The Window Review

The Window (2017)

written by Souranath Banerjee

The Window Review: The eternal agony, anguish, anxiety, the angst and the apprehension of a man/writer. 

My Ratings: 3.5/5

There have been numerous fictional films about writers that have emphasised on the weird imaginative world of a penman. Many of these movies make fun of their insecurity, some romanticise and even sympathise with them for being eccentric but very few have actually managed to empathise with a writer’s passion.

The Window, a film written and directed by VK Choudhary does exactly that and tries to portray the reality of an arrogant writer’s The-Windowlife (assuming writers being arrogant is part of that reality). 

The film revolves around Lekh Kapoor (Amit Vashisth), a man who claims to be superior to his surrounding world just because he is a writer, that too a self proclaimed one!

His personal life is a mess but still he peeps out of the window inviting himself into more trouble; he cribs and vents out enough frustration throughout the movie for choosing to be the stereotypical bearded, long-haired, bidi-sucking scriptwriter on his quest to change the form of Cinema for good. But at the same time he takes immense pride in his struggle for art, for representing himself as the misunderstood talent yet to be discovered.

This low-budget film with a very Indie feel is constructed out of a series of conversation scenes (mostly indoor and handheld) between Lekh and his friends and family who eventually shell out enough information to help us perceive the obsessed writer’s persona, his complexes and fears (which are quite a handful).

The younger brother (Atul Hanwat) who urges Lekh to get a life, join the well-salaried job for which he is perfectly qualified, and to get back with his sweet, soft spoken wife. The wife (Preeti Hansraj Sharma) who cheated just once in the past that too it seems because of Lekh’s negligence but still obviously loves him, wants Lekh to excuse their past differences and come back (and probably to shave his ugly beard). And of course the abusive mother (Sayoni Mishra) who is solely focused on making everybody’s life hell around her!

The-WindowThen there is his friend/film-industry-contact (Praveen Maheshwari) who wants Lekh to write something commercially sellable rather than the artsy stuff he is into. The authoritative producer fellow (Ravi Patil) who again wants the same thing but is less friendly while expressing it to our snobbish writer.

The thing common about these characters are that they all want to change Lekh in someway or other, make him lead a life he detests and take away from him his prized identity of being the distressed artist. But then comes Maya (Teena Singh), a seductress who can easily decode Lekh’s complexities, an enchanting captive from another world.

Intelligent use of music by Kasturi Nath Singh and Vishal J. Singh that goes well with Dhruvan Gautham‘s cinematography.

The film perhaps a tad too long and at times monotonously chaotic, has a certain honesty about it that stays with you for longer than you The-Windowexpect. The reason for this may be the natural performances from the cast (especially Amit Vashisth and Sayoni Mishra are fantastic) or may be the autobiographical treatment of the script by the young director VK Choudhary. The madness of his protagonist in a shabby claustrophobic 1bhk where he gets his brilliant ideas only to be rejected by the world seems somehow very possible and real.

And that is the reason we need more films like The Window to reach the theatres which strive to give you tangible characters and believable locations most often never an option for the so called big-budget movies.

Photo and poster curtsey: The Window production team.

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