Blue Umbrella
by baiscope wallahThere are many memorable take aways from Vishal Bharadwaj’s National Award winning film. The lush Himachal landscape is a pleasant break from the urban settings of the latest Indie films. Pankaj Kapoor gets better with age, and shows tremendous range in playing the village shopkeeper “Nandkishore Khatri”. The character is so far removed from the unbending Hindu priest of “Dharm” (also released in 2007), but Kapoor is equally at ease.
However, the film stumbles repeatedly and is unsatisfactory on the whole. The script is based on a children’s book by Ruskin Bond:
A ten year old village girl Biniya acquires a fancy blue umbrella from a passing tourist, and soon develops a loving bond with it. However, the desire for the blue umbrella spreads like fire among the villagers, and it’s eventually stolen. Tea stall owner Nandu Khatri is the prime suspect, who acquires his own red umbrella that looks remarkably similar to the missing one. When the truth is revealed, Nandu is publicly denounced by the village elders and shunned by the villagers. In the end Biniya is the one to break the ice and reach out to Khatri.
The film loses sight of its key audience (kids) and turns inexplicably dark in the latter half. The director may have wanted to make an adult film that has kids, and many Iranian films have successfully done that.
However, the approach here is too inconsistent. The one-dimensional characters in the film (apart from Khatri) are the other major problem. The story develops primarily from the POV of Khatri, and we are deprived of the personal journey Biniya has to make from being a regular kid with an umbrella fetish, to the bold girl who breaks the barriers and embraces an ostracized thief. Vishal Bharadwaj disappoints.