Road, the movie: A Story of Scarcity and Search for Freedom
First of all, this movie is a testament to the fact that Abhay Deol is officially a very underrated and under appreciated actor in Hindi Bollywood Cinema who hasn’t got due credit for what he has tried doing at a time when nobody would have actually even considered doing this stuff.
Road, is a beautiful 90 minute movie which entails the journey of characters searching for their own freedom in life. Abhay Deol, the protagonist of the story who is unhappy in the small family owned business sees his journey to sell the old 1940s truck as a ticket to his freedom (albeit for a few days). A worker at a tea shop, played by Faisal see Abhay Deol as a ticket to escape from the mundaneness of a small tea vendor while Satish Kaushik, who embodies a mechanic is searching for friendship, relationship along the path. Tannishta Chatterjee who plays a Rajasthani gypsy, and later love interest of the protagonist embodies how scarcity can lead you to embrace small things in life and how life can be ruthless at times.
While the characters entangle with each other during the plot, be it at the time of locking horns with corrupt police officials or fighting the notorious war lords of Water Gangs, one central theme that remains in the movie is-“learn to accept, embrace and value what you have”.
Abhay Deol who used to hate his dad’s hair oil business, escaped water lords because of the virtue of the same, while Satish Kaushik and Faisal who claimed Truck to be a “Khatara” were able to take an escape themselves from dire situations because of the poorly conditioned yet working movie set.
Another interesting thing about the movie is how much they have stressed on the importance of cinema and movies in the lives of individual- How it helps us transport ourselves into a total new world and leave behind our worries and problems at least for a few hours, how it help us live somebody’s else’s world through a different lens and how at least for few hours we are just at the receiving end of things and only in the process, not concerned with the end result at all. Perhaps that has kept cinema so engaging over the past decades and centuries.
Tannishta Chaterjee is a very pivotal character in the movie who actually translated characters into emotions and install the actual realism in the movie. Her characters forays the viewers into how living with scarcity can be and make you realise your Privilege and how life devoid of these small privilege that we generally take for granted can be.
Road, the movie, is a realisation of the fact that we should accept what we have, understand its value and perhaps understand our privileges in life as well and start acknowledging them as well!!!
Trailer of the movie: https://bit.ly/3x3dIpY
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