What Ishqiya brought back for me is the "Mitti ki Khusboo". The Rustic rural setup, the calm and quietness of a small town and the simple looking complex problems of its people. Living in Bangalore now for the last 10 years, some how I have gotten cut off from the farm lands and rural part of India. The days I used to spend in my Grandma's house, with people living a really carefree life. I had started to believe that in this mad progress that India has made in the last 2 decades, that kind of India has been lost somewhere. Ishqiya has brought back those days and the belief that that India still is very much there, may be not in the Bangalore and Delhi's of the world, but certainly in the Gorukhpur's and Lucknow's of India.
Ishqiya is a story about 3 key characters Vidya Balan(krishna), Naseeruddin Shah (Khalujaan) and Arshad Warsi (Babban), and how there lives get entangled in Love, Lust and Deceit. There is the plutonic style love of Naseer for Vidya, and also the Lusty love of Arshad for her. Both the love stories progress together, and one cannot understand why Vidya is playing with the emotions of both of them, clearly she has an agenda of her own. All this going on with a Maoist movement, Murders and kidnappings happening in the background, A business man having an affair outside of his marriage, a young boy having his own dreams, a small time Bhai trying to recover his money or blow off the brains of our characters and all these characters being involved with each other in some way or the other. I will not reveal the plot of the movie further, as there enough twists and turns in the story, incase I was to reveal them, it would make your movie experience predictable. All I can say, the story is like a Onion, with each peel coming of, the story becomes more and more interesting. Just that in this case peeling of Onion does not bring tears to your eyes, but rather a smile to your face.
The screenplay is co-written by Vishal Bhardwaj along with Abhishek and Sabrina Dhawan, and is the main strength of the movie, like all the previous Vishal Bhardwaj ventures. He has not taken the role of Director this time, instead it is Abhiskey Chaubey who has directed Ishqiya. Inspirations from Vishal's previous works, Omkara, Maqbool are clearly visible though. Vishal has in the last few years has managed to create a handsome following for himself and a unique moving making style. In his movies, it is the characters of the movie that are in the limelight and not the stars playing them.
Though the story line is complex, it is told in a really calm and realistic way, and it grows on to you slowly as every leaf of the story unfolds. Each of the 3 main characters have an equally strong role to play and each of them try to outdo the other with their performances. There are equally strong support characters in the movie, which contribute to the movie becoming more and more gripping. For me the second half of the movie is more interesting than the first half. This does not mean the first half is boring or anything. Its just than the movie takes off beautifully in the second off, and does not look down after that.
On the performances, while we all are aware of the acting ability of Naseeruddin Shah, it is Vidya Balan and Arshad Warsi, who have come out with some mind blowing performances. Arshad Warsi has clearly given the best performance of his career yet. Vidya Balan has shown that one does not need to be Size zero and wear small clothes to look sexy and seductive. A village girl can be as Seductive and attractive as a big town girl wearing designer clothes.
My favorite performance of the movie though was by Salman Shahid, playing the role of Jijaji in the movie. A person whose money has been stolen by Arshad and Naseer and he is after them to get his money back or blow off their brains. The way Salman has played his character is really fantastic. He has brought in so much of realism to his character with his Dialogue delivery and suttle nuances, that one looks forward to his return to the screen. We surely could have done with another 10 mins of his additional screen presence.
The movie flow is crisp and with a running time of hardly 2 hours, is aptly timed. The music is nice and simple and the camera work great. Another feather in the Cap for Vishal Bhardwaj, looking forward to his next movie now. Net net a great story, some sleek direction and great acting by the actors, make Ishqiya a must watch in the Theatres. Incase you can't catch it on the Theatre, Wait for a the DVD release. A good item to add to your collections.
Beware, the dialogues are very realistic (very U.P. like) hence it will not be a good idea to watch this with your Kids (what ever be there age). Strictly for Adult viewing.
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