{"id":678,"date":"2021-05-28T20:07:01","date_gmt":"2021-05-29T00:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/?p=678"},"modified":"2021-05-28T20:07:03","modified_gmt":"2021-05-29T00:07:03","slug":"chaurahen-dir-rajshree-ohja-2007","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/2021\/05\/28\/chaurahen-dir-rajshree-ohja-2007\/","title":{"rendered":"Chaurahen (dir. Rajshree Ohja, 2007)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on March 23, 2012.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chaurahen<\/strong> (Crossroads) is, of course, Rajshree Ohja\u2019s debut film, released only now, long after it was made and after the release of her second film, Aisha<\/strong>.  It\u2019s an ambitious film \u2013 perhaps too ambitious, but it\u2019s difficult to fault Ohja for trying to juggle something very difficult and not quite succeeding.  Here, she chooses to adapt several of Nimal Verma\u2019s short stories.  I\u2019ll admit that I\u2019ve only read a handful of Verma\u2019s stories, not enough to adequately judge, perhaps; yet, I was left with the impression watching Chaurahen<\/strong> that Ohja managed to capture something of Verma\u2019s universe.  Perhaps not always, nor consistently, and that contributes, I suspect, to the feeling I have that Chaurahen<\/strong> is, as a whole, a difficult film to like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chaurahen_IMG_2862\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

So we have Farooq (Ankur Khanna), a young writer pinned like a butterfly in his parents\u2019 house, which he desperately is trying to preserve to keep his memories of them alive, memories which are slowly suffocating him and destroying his relationship with his girlfriend, Ira (Soha Ali Khan).  Then there\u2019s Dr. and Mrs. Bose (Victor Banerjee and Roopa Ganguly), their marriage torn apart by the death of their daughter, leading her to suffer in silence while he carries on an affair with a young French girl (Kiera Chaplin, who does not seem to have inherited her famous grandfather\u2019s acting genes); and there is the NRI writer Nandu (Karthik Kumar), home with his family after the recent death of his soldier brother,  Keshi (Shayan Munshi), longing to step out from his brother\u2019s shadow and live his own life, on his own terms. There is Keshi himself, seen in a flashback, who meets a woman (Zeenat Aman) in a bar the night before he is sent off to war.  Families, relationships, sorrows, and the crossroads they lead to, all of which Ohja attempts to juggle and intertwine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I rather like the idea of several stories of people at crossroads in their lives and their relationships, who finally find the courage or the serenity to accept what has happened to them and begin to move on, but I will admit that only one of the film\u2019s tracks truly engaged me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I understand that the sterility and oppressiveness I felt in the Farooq\/Ira storyline was probably there to underscore what was happening in Farooq\u2019s life, but I had very little patience with this track, and their constant philosophising ended up feeling rather pedantic and clich\u00e9d rather than something I was supposed to reflect on.\u00a0 And I understood\u00a0 the Keshi\/mysterious woman segment too, but couldn\u2019t help seeing it as something that took me out of the Nair family\u2019s track, rather than illuminating it.\u00a0 The Dr. and Mrs Bose segment interested me somewhat, but mostly because I longed to know more about Mrs. Bose and her incredible sadness, and more about the death of their daughter, which seemed to have driven them apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nonetheless, I found Chaurahen <\/strong>an intriguing film, if an uneven one.  It shows the inexperience of the first-time director at times, and I was often left with impressions and not with emotions.  That said, the film has moments that are breathtakingly painful and beautiful; for example, when Mrs. Bose goes to automatically put sindoor in her hair, and then stops herself.  Your heart can\u2019t help break for her in that moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chaurahen_IMG_2875\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s where I have to make a confession:  Ohja\u2019s cast, including Victor Banerjee, Roopa Ganguly, Soha Ali Khan, Ankur Khanna, Shayan Munshi, Karthik Kumar, Arundathi Nag, Suchitra Pillai and Zeenat Aman is impressive.  But if you put Malayalam veteran actor Nedumudi Venu in a film, there is no way I cannot help but love it \u2013 or, at least, the bits he\u2019s in.  So it\u2019s no surprise then, than the story I found the most moving and most beautiful was that of the Nair family:  father (Nedumudi Venu), mother (Arundathi Nag), sister (Suchitra Pillai) and son, Nandu (Tamil actor Karthik Kumar).  Of all the stories, this one presented interesting and well-rounded characters, grieving for their son\/brother, yet still capable of incredibly joyful moments, such as when they dance together at the instigation of the granddaughter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chaurahen_IMG_2858\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

There is much delicacy and subtlety in the dilemma facing Nandu, the NRI who has come home only because of his brother\u2019s death.  Nandu, like many of the film\u2019s characters, is stuck at a crossroads, between his father\u2019s expectations of him and the life he has made for himself in Vienna.  \u201cSecrets, they turn into an unbearable sadness, which we drown in, if we don\u2019t let them go,\u201d says Mrs. Bose, and this is certainly true of Nandu and the secret he hides, and, in one of the film\u2019s finest and most touching scenes, which he eventually shares with his sister.  Nandu must finally stand up to his father, who begrudges his wish to leave Kochi and return to Vienna; but instead of driving a wedge between them, it leads to greater acceptance of Nandu and his choices.  Not surprising though \u2013 Ohja presented me with a family in which I was certain that the undercurrent of love and respect they felt for each other would trump any differences they might have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chaurahen_IMG_2872\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Nandu\u2019s story, and that of his family, was so deftly constructed and imbued with such grace that it left me breathless and teary.  \u201cHappiness does not exist.  It is only remembered in times of sorrow,\u201d wrote Farooq in one of his books.  The Nair family proves, however, that although happiness is, indeed,  remembered in times of sorrow, it is, also, the very thing that allows us to face our crossroads and make the choices we need to move on and leave sorrow behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chaurahen_IMG_2874\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post first appeared on Totally Filmi on March 23, 2012. Chaurahen (Crossroads) is, of course, Rajshree Ohja\u2019s debut film, released only now, long after it was made and after the release of her second film, Aisha.  It\u2019s an ambitious film \u2013 perhaps too ambitious, but it\u2019s difficult to fault Ohja for…<\/p>\n

Continue ReadingChaurahen (dir. Rajshree Ohja, 2007)<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[289],"tags":[659,658,662,656,664,668,130,666,660,665,657,661,667,663,392],"class_list":["post-678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hindi-movies","tag-ankur-khanna","tag-arundathi-nag","tag-chaurahen","tag-karthik-kumar","tag-kiera-chaplin","tag-mela","tag-nedumudi-venu","tag-nimal-verma","tag-rajshree-ohja","tag-roopa-ganguly","tag-shayan-munshi","tag-soha-ali-khan","tag-suchitra-pillai","tag-victor-banerjee","tag-zeenat-aman","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=678"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":681,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/678\/revisions\/681"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totallyfilmi.toutes-directions.com\/totallyfilmi-wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}