A perfect amalgamation of mainstream and offbeat cinema

A Potpourri of Vestiges Review

By Murtaza Ali

Featured in IMDb Critic Reviews

Finding Fanny (2014) - By Homi Adajania Our Rating: 8.0

IMDb Ratings : 6.4

Genre: Drama | Comedy | Romance Cast: Deepika Padukone, Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur Country: India Language: Hindi | English | Konkani Runtime: 102 min Color: Color

Summary: The film follows the journey of five dysfunctional friends who set out on a road trip in search of Fanny, the love-interest of the village's aging postman Ferdie.



F inding Fanny is the third and latest offering from Indian filmmaker Homi Adajania. Co-written by Kersi Khambatta and Adajania himself, Finding Fanny stars Naseeruddin Shah, Pankaj Kapur, Dimple Kapadia, Deepika Padukone and Arjun Kapoor in pivotal roles. The plot of Finding Fanny revolves around five queer residents—a lovelorn senile postman, a voluptuous old vixen and her widowed daughter-in-law with a heart of gold, a sullen mechanic left heartbroken by the young widow, and a mercurial artist with a morbid obsession for curvaceous middle-aged women—of a fictional Goan village of Pocolim marked by a state of dreamy torpor, resonating with the melancholy of solitude perpetuated by an apparent absence of physical love. Brought together under no less than bizarre circumstances, these five people undertake an enchanting road trip ( perhaps to break the monotony enveloping their lives ) which would change their lives forever. Finding Fanny poses several meaningful questions about love, a couple of which instantly comes to one's mind. (i) . Which is greater, the pain we feel when our love goes unrequited or the elation when it gets reciprocated? (ii) . Is it worth loving someone more than our life without even caring to figure out what that person thinks of us?





Naseeruddin Shah as Ferdie in Finding Fanny

One Hundred Years of Solitude and one can only wonder what kind of influence the luminary work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have had on Adajania whilst he wrote the first draft of the screenplay during his month long stay at a village named Salvador do Mundo in Goa. But, Marquez doesn’t seem like the only one to have influenced Adajania. A wide range of artists appear to have influenced him in one way or the other: right from William Shakespeare to Charles Dickens, Emir Kusturica to Wes Anderson, Saadat Hassan Manto to Gulzar. The striking contrast between the movie’s humorous tone and its sombre mood reminds this critic of a Hindi TV Series called Gubbare (1999–2000), which was helmed by a high profile creative team that consisted of Gulzar, Vishal Bhardwaj and Saurabh Shukla, among others. In addition to depicting the endless drudgeries of human life, Adajani’s film also shows us those rare moments of extreme ecstasy and agony (consider the sequence wherein a newly married bridegroom kisses his wife and moments later chokes on a piece of his own wedding cake) that seem to punctuate the mundaneness that encompasses our lives. The village of Pocolim in Finding Fanny is highly reminiscent of Macondo, City of Mirrors, fromand one can only wonder what kind of influence the luminary work of Gabriel Garcia Marquez would have had on Adajania whilst he wrote the first draft of the screenplay during his month long stay at a village named Salvador do Mundo in Goa. But, Marquez doesn’t seem like the only one to have influenced Adajania. A wide range of artists appear to have influenced him in one way or the other: right from William Shakespeare to Charles Dickens, Emir Kusturica to Wes Anderson, Saadat Hassan Manto to Gulzar. The striking contrast between the movie’s humorous tone and its sombre mood reminds this critic of a Hindi TV Series called(1999–2000), which was helmed by a high profile creative team that consisted of Gulzar, Vishal Bhardwaj and Saurabh Shukla, among others. In addition to depicting the endless drudgeries of human life, Adajani’s film also shows us those rare moments of extreme ecstasy and agony () that seem to punctuate the mundaneness that encompasses our lives.





Pankaj Kapur and Dimple Kapadia in Finding Fanny

Amidst the ever-changing business horizon, Hindi cinema finds itself at the crossroads. There’s no denying that the formula for movie’s commercial success has changed drastically over the last decade or so ever since advent of multiplexes. The urban viewers have grown smarter while the rural viewers have become choosier. The Censor Board has also grown more mature with time. All this has made the medium more formidable than it has ever been, thus giving rise to a kind of cinema that is not only richer in content but also more potent in terms of propagation. However, Hindi cinema still has a long way to travel before it can match the superlative global standards, not only in terms of technique but also in terms of treatment. As essential as it is to the continuous evolution of the medium, art cinema is far from being the need of the time; what we actually need is a hybrid cinema of sorts.





Arjun Kapoor and Deepika Padukone in Finding Fanny

But, what's really disconcerting is that Indian commercial cinema has of late become an inept instrument in the hands of a bunch of money mongrels ill-equipped to understand the intricacies of filmmaking. We need to explore all the available options and search for a middle path wherein a successful trade-off can be established between the two streams of cinema, mainstream and offbeat, in order to reach the best possible outcome. In recent times, Homi Adajania’s Finding Fanny comes across as perhaps the best example of the kind of hybrid cinema that can prove to be a great savior for our highly volatile film industry. By making a motion picture like Finding Fanny, Adajania has demonstrated, against all odds and in the utmost comprehensive manner, how the marriage of creativity and star power can be seamlessly brought about while still operating within moderate budgets. Finding Fanny is a perfect amalgamation of mainstream and offbeat cinema, and its early success only shows that the formula holds a lot of promise, and, if leveraged upon, can become a viable option for creative filmmakers to realize their dream projects.





A Still from Homi Adajania's Finding Fanny

Shah’s low-key performance tugs at the heart; Kapadia’s lively portrayal packs a punch), it’s Pankaj Kapur’s portrayal of the obsessed painter, Don Pedro Cleto Colaco, that stands as first among equals in the view of this critic. In its essence, Finding Fanny come across as a meditation on life and death. But, there is a great contrast in the manner the movie approaches life and death. While it presents life as a burdensome ordeal, it strangely treats death with a touch of levity and indifference as if to mock our frivolous existence. The movie also serves to be an interesting case study on the lives of the Goan Catholics. The film is available in both English and Hindi but for this critic the latter version stands out. The movie pacing is quite slow to begin with which may not particularly impress the casual viewers, but a patient viewer will cherish it for a long time to come. A must watch for those on the lookout for a breath of fresh air! Overall, Finding Fanny is an important work of Hindi cinema that will most certainly prove to be great source of inspiration for aspiring filmmakers. The movie seems to work well on both the technical and emotional fronts: The cinematography, editing and music are all topnotch; the acting is also solid all around and there is enough room for character development. While Deepika and Arjun put up a decent show, it’s the veterans who steal the show with their supernal performances. While Naseeruddin Shah and Dimple Kapadia are absolutely mesmerizing to watch in their respective roles (), it’s Pankaj Kapur’s portrayal of the obsessed painter, Don Pedro Cleto Colaco, that stands as first among equals in the view of this critic. In its essence, Finding Fanny come across as a meditation on life and death. But, there is a great contrast in the manner the movie approaches life and death. While it presents life as a burdensome ordeal, it strangely treats death with a touch of levity and indifference as if to mock our frivolous existence. The movie also serves to be an interesting case study on the lives of the Goan Catholics. The film is available in both English and Hindi but for this critic the latter version stands out. The movie pacing is quite slow to begin with which may not particularly impress the casual viewers, but a patient viewer will cherish it for a long time to come. A must watch for those on the lookout for a breath of fresh air!





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