Dor - Post Mortem

For a lazy blogger like me, something to write on has be really really inspiring to awaken me from this blogsnore. Dor happened to be that which inspired me to write this blog.

Strong and bold in its concept, I feel Dor has lived up to the expectations one would have from Nagesh Kuknoor. Now is the time when new directors are willing to work on stories which are new and that too turning them to mainstream movies. Dor as such is a quite a serious film, though Shreyas Talpade comes in now and then to plug in some humour also proving his versatility as an actor.

The story is of two women (Meera and Zeenat) whose husbands (Aamir and Shanker) have gone to work in Saudi and stay together. Alls well............ so wheres the twist? Meera on one of her monthly calls to her husband (and that too from the top of the village's own miniature Mt.Everest) gets to know that her husband has fallen off the 10th floor balcony of his flat and is dead. Since Aamir used to stay with him thus due to lask of any other evidence (of this so called 'haadsa') he is considered to have killed Shanker and is to be hanged in 2 months time.

Twist part 2 is when one External Affairs official takes a holiday to drive up to Himachal in order to inform Zeenat that there is a way out to save her husband and that is if Meera singns on a "maafinama", thus forgiving Zeenat's husband. Zeenat is a typical Bharatiyan Nari who does not waste a minute to decide that she will comb the entire Rajasthan to find out Shanker's widow and thus bail out her husband. In comes Mr. Bahurupian, Shreyas Talpade and smartly not only gobbles down Zeenat's bread-butter but also does a disappearing act along with her bag. Hindi film co-incidences return to haunt you when Mr. Bahurupian saves Zeenat at the middle of the night from two stalkers and thus giving back her bag and turning a philanthropist at heart by offering to help her to find Meera. So after scouring the rest of Rajasthan, Zeenat does reach the right village thanks to a magnifying glass held Masterji. Being rebuked by Shaker's parents Zeenat stays back in order to get a chance to meet Meera, which she does soon. Meera's humility completely stupifies Zeenat and she is not able to break the news to Meera though she feels that she is cheating the latter. Twist no.3 comes when Zeenat gets to know that there are just 2 days left to her husband's execution. She finally tells Meera about her husband and Meera is all ready to take revenge by not signing on the "maafinama" and the two sahelis give each other a dose of their previos dialouges learnt from each other. Back home Meera is locked up in a room as she got friendly with Zeenat. The other widow in the family (Meera's grandmother inlaw) comes to her rescue and freeing her asks her to do what her heart wants to do. All of us know by now that Meera has had a change of heart overnight and now its her turn to scan half the Thar desert to find Zeenat at the train station(not to mention the competition she gave to the train engine). So both of the sahelis are milli once again. The last twist is when the makeup-less Gul Panag extends her hand of freedom to Meera from the moving train and Meera obliges (this time she beats the train) adding onto a little bit of extra drama at the closing stage.

The film is shot at exotic locations and had excellent shots of Rajasthan, though at times I feel that it gets a bit overpowering. Though I am no big film citic but I felt that every frame composition has been handled very well. The music by Salim Sulaiman is very well composed and is quite a challenge for a film like this.

Just a closing note for Mr.Kuknoor - " Please try and be behind the camera till the time you get rid of that accent of yours"