It’s official. The 19th Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival has officially come to a close, bringing with it a lingering feeling of emptiness within.
I awoke this morning without instinctively rushing to the Bookmyshow portal for the standard 8 am ticket rush which felt fundamentally wrong somehow. A portal which, for that matter, has been suspiciously seamless throughout the week, allowing me to catch every single film I wanted to watch. Similarly, not enough can be said about the great job the MAMI team have done in running a tight ship without issue.
So without further ado, for one last time, here’s a round-up of the films seen today:
Wajib: A Wonderfully Warm, Deeply Relevant Comedy Drama
Annemarie Jacir’s Palestian family drama centers on a day in the life of a father and his estranged son and their efforts to deliver wedding invites to relatives and loved ones, through which the two are forced to reconnect, confront past issues and find common ground.
Shadi left Palestine long ago and has since settled down in Italy. He is liberal and open minded and having seen the outside world, entirely disillusioned by his homeland, to which he returns for his sister’s wedding, due the various backward traditions and customs. He's the idealist who has gone off and lived the dazzling NRI life such that when he returns, he’s unable to see past the flaws and issues around him. Conversely, his father Abu Shadi is a pragmatist who only knows one way of life and whose parameters for political correctness are altogether different.
The film’s simple threadbare story manages to touch on so much about family, ideology and politics. While the film is on the nose and convenient in places, it works well and keeps you smiling nonetheless.
The film is deeply relevant to the Indian way of life where we struggle with the same issues of connecting with older generations whose way of operating and worldviews are often poles apart from our own. Wajib is an important film highlight the importance of learning to relate and understand to each other. I feel privileged to have got to watch Wajib, one of the best films I’ve seen during the week, on the last day of the festival.
Omerta: The Least Impressive Hansal Mehta-Rajkummar Rao Collaboration Till Date
I wasn't at all bowled over by Hansal Mehta’s Omerta which is perhaps the least impressive Mehta-Rao film to date. While the film is well-made and has a lot going for it, it is a simplistic, high level view at a haunting figure and a far cry from the compelling character study it could have been.
The film is based on the life and atrocities committed by the British-Pakistani Al-Qaeda official Omar Sheikh, most famously known for beheading journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002. While Mehta strikes a perfectly competent tone and approach in telling the story, we rarely feel the weight of the disturbing subject matter. It felt more like a well-crafted statement of facts more than a gripping narrative.
The always earnest and vastly talented Rajkummar Rao is also unremarkable as Omar Sheikh. While he gives it his all and has you captivated in moments, he is sorely let down by an inconsistent and jumpy accent which distracts you from the performance. I might even go so far as to say Rao was somewhat miscast here.
Add to that some painfully silly detailing and overlooked points such a London-based Maulana having an American accent, the misspelling of the word ‘led’ in the closing frames and a truly messy last few minutes. Omerta was just fine and told an important story but little else.