An Experiment gone haywire.

There are already a very small number of viewers of such experimental kind of cinema. So it’s a responsibility for the directors to come up with nice and appreciable projects which are capable of bringing more viewers to this genre.

But director Arindam Nandy’s “Via Darjeeling” is not entertaining and enlightening enough to impress. Despite of its talented star cast and an interesting plot it fails to win over the viewers with its content.

The storyline revolves around a group of friends who are discussing a mystery and giving their own versions of the happening which may have occurred according to them. But after a good start as each of them start giving their viewpoint the plot gets disturbed and seems to be confused in its own web.

Moreover the most annoying part comes when the film ends abruptly. Climax with many possibilities is acceptable but when the movie ends suddenly without any justification then its looks like deliberately done to give it an offbeat perspective.

Performances wise Kay Kay and Vinay Pathak are fine as always. Proshanth Narayanan and Sandhya Mrudal excel. The rest are all there but nothing extraordinary to showcase. Sonali Kulkarni looks ravishing, Parvin Dabbas,  Simone Singh and Rajat Kapoor are ok.

One interesting observation. The movie has a subject very similar to Kurosawa’s “RASHOMON”. Infact it’s a modernized version of the Black & White movie and in one scene Rajat Kapoor can be seen holding the DVD of this classic in his hand. May be it’s the director’s way of giving tribute to the master film-maker.

Rating : 1.5 / 5