the movie.

Comments about the movie and some sequences:

Overall, the movie scores on the drama ably. Anju becomes the central character throughout the movie and has everyone buzzing around her like busy bees. She is the queen bee and holds everyone’s life by the leash. Though Mithi is mostly in her own world, she keeps visiting the world of the others now and then and makes intelligent remarks.

I am not sure how schizophrenics are since I haven’t had the bad fortune of knowing one in person. However, I am amazed at the ability of Mithi who makes a remark to Anju that perhaps she is hallucinating about her being a professor and writing a book. Which makes Anju contemplate what makes everyone think that Mithi’s world is unreal and ours, a real one?

The movie makes you visit various aspects of relationships one would see challenged in the presence of a schizophrenic family member. The sequence where in Mithi’s brother is wary of her holding his new-born, for example or the other, where she wets the carpet and the housemaid gets irritated. The desperation of a mother who wants her daughter cured drives her to resort to superstition and brings home an exorcist.

I am not sure if the character of a mad woman who comes twice in the movie was of any significance. Somehow, one if forced to think that unless you have the money, the street is the place for people with mental diseases and therefore, as a responsible citizen you need to feel guilt. What does the character achieve? Nothing, I feel. Another character that is not well etched is that of Mahesh, Mithi’s brother.

The love triangle that Aparna Sen manages to bring in to the story is subtle and real. Anju is a divorcee and has a lover, Sanjeev. Sanjeev is her colleague and appears to be seeking her company throughout the movie. Enter the new doctor, Kunal Barua, played by Dhritiman Chatterjee and we have a quick triangle. Dr.Barua, the unhappily married man seems to get a muse over a period of time, where he starts romancing the sister of his patient. It is quite amusing to find a plot where the three characters in a love triangle have an intellectual twist! Both men are academics-oriented. However, one has an established relationship with the woman and the other is trying to get his foot on the already-crowded foot-board of the love bus. One tries to impress her with a possibility of a Mexico trip and the other wants to showcase his genius in an attempt to make her accept his genes. The mating dance never ceases, irrespective of species, age, background or presence of intelligence – good message driven home in panache, indeed.

What hits you is the mix-up Mithi’s mind concocts about Jojo, Saddam and Bush. One is given a glimpse of a schizophrenic’s mind and the way it can behave. Amalgamating fiction and reality and living it that world – that is something one shudders to think.

The act of rape takes a back seat in this story as it is treated more as an incident than the central plot. Kudos to Aparna Sen for not trying to have multiple plots in one movie. Often we see film-makers wanting to convey too many things at one go and forget the first thing they wanted to convey. She concentrates on what happens after that incident and how irrevocably Mithi relapses in to deep schizophrenia where she takes refuge from the horrendous world and quickly creates her own paradise with a husband, five kids and two pups. She is frozen in time when she gets engaged to Jojo and they plan the names of their children and pups.

The re-entry of Jojo in to Mithi’s life is a bit sudden when compared to the pace of the rest of the movie. Anju and Mithi take a vacation after Dr.Barua advises her and next scene, we see the married Jojo with his Tamil wife Lakshmi, played by Shefali Shah and two children that speak with an American accent – a hint of they being NRIs or what?

The following sequences of Jojo seeing his one-time love, Mithi, following them to their cottage, meeting with Anju and the feeling of nostalgia, guilt and remorse are finely created by Rahul Bose. He seems to, as they, say get in to the skin of the character. His expressions are bang-on and you’d feel that you’d have reacted the same way. There is no Hindi-cinema kind of expressions. Jojo is for real, unlike Hindi Cinema heroes, as he understands the challenges of dealing with a mentally-handicapped woman for the rest of his life and makes a choice of not marrying her, though he is engaged to her. The character has the courage to admit his lack of strength and lives with guilt for the rest of his life.

I won’t commit the blunder of criticizing the like of Shah Rukh, as they have very smartly claimed not being actors, but entertainers and therefore are protected by that disclaimer.

Now, what happens to Mithi after she is brought to “15 Park Avenue” is something I am wondering after the movie got over – can someone tell me?

Overall, it is a fantastic effort by Aparna Sen with stupendous support by the lead actors. If you like good movies, you should watch this movie.