Amole Gupte, writer, director,
lyricist and producer, takes the safest path to telling the same old story of
chasing one’s dreams against all odds. Only, it’s done lovingly. Like growing a
much cherished plant. Unfortunately, it’s as painstaking too.
Every Hollywood sports film
has a tried and tested formula. It usually revolves around an underdog who
wants to excel in something beyond his reach. There is always that coach who is
a reflection of the underdog. He has dreamt the same dream but destiny has
dealt some cruel blow, which has snatched the dream forever. So he does the
next best thing. He helps the underdog come out a winner.
A much more superior version
of the story originated in India and was told in the most fascinating way
possible in Mahabharata, through the coach, Dronacharya and determined
disciples, and Arjun.
Gupte replaces archery with
skating here. Eklavya is a young boy, Arjun Waghmare (Partho Gupte, Amole
Gupte’s son). The film opens slowly with beautifully shot frames in red tones
showing a diya being lit. The stunning cinematography (by Amol Gole, Vikas
Sivaraman) is the hero of the film. It captures the gaze, takes its time to
move and lovingly builds a feel good mood, enticing the viewer slowly into
Arjun’s little world of prayers and a loving, peaceful family.
In an excellently edited sequence
(by Deepa Bhatia, also the producer), we see Arjun is no longer in his wonderful,
protective environment. He is now a chaiwalla in Mumbai, out of school and out
of his village; forced to earn a living now that his father is no more. We only
get to see the edited part of the story at a crucial moment in the most
engaging and Gupte’s trademark emotionally charged manner, much later.
At night, Arjun’s workplace
turns into a skating ground where rich children wearing shining skates costing upto
a lakh, come and practice under the guidance of their young coach, Lucky
Bhargava (Saqib Saleem, Huma Qureshi’s brother), the modern age Drona.
Lucky is another kind soul (there
are too many here) who jumped in front of a car to save a student’s life and
broke his foot. His dream is to help his students win a skating championship
game. His brother, Bugs (Anuj Sachdeva, quite handsome), an ex skating expert, now
an investment banker, wants him to quit his dreams and join him in the States. Their
subplot really drags and is a contrived attempt to tug at the overdone sympathy
theme.
Meanwhile, Arjun is
enthralled by the skates. The little wheels give his own dreams new wings. Now
comes the interesting part. No, it’s not his attempt at skating. It comes in
the form of his four friends from the slums. These are victims of child labour;
boys who collect garbage, work at
garages, embroidery factories and sell gajras. The major part of the story
follows these five children (‘paanch
pandav’) and how their die hard spirit helps Arjun fly on his bright red,
zari embroidered, wheels with ghunghroos,
his new found ‘hawaa hawaai’.
These friends, especially
Gochi (Ashfaque Khan) ends up charming, more than Arjun. While Arjun works at
the empathy level built into the plot, there is very little additional characterization.
The film falls drastically because of this. Neither Arjun nor Lucky do anything
for us to root for them.
Every single character in the
film is extremely kind hearted. This sugar syrupy treatment ends up coming
across as extremely artificial. A constantly sobbing mother, a ‘bechara’
fatherless child who cannot afford skates, two brothers without parents and a
bunch of street children who don’t have food to eat; all this together make for
a ‘poor me, poor India’ story that doesn’t quite gel.
There is no antagonist or
conflict here. Except poverty. This leads to some ‘Taare Zameen Par’ kind of
preachiness on lack of basics like food and education. A dialogue here is
thrown in for good measure, “School
jayega to ghar mein kya kitaab khilayega?”
All the actors including
Partho Gupte and Saqib Saleem are fairly average. The only one who stands out a
little is Ashfaque Khan who plays the outspoken and bolder Gochi.
And the winner is… the
fetching camera work. Even the garbage and gutters are made to look like work
of art. That’s the only reason to watch ‘Hawaa Hawaai’ which slips and fails to
inspire with its slow and safe treatment.
The song from Mr India featuring the glittering and
gorgeous Sridevi might be your better bet.
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