Directed by Shubhashish Bhutiani and featuring Adil Husain and Lalit Behl in the lead roles, Mukti Bhawan revolves around an interesting relationship between a father and a son after the former decides to die in the Hindu holy city of Varanasi. Set on the backdrop of a real-life concept of “Mukti Bhawan”, this bittersweet movie is a journey of a son who has left with no choice but to tackle his father’s dying wish. Mukti Bhawan is an Indian comedy full of emotional depth. The debut director Shubhashish Bhutiani very effortlessly talks about some weighty topics in the movie like death, sin, redemption and family love. The movie tells a wonderful story and the director, Shubhashish has delivered the best. The screenplay, the backdrop, the cinematography, everything is so real and alive to the tone of the movie. The characters have done their job well and their humour makes it a delightful watch. They have left an unforgettable impression on the audiences. The movie is very indulgent and the director’s portrayal of meditative festivals becomes noticeable. Highly recommended because of its beautiful thought and outstanding performances!
“Kitne din lagenge?” a wife asks her husband – who’s about to travel to Benares with his aged father – while fervently applying moisturiser. The scene has the banality of a conversation in a middle-class Indian family. Cinema must often rely on dramatization to highlight a story. But when your subject is so bizarre, the challenge is to treat it with measure and normalcy. Director Shubhashish Bhutiani’s powerful feature-film debut, Mukti Bhawan, does not only that, but manages to add a lens of scepticisim and humour to what is otherwise a morbid, depressing story. Hussain isn’t just credible as the everyman, he is brilliant. You see a bit of the everyson in him, and the everyfather. You agree when he is critical; you tear up when he cries. In the end, rather than being about the heavy religious stuff, it is about universal human drama. As a father and son reconcile, it is near heart-breaking. As an old man and his grandaughter sneak out for bhang, it tells you that the most devout have mischief in them. Bhutiani gives death its due dignity, and yet retains its objectivity and subtlety. It makes you laugh, and cry, and think and question. It’s what good cinema and storytelling are meant to do.
To shuffle off mortal coils, to be free of all earthly ties, to be one with the almighty: the ancient Hindu concept of ‘moksha’ is sublime in its beauty and simplicity, as both philosophy and practice, to live and die by. When Dayanand Kumar (Lalit Behl) declares that this time has come, and that he wishes to check into Mukti Bhawan in Varanasi in order to prepare himself for his last journey, it leaves his family unprepared. Son Rajeev (Adil Hussain), displaying a mix of filial duty and resignation, is the accompanist; Rajeev’s wife Lata (Geetanjali Kulkarni) and daughter Sunita (Palomi Ghosh) are left to deal with the absence of the two men, one temporary, the other permanent. Bhutiani’s debut feature is a many-layered revelation: of the interplay between life and death, the see-sawing connectedness and distance between family members; and how, in a very profound, absurdist sense, all of life is a journey towards death. A few minor faultlines are evident: sometimes the pauses become too deliberate; some lines are included for effect. The performances are a delight. Lalit Behl, who played the creepy father in Titli, comes off sometimes as too lugubrious, but gets the right amount of truculence as he talks to his son, entreating and demanding at the same time. The relationship between the two, fractured yet strong, and the manner in which the two discover fresh moorings, is a highlight of the film. There’s much to like about Mutki Bhawan. It brings to us themes which are either ignored or dealt with in our cinema with mawkishness and heavy sentimentality. Bhutiani removes the cloyingness and replaces it with a moving matter-of-fact acceptance of the final destination: this is a director to watch out for. Everyone makes us watch, particularly Adil Hussain, who is pitch-perfect. He is unshowy yet fully visible, and I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
It is difficult to sell a story that actively deals with a topic that people instinctively refrain from. Nobody wants to think about the most undeniable part of life: death. And yet, Mukti Bhawan makes no bones about it. It’s as if writer-director Shubhashish Bhutiani wants to normalize the subject for reluctant viewers. He sets his story in a lodging facility where people arrive only to depart permanently. And tells it through the dead and those waiting to die in the claustrophobic lanes of Varanasi. He employs the city’s nonchalance about death, its cremation ghats, its newspaper obituaries and its priests to tell us the story of Daya. Bhutiani has assembled a stellar cast of theatre greats and indie-film favourites. Behl and Hussain are endearing as the father-son duo, frustrated by and fond of each other simultaneously. The plot is too skimpy and with its languid pacing, the movie eventually seems a bit indulgent. The filmmaker’s exposure to slow, contemplative festival films becomes apparent. But the unassuming characters and the humour make it a delightful watch. If in-your-face Bollywood blockbusters have bored you to death, Mukti Bhawan is your salvation.