Morning Raga Movie Review

Cast and Crew
Cast: Shabana Azmi, Prakash Rao, Perizaad Zorabian, Nasser, Lilette Dubey
Direction: Mahesh Dattani
Music: Amit Hering and Mani Sharma
Language: English
Rating: 2.5/5

Movie Review
Morning Raga is Mahesh Dattani’s second outing as the director after ‘Mango Soufflé’. Mango Soufflé was a very different movie and Morning raga is no exception. Mahesh likes making simple moves about simple people where every character tells his/her story and everyone is engulfed in guilt.

Morning Raga is a fresh and beautiful film with each frame capturing the mystic Andra Pradesh like never before. The setting is so beautiful that you hardly notice the language barrier (the movie is in English with generous amount of Tamil thrown in). Another thing about the movie that may go against it is that it is created for that niche audience what visits film festivals. Usual audience won’t enjoy the simple movie.

But Morning Raga is a simple plot well told. Mahesh tells us the story of a gifted Carnatic vocalist Swarnlata (Shabana Azmi) who loses her little son and her close friend, who’s also her violinist-accompanist, in a bus accident while crossing the village bridge on her way to perform in city. Holding herself responsible for the ghastly accident she goes into a self imposed exile vowing never to cross the bridge again. Twenty years hence her wounds have hardly healed and past stands balantly in front of her as her dead friends adamant son surfaces.

Abhinay (Prakash Rao) returns to the village and he wants to set up a music band. He comes to the village to coax Swarnlata out of her exile and start performing again. But the issue is for that Swarnlata won’t cross the village bridge. Another character Priyanka (Perizaad Zorabian) is brought up. She is a city-bred girl and as we get to know she is the daughter of the driver who caused the accident. Meanwhile, Priyanka and Abhinay are partners and both want to start there music band and for they need Swarnlata as the vocalist.

The fragile plot wouldn’t have survived any longer but the director not provided it with the tender support of the clash of cultures. The alterations between Swarnlata and Abhinay hold the audience attention and at time amuse them. In Abhinay Swarnlata discovers the son she lost long ago and Abhinay slowly accepts her as his mother whose memory was slowly wiped away from his mind by time.

The film is a brilliant piece of work with actors giving their best when it is asked. Shabana is absolute delight and this is more or less her film. She stands tall against all other co-actors. The scene towards the climax when she tries to cross the bridge after 20 years is beautifully executes and performed. Prakash Rao acting is also good. He is a guy to watch out for. Perizaad also packs in a good performance.

But the problem which Mahesh faces is finding audience for this truly different bolay to hatke film of his. Any Takers!! Watching the empty hall we must say - None.