Some of life’s experiences choose to make just a rippling rip when a screaming rupture is what the formula- doctors prescribe. Joggers’ Park is a film that luxuriates in the lingering silences of soft, subtle moments. Not that the soundtrack is static. On the contrary, it hisses and crackles to motivate tremendous tensions in the plot.
But at its heart, this is an urban parable, completely at peace with itself. There’s no conflict at the film’s heart about its radical old-man-in-love-with-young-girl theme. There’s no hurry here to prove a point, no pulling of punches to deliver a bludgeoning blow at the box office…. Just the filmmaker and his story. Nothing is allowed to come between them, certainly not the habitual hpperventilating hyphenating humbug that constantly comes between our films and their absolute efficacy as complete human experiences.
Director Balani (may God bless his serene soul) builds a renewed case history for the newly retired Justice Chatterjee (Victor Bannerjee) with a great deal of bridled elan. While the film doesn’t wear its art on its sleeve, it doesn’t hide its outre intentions in slivers of ponderous enigma either.
The unorthodox relationship that grows between the retired judge and the spunky and sensible Jenny (Perizaad Zorabian) is joyously liberated of all pssst-pssst insinuations. There’s a deep, melancholic mood in the film that one may miss at first. It makes itself discernible after a point when we begin to see how love eludes the grasp of those who spend all their lives in pursuit of professional and ideological fulfilment.
So when Justice Chatterjee is pushed by his concerned family to spend health-giving time in Mumbai’s socially alive Joggers’ Park, we know he’ll ‘rise’ in love, though ‘fall’ is the word which describes matters of the heart more frequently. The retired judge is elevated into a state of near-nirvanic self-realisation when he comes into contact with the sunshine girl, Jenny. She buys him proper running shoes, red T-shirts and a passport to temporary emotional liberation.
The film never makes a stressful song-and-dance of the unwonted liaison. Thanks to the unitalicized performances and dialogues, the couple never seem to be caught in what would otherwise be considered a shocking alliance. On the contrary, the narrative flows with a subtle inevitability. Neither overdone nor over-subtle just to be fashionably trendy, Joggers’ Park is one of those infrequent stories on celluloid that we feel had to be told.
The telling of the story has a fabulously fertile feel to it. And apart from the irksome caricatures who infest the park (must the Sardarji be loud, boisterous and roving-eyed?), the characters seem like people we might bump into. But why are Jenny’s young friends shown to be so callow? The one she eventually marries (played by newcomer Khalid Siddiqui) is caricaturally intense.
While the central liaison is inured to some truly charming encounters between the couple, both outside and in the park (which becomes a symbolical resting place for the film’s theme—Mele mein akele hain..), the peripheral characters don’t suffer from fringe pangs. The protagonist’s relationship with his daughters, especially the youngest, is beautifully defined.
There’s a deliciously ironic subtext in Justice Chatterjee’s domestic life as he and his adolescent daughter get down to SMS-ing to their respective love interests at the same time. The chemistry within the film’s human interactions is constantly searching and stimulating.
Through the retired judge’s character, the film opens up a whole vista of nostalgia and socio-cultural change, and how deeply the giant strides of contemporary progress effect the insulated individual. As we see Justice Chatterjee emerging from his self-imposed cocoon of professional ideology, we can almost feel the shock of the sunrays hitting his blinded eyes.
The film is a dazzling mirror of mutating mores and cloistered emotions clamouring for release. And yet the narrative basks in quietude. A lot of the film’s unostentatious emotional power emanates from Victor Bannerjee’s central performance. What an actor! He doesn’t seem to act at all. Instead, Bannerjee blends into the film’s fine fabric. In a scene such as the one where he drops in unannounced at a public conference to meet Jenny, Bannerjee seems to be slouching, trying to disappear into himself at this public display of ardour. His authoritative and yet subtle voice creates a hypnotic mood around the rippling waves of romance.
Perizad Zorabian isn’t much of an actress. And thank God for that. Jenny needed to be sassy but not saucy, worldly-wise but not conniving, a survivor in the concrete jungle but not a manipulator, luscious but not a Lolita. Zorabian ‘s personality conveys all these qualities.
Divya Dutta has a brief role as the judge’s eldest daughter. The capable actress makes space for herself and gives a rousing performance at the end when she tells her exposed father, “We held our heads high for 40 years because of you. We’re willing to lower it in shame now for your sake.”
Dignity is never a casualty. Producer Subhash Ghai and director Anant Balani have furnished the film with a very high level of aesthetics. Technically sound, the film has an appealing music score by Tabun Sutradhar. Adnan Sami’s Ishq hota nahin sabhi ke liye provides a lilting leitmotif to the doomed romance.
One can easily produce Ghai’s hands in the way the songs are used in the narrative. The spoken language is a natural synthesis of Hindi, English and a smattering of Bengali in the Chatterjee household. Apart from one song sequence where a brand of jewellery is discreetly plugged, there isn’t a compromised moment in the narrative. In that sense, Joggers’ Park is quite like its honourable hero.
Joggers’ Park makes us smile in pleasurable satisfaction. Yes, Hindi cinema has indeed come a long way.
