Karnataka - Bangalore

The light never turns green

TRAFFIC SIGNAL

(Hindi)

Cast: Konkona Sen Sharma, Kunal Khemu, Ranvir Sheorey

Director: Madhur Bhandarkar

Madhur Bhandarkar speaks from the heart, a heart married to tumult, not unaccustomed to sorrow. His films are his echo, his quiver, not someone else's thought, ready at a moment's notice to drip. If "Chandni Bar" and "Page 3" had their own exquisite joys, and faint angst, "Traffic Signal" is more of the same. A shade wistful, a little tardy, "Traffic Signal" at its core is a critique of the cycle of urban development, and the consequent dislocation of the have-nots. In this film, he talks of the beggars, those calloused hands and anonymous faces that greet you when the traffic signal turns amber or red.

Their voices, often rehearsed, are ready with a tale of sorrow. Somebody claims to be lame, another with a pregnant woman ready to deliver. Yet another seeks alms for the cremation of the dead father. Each has his tale, each his invention; yet each his sad song too. Then Bhandarkar takes in his grasp those small-time salesmen at the intersections, ready to sell everything, from a pirated edition of the latest best-selling book to sunscreens. Inexplicably, yet inevitably, their fates are intertwined. And all the helpless souls you see and walk or drive through at the intersections are actually controlled by an extortionist mafia. Here the story is the king. No big stars in the film.

With the cast boasting Konkona Sen Sharma, Kunal Khemu, Ranvir Sheorey and Neetu Chandra besides Sudhir Mishra as the surprise packet, "Traffic Signal", for all its flaws, remains a director's film. So, what are the flaws? Well, the film lacks in momentum. It is like those exasperating times when you feel that the light never turns green.

The characters take so long in building up that half the film is lost. The narrative is a shade tardy. Some of the dialogues, particularly, those surrounding the male sex worker, often lose their import because of the innuendo. And the film's music remains peripheral. A film that talks of the sorrow of the deprived needed music that would touch the heart. Not so in this case.

ZIYA US SALAM

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