大象传媒

There's an inescapable impropriety in the notion of a 60-year-old man falling in love with an 18-year-old girl, but when the lovestruck pensioner is portrayed by the iconic Amitabh Bachchan, it's seemingly even more difficult to stomach. Sceptics are compelled to disregard their qualms and revel instead in a matchless display of histrionics from Bachchan, who captures the torment of a man balancing on a precipice between life and emotional death. A stark portrayal of licentious love, Nishabd is enthralling.

Photographer Vijay (Amitabh Bachchan) is a family man in the autumn of his years living in relative harmony with his wife (Revathy). When his daughter's best friend Jiah (Jiah Khan) comes to stay, her unashamedly amorous advances awaken in him a renewed lust for life. Infatuation turns quickly into an unlikely love, wreaking devastation on all their lives.

A purveyor of alternative cinema, Ram Gopal Varma strikes again with an apparently contentious storyline, yet, cast from the same mould as Jogger's Park and Ek Chottisi Love Story, Nishabd is by no means uncharted territory. The beautifully shot locales are the perfect backdrop for the mounting tensions and the shifting mood is captured in the lilting cinematography. Propelled by Bachchan's mesmerising execution, Vijay's narration of his own story is highly evocative, allowing the viewer to get into the character's head. Meanwhile, the Lolita of the piece, Jiah Khan is sassy, sexy and necessarily churlish. It's a brazen performance from the debutante actress, making her seduction of Vijay highly plausible.

"THOUGHTFUL PORTRAIT OF UNAPOLAGETIC LOVE"

Connoisseurs of alternative cinema will applaud Varma's thoughtful portrait of an unapologetic love. Those of a more prudish sensibility will most likely demand Varma's head on a platter.