"Photograph" Review: A Poetic Film In Every Scene, Captured The Dreamy Mumbai City

Photograph

Cast: Sanya Malhotra, Nawazuddin Siddiqui

Director: Ritesh Batra

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Photograph is like beautiful footage of the Mumbai city with its frames composed like some still photographs, an ordinary filming skill of cinematographer Ben Kutchins. The film is obsessed with the beautiful city, with the General Post Office lovely filmed from the air, just like how the Library of Congress was captured in All the President’s Men. The film follows the story of a street photographer Rafi who believes that standing next to a monument is monumental, and Miloni, a young girl who defines herself by her plainness.

Check out the trailer of the film:

Miloni, which means the achiever, is a student belonging to a middle-class family. She is such a good student that they put up her picture on a sign at the coaching institute with a crown on her head. But no one has ever made her feel special. The picture surprised not only Miloni herself, but also her friends and even her suitor who told her that she looked beautiful in the picture. However, there was one person that found Miloni special, making her life a little less plain, it’s the photographer.

Rafi, a street photographer who is making his ends meet by taking pictures for the tourist, always attracts the customer by saying the patter that he learned by heart: the time may fade, but the sunlight will stay on your face in this picture. Miloni somehow listened to his words and agreed to let Rafi take a photo of her, but she disappeared before he got to do so.

Rafi’s grandmother wanted him to get married soon and constantly pressurised him by refusing her medical treatment until he found a suitable match. Not knowing what to do, Rafi gave his grandmother the photo of Miloni, and of course, she immediately wanted to meet this girl. This situation is a typical comedy, but the Mumbai city made it feel like not a comedy at all.

The way director Batra observe his characters is so profound and insightful. Miloni was an exciting character that captured everyone’s attention. She agreed to be Rafi’s fake girlfriend to meet his grandmother, and when the grandmother asked about her parents, she lied that they died because of a collapsing wall. Maybe her life has been so bland and sanitised that she had to imagine the wounds to be able to feel the pains.

The lead actors of the film did an excellent performance. Sanya Malhotra successfully pulled off the character of Miloni. From her hesitation to the way she softly and silently holds her own, everything was well expressed. Farrukh Jaffar’s acting as the grandmother was outstanding. It’s a hilarious character, in the way she teases others, urges the young couple, or the way she says Rafi inherited the smile of his grandfather because the smile is all he has. Meanwhile, Nawazuddin Siddiqui was able to get into the quiet character of Rafi but lacked the tricks to make it a remarkable character.

Altogether, Photograph is poetic in every scene. It reminds us that magic still exists somewhere in the world, in the city that has a place for everything.

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