Celebrated Iranian film director Majid Majidi’s first brush with Bollywood comes with the pulsating vibe that Mumbai has to offer. Panning from the flashy billboards and high-rise buildings, Majidi takes us to the impoverished underbelly where the story of two siblings unfolds.
Young Amir (Ishaan Khattar) slyly goes about his business of peddling drugs with a disarming smile while being hunkered down by the police. The dramatic chase reaches Mumbai’s trademark Dhobi Ghat, where we meet Amir’s estranged sister Tara (Malavika Mohanan).
Here, in a twisty turn of events, Tara lands up in jail and Amir, along with Akshi who shelters him from the police, desperately try to redeem the situation.
Most of Majidi’s previous films have an unmistakable spiritual core where the intrinsic goodness always washes away the darkness within. In Beyond the Clouds too, the characters, although stuck in a never-ending labyrinth of problems, uphold the higher values of kindness and compassion.
But something just doesn’t seem right. Unlike the maker’s critically acclaimed and Oscar-nominated film Children of Heaven, where one is deeply invested into the lives of the characters, there is a cold aloofness that stings in Beyond the Clouds.
For one, the dialogues and accents are complete off the mark. For a Mumbaiyya slum-dwelling native, the perfectly enunciated lines don’t seem organic. At one point, when our protagonist Aamir has to communicate with a Tamil family that doesn’t know Hindi, and so they bead together sentences with polished utterances of stray English words that clearly sound out of place.
Also, while Anil Mehta’s luxurious frames are perfectly set up and the beautiful shadow play is a recurring motif employed to stunning effect, the missing emotional core makes watching the film more of an exercise in vacuous self-indulgence.
The story by Majidi and Mehran Kashani has a universal appeal, where kids are seen as a reservoir of innocence and goodness that bring about the best in people. Tender moments – such as Tara’s bond with a young boy Chotu in jail and Aamir grudgingly warming up to Akshi’s family – offer some glimmer of hope in an otherwise drab set up.
The silver lining, of course, is Ishaan Khattar. His raw energy throbbing with electrifying charm is one of the best things about the film. Malavika Mohanan, in her first Hindi film, lacks finesse. While veteran GV Sharada and young Dwani Rajesh are both welcome additions. Even Rehman’s music cannot match the lofty ambitions and poetic soul that must have been the director’s initial vision.
Beyond the Clouds doesn’t soar high and sadly is a little all over the place.
Producer: Abhishek Ranjan
Editor: Prashant Chauhan
Camera: Shiv Kumar Maurya
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