Fog. Dreams. Desires. Mornings. Cold...The frames with which indie filmmaker Achal Mishra invites us to Dhuin are tender, but the story to follow is as harsh as it can get. After a stellar debut with 2019’s Gamak Ghar, Achal brings Dhuin, a fascinatingly nuanced and poignant story about an aspiring actor’s dream and a deeply-aching tussle with reality. Immersive in form and measured in its narration, the 50-minute indie film feels like an arresting polaroid capture of everyday suffering.
Dhuin (Maithili)
With misty visuals of a mundane, sleepy town, Dhuin tells a story of a young man’s tacit fight with reality. Pankaj (Abhinav Jha) harbours dreams of becoming a big movie star, but like most dreamers from underprivileged backgrounds, he lacks the means to do it. He spends his time performing in local theatre plays, taking selfies near the airport, and in the meaningless addas with fellow actors and filmmakers that keep his dreams cosy and secure. Pankaj’s only known course of action is to get a train to Bombay, Indian cinema’s land of dreams.
Yet, it seems like Pankaj’s yearning doesn’t come from his will to chase his dreams, but to escape the life he’s leading in Darbhanga. He spends most of his time in the foggy daybreaks until late at night, as if to look away from everything his elderly parents and their bleak financial situation reminds him of. Even his quietest moments seem to carry agony. A YouTuber’s acting tip for crying on command comes in handy for Pankaj, but with sorrow so deep, only the actor in him sheds tears with ease. Achal marks the rush of anxiety in Pankaj’s mind with the sounds of an oncoming train on the railway track outside his house. Achal also underlines Pankaj’s struggles by setting the story in post-COVID rural India, grounding it further to reality. From planes that fly above Darbhanga to access to watching films by Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, everything seems far away for Pankaj.
Dhuin has a minimal but immersive visual language. Like in the case of Gamak Ghar, where memories of a yesteryear life in the village had dual tints of warm and cold, Dhuin’s visuals are also painted with a reason. The foggy visuals mirror the fog that covers Pankaj’s dreams and the path to achieving them. The narrative progresses even through a simple but metaphoric walk on a dark highway, a touching moment in the film. This is also carefully measured in narration, like the case in Gamak Ghar; it seems life in 2022’s Darbhanga needs lesser time for retention, and Achal gets enough time to tell his tale but finds no need to further lengthen his shots.
However, the most impressive aspect of Dhuin is its self-awareness and how it looks at itself. For instance, Pankaj feels alien when sits with a group of budding filmmakers planning on making a docu-fiction, which offers no scope for actors like Pankaj. They talk about why The Wind Will Carry Us was the first of Kiarostami’s films to bring about his visual poetry, and it all goes over Pankaj’s head. The casual condescension from one of them strikes a wrong chord in Pankaj. This is a pivotal moment in the story, but it also shows how we, the audience who are watching this docu-fiction, are also very far away from the real-world Pankajs. Like how these budding actors speak of non-actors and actors blending in Kiarostomi’s films, this very docu-fiction film, Dhuin, has actors like Abhinav Jha blending with non-actors with ease. Even here, Achal finds a way to bring in a metaphor and a swarm of mosquitoes hovering over Pankaj’s head shows how he feels inside.
In tune with the minimal mise en scene is the use of music. Tajdar Junaid’s title theme is a poignant piece of work that tugs at our heartstrings; the emotional heft of it reminds one of his 2013 album ‘What Colour Is Your Rainbow’.
In the end, what lingers in one’s mind is the film’s casual handling of the theme’s gruffiness and how it doesn’t cross its T’s. Maybe Pankaj will grow on to become a Pankaj Tripathi — there’s a hat-tip in the film as well. Or maybe he will fail. Dhuin tells an everyday story of everyman’s burden and it unsparingly shows what the cost of dreaming can be in our world. It isn’t just for dreams that meet a sorry end, there is a cost in just dreaming as well.
Dhuin is currently streaming on MUBI
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