Movie: X: Past is Present
Direction: Abhinav Shiv Tiwari, Anu Menon, Hemant Gaba, Nalan Kumarasamy, Pratim D. Gupta, Q, Raja Sen, Rajshree Ojha, Sandeep Mohan, Sudhish Kamath, Suparn Verma
Cast: Rajat Kapoor, Aditi Chengappa, Anshuman Jha
Music Director: Sudeep Swaroop
Genre: Mystery
Rating: ∗∗∗½
What is it about: It’s a collaborative attempt of 11 filmmakers, who have come together to piece the different stages of relationship in K’s (Rajat Kapoor/Anshuman Jha) life. One fine night K gets drunk with a random girl (Aditi Chengappa) at the pub and how she starts to remind him of his Ex-girlfriends, the movie explores the various parts of his encounters, which forms the crux of the story.
Why it’s disappointing: There’s nothing disappointing, but few might find it complicated due to its approach which will attract only a particular kind of crowd.
What to watch out for: Experiments of this sort are very rare in the industry, when the next-gen directors get together to cook something out of the box, it gets really interesting. XPIP is the outcome of this experiment, which is not a mind-bending one, but a very simple story which unravels the hidden fear of an individual who have been insecure and afraid of commitment his whole life.
The movie is a flashback of a new kind which keeps the base story intact and oscillates to different times back and forth flashing the past. There are 11 female characters pitted against the young and old version of “K”. All of them were equally distributed with great taste which does not seem vulgar nor obscene. Intimacy was tastefully presented with a niche treatment.
The interesting part of the movie is the approach which was given to the camera work which focuses just one character and the other won’t be shown for the entire conversation, giving you a perspective.
Among the whole lot 2 stories sticks well with grave intensity. One is directed by Pratim D. Gupta “Kolkata’s love story” where both the characters don’t meet each other at all, but it develops a poetic romance which gives a great feeling among the disturbed relationships of “K”. Parno Mittra did a great job in this phase of K’s life.
Another was the story which was etched down south directed by Nalan Kumarasamy and written by Thiagarajan Kumararaja. This is where “K” starts running from people and was beautifully captured with mild humour keeping the emotions intact. Swara Bhaskar, Anshuman Jha and Yog Japee the principal characters of this phase did a great job.
Sudhish Kamath’s story was the base for all the other phase of this anthology, which was carefully derived by him. He becomes the soul of X: Past is Present which has Aditi Chengappa and Rajat Kapoor dishing out good performances.
Verdict: Sudhish Kamath did a great job in bringing these array of exceptional writers and directors together making an anthology which may seem delusional but comes out fresh with an experiment which gets conveyed to few viewers whereas it escapes the others due to its complexity.
