INDIA New England News
Ajeeb Daastaans (film on Netflix); Cast: Jaideep Ahlawat, Fatima Sana Shaikh, Armaan Ralhan, Abhishek Banerjee, Nushrratt Bharuccha, Inayat Verma, Konkona Sen Sharma, Aditi Rao Hydari, Shefali Shah, Manav Kaul, Tota Roy Chowdhury; Direction: Shashank Khaitan, Raj Mehta, Neeraj Ghaywan, Kayoze Irani; Rating: (three stars)
BY VINAYAK CHAKRAVORTY
It is provocative, for the way it twists the very concept of love from being an emotion that demands unconditional sacrifice to a mere tool for realising selfish gains. It is flawed, too, for the way it struggles to utilise that unusual premise, while bringing alive its spread of relationship sagas.
Ajeeb Dastaans(Netflix)
Starring Jaideep Ahlawat, Fatima Sana Sheikh, Konkona Sen Sharma, Nusrat Bharucha,Abhishek Bannerjee, Inayat Verma, Shefali Shah, Pavan Kaul Directed by Shashank Khaitan, Raj Mehta, Neeraj Ghaywan, and Kayoze Irani
This is a diverse provocative(sometimes too consciously so) bouquet of stories of four women in search of an emotional and physical fulfillment that eludes them because…well, they have obligations. Don’t we all!
Uneven in quality, some of the plotting conceits verge on the absurd. To begin with, let’s take the first story Majnu directed by Shashank Khaitan. It is a passionless passion-tale about a marriage of convenience between a moneyed dangerous criminal Babloo(Jaideep Ahlawat) and Lipashi(Fatima Sana Sheikh). The film opens with one of Babloo’s henchman making a preposterous pass at his Bhabhaiji, and never recovers its equilibrium.
On Friday (April 16), Netflix released the anthology film Ajeeb Daastaans on their platform
The film has four segments directed by Shashank Khaitan, Raj Mehta, Neeraj Ghaywan and Kayoze Irani
It is jointly produced by filmmaker Karan Johar and Netflix
It is provocative, for the way it twists the very concept of love from being an emotion that demands unconditional sacrifice to a mere tool for realising selfish gains. It is flawed, too, for the way it struggles to utilise that unusual premise while bringing alive its spread of relationship sagas.
Ajeeb Daastaans is a curious bag indeed, if only for its utterly wicked entertainment quotient, and also because it is a rare film coming out of mainstream Bollywood that looks at love as anything beyond a sacrosanct sentiment.
Ajeeb Daastaans movie review: Good and bad co-exist in this morally ambiguous anthology
The common modus operandi seems to be a subversion of our expectations at the end, even if the effectiveness of this strategy wavers.
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Ajeeb Daastans, a four-part anthology, has atypicality in its stories, although the degree varies from film to film.
Express News Service
Karan Johar’s segment in the 2013 anthology, Bombay Talkies, ends with the song, ‘Ajeeb Daastan Hai Ye’, as a bewildered Dev (Randeep Hooda), who has just come out as a homosexual to his wife, sits, doubtful about his future. The song befits the fogginess of his situation, and with Karan Johar producing Ajeeb Daastaans, a four-part anthology, you can see where the idea might have stemmed from. Translating to ‘Weird Tales’, Ajeeb Daastaans has atypicality in its stories, although the degree varies from film to film. The common modus operandi seems to be a subversion of our e