The best B'wood movie currently. Review on Mr & Mrs Iyer

In what is yet another exceptional effort by the acclaimed director and writer Aparna Sen ’’Mr and Mrs Iyer’’ is the story of a Brahmin woman and a Muslim man who fate brings together in an ill-fated bus trip to Calcutta. Violence erupts when a bunch of blood thirsty hindus are looking to avenge the burning of a village by Muslims. There is a curfew and the bus stops.

Mr and Mrs Iyer is not your regular Bollywood movie. No unnecessarily injected cheap humour, no marathon song and dance sequences. Any serious movie lover would really appreciate it , although the seriousness of the subject and the horrific scenes of violence sometimes gets to your head. But what can you say. In real life communal violence is probably ten fold more horrific.

The movie tries to make a point by saying ’’What is the point behind all this violence and why o why can’t we get on with each other’’. But overall you can’t deny that deep down this movie is essentially a love story.

Raja Chowdhary (Rahul Bose) and Meenakshi Iyer (Konkona Sen) have played their parts quite well. The images of the lovely countryside look good too. I would have to agree with the views of a few of my friends in that at times the movie moves on a bit slow and lacks sophistication. But all in all its a very good product.

Don’t watch it if you are too depressed ;-)

I would like to say that if you do like films like this and not the traditional Bollywood drama do watch ’’The Monsoon Wedding’’. Its a sweet yet different take on the modern Indian family.

P.S. In a previous post when listing a few good commercial Bollywood movies I saw last, I listed ’’Chalte Chalte’’ as one of them. Although I have corrected the review now what I really meant was ’’Dil Chahta Hai’’. Chalte Chalte was an abomination. My apologies folks ... all these names sound the same.