Dor

At the risk of striking an unpopular, discordant note, let me confess that this film left me quite dissatisfied. It’s well-intentioned cinema; at its heart is a wonderful real-life story which was also the subject of Kamal’s Malayalam film, Perumazhakalam. But here Kukunoor decides to take a geographic leap into two polarised worlds—Himachal and Jodhpur. It’s also about two women, the simple Meera (a vulnerable, child-like Takia) and the strong-willed Zeenat (Panag) and how their worlds collide because of an incident involving their husbands in Saudi Arabia. In parts, it’s also a road movie with Zeenat journeying from Himachal to Rajasthan in search of Meera who will offer her deliverance from her problems. She finds company in the bahuroopiya (Talpade) who provides help and comic relief.

Obviously, the film has a feminist canvas. It critiques patriarchy and messages quite overtly about how female bonding can overcome all. Such a story demands a strong sense of empathy on screen. The problem with both these films is they don’t quite get the emotional pitch right. In Perumazhakalam, things get drowned out in melodrama; in Dor the emotions remain implied, they don’t quite reach out. Take the scene where Zeenat meets the in-laws of Meera for the first time. The potentially strong scene leaves no impact. Kukunoor was able to weave in emotions wonderfully in Iqbal. He was able to create an infectious warmth within the simplicity of the narrative. That lightness and fluidity is missing here.

Kukunoor also fails in mixing realism with Bollywoodian elements. The film is realistic enough in not allowing the actresses to wear makeup. It dares to make them look ungainly as the drool drips from their mouths when they cry. And you can actually count the moles on Panag’s face. Ironically, Dor comes alive in its evocation of the popular Hindi cinema: dancing to Kajrare, watching Hero in a dusty theatre or the last scene which is so wonderfully clever in upstaging the DDLJ scene of SRK offering his hand to Kajol to pull her into the train. And pray, why did Kukunoor have to step in as an actor again? His sleazeball Chopra is totally unreal.

High Fives

Bollywood
1. Lage Raho Munnabhai
2. Pyaar ke Side Effects
3. Dor
4. Khosla ka Ghosla
5. Rocky

Hollywood
1. Jackass Number Two
2. Huo Yuan Jia
3. Gridiron Gang
4. Flyboys
5. Everyone’s Hero

Reggae
1. Short Circuit (Ally Sheedy)
2. A Girl Like Me (Rihanna)
3. Radiodread (Easy Stars All Stars)
4. Dub Side of the Moon (Easy Stars)
5. Welcome to Jamrock (Damian Marley)

Courtesy: Film Information