Once Again, Review: Loneliness, Lunchbox and Love

Films in which the actors speak softly, there are no item songs, no fights and no villains, no double entendre, no ghosts, no claptrap dialogues and no stars, are rare indeed. So, when such a movie arrives on the screens, it is time to applaud once again. Once Again, an Indo-German co-production, has many things going for it, and if only it had a more substantive narrative, it would rate among the best of the year. Having said that, I ask discerning viewers not to miss it.

Tara Shetty is a widowed mother who runs a small restaurant. She has a son and a daughter. The son was two years old when she lost her husband, is now grown-up and soon to be married. The children help run the business, which includes catering orders and tiffin (lunch-box) supplies. One of her customers is popular film actor Amar, now in his twilight years, to whom they deliver his daily meals. Tara has never seen him, except on the big screen.

Amar, who has a grown-up daughter, is going through a messy divorce. A chance phone conversation between him and Tara becomes a ritual. They spend hours on the phone, unable to muster the courage to meet. Aware of the reality of an impossible relationship and afraid to transcend the boundaries both have drawn around themselves, they live within their safe bubbles. Until one day, when Amar sets out to meet Tara. So, what happens next, when a man from cameras and lights meets a woman from smoke and spice?

ZDF/ARTE, the German channels behind films like Lunchbox, Masaan and Qissa, are the co-producers of this film. Another thing common is the lunch box element. The tagline of the film says Come fall in love ‘Once Again’, which is borrowed from India’s longest running box-office tsunami, Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge. But within the film, Tara berates Amar for borrowing the Nida Fazli couplet, ‘Kabhee kiseeko mukammal jahaan naheen milta, Kaheen zameen to kaheen aasmaan naheen milta,’ (Nobody ever gets the complete world, Some are denied the earth, some denied the sky) in answer to a question, instead of coming up with his own reply! Once Again did not have to borrow to come up with a catchy tagline, but we can ignore that, for such lines are cooked up by the Advertising and Public Relations teams, not the makers.

Writer-director Kanwal Sethi was born in Amritsar, India. After finishing school, he founded a theatre group and began to stage at various independent theatres. He shifted to Germany, where he studied Political Science and Economics. His short films and documentaries were screened at various international film festivals as well as the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

Junction Point (2011), the first film of the German banner Neufilm, was his debut feature film as director, and premiered at Max ÖphulsPreis. It was about a Pakistani hairdresser, Haroon, who has immigrated illegally to Germany, the German insurance broker, Mark, who dreams of emigrating. The consequences of a car accident throw these two entirely different people together for one night. At the end of an odyssey through the alien world of illegality, they both discover that something bonds them: a desire to be far away. It had only one Indian actor in an important role, Kulbhushan Kharbanda.

Not having seen Junction Point, I have no point of reference, but the Once Again credentials are enough for director Sethi, who makes his debut as feature film screenplay writer in his second effort as director, with help from Andrew Bird (dramaturgy). That his influence comes from the films of Gulzar is too obvious to ignore. There is a deep loneliness among the lead characters, and it is an art to imbibe a script with the same kind of solitude. To his help comes Mumbai, a city with a population that is close to 20 million and has a variety of misty skylines, depending on where you put the camera.

He also uses the best bet to bring out the incompleteness of the two, by having them talk a lot without conveying much. Most sentences are short, some profound, others facile, still others incomplete phrases, and many unsaid. As director, he decides to let a conversation or exchange build-up and then cuts either cuts the shot or has the characters look away, or even walk away or run away. Yes, there is a sense being cheated, but that’s how his characters are defined. Amar and Tara are reading the silences, you better hear them too.

There are some issues. Why does Amar look the same on screen and off screen, always? Does he use different cars every time? How many houses does he have? Is it a different house in different scenes? Why does he always speak so softly, with whoever he talks to? Why does he have to drop his driver home every time, or at least offer to do so? Why did the writer-director have to choose for a dubbing scene something from the actor Neeraj Kabi’s film Talvar, as the only time he gets dramatic and emotional during the making of the present film? Why does Amar always make/receive calls on a cordless phone, for he is sure to possess a mobile, even more than one? How come somebody called Tara Shetty speaks fluent Hindi, as do her children? And why do they all mis-pronounce all the currently in use Hindi words that have their origins in Urdu?

His reaction on Tara walking in when his producers are in his room is too selfish to be credible. That he realises his mistake later is not enough of an apology to the audience. In a complete lowering of guard, the two go around the city until they are recognised and allow passers-by to click selfies, till it is too late. That is some indiscretion. Tara goes out of her restaurant and talks to Amar right outside. Could she be unaware that this would lead to embarrassment? It is stated that Amar has fear of mountains and Tara is afraid of the sea. Her phobia is resolved, but Amar’s complex is not addressed. Yes, like many other instances in the film, you could fill in the blanks, because you do not want such little pimples to ruin the soft skin texture of Once Again.

Rarely has a Hindi film progressed so gradually and so effectively from liking to infatuation to sublime love to sex to coming together of two souls who are diverse yet compatible. He, who has fulfilled all his material desires but is losing a life partner, she who is a middle class woman who sacrificed her youth to raise her children and now finds her passions re-ignited.

Neeraj Kabi (Sacred Games, Talvar, Byomkesh Bakshi, Ship Of Theseus, Hichki) cake-walks into the role of the lonely lover. He is a little less convincing as the aging superstar. Shefali Shah (Dil Dhadakne Do, Monsoon Wedding, Satya) comes across as a major asset in playing a woman with pent-up desire, in her pre-menopause phase, with her trade-mark jerk of the neck and shutting her eyes strictly in check. It is used once towards the end, and most effectively so. There is great chemistry between the two.

Very competent support comes from Rasika Dugal as Amar’s daughter, Bhagwan Tiwari as his driver, Bidita Bag as Shefali’s daughter, and Priyanshu Painyuli as her son.

The music is composed by Talvin Singh, who has played with the likes of Madonna, and is as soothing as the film, used with discretion, and judiciously. Other credits that deserve their due are DOPs Eeshit Narain and Conrad Lobst, Film Editor Andreas Wodraschke, Sören E. Blisted and Anja Siemens, Sound Designer Mohandas V.P., Sound Recordist Ayush Ahuja and Sound Mixing by Kai Tebbel.

See it once to absorb the flow. See it once again to go with the flow.

Rating: *** ½

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBcfQNMR180&feature=youtu.be