A poignant take on a young actor's dream

Dhuin

Maithili (Mubi)

Director: Achal Mishra

Cast: Abhinav Jha, Bijay Kumar Sah, Prashant Rana

Rating: 4/5

Director Achal Mishra, in his Maithili-language film, ‘Dhuin’, carefully builds the world of Darbhanga, a small town in the Mithila region. Just like the title ‘Dhuin’ (meaning fog), the characters in the film too move in the foggy days and nights rhythmically, while here and there allowing the outsiders to peep into their lives.

Pankaj (Abhinav Jha) is a young aspiring actor who struggles to realise his dream of going to Mumbai and becoming an actor. Almost everyone in the film has an opinion on the dreamy and humongous
city of Mumbai. Pankaj spends his days either making his daily earnings by acting in street plays or waiting for new opportunities for acting or clicking pictures posing in the ‘Darbhanga style’ or the ‘Shah Rukh-wala pose’ on a tree near the airport.

Pankaj is a well-known actor in the town where amateurs seek his guidance on “how to cry in a transition scene”. And with authority, he says, “Go read the script 20 times”. But when he sits with the budding filmmakers from the city and listens to them speak about the legendary Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami’s work, Pankaj feels so out of the place.

He tries to learn what they are talking about but the arrogance and condescension of learned city men don’t allow him to be part of their discussion. This scene makes the audience so uncomfortable that one questions all the instances where we talk for the sake of talking. Sometimes, knowledge and privilege leave no room for empathy and sensitivity to be part of our day-to-day conversations.

Sadly, Pankaj doesn’t realise that in reality, he lives the mundane, poetic, misty life which Kiarostami’s films try to capture. The docu-drama becomes ravishing with the character’s imagination of Mumbai, long still shots of foggy mornings and evenings of Darbhanga and capturing of the flow of wind in silence.

The immersive visual language of the film gets deeper with the evocative score by Tajdar Junaid which highlights the longing in pain. The ending leaves audiences with a hope that perhaps Pankaj will dare to dream again tomorrow.