'Titli' - Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Titli'

Movie Review By 'G9 Divya Solgama'

'Dark Chocolate'

Expectations:

Before the arrival of a multiplex era, our Hindi film industry was mostly divided into three different styles of film making. The majority part was dominated by the popular entertaining cinema and a niche part belong to the artistic type of films, followed by a small sect of films which were known as the middle of the road type of realistic films. The whole scenario started to change with the arrival of the multiplex era and films like ‘Satya’, ‘Chandni Bar’, ‘Bandit Queen’ and others. These movies had a realistic cinema as its core content, but were presented in an engaging manner due to which they managed to rake in decent box office numbers. The success of such films inspired more film makers like Anuraag Kashyap, Dibakar Banerjee and others to churn out more hard hitting realistic type of films which also catered the international film festivals. In recent times, we witnessed many big banners known for making out and out commercial money spinners venturing into the small world of quality based films and the latest to join them is ‘Yash Raj Banner’ with their small offering known as ‘Titli’. This movie has already been screened at prestigious film festivals and finally witnesses its local release. Thus, let’s find out whether this new attempt by the ‘YRF’ banner will add as a new milestone in our Hindi cinema or might end up yet another good concept based film, which is made only to lure the film festival audiences. 

Story:

‘Titli’ is a story of Titli (Shashank Arora) and his brothers (Ranvir Shorey and Amit Sial). The trio follows their family business of carjacking and other criminal acts. Titli wants to leave his brothers and follow his own dream of managing a parking area in a popular mall. But, his brothers have other plans for him due to which they get him married to Neelu (Shivani Raghuvanshi), so that they can add her also in their criminal activities. In short span, Titli comes to know that Neelu has her own dark secret and what happens next is what the entire film is all about.

Screenplay & Technicalities:

The story is something different and has lots of twist and turns attached to it. The narrative part in the first half is nail biting followed by a hard hitting but bit slow second half. There are some fantastic scenes like Ranvir trashing Shashank over money followed by him basing a delivery guy in front of his family, the brothers seeking Shivani’s hand for marriage, Shanshak and Shivani meeting Ranvir’s wife and many more which manages to engage you. Then there are some dark, disturbing and hard-hitting scenes like Shashank and Shivani’s first crime act which scares her drastically, Shashank and Shivani’s bed room scenes followed by the domestic violence out there, Shashank taking Shivani to meet her lover, Shashank fracturing Shivani’s hand and few more. It will take time for a viewer to forget these disturbing images. On the flip side, there are a few scenes involving Shashank’s change of heart, which demands more explanation followed by bit, slow screenplay in the middle part of the film. Right from the visual similarities in all the three brothers to the minor part of their personal lives (Ranvir’s obsession for good food, Amit’s silent homosexual love track, etc) to the house location which looks like a rotten hell, ‘Titli’ has some of the finest and minute detailing one could see in the recent times. Similarly, the cinematography is of top notch.

Music & Direction:

The background music by Karan Gaur acts like an additional screenplay in the film.

Director Kanu Behl who co-write and assisted director Dibakar Banerjee in ‘Love Sex Aur Dhokha’ manages to create a huge impact with his directorial debut. Its due to Kanu’s fine sensibilities one tends to feel the skin of each and every character in the film. Kudos to his way of presenting this hard hitting film in such an engaging manner and ending it in such a way that it justifies the association of the ‘YRF’ banner which is mostly known for making romantic films. The movie seems like quenching the thirst of all good and meaningful movie lovers.

Performances

It’s good to see Ranvir Shorey back in such an intense role. The makers have extracted the potentiality of a fine actor. Shivani Raghivanshi is highly impressive and has a bright future. Shashank Arora does his part with total grace. The dilemma inside his head gets totally visible on his face due to his natural acting. Amit Sial, Lalit Behl and Prashant Singh lends good support.

So bol meri 'Filmi Khopdi' iss film mein kitna hain Dum???(Spoiler Alert)

Dum??? Well, if you love good, meaningful cinema then this movie has lots and lots of dum for you. The masses might shy away from this movie, but for others, it gives you the feeling of watching something different, something good and something meaningful which ends up being a must watch type of film. The movie and its happenings will haunt you for a long time. Way back in the 90’s ‘Yash Raj’ presented a violent love story in the form of ‘Darr’ and after almost two decades, they give us one of the most unusual love story which is like a dark chocolate, which despite of being bitter is still cherished only by all those who have elegant taste of fine stuffs. 

Ratings - 4*/5