The result is one of the strangest-looking movies I’ve seen in a while. The film-making goes into overdrive, almost like it doesn’t trust the script and actors to convey Moody Feeling. It tries so hard to be an aesthetic. The ad-coded compositions, the radioactive lighting, the gimmicky panning and tracking and silhouettes and look-at-me cinematography, the frantic cutting and tight close-ups of lips and footwear and objects, the curated intensity of the music — it’s a bit like watching the fabled language of Imtiaz Ali and (editor) Aarti Bajaj go sideways. The technical departments do their best to be visible in every shot. The camera moves faster than the characters, threatening the unsuspecting viewer with motion sickness if they do not submit to young love. A confrontation in the end unfolds on a stormy night in a room with sepia-lit windows that violently rattle and slam against the hinges to distract us from the comical hollowness of the scene. The drunken windows give the performance of their lives. But all I can wonder is: Wong Kar Why?
Speaking of non-human performances, the only hour that seems to exist in this story is Golden Hour. For a film called Chand Mera Dil (“my heart is the moon”) whose primary character is named Chandni, it’s fitting that the sun becomes the obsessive antagonist. It remains hyperactive and omnipresent; no character’s face is allowed to appear without being bathed in warm twilight and music-video hues. The frisky sun finds a way to shine everywhere, even at night (spotlights and blinding glares); at one point, science takes a hike and a new apartment is introduced with sunlight streaming in from all directions. When in doubt, multiple suns are summoned to create a soft atmosphere in Hyderabad. And the film is in perpetual doubt, so the sundowner vibes never leave. In the words of Captain Jack Sparrow: Where’s me rum?
