City Lights


City Lights is a subtle metaphor for the lure of that bright and incandescent life that a metro like Mumbai can offer to an average rural Indian citizen. Under the hypnotic effect of these lights people can be reduced to inconsequential subjects at the mercy of cause and effect. It’s a fate moth and other vermin suffer at the luminescence of a bug zapper. So these bright city lights draw you in. They allow you to dream. They make you step into an electric world. And then reality strikes you like voltage does to an ill-fated fly. It’s the perfect setting for tragedy. If you’re familiar with Charlie Chaplin, you’d know he mastered this subject in a 1931 film called City Lights. But that’s just an appetizing fact in the current scheme of things. Hansal Mehta’s CityLights is based on a mixed genre Philippine film called Metro Manila by Indie director Sean Ellis. Pity then that Mehta confuses his stylized action cum drama source for a genteel human drama. He had to make Ellis’ film but he tried to make Chaplin’s. Best things are always lost in translation.

Mehta’s film starts off beautifully. It satires the state of poverty in our country and the need for people to migrate to mega cities like Mumbai. Yes we’re all in a meat grinder and only those who have the stomach for the grind will survive. Rajkummar Rao’s character is just a simple village man. He’s so naive that he chose to relinquish a good army job in favour of managing the family. And the honest man is fleeced of all his money and spirit in a few hours on the streets of Mumbai. He, his wife and their cute little daughter are left fending off hunger and confusion. These are tailor made settings to break a person. To instil some weighty drama. To show you that nobody cares for you in a big bad city. That the pressures of merely earning a living could break your will in two. It all builds up wonderfully till half way. You really feel as if something visceral will knock your teeth out.

But then, rather predictably it nose dives in to undercooked action thrills. Suddenly, the helpless and clueless protagonist turns into a confident gun toting hostage maker. Of course you could say under pressure and on the brink of desperation, ordinary people are capable of heroic feats. But that’s cinematic liberty. And you don’t sell cinematic liberty in a gritty satire. If you do, you tread the realms of middle-of-the-road cinema.

CityLights loses the proverbial plot. Rajkummar Rao continues to give his character heart and soul. But the story meanders out of his control. Even Patralekha, playing the spirited wife, shows great promise as an actor. It’s a pity then that she’s made to look so porcelain. You’d expect a woman who hails from rural Rajasthan and who’s living in an under construction building and working in a dance bar to not look like an NRI. Put together Rajkummar and Patralekha are the driving forces of this film. Their honest performances redeem a somewhat jerky film. Special mention must be made of actor Manav Kaul, who has a career waiting to happen in Hindi action films.

The film though has no such promise. It’s a barren canvas of Mumbai’s underbelly and poverty and corruption. Things we’ve seen a thousand times before. Only this time they’re show in softer focus, more artful lighting. That’s the thing about lights. They can create a wonderful optical illusion. But it only lasts till you get up close and realise there’s nothing there.

Comments

comments