His friend has his hair dyed brown, wears a red shirt and goggles. As he follows his friend who is about to propose to a girl, the sharp contrast is conspicuous in the way both of them have dressed. The stifling nature of the place is accentuated for both of them owing to their gender and caste respectively.ĭeepak’s simplicity of character and lifestyle (perhaps governed by both his caste and class) is established right from the initial scenes when we first meet him. The small town is thus far from idealized as both the protagonists find themselves trapped in the rigid setup. Otherwise your life will be exhausted in torching the corpses). Similarly, the father of the second protagonist, Deepak ( Vicky Kaushal) urges his son to get a job as soon as possible, “ Jitna jaldi nikal jao utna aacha hai…nahi toh tohre zindagi murda phookat phookat yahi khatam ho jai” (The sooner you get out of here the better. Compare this with the shot in Raanjhanna (2013) where Varanasi is typically represented with the establishing shot of a temple. Instead, we get to see Devi watching pornography with moaning sounds in the background, something far from the holiness that the city stands for. The opening shot of the film is not a landscape shot showing temples with sounds of bell heard in the backdrop. As Devi leaves her house, a man in his undershirt brushing his teeth from the neighboring household emerges, conveying the intrusion and lack of privacy present in her life. The middle-class setting of her place is further highlighted in the next scene. On the contrary, the film opens with Richa Chadha’s character watching pornography in her room, which paradoxically eliminates any essence of ‘holiness’ which the viewers might have come to expect. Also Related to Masaan – The Reincarnation Of Indian Cinema Hence, the film does not begin with a montage of the city’s humdrum life or a landscape shot of the temples and ghats (as is usually the case to depict Varanasi in documentaries or in other mainstream films, for instance, Raanjhana (2013)). Ghaywan in an interview stated that he did not want to tell the story from an outsider’s lens: “…the intention was to tell the story from an internal viewpoint”. The typical showcase of Varanasi of Sadhus and Pujaris, evening ritual of Ganga arti, and the ever pervading sound of a temple’s bell is absent from the film.īut while scenic and picturesque, the film does not fall into the trap of exoticizing the city. The scenic beauty of the film is perfectly captured without exoticizing it. A place of both ‘burning’ and ‘salvation’, the setting is central to the film and its ambivalence is beautifully captured. The title ‘ Masaan’ refers to the burial grounds emblematic of the place where the soul can finally attain freedom from the cage of the body. The holy city of Varanasi – by the river Ganges has a mythical status in the country where numerous sinners flock to seek moksha or a release from the cycle of rebirth (and thus worldly pain) while also offering a divine promise of salvation to the ones who visits, resides or prays there. Set in Varanasi, Masaan tells the story of three separate individuals whose sufferings entwine with the metaphor that their city has come to describe. Ghaywan’s skillful use of these filmic tools at his disposal helps in not just artfully arranging all the components, but also in subtly exploring the major theme behind this existential masterpiece. A tale of characters affected by different calamities, ‘ Masaan‘ thematically raises questions of suffering, pain, and redemption. In simpler terms, mise-en-scéne refers to the way filmmakers utilize several tools (such as cinematography, production design, and costumes) to enhance the thematic concerns of the film. Mise-en-scéne, a term that originated in theatre refers to “staging a scene through the artful arrangement of actors, scenery, lighting, and props”. While the screenplay by Varun Grover carries an air of poetic-realism, the film’s mise-en-scéne and other filmic elements such as sound, cinematography, and even the casting choices, help amplify the film’s major themes. Neeraj Ghaywan’s debut feature ‘ Masaan‘, a film about characters caught in between the cycle of suffering and salvation, captures the existential dilemma of the aforementioned statement. LinkedIn “The important thing is not to be cured, but to live with one’s ailments.”.
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