The CineMagic of Barfi

It has been a good three days since I watched the movie. However these lines spoken by Ileana's character Shruti still ring in my years and that for me is the essence of the movie. That true love is that which is unplanned, out beyond the ideas of right and wrong doing, just a pure impulse of the heart, not at all premeditated or blemished by worldliness.

Barfi is sweetness, Barfi is cuteness, It is Chaplinesque innocence. It is silent yet colourful, It is so full of love, yet so tragic and heartbreaking. It is refreshingly funny, not at all sappy yet sentimental. Throughout the two and a half hours, you experience emotions ranging from pure delight to utter dismay to my favourite "Awwwww and Hawwww" moments, but not even for a fleeting moment does that smile leave your face ever since effervescent Ranbir Kapoor appears on the screen and engages the Police in a goose chase across the bylanes of Calcutta, recreated to timeless perfection. Even if you are the most cynical prick in the whole wide world, the movie does a commendable job of giving you hope and positivity!!!

The one thing that stands out for me about the movie is the very niche and never overtly sentimental treatment of Ranbir's disability which is clear from the funny yet tragic opening song whose lyrics go something like this "Radio on Hua, Amma off hui,Munna Mute hi Aansu Bahaaye".The initial portions—in which we see young love bloom between Shruti and Barfi—do try to steer clear of mawkishness and sympathy, managing to make us believe in an initially reluctant Shruti becoming gradually smitten by Barfi’s wordless charm and ability to make everyone smile.

However, Shruti goes ahead with the pragmatic and safe choice by marrying a suitable boy, although she is never able to forget Barfi for the next 6 years, and even beyond. The scene where Barfi realizes in the midst of throbbing rain, that he is not good enough to be with the girl he loves, there was not a dry eye in the theater.

When Priyanka Chopra's adorable autistic character, Jhilmil enters the movie,it picks up its pace and gets more interesting. In order to get his father's ailing kidney operated, Barfi attempts to rob a bank and fails at it with a hilarity beyond bounds. When he decides he will kidnap Jhilmil, the movie transgresses into a different plane altogether. Priyanka Chopra plays the autistic kid with such alacrity that it is achingly beautiful to look at her face, so often placed in Close Up. The relationship between her and Ranbir develops slowly where Ranbir evolves from a protective simpleton to a crazy die hard romantic who would tirelessly throw a shoe high up in the air, again and again, because he knows that she will see it, and he will go back to her. And yes, He does.

The model of true love in Barfi is actually the relationship between Barfi and the autistic Jhilmil. To the non-disabled, ‘normal’ Shruti, now the outsider in their wordless world, it is the only love that lives up to her childish vision of her grandparents, who lived together for ever and then died a day apart. But childish is the operative word here. The relationship between Barfi and Jhilmil may well be unplanned, spontaneous and untainted. But it is also uninhibited by the invariable crisscrossing of mutual expectations, or the occasional messiness of egos, or the essential frisson of desire. It is devoid, by its very nature, of any of the elements of real-life love as most people experience it. I ask myself, Is it actually pure love or pure fantasy??

The movie is a treasure trove of magic moments, right from Barfi offering his invisible heart to Shruti to that fleeting kiss between the two. The sequences where he tries to handle his heartbreak and also cope with his father’s illness, all so silently still give me goose-bumps. Barfi and Jhilmil’s intertwined little fingers as they sleep, gawky and open mouthed, when she chases him shouting his name and he can’t hear her, and then when the play around near that mound with the flashing mirrors and then fans him like a dutiful wife as he eats, or tries to copy the elegant Shruti by wearing a Saree, it leaves you with a taste that just melts in your mouth.

Pritam gives you some really soul searching music and a very subtle background score, which further places the film in an alternate universe. Silences seldom spoke so eloquently. It's been a while since we saw a film that set style at a subsidiary state to substance , put the characters' inner life ahead of the flamboyant manifestations of self-identity in a world governed sometimes by fake charm. 

It makes you wish that there was someone sitting beside you, to share and fight for that popcorn and laugh whole heartedly with you during those awesome comic sequences. You wish you could intertwine your little finger and hold each other’s hand like Jhilmil and Barfi and keep sitting like that forever. And Smile. Or better still, just keep looking at her smile. When you get lost a few times, you wish there was someone to bring you back from the trance that the movie creates. And then you get lost in something else altogether and move from one beautiful trance to another. And smile.
Finally, this is for you. When Shruti says that Barfi taught him that“Life mein sabse bada risk hota hai kabhi koi risk na lena”,It gave a very clear message. So let’s just risk it J J

The movie is beautiful,funny and heartbreaking.Go watch