A POINTED VIEW FROM MY NIECE and definitely different. The new generation raising questions.
A Facebook post by BHUMIKA CHANDOLA
Having audienced ‘Highway’,what revolves in the mind the most is IMTIAZ ALI; unlike the movies we have grown up on which leave only a hero and a herione or at the most some story if they are good enough. So it is the Director here not Alia Bhatt (a.k.a Niki) or the rugged dashing raw man Hooda, and I cant say if it is the success of the Man behind the scene, the puppeteer that he makes his presence felt or the failure of the story teller that he barges in it .
Imtiaz loves the mountains, we have been seeing his attachment to them in all his previous works. And what Imtiaz is in love with is the idea of ‘rediscovery of one whilst elopement’. He romanticizes the thought of a girl unaware of the world around fleeing away and reaching her destination only after having rediscovered herself. From Yash Raj generation of presenting exotic locations only as a dessert in the entire course in the form of not required song and dance,Imtiaz turns the entire course into a scenic dessert. He taps the dream of every one sitting there watching his work who dreams of wandering once in their lives just for the love of wandering.
Highway is a one eye work, the story is dimensionally just the girl and the kidnapper. Not the other side of fretting parents or tightened pressure on the police and administration. Highway then and thus shows only one perspective, which seems to be refreshing because we don’t want a balanced story or a diplomatic statement…we want a good movie.
But what makes it credibly commendable is that the story brings forth two issues very neatly, one of Class difference and the other of Child abuse. ”Jab pakadenge toh kutte ki maut maarenge” ”Jaise jiye hain waise hi toh marenge naa… kutte ki tarah” pricks the swelled consumerist heart of its audience. And one is bound to contemplate the stark contrast between the lives of a truck driver and a girl of a big business man. A girl who had all the luxuries of life. It is a mockery on the superficiality of the lives today that is trapped inside so craftily well designed houses ( see I do not use Home) , just a set of mannequin-ed well mannered co-inhabitants making it emptier. The grand chandelier and the bright lights muting love, attachment and the reverence to the relations. So heightened and omnipresent while growing up in small little towns in our small little homes, and well mostly with lessor money. Yet the world was safer, and Homes were yet SAFEST (as Alia puts it). The love of small towns and the malice of big cities all in one plate… just woes you once to realize it is not progress that we are walking towards.
Not to forget Alia and Randeep are in their best ever. Hooda convinces till the end that he can be nothing more than a raw truck driver. Bhatt in her turn gets out of the robe of perfect damsel to a clumsy kid that every one is and remains.
