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Nana's tour de force

Suparn Verma

After Dame Luck passed him by with Narsimha and Beqaabu, director N Chandra has turned to his roots in quest of success: his latest film, Wajood, reunites him with the two most outstanding artistes from his oeuvre, Nana Patekar (Ankush) and Madhuri Dixit (Tezaab).

And considering that he has two powerhouses to cope with, the director meshes together two disparate streams: one, of a mentally disturbed lover trying to woo his lady love, and the other, a Bonnie and Clyde-esque runaround.

A still from Wajood Click for bigger pic!

Unacceptable as it may seem, Nana and Madhuri start out as college students, Malhar and Apoorva. Nana plays the shy director, unable to verbalise his emotions but who is transformed into a tiger on stage, as while directing the amateur Madhuri.

Nana lives under the shadow of his bitter, domineering father who has failed in life and whose mission in life now is pouring hatred on his son. The more he scorns his son, the greater is Nana's need for winning his father's approval. The scene that brings this out graphically is when Nana wins a prize on stage, and his father slippers him before the locals and asks him to use the trophy as a begging bowl.

A distraught Nana tries to kill himself, but is saved by the police.

A still from Wajood Click for bigger pic!

Madhuri, a rich man's daughter is in love with Mukul Dev, the son of a collector. An unhinged Nana, unaware of this, conjures up dreams of her on stage and also starts living out his fantasy in which Madhuri is in love with him. When he realises that she is about to be engaged to Mukul Dev he tries to dissuade the two parents, and in a freak accident kills Mukul's father.

Nana is sentenced to seven years in jail, while outside Madhuri's father breaks up his daughter's engagement since Mukul is a nobody without his father.

Three years later, Nana escapes from prison, Madhuri is a journalist, and Mukul Dev is an inspector.

A still from Wajood Click for bigger pic!

And the film really begins at this point onward.

Though explained sketchily, Nana, the failed actor, now makes the real world his stage: a la Bonnie and Clyde.

His modus operandi is simple: conning widows while posing as a prospective husband, and looting them while they are under the spell of chloroform. On one such job he runs into Ramya, maid of a victim. The air crackles with electricity between them, and during the course of the robbery she kills her mistress and runs away with him.

The rest is a cat and mouse game, as Nana dons various disguises and makes an ass of the cops. Finally he meets his ladylove (who, in his fantasy world, still loves him). After a shootout he promises Madhuri he'll turn himself in, but only after he has shown his father his play.

The curtains rise, the last act unfolds, before ending in tragedy.

Among the artistes, Nana simply towers in a role tailor-made for him, the psycho a lot different from what he has etched on celluloid so far. He is in great form in a role that requires him to switch back and forth, sometimes soul-searching, sometimes totally lost in his own world, romancing Madhuri or playing 'Ashwatthama', dwelling in self-pity over his father's rejection.

Madhuri suffers in comparison only because of a weaker characterisation. She is a newspaper journalist who interviews people on a handycam and even hosts a chat show. Her editor talks to her as he would to a tart, but she nevertheless shows that even a weak role cannot stifle her as she animates the screen like only she can. Truly, the coming together of Nana, Madhuri and Chandra in one film is a tour de force.

The director, however, could have tautened the script by eliminating the characters of Ramya and Mukul Dev. With Madhuri and Nana chewing up everyone around, they don't stand a chance of being noticed, except negatively by lessening the film's overall impact. Mukul Dev and Ramya simply can't match up. Through watching the second leads, one couldn't help recalling the dignified performances by Jackie Shroff in Agni Sakshi, and Sujata Mehta in Chandra's Pratighaat.

A still from Wajood Click for bigger pic!

The songs are okay, except for the well-done Toot gaee tadak. The background score itself ought to be credited to Japanese composer Kitaro, though Anu Malik features in the credits. The sets are okay, the make-up patchy, the cinematography unsatisfactory. Apart from the performances by the lead players, what lifts the film out of a slew of mediocrity is slick editing and incisive dialogues.

N Chandra leaves his imprimatur on a narrative that has many veins running through it, though he sometimes falters when he shows Nana hankering after his father's nod despite the mutual hatred. Nana's fantasy world is sensitively handled, never mind an occasional muddle.

Chandra's forte is middle class sentiment, dealing with the workaday struggle to rise to the top even while trying to retain one's humanity. Returning to his roots, he has dug out two actors from his past who simply cannot fail him. If only he had dug a little deeper, he may have found the perfect script as well, one that is jhakaas, to recall Munnabhai's immortal words.