Aparna Sen’s 15 park Avenue is one of the most mature cinema Bollywood has presented us. It not only deals with certain social problems, but also manages to delightfully play around with physics, medicine, religion and even politics as it questions our perceptions about what is true and what is real! Need not mention that Konkana and Shabana are at their epitome.
There are two minor drawbacks in this film. First is screenplay, which should have been better especially when it deals with such a mature subject. The script often forgets that the characters are actually people of Calcutta. Referral of a taxi as “cab”, or the drug Diazepam as “Valium” clearly show the US influence on Aparna Sen. Second is background music which utterly lacks variation. It sounds like a horror film even during Joy and Meethi’s wedding.
The other aspect that I failed to appreciate is the film’s ending. The ending of the story is suggestive of an unknown solution or maybe no solution. The film could have ended on a nicer note. But overall, this is a fine piece of cinema. It looks at the minds of not just the sick person, but also the healthy, and does so from many different angles and illuminates our understanding of our own minds and our world.
7.5/10
सौरभ राय | Sourav Roy 