The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : It’s Bachchan show all the way

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Saturday, Sep 13, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

It’s Bachchan show all the way

Towering performance: Preity Zinta and Amitabh Bachchan in ’The Last Lear’

Film: The Last Lear

Starcast: Amitabh Bachchan, Preity Zinta, Arjun Rampal

Director: Rituparno Ghosh

There is nothing like Bachchan fatigue. Every time you feel you have seen every facet of his acting, he astonishes you with another. The man is like clay. Let a master craftsman work on him and he showcases his malleability. In one of his best performances, here he has been crafted by Rituparno Ghosh as Harish Mishra, or simply Harry, an ageing thespian who knows the stage like the back of his hand and chants Shakespeare like a divine discourse. He is passionate, pompous, a bit whimsical and unpredictable. Traits that grant licence for overacting, to exaggerate, something like “Black”, but Ghosh keeps the actor in check. That the film is in English stands him in good stead, but the bottomline is, he doesn’t allow Bachchan to be bigger than the film. He may lose out on the box office, but cinema wins.

Ghosh’s canvas is never big. He excels in unravelling layers of human emotions through candid conversations between his lead protagonists. Here he takes us back and forth in time with consummate ease to tell us what conviction is all about, what commitment demands — all in his trademark subtle ways. Inspired by the late Uttpal Dutt’s play “Aajker Shahjehan”, he has Arjun Rampal as the young off-beat director trying to convince Harry to do his film. Now Harry considers celluloid an apology for art. This leads to the age-old debate on stagecraft Vs cinema. What’s new here is how Ghosh captures the developing camaraderie between the two.

Finally, Harry relents and the real story begins. In comes the fumbling actress, played by Preity with aplomb. Her personal life is affecting her performance and Harry doesn’t want his performance to suffer because of her. So he has a way out and we begin to find him endearing as well. All is well until the film within the film reaches its climax. Harry hasn’t faked on stage, but now he is being asked to. As Harry pleads with the director in a drunken stupor, Bachchan matches that timeless scene in “Amar Akbar Anthony”.

However, Ghosh could not establish well the reason behind Harry’s leaving the stage. A problem with Bachchan is, he renders his co-actors — hard as they may try — nearly redundant. Ghosh could not develop the requisite tension to match the aura that he had created around Harry. In fact, the last few minutes don’t say much. Watch the film for Bachchan. Watch it to know how an uncompromising director is reaching out to meet world cinema.

ANUJ KUMAR

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