It's
that
time
of
the
year
when
a
new
work
of
cinema
by
a
new
director
grabs
your
attention
by
their
courage.
Udaan
is
a
ballsy
debut
by
Vikramaditya
Motwane
who
once
assisted
the
angst-laden
Sanjay
Leela
Bhansali
and
then
his
angst-cousin
Anurag
Kashyap.
You
can
see
the
lasting
impression
of
both
the
senior
creators
in
the
way
Motwane
designs
the
uneasy
and
violent
relationship
between
the
17-year
old
Rohan
(Rajat
Barmecha)
and
his
tyrannical
father
(Ronit
Roy)
who's
almost
villainous
in
his
despotism.
When
Udaan
is
not
busy
trying
to
be
a
regular
nudge-nudge-wink-wink
coming-of-age
film
(Billy
Elliot-goes-to-Jamshedpur)
it
gives
us
some
great
moments
of
cinema
,
done
in
shades
that
leave
the
camera
lens
far
behind
to
romance
the
very
core
of
middleclass
life
(no
doubt
corroded
and
outdated)
in
the
soporific
'steel
town'
.
The
film
starts
with
a
mildly
amusing
boys-disastrous-night-out-from-boarding-
school
sequence
and
then
quickly
gets
down
to
the
serious
business
on
hand
of
telling
us
that
Rohan's
father
has
not
met
his
son
for
eight
years.
Why?
We
never
really
get
to
know.
And
this
remains
the
otherwise-exemplary
work's
one
biggest
flaw.
Though
played
with
energetic
antipathy
by
Ronit
Roy,
the
father's
unreasonable
autocracy
makes
the
man
appear
as
no
more
than
a
subtle
caricature
of
lousy
parenting.
The
delicate
moments
emerge
in
the
tale
of
self-realization
through
Rohan's
inner
moral
churning
and
of
course
through
the
young
actor
Rajat
Barmecha's
instinctive
understanding
of
his
character's
turmoil.
Barmecha's
expressions
of
anguish
rage
helplessness
and
finally
retaliation
and
protest
are
so
smoothly
conveyed,
you
almost
feel
he
is
playing
a
character
he
knows
first-hand.
Barmecha
gives
the
narrative
a
compelling
consistency.
Director
Motwane
does
the
rest.
His
eye
for
visual
and
emotional
detail
is
never
over-punctuated.
A
certain
delicacy
even
when
tackling
a
subject
as
thorny
as
the
father-child
domestic
violence
runs
through
the
narrative,
rendering
the
characterizations
and
their
motivations
not
only
lucid
but
eminently
palatable
and
engaging.
It's
interesting
to
see
how
Motwane
employs
the
tradition
misunderstood-protagonist-against-a-heartless-word
formula
to
the
coming-of-age
saga.
Barmecha's
poet-hero
is
a
clever
subverted
carryover
of
Guru
Dutt
in
Pyasa.
In
Pyasa
Dutt
stood
up
to
an
insensitive
world.
Here
it
is
the
boorish
father
who
won't
let
his
son
be
a
poet.
This
rare
and
precious
film
about
straitjacketed
claustrophobic
middleclass
values
derives
its
strength
from
the
unpunctuated
uncluttered
dramatic
force
that
emerges
from
the
main
relationships.
By
the
time
Rohan
walks
out
on
his
loutish
father
with
his
little
stepbrother
we
are
no
longer
looking
at
Dilip
Kumar
and
Amitabh
Bachchan's
uneasy
father-son
rapport
in
Ramesh
Sippy's
Shakti.
We
are
on
to
something
far
more
disturbing
and
contemporary.
Each
time
the
despotic
father
in
Udaan
raises
a
hand
to
toast
terror
he
raises
uncomfortable
questions
on
child
abuse
and
its
parameters
within
the
Great
Indian
Middleclass
Family.
In
Hrishikesh
Mukherjee's
Anupama
the
disgruntled
father
Tarun
Bose
would
not
look
at
his
traumatized
daughter
Sharmila
Tagore
because
he
lost
his
beloved
wife
during
child
birth.
In
Udaan
the
father
holds
the
son
culpable
for
crimes
that
we
can
only
decode
in
the
detailed
episodes
showing
the
son's
rebellious
streak.
If
God
lies
in
the
details,
so
does
the
devil.
Story first published: Saturday, July 17, 2010, 13:40 [IST]