Just
finished watching 99 Songs and I wonder why I didn’t watch it earlier.
Since the story has been written by A R Rahman himself,
it obviously ought to be about music, but this film has got so much more. Simply put, it is about Jay's quest for a song that leads him to many other revelations. Just
like the fugue that is referred to in the film, the one-note
story opens out to touch art, surrealism and different forms of relationships.
I’d perhaps call it a fairy tale of sorts with fairy godmothers included. I
could see beauty across every inch of the film. A beauty that only an artist is
capable of imagining.
I know writing a story is no mean effort. A R Rahman, the
musician, has poured every bit of himself into writing this story and with
absolute honesty. He has put in everything that’s touched him, everything he
feels passionately about. Though it was a film, it felt as though I was reading
a book with audio and special visual effects playing in front of me.
Many years ago, when I read Vikram Seth’s An Equal Music,
I wished there was some way the prose and the music could be played together.
And I somehow managed to make my own arrangements. 99 Songs gives almost that kind of a delight. A character's physical challenge in this film also brought to mind a parallel to An Equal Music.
I tip my hat to Vishwesh Krishnamoorthy. He has done his
best to put several abstract ideas into a visual medium with much grace and
beauty, through his screenplay and direction. Maybe there aren’t grand
dialogues or nuanced characters, but I would let that go because we are looking
at people who are not bona fide story writers. We have someone who has just
written a story and another who has transformed it visually. Having grown up on
a staple of K Vishwanath’s films, I found this a completely different approach.
Strangely, it always seems easier to make films about the struggles of a
gangster than making films about the struggles of an artist. 99 Songs might
not earn the appreciation of a film aficionado or a critic. Thankfully, I am
neither!
Like I said earlier, I did not find anything pretentious about
this film. Casting would be an example. Ehan Bhat mirrors the simplicity and
sincerity of the character that’s been written. Tenzing Dalha is such a
pleasure to watch. Unable to forget him after Axone,
I was happy to see him in almost every frame of 99 Songs.
And then there are the surprising appearances of musicians in the cast that
makes one exclaim in delight.
(Still sticking to the book analogy) There is a tiny
chapter on Jazz music that Rahman had to definitely write about and I am so
thankful he did it. Like I have said in another post, Rahman has been exploring
Jazz music like no one else in the film industry. And I’d love to sing the
Jazzy lullaby chorus to an infant if I ever get a chance! I am not saying
anything about the music in the film because that is what it is. I’m unable to
split one from the other. The OST has much more variety than that featured in
the film.
Maybe I am dreamy-eyed, maybe I’m biased towards Rahman
but I would say it was a Saturday afternoon well-spent. Ha!
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