Endless Mist

Kohrra| Cast: Suvinder Vicky, Barun Sobti, Harleen Sethi | Director: Randeep Jha | Hindi | Netflix

Kohrra’s Punjab is an emotional wasteland. There are young men trying to prove their machismo to their fathers. There are women waiting to get away to Canada. There are police officers too busy with personal errands to do their jobs. Emotionally unavailable fathers and mothers, children chafing at parental expectations. Balbir Singh, a sub-inspector, is assigned to a particularly difficult case, the murder of an NRI groom and the disappearance of his British friend. Everyone dumps their problems on him, from his boss who is an expert work shirker to his daughter who refuses to go back to her husband whom she doesn’t love. Balbir Singh is a lonely, loveless man, carrying an invisible burden. It could be his damaged wife and their complex relationship. It could be the secret he carries of a former friend whose wife has taken a shine to him. It could be the unhappiness he sees etched on his daughter’s face, living proof that trauma is always inter-generational. Or it could be the idea that his junior, Garundi (an excellent Barun Sobti), a man he likes, may end up just like him, an under-achiever. The characters seem to be inhabiting worlds so real and painful that they seem less like actors and more themselves. And yet within the kohrra (mist) there are slivers of empathy, which liberate the trapped souls. For a moment, however brief, there is light, whether it is Garundi’s nail parlour-owning fiancee or Balbir Singh’s daughter’s stoic boyfriend. In those moments, Kohrra is indescribably moving and uplifting.

Why Watch it? That its co-creator Sudip Sharma also wrote 2020’s breakout hit, Paatal Lok, should be reason enough but there’s much more here. Broken and bruised by life, Balbir Singh is as much the state of Punjab as he is every ordinary man trying to live an honest life

Love, Episodically

Ishq-e-Nadaan | Cast: Mohit Raina, Lara Dutta, Neena Gupta, Kanwaljeet Singh | Director: Avishek Ghosh | Hindi | JioCinema

A hotel manager dreams of having gelato in Rome while eating an ice cream sand­wich with a woman he likes. An ageing film producer wants to have tea with a dark-eyed widow. A young man who wants to be a househusband ensures his pregnant wannabe girlfriend is fed poha regularly. No this is not a film about food, but food is one of the many ways in which its characters meet, bond, and separate. Shot in an episodic manner, it has three tales that are seemingly separate. But they meet, as they do in such films, in quite a charming fashion. Clichés abound, but then what is a rom-com without the senti­mentality? The writing is more than made up for by some heart­felt acting by accomplished stars. Neena Gupta lights up the screen, big and small, and it is lovely to see her reunited with her television co-star Kanwaljeet Singh.

Why watch it? It is a sweet little film, which takes its time with the story, keeping an unhurried pace and a quiet humour. Sometimes it is good to take the long and winding road home

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