FILM REVIEW: 'DHOBI GHAT' ('MUMBAI DIARIES')

Also starring Monica Dogra, Prateik Babbar, Kriti Malhotra, and Nafisa Khan, Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries) allows us to eavesdrop on the lives of four people living in the heart of Mumbai, slowly understanding how each life is ultimately affected by the others despite owning such contrasting personalities. It is through these four lives that both Mr. Khan and Ms. Rao--who happen to be husband and wife--pay tribute to Mumbai and showcase a colorful window into what they believe India’s most populous and the filmmaker’s most beloved city represents.

This film very suddenly drops us into the routine lives of individuals that collectively build a city’s population and allows us to artfully explore the city through their eyes. The story has no beginning. It has no end. It holds no resolution. It is a snapshot of daily encounters, of usual conversations, of standard emotions. If anything, it allows us to reevaluate what we know and don’t know about what is seemingly familiar or foreign. Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries) is a portrait, if you will--a character sketch of the personality that is Mumbai, told through four smaller character sketches of a solitary artist in Arun (Mr. Khan), an ambitious washer/dhobi; in Munna (Mr. Babbar), a curious investment banker; in Shai (Ms. Dogra); and a hopeful newlywed in Yasmin (Ms. Malhotra). Each of these characters enable us to gaze through a unique piece of colored glass into the variety of economic and social classes, as well as value systems typically found in Mumbai.

Aside from the four primary characters of the film, it is important to note the elderly woman who lives next door to Arun. The audience is neither privy to her history nor her circumstances; however, one can argue that she is as Mumbai as the rest of the characters. Her ubiquitous yet silent presence can be felt through various points in the film, and this seemingly peripheral element supports the fact that Mumbai reveals itself through its visible and invisible characters.
 

Interestingly enough, the film’s two titles assist in constructing the very window Ms. Rao (and, to a lesser degree, Mr. Khan) wants audiences to peer through when watching each character’s narrative unfold. For Western audiences, the title, Mumbai Diaries, is a self-evident catch-all that aims to respond to the question, “Who is Mumbai?” Imagine a neighborhood that, in a singular space, holds a teeming population filled with diverse economic and social lifestyles whose daily routines intersect with one another. That collective web of intersections is Mumbai.

Across the waters, Indian audiences will be familiar with the title Dhobi Ghat, which refers to the well-known prefecture within Mumbai--a place where professional washers gather and work in the open to clean the clothes from the city’s hotels, hospitals, and private parties from sunrise to sunset on a daily basis. In other words, Dhobi Ghat can easily be considered the world’s largest outdoor laundromat.

With these two titles, a pair of questions is begged. Is the film a microcosm of Mumbai? Or should audiences be looking at this film through a narrow telescope about how four particular lives intertwine within a specific community within Mumbai?

Complicating the begged questions above is the gripping and masterful performance of Mr. Babbar, who portrays Munna the Dhobi. Audiences will likely be mesmerized by Mr. Babbar’s convincing portrayal of a struggling laborer who has big yet unattainable dreams. Big because he believes in his abilities and has limitless perseverance. Unattainable because of the societal class into which he was born, or the people above and around him who continuously hold him down. Quite the relatable character who audiences will end up rooting for by the film’s end, an argument can clearly be made that the Indian version of the title, Dhobi Ghat, is truly fitting.

Of course, much of the struggle Munna endures is directly affected by his interactions with Arun and Shai. Even more, Arun’s interactions with Munna (and vice versa) are both connected to the former’s relationship with Shai and Yasmin. Just the same, the individual stories of Arun (awkward and jaded artist), Shai (non-resident Indian banker enlightened by the city), Munna (struggling laborer yearning for more), and Yasmin (village girl mesmerized by the big city before ultimately being let down by the big city) can only be told by a broad brushstroke.

Let’s bear in mind that Mumbai is the most populous city in India and the second most populous city in the world. If the exchanges between the four characters already create an intricate blur of exchanges in Mumbai, explore the imagination and consider how beautifully complicated Mumbai’s kaleidoscope truly is.

Kiran Rao’s Dhobi Ghat (Mumbai Diaries) opens worldwide on January 21st.