Mohenjo Daro Movie Review: Is a Feast For The Senses!

Gorgeous, Exquisite …Mohenjo Daro Is a Feast For The Senses

Starring: Hrithik Roshan, Kabir Bedi, Introducing Pooja Hegde

Written & Directed by: Ashutosh Gowariker

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Movie Review: It isn’t easy to make a film about a civilization that existed 5,000 years ago. Not when historians and self-styled purists are breathing down your neck, waiting to pounce on the filmmaker for every mistake in dress manner and code.

Well, in spite of the scepticism  look what Ashutosh Gowariker has done! Mohenjo Daro is a  magnificent monument to the power of the imagination. Sure, you may have quibbles with the way some characters speak and dress—and leading lady Pooja Hedge is a problem—but nothing can take away from the imaginative powers that the filmmakers excercises over his material and resources.

Much of this film is plainly fantasy, and the director has never pretended otherwise. The film’s biggest USP—and the quality that makes its lack of legitimate historicity tolerable—is its proclivity to stretch the limits of the imagination far beyond the prescribed levels of commercial cinema.The climax showing a dam-burst that wipes out an entire civilization leaves a lasting impact in spite of some amateurish special effects.

Gowariker keeps the canvas opulent but uncluttured. Unlike Jodhaa Akbar—his other remarkable collaborative effort with Hrithik Roshan—the director doesn’t film awe-inspiring battle scenes with horses and elephants and shots of massive crowds swooping down on the frames. Here. The frames are mimimal, biblical in their austerity  and yet lavish and eyecatching.

The city of Mohenjo Daro is constructed with an astonishing attention to detail. The structures are symmetrical, authentic and habitable.Apart from the debutante heroine’s florid sartorial flourishes the characters are dressed in believable clothes. One can see Hrithik and the other characters’ clothes are made of handwoven fabric and are hand-stitched.

These details  which go a long way in ensuring  periodicity , could easily be  missed by eyes that look only for faults and aberrations. Try letting go. Just float with Gowariker’s elemental emotions brought to life through vivid images framed by cinematographer C K Muraleedharan to represent a heightened level of sensuality in a world where innocence dominated and overruled selfinterest.

The film is essentially one man’s battle to reinstate democracy in the city of Mohenjo Daro run by a tyrannical despot . Hrithik Roshan and Kabir Bedi are compelling in the two main roles, Together and apart they exude an implosive immediacy in every frame. Besides the two powerful actors , there are remarkable performances byArunodoy Singh and Manish Chowdhary in roles that are marginal but well etched and skilfully performed.

But the film is finally a one-man show. Hrithik towers over the proceedings as only he can . His hero Sarman is just a commoner thrust with the job of saving a people from a cruel and selfish  despot. He is what Kejriwal would have been 5,000 years ago.The political parable is perched neatly on Roshan’s shoulder. He carries Sarman’s sermons easily on his personality never allowing the role to be burdened by self-importance .

And  Roshan dances like a dream even when choreographer Raju Khan has invented some truly unique steps that could have easily looked clumsy and weird on a less accomplished dancer.

But Roshan is Roshan. Mohenjo Daro sees him in robust form. The same goes for director Ashutosh Gowarikerwho furnishes the intangible nooks of a lost civilization with remarkable believability. Don’t believe what the cynics say. See the film for its sincerity and passion the the dedication to recreate an era and aura long gone and irretrievable.