Purani Jeans

A moving meditation on friendship that falls short in the acting department

A moving meditation on friendship that falls short in the acting department

This film is dedicated to Jim Morrison. It begins with a quote by him on the nature of friendship: “A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself.” The film attempts to reflect some of Morrison’s more elegiac lyrics—This is the end/ Beautiful friend/ This is the end/ My only friend, the end—and the film ends with a shot of the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, where the rock legend is buried.

However, the events in the lives of this group of friends don’t quite merit the lofty tenor of the dedication. The film starts in New York where Sid (Tanuj Virwani) is contemplating his return to Kasauli. When he arrives at the small cantonment town, a flood of memories is unleashed. It’s all about eternal friendship and the pretty girl who, unintentionally, turned the bond into something more temporal.

That’s what women do, apparently, in Kasauli. Purani Jeans is full of the myths of male bonding, and some of the attitudes in the film could be interpreted as sexist; still, there is a naiveté to the film that is charming. Sam (Aditya Seal) is the aristocrat of the town and his best friend is Sid. Both friends are Mummy’s boys, and Sam, who is really into Mummys, even flirts with Sid’s Mom (Rati Agnihotri), besides having an oedipal relationship with his own mother (Sarika). In one scene, Sam dances romantically with her.

It is the odd scene like this that makes Purani Jeans a reasonably interesting watch. None of the relationships in the film fit the traditional equations of Hindi cinema. Even the dramatic fight between the men over the woman (Isabelle Leite), has a feminine touch to it. They talk of the breaking of each other’s heart, not head.

Had the acting been better—it’s packed with newbies—this film could certainly have had a greater impact on the box office.

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Ajit Duara