The Hindu : Karnataka News : The latest to talk of urban angst

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Sunday, Oct 28, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

The latest to talk of urban angst

Career first: A scene from Manoj Tyagi’s ‘Mumbai Salsa’

Mumbai Salsa (Hindi)

Cast: Vir Das, Indraneil Sengupta, Ray Irani, Dilip Thadeshwar,

Manjari Fadnis, Linda Arsenio, Amruta and Neelam Chauhan

Director: Manoj Tyagi

Change is only constant in Bollywood. Even as Anurag Kashyap ends up with a mixed bag in No Smoking, Manoj Tyagi, scriptwriter of films such as and Corporate, takes the winds of change further.

Mumbai Salsa is a completely urban film, a world removed from the industry which once talked of rural poverty, economic disparity and casteism, etc.

Mumbai Salsa is the latest to talk of urban angst, the race up the corporate ladder, and the attendant promiscuity, etc.

There is little novelty in the subject, considering many recent films have talked of the same.

Where he scores is in the grip: the film never gets too overbearing for its own comfort, and Tyagi resists the temptation to be either didactic or preachy. His heroine wants career first, marriage later. But his hero wants money first, marriage later. Then there are others who take short cuts to name, fame, etc.

Tyagi’s guys are drawn from real life without the sad reality bogging them down. They flit in and out of relationships.

And Tyagi handles all the complexities of urban existence with dispassionate ease.

Watch Mumbai Salsa. Without being a path-breaking film, it makes a little noise for the emerging reality of our growing nation.

ZIYA US SALAM

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