Highway, Hindi Movie: Beauty: Indefinable, Abundant and Asphyxiating

Atop a boulder, as the heroine watches the stream of water gushing forth and as she tries to understand the beauty unleashed by nature and as her face breaks into myriad expressions of joy, we join her in trying to configure the beauty which is indefinable, abundant and at the same time leaving us asphyxiated !!!

While we all could wax eloquently about this poetic journey, this movie should be remembered for its casting coup.

Alia Bhat is innocence personified. And the casting overrides the writing and you are cast in a trance that many a times you do not even follow the story.

When the rustic, Randeep Hooda, whose rusticity is accentuated by the Haryanvi dialect, does break into a smile, it certainly did  warm the cockles of my heart. With Randeep, the writing and the casting seamlessly integrate to give you many moments of acting ecstasy.

Anil Mehta the cinematographer and A.R. Rahman do their bit in enhancing the experience.

As the story progresses from the barren terrain of Rajasthan, to the snow peaked mountains of wherever, Imitiaz Ali transports you to a world that all of us aspire to live and as he pushes us from the edge of the snow capped mountains it is an exhilarating free fall, to be savored at the rate of fraction of an infinitesimal second.

And when you do come out of the movie hall and when the car horn did blare at the signal you had the uncomfortable feeling  and rude shock of coming back to the real world!!!

Thank you Imitiaz Ali for this liberating experience