Dasvidaniya - clearly differentiates between living and surviving.

The protagonist Amar’s only excitement in life is making a to-do list every morning and then ticking off everything that he accomplishes at the end of the day. But unfortunately, destiny has some other plans stored for him. He comes to know through his doctor that he is suffering from stomach cancer and now only has just three months left to live. Amar has so many unfulfilled dreams left! He then sets about making a new to do list of 10 things. His last list of all the things he has to do before he dies. From making a foreign trip to telling his childhood love about his affections for her to meeting his best friend with whom he has lost contact. The film follows Amar’s journey towards fulfilling his wishes which also take him nearer to his death.

The ever-demanding nature of human beings is very obviously put forth by Amar’s ever increasing list. It tells something about ourselves when every time an item is checked off the list there are a few unchecked ones glaring at you. And as you see that, you find Amar taking a pause to just stand and stare - something that brings him immense pleasure. Dasvidaniya is one of those rarities that bring a smile that refuses to go while a tear rolls down. The dark humor too helps in keeping that smile. The hero of the movie is a common man and somewhere everyone can relate to it because there is not a single faked moment. It is a bitter-sweet story about a man who refused to die before he had learnt to live.

Completely, character driven, the charm of the film lies in its simplicity of its theme and its wonderfully etched characters. The screenplay is well woven with some moments that carry the power to remain etched in your memory even long after the film is over. Returning to the ambit of the dull working class protagonist that he almost patented in Bheja Fry Vinay Pathak delivers yet another bravura performance as a man who learns to live only when he learns he has to die. Vinay Pathak gets the sur of the tragic hero's comic escapades just right. He's partly Charlie Chaplin, and partly Robert Benigni. But finally this is an actor who does his own thing. The film is a must see for Vinay Pathak’s absolutely brilliant performance. First timer Shashant Shah has handled this sensitive slice-of-life cinema with a rare maturity.

Via Darjeeling threatens to tease your psyche!

The ensemble star-cast consisting of Kay Kay, Rajat Kapoor, Vinay Pathak, Sonali Kulkarni, Sandhya Mridul, Simone Singh, Prashant Narayanan etc., drew me to a nearby multiplex to watch Via Darjeeling. I went in with a lot of expectations to watch a different movie with great performances. Right from the word go, the film went tragically awry as first-time director Arindam Nandy ends up pigeonholing a potentially strong ensemble cast into looking like rank amateurs!

The film follows the format of one story, with multiple versions / endings, a strong inspiration of story-telling technique of the very recently released Vantage Point which again is inspired from Akira Kurosawa’s Oscar nominated Rashomon. Unlike Roshomon, the problem with Via Darjeeling is that the main story is incomplete, so all assumptions and interpretations don’t look convincing at all. In fact the multiple versions of the story tend to lack imagination and what you get are the most obvious stories you'd expect given the circumstances, and hence, the whole excitement of multiple narrations is lost in the film and also Via Darjeeling lacks a convincing climax, which was the highlight of Roshomon. The director’s option for an open and rather abrupt end leaves the film with several questions unanswered. Which version of the story is true is left to your individual imagination and assumption!

Via Darjeeling is set in modern day Calcutta & Darjeeling and is supposedly based on a Bengali tradition called 'adda' (haven’t heard of it though) where friends get together in the rains, & exchange stories & gossip, over drinks & dinner! I also wonder, why the title Via Darjeeling? The film barely captures any scenic beauty of the place; instead the film is full of closed-room-conversations!

Literature and cinema have played with the idea of the variable narration for ages, fooling us and then making us applaud how well we've been fooled. And here, in Via Darjeeling, the idea is used at its quirkiest that threatens to tease your psyche!