Neeraj Pandey’s Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha operates with a strange alluring quality. It blossoms into an epic only in the last act. At times, the storytelling feels like a frustrating mix of awkwardly edited scenes running on an intrusive background score. There is no room for subtlety nor the pretence of realism. Rather, it operates with an unusual blend of the simple, good old-school Hindi film aesthetics and the complex stretch of a non-linear narrative. For the most part in its 140-minute runtime, the film feels like a blatantly misplaced and off-tone mainstream romance. Yet, it comes together really well through a melodramatic musical outburst as it ends. No longer does it feel overly sentimental. Lame becomes sublime. Random mumblings turn to poetry. Its nearly exhausting flair disappears. A spellbinding, sorrowful undercurrent remains.The filmmaking constantly reinvents the idea of time. Spread across a staggering canvas of 25 years, we constantly revisit the past to better understand the present. Snaps of memory are slowly uncovered to learn the nature of what transpired between Krishna (Ajay Devgn) and Vasudha (Tabu), two star-struck lovers, whose lives are completely altered on a fateful night. Krishna is sentenced to twenty-five years in prison for murdering two men, sending Vasudha in a state of shock. As he stays cornered in the confines of four walls, Vasudha lives caged in an open world. Love, after all, comes with its fair share of tremoring consequences.What happened in the past is like a golden key to understanding the present. Scenes feel like a quantum of memories that are unpacked to spill the intense grief that overpowered the lives of the two lovers. All of it is deliciously exaggerated without resolve at certain moments. The storytelling seldom appears to be slick and seamless but jolting and novice-like. Many dialogue exchanges feel out of place. Early on, Krishna and Vasudha’s younger versions, Shantanu Maheshwari and Saiee Manjrekar, are shown to be sitting by the Bandra sea face, overlooking the under-construction sea-link, talking about the validity of their love. It’s too cheesy to care about, but the film believes in a hyper-romantic idea of love which builds the way for its over-the-top, pulpy aesthetics, reminiscent of an early Raj Kapoor musical. It is mawkishly satisfying.The first half is laden with scenes that seem to be choppily put together lacking a sense of rhythm. Ajay’s stoic, zen-like appearance doesn’t help as well to keep the awkward zeal at check. A moment of his release from jail after 25 years has him standing by the large prison door as the camera moves slowly towards him with blaring music wanting to make up for the absence of any connection with his emotions. It feels rather shameful to see Tabu and Ajay failing to spark up emotional moments in conversations for how sheepishly they are written and filmed. The ghazal-like appeal of Tabu’s on-screen presence is obliterated as it is reduced to merely seeing her tearful eyes and often bland face. The jarringly placed post-interval sequence centres around the two meeting each other after a long time. Again, time is slowed, glances are shot as our ears are numbed.Making his first romantic feature after a range of racy spy thrillers, Neeraj Pandey does a complete turnaround in terms of the look and feel of the film. He is obsessed with having each of his dialogue-heavy scenes filmed across some ‘romantic’ locations of Mumbai. We see Krishna and Vasudha walking across the Gateway of India or sitting hands-locked by Marine Drive. If the distracting song, ‘Kaun Mera’ from an otherwise fast-paced Special 26, felt inorganic, here he freely indulges into an absolute pastel-coloured world. All of it is bound to feel superficial and overly decorated. Yet, through all of this, there is an authentic spirit of love which keeps it going. Things start to fall in place in the latter part of the second half. Neeraj takes a lot of time to open up the plot. If Sriram Raghavan’s Merry Christmas was a slow burn, Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha is almost a no-burn until everything starts making sense. A fire begins to take shape just when you are completely done with it and in no time, you start to revel in its sputtering warmth. Disdain starts depleting as newer revelations add on to the nuance. It feels like a new film altogether.Auron Mein Kahan Dum Tha is a difficult film to make and it would be easy to pass it off as a bland and oversaturated mess, were it not for how it chooses to reverse its own aesthetics. Neeraj’s brave attempt to stretch a moment and revisit it through a different perspective at various points in the plot can appear cumbersome to witness. Yet, the spectacle it carries within is too tender to stay indifferent about. What seemed draining earlier is filled up with a new meaning due to the themes which Neeraj chooses to hold onto. Further, there is the usual ‘Neeraj Pandey Twist’ which seizes the day. The melodrama adds-on to the mammoth emotional release in the final 15 minutes putting on a graceful show. The exploration of the sacrificial nature of love and how it transcends the limits of shallow promises and even time itself, lends the film a lyrical, lore-like magnificence. It demands your patience to sit through. I was squirming in my seat for the most part, filled with a restless energy. But I left the theatre with a sense of completion. It is a strange experience indeed.Directed by: Neeraj PandeyStarring: Ajay Devgn, Tabu, Shantanu Maheshwari, Saiee Manjrekar, Jimmy Sheirgill and Jay UpadhyayRating: 3
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