Rating : 3.5/5
An unconventional celluloid commentary on the crumbling institution of conventional values
Introduction
Dus Kahaniyaan is an episodic genre of cinema and therefore, different from the conventional format of the regular Bollywood cinema. The film is an expensive experiment with ten gripping short stories penned by top class writers and directed by visionary innovators. The galaxy of stars is simply enchanting.
The short stories, with a twist in each tale, remind you of the works of O.Henry, Guy de Maupassant and O’Hare. They are slick, stylish and suave. They are vivid vignettes showing surprisingly legitimate illicit marital relationships, cunningly conniving cross currents of societal relationships and stunningly tilting seesaw human relationships.
Dus Kahaniyaan is created by 9 writers, 4 music directors, 25 artistes, 9 cinematographers and 6 directors with 10 stories.
Synopsis
In the traditional cinema narration, the story is dealt with the style and symbol of a novel and therefore, enables a synopsis to be composed.
If the final twist of each story is revealed, the very act of watching every episode of Dus Kahaniyaan will be irreparably defeated. Suffice it to say that each episode deals with just a couple of characters and their raw emotions, naked desires coupled with regretful fulfillment.
Performances
The caliber of acting unleashed by Shabana Azmi, Jeetendra, Naseeruddin Shah, Nana Patekar ,Kim Sharma Arbaaz Khan, Sudhanshu Pandey, Mandira Bedi, Jimmy Shergill ,Manoj Bajpai Dia Mirza, Amrita Singh, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea, Tarina Patel, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Rohit Roy, Sheetal Menon and Masumeh Makhija is beyond imagination. They just lived their roles by diligently going under the skin of the characters they played. Even the actors who played minor roles did a wonderful job.
Technical
The stories written by Gulzar, Javed Siddique, Sanjay Gupta, Kamalesh Pandey, Meghna Gulzar, S.Farhan, Rajiv Gopalakrishna, Srivani Tibrewala and Sudip are really thought provoking. The dialogues are refreshingly natural, but contain far too many English sentences.
All the ten stories are very good. However Matrimony, Lovedale, Sex on the Beach, Rice Plate and High on Highway are simply splendid.
Though there are no usual Bollywood style song and dance sequences, Guzar’s 10 poems had been tuned by Gourav Dasgupta, Anand Raj Anand, Bappa Lahiri and Shafqat Ali Khan. The background score, audiography and dts mixing is adequate and tune with the sequential necessity.
Nana Patekar, Naseeruddin Shah, Dia Mirza, Sanjay Dutt, Amrita Singh, Anupam Kher, Sudhanshu Pande, Neha Dhupia and Manoj Bajpai have lent their voices to the songs.
Cinematographers Vikash Nowlakha, Anshuman Mahaley, Mahesh Aney, Sachin Krishna, Syed Raja, Chantranjan Das, Amit Roy, Hemant Chaturvedi and Sanjay F. Gupte have done extraordinary work. The stunning angels the camera covered are truly breathtaking.
Editing by Banti Nagi is really enthralling. Action sequences composed by Ravi Dhawan and Bhiku Varma are thrilling with jump shots overlapping.
The level of sophistry and the degree of quality maintained by directors Apoorva Lakhia, Hansal Mehta, Jasmeet Dhodi, Meghna Gulzar, Rohit Roy and Sanjay Gupta are remarkably notable.
Dus Kahaniyaan is produced by Sanjay Gupta and presented by Sanjay Dutt under the banner of White Feather Art House Films in association with Eros International. The production is generously lavish with an astute production design.
Judgement
Dus Kahaniyaan is an elegant and refined experimental episodic cinematic experience. It has the stamp of class embossed on it. But, will the masses take the film en masse? The movie is a must for multiplexes. – Deen Kumar
