October, the Movie

When it is October, some leaves ripen. Some mature. Some fall. October is synonymous with the fall. With autumn- that beautiful eruption of red romance, the leaves reveling in their own potential for the sublime, before they are gone.

That is what the movie is about. A fall. Some maturing. Some beautiful eruption of emotion in the nick of time.

October, the movie by Shoojit Sircar, released a month ago. I am obviously late in talking about it. But then, the point of such a movie is not in the talking about it. It deals with the absence and inadequacy of words, and the delicate balance of things that exist without words.

This movie explores the journey of a young man- Dan, in the aftermath of an accident of one of his friends, Shiuli. Shiuli becomes comatose, and bedridden, and more and more a part of Dan’s life, and he of hers. The movie hardly falls into any Bollywood genre, because you cannot call it a drama. In fact it is fairly non-dramatic.

This is not to imply that it is a superlative movie. Not really. It is very much like watching, as a neutral party, the life of a neighbor, or acquaintance. You see their routine, their toils, the structural challenges of their life. Just as they go about their life, not necessarily calling out for your empathy or sympathy, so do the characters in the movie. The director does not make a big attempt to pull you into their psyche or intense emotional field. But everything unfolds right before you. As it may if you were visiting the hospital and saw this playing out in real life. You may be affected, you may not. Depending entirely on where you’re coming from at a certain point. Just like in life. This is the failure as well as achievement of this venture.

It so happened that I went to the movie with someone who is in a caregiver role in real life at the moment. She did not say much before, during or after the movie. Except, “I do that too,” when Dan plays videos on an i-pad for Shiuli. She didn’t say that for when Dan tries hard to get Shiuli to say something, or sleeps on the floors wherever he finds space, or fusses over every little detail of how things should be for her best care, or how he lets go of every single obligation and semblance of structure in his life to be able to be around her. But it is true. She does that too. That’s what caregivers do. The bravest people there are.. and you don’t hear very much about it.

This movie is not a love story. It is not even a story about love. It is about the deference for human life. About the relentless belief in the value of human life. Even when it cannot be heard, or well understood, only somewhat seen and deciphered. What may seem like an almost inanimate subject to most, is the center of the world for a caregiver- a symbol of the fight for life, and hope for life to win.

Other than that, Dan’s character is a reminder that those who seem to be the most aloof from the real world might seem that way because they are most likely to be impacted by it.

Dan’s character is also a reminder of Keanu Reaves in the final scenes, which is strangely unsettling, but then you tell yourself that perhaps that is what men start looking like when they have spiritually advanced enough.

The film is shot almost entirely in Dwarka- the hotel as well as hospital are both within five minutes driving distance from my home in Delhi. It is full of shots of the Delhi metro, the Delhi haze, and roads of Dwarka. It also has couple of shots of the flower called Shiuli in Bengali language, from which my own name is derived. Allow me to return the favour by posting about it on my blog.