Meethi Konkona Sen has been an aloof kid ever since childhood and has shown signs of delusion, no one knows why. The dormant tendency however slips out of control, when the job assignment takes her to neighboring Bihar where she's raped by some political goons.
The resulting trauma also leads to episodes of manic-depressive psychosis in addition to her schizophrenia. She careens out of control over the years, progressively getting worse and sinking deeper into her private 'world'. Ms Sen also makes an excellent commentary on the social alienation of such individuals. Social rehab is standard therapy along with all the deadly mind-altering drugs. But what about the poor and the destitute, who're always left to fend for themselves and usually fall by the wayside?
The romantic connection between Dr Kunal and Anu was unnecessary. Also the cafeteria scene where Dr Kunal explains to Anu how real their world really is to them, was redundant. Anu should already know all that. The English dialog is a bit awkward at times though the acting compensates for that. Konkona and Shabana prove that their reputation is every bit worth it. Waheeda, Rahul and Shefali play their limited roles very well.
Extensive research seems to have been done about this illness, its very evident. But its not clear if MDP can coexist with schizophrenia in the same patient, side-by-side. Also in the early part, Dr Kunal recommends E. T shock therapy while invalidating the fact that it doesn't work for schizophrenics, only for extreme MDP with suicidal tendencies and other forms of bipolar disorder.
The ending of the remarkable story is suggestive of an unknown solution maybe no solution. The movie could have ended on a nicer note, since worldwide the mentally ill can and do lead balanced and fruitful if not very fulfilling, lives under good medical care. Nonetheless, its an excellent film made with extreme sensitivity to the subject. No one in India could've done it better. After Mrs and Mr. Iyer this is yet another very good film by Aparna sen mostly in English.
In the earlier film she treated a contemporary political environment and its effect on individuals. In this film it is the impact of mentally disabled member of the family and its impact on the family. As a parallel sub theme she treats a philosophical concept on "reality". It is a film which leads to thinking after seeing the film.
Mithee the younger sister Konkana Sen Sharma, the daughter of Aparna Sen is suffering from Schizophrenia being taken care of by the dominant elder sister Anjali Shabana Azmi.
Mithee after her marriage with Jojo and separation from him believes that she is still with JOJO and her five children in 15 Park avenue in Kolkotta. It is almost like an intense religious belief. Ultimately what is reality? In one scene she tells Anjali "if I tell you that you are not a professor but only imagine that you are a professor". The open ending reflects this reality.
In a supposedly search for her home in park avenue, Mithee is lost. The penultimate scene is Mithee looking at a group of five children playing and her looking at them with joy of returning to her family and then she is lost. The protagonist believes that a big sized rabbit?
At the end even the doctor believes perhaps there is Harry. What is reality, is it what the protagonist believes or what other believe Shabhna Azmi dominates the film with her sterling performance as the strong elder sister with undercurrent of frustration. Konkana Sen Sharma gives equally befitting performance as the schizophrenic.
Yet the film is not as tight as Mrs and Mr. There appear to be some loose ends. And perhaps there are too many characters. Those who want a closed ending may not appreciate the open ending here. But the ending befits the theme of the film. Yet another good film by Aparana sen. Aparna Sen's 15 Park Avenue is a film about nature of reality. A young delusional girl, prone to imagining things and hearing voices, possibly out of sheer boredom, is taken to be schizophrenic by her educated father and control-freak educated elder step-sister.
Controlled, pitied and treated like an invalid even if out of love and affection , she has ghost of a chance to develop as a normal person. When a boy offers to marry her, her father and step-sister passionately try to convince him against taking such a step. A traumatic experience, caused primarily due to her sheltered existence, finally takes her across the line of no return, and she lives full time in a delusional world of her own.
The family and society around her are intolerant of her delusions,and want to suppress them with medicines, electric shock therapy, anything, even though they all have delusions of one kind or other of their own. Her mother doesn't see the irony in allowing a ghost-buster to treat her of the delusions. Her step-sister is a professor of Physics, teaching among other things Quantum Mechanics, a subject in which a stream of experts accept parallel multi-universes and many more dimensions in space than the 3 we see.
A friend recounts with admiration an experience with a holy person claiming to hear hallucinatory voices. Far away, George W Bush has real or fake delusions of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, and is allowed to invade Iraq. As some viewers have already pointed out, Aparna Sen shied away from attacking the mother of all delusions -mainstream religions, which is a pity. In other words, accepted reality is what a majority or an influential minority believe in.
That's been the case since the beginning, and lot more powerful people than Mithali in the film, among them Bruno and Galileo, have suffered as a consequence. The film's controversial and difficult ending was necessary to show it's a film about nature of reality, and not the case study of a schizophrenic girl. Aparna Sen has produced an outstanding philosophical film. With this thought, and a mild sense of embarrassment that I hadn't watched the complete film earlier, I watched this film last Saturday.
There are some starting similarities with other works like the legendary Mulholland Drive David Lynch from which, this film borrows at least 3 concepts:- a That at least some truths are relative b The first scene of Shabana and Konkonam going around in a car as the opening credits roll, is uncannily similar to the car ride that Betty and Rita undertook in Mulholland Drive.
In both cases, the object of inquiry happens to be a place which is probably mythical in both cases and perhaps more openly symbolic in Aparna's film c The incident revolving around the mad beggar woman is again extremely reminiscent of the whole 'occurence behind Winkies' involving a bum but while that scary creature is an embodiment of something and that that 'something' as well as the character per Se is seamlessly linked to other works of Lynch notice carefully the disheveled long hair , the effect of the beggar woman in 15 PA appears to be a tribute and therefore insignificant in the context of the film and its message The other films from which 15 PA also borrows is Blow Up especially the last scene is a throw back to the truth Vs.
Of course, the professor and schizophrenia angle also bring to the mind, "A Beautiful mind". Although, admittedly the subject here is high brow physics and Shabana, who professes it, inadvertently ends up being the brilliant antithesis to the delusional hallucinations of Konkona's character through those very prophecies. In an outstanding scene in the movie, some of these elements are juxtaposed with each other and that scene cuts back and forth from the 'real' world of Shabana, where Quantum Physics and the Theory of Relativity justify the finiteness and composition of the universe, to the artificial edifice of the 'make believe' world of Mithi But for all their differences, the sisters are alike too.
Both are incapable of forming long lasting relationships- one out of choice and the other out of nature. So, Mithi's pain at being rejected in love by Joydeep is in harmony with the inability of Shaban to form a special bond with either Kunal Dhritiman or Sanjeev Kanwaljeet. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Viewers generally tend to view this film in one of the following two ways:- Hypothesis 1: "It was Shabana all along" There is a certain section of the audience who think so.
But that explanation is not only too far fetched but also contrived as that would mean she was dreaming up so many other characters too i. Well, your guess is as good as mine "Why 15 Park Avenue? Remember, her stating Jo Jo's profession as "Prime minister of Shikakai", which as you may be knowing is a popular ingredient used in manufacturing Shampoos. The prefix '15' is used as it was on 15th December that Mithi got engaged to Joydeep and after his walkout, she remains forever in a time warp.
The film has its fair share of flaws- lack of use of a strong background score, which in films like these can really augment the narrative, some sloppy dialogs unabated by some forced dialog delivery. Inconsistent performances Shabana and Dhritimaan are excellent though IMO by a few of the cast members albeit many members of this ensemble cast have been wasted.
Shefali Chaya's sudden insecurity about her husband seems to be an unimaginatively introduced dimension in the plot. So, the experience post 15 PA is bound to be sans a certain degree of novelty.
Where am I coming from? I gave 9. On an existential level, it failed to invoke my interest, not even as much as say a 'Truman Show'. If you repeat a lie enough number of times will it become the truth? The movie is about her search for her home at a fictitious address where her imaginary husband and 5 children live.
Aparna Sen delivers yet another masterpiece. Each and every actor of the movie was better than the other. Konkona Sen looks unbelievably convincing as a schizophrenic.
She pulls off the role with such ease and maturity beyond her age. Shabana Azmi is incredible as usual. She plays the dominating and fiercely independent elder sister of Mithi who takes care of her ailing sister and aging mother.
She refuses to accept that in-spite of all her strength and courage, she still feels lonely at times. This should have been a very easy movie for Rahul Bose. The role was least bit demanding and anyone could have done the role.
The ending of the movie was the most surreal part of the whole park avenue experience. It took me a while to digest that the movie had ended. It left me confused and maybe even a bit disturbed. But later on, it started sinking in. My eyes are black. But if everyone says they are blue, will I still believe that its black??! As everyone knows by now, 15 Park Avenue is the story of a schizophrenic girl and her half-sister.
The manifestation of Schizophrenia is still viewed as being an illness which people often feel might disappear if ignored. There are also those, who, however far fetched it may seem when it's shown in the film, think that the illness manifests itself as a result of some sort of supernatural influence. I think Ms. Sen deserves a lot of praise for "15 Park Avenue". She has done a good turn, not only to the general public, but also to those who deal with schizophrenics The film actually helps in dispelling a lot of myths and misconceptions about the exact nature of this psychological disorder.
I'm told that the film is largely based on her own personal experiences with a person very close to her, who suffers from this mental affliction.
To that effect, I'm sure that none of what has been shown, is blown out of proportion The performances are good, on the whole, as can be expected. They emerge as very "real" characters People may think me terribly queer, but I think there are moments when one can identify with Meethi as well!
I suppose all of us have a streak of "insanity" inside us These are the people who are singled out. After all, don't we all have our secret fantasies and dreams? Impossible ones, at times?
Would we be dubbed as being "off our rockers" if people could glimpse into these areas of our minds? Konkona, as Meethi, is outstanding!!
Her performance is so effortless She has shown the ability to lull the audience into forgetting the divide between reality and acting! Maine Gandhi Ko Nahin Mara which is another brilliant film with a similar idea in mind. I disagree with Mr. Paul above. I do concede, however, that spotlighting such a character in a film is quite often done to develop other mentally normal characters who have to deal with the mentally incapable character.
In such cases the mentally incapable character is not fully developed and turns out to be an animated obstacle for the mentally normal progtagonist s. Since the film's subject is already challenging, this choice risks leaving the viewer confused instead of pensive. The pace is agonisingly gradual at times, and the dialogue heavily repetitive. On the technical front, the film is dubbed, but the calibre of the actors pulls it though magnificently.
The use of ambient sounds is lovely and so is the non-intrusive and sometimes breathtaking soaking-in-Bhutan's-beauty photography. The dialogue, exemplary in most parts, is irritatingly bookish in others. Not unless you're in 16 th century England [ Images ] having tea and butter cookies. But that's picking too fine a point.
Shabana Azmi [ Images ] thrives in her role; she looks stunning, acts with her heart, and is a pleasure to watch. And then there's Konkana Sen Sharma [ Images ]. One falls short of adjectives to describe her performance. I guess the biggest compliment would be to say that no one else could have done this role. Aparna Sen has cemented her credibility as a thinking and engaging filmmaker and has one looking forward to her next film already. There's dry, black humour all over the film, if you care to look for it.
There's comedy in the darkest of scenes, if you dare to laugh.
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