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Chaand Mubarak steals the show

Film: Un-paused

Date: 18.12.2020

Amazon Original Film Un-paused is an anthology of five Hindi short movies filmed during the pandemic and featuring stories about New Beginnings. The five short films include Glitch, Apartment, Rat-A-Tat, Vishaanu, Chand Mubarak. All these films are about the pandemic and more important, shot during the pandemic, which explains why all the stories are about two or maximum three characters. 

One has always debated if cinema reflects society or the other way round and never arrived at a conclusion, probably because both reflect each other. In my opinion however, it is always cinema that reflects society and which is why our films before independence were so revolutionary. Post-independence, our cinema addressed recession and unemployment and our writers conceived the angry young hero who was anti-establishment.

Every time we have been hit by a tragedy, be it the Mumbai bomb blast or the terrorist attack on Taj Mahal Hotel, a series of films have been made on the subject. Today, we are all struggling with the pandemic and Un-paused is a reflection of our fears, anxieties and the loneliness associated with the lockdown.

Glitch directed by Raj & DK with Gulshan Deviah and Saiyami Kher is about a blind date where the couple even though they have nothing in common, get attached to each other because both are extremely lonely. Apartment directed by Nikkhil Advani delves on the rising social pressures and the diminishing moral fabric, where in the protagonist Richa Chaddha, a working wife has to make a crucial decision.

Rat-A- Tat featuring  directed by Tannishtha Chatterji  is about loneliness, for Rinku Rajguru  of Sairat fame, staying away from family is a choice while  for Lillete Dubey, it is a compulsion, a way of life. Vishaanu directed by Avinash Arun is about the migrant workers, not those who walked miles to reach home but those who stayed back in search of shelter. And finally,  the best of the five series, Chaand Mubarak directed by Nitya Mehra  of Made in Heaven  fame  and featuring the ever dependable Ratna Pathak Shah, resident of an affluent building and her unusual bond with a rickshaw driver, Shardul Bharadwaj.

All the stories address isolation and depression and yet all the characters reflect a glimmer of courage and adaption, of positivity and trust. So, must you watch Un-paused, my answer is yes, not because all the stories and the performances are engaging, they are not but so that we realize that when the world was falling apart, we were not the only ones crying into our pillows, so were many others and they were battling worse demons.

Bhawana Somaaya