Jonaki (2018) watch online HD

Jonaki is a surreal bildungsroman of a woman, relatable yet fantastically distant. The dreamscape woven by the film invites the viewers to engage their five senses, only to transform into Jonaki herself. The film brings many other celebrated cinematic masterpieces to mind, "Jacob's Ladder" being one of them. The world ensconced within the frames is pregnant with a Tarkovskian essence (refer to "Stalker" and "Solaris"). Having said that, I feel compelled to add that Jonaki is an original experience, an unexplored terrain in the context of Indian Cinema. Aditya Vikram Sengupta has a shrewd ear for ambient sounds and background music - a claim that can easily be justified by refering to his debut film "Asha Jaoar Majhe" (Labour of Love). The ethereal, otherworldly vision that is Jonaki can easily be compared to Caravaggio or Rembrandt paintings. Jonaki is made of experiences, feelngs and chiaroscuro. It is a canonical example of magic-realism in modern Indian Cinema.

A movie about love and the social pressure that held it back. The most interesting idea that blew my mind, was the representation of a nineteen-year-old girl by an eighty years old grandmother. Although it is assumed that the old age is only for dying quietly, their heart also flutters like few pigeons in an almost empty house (body), whose soul is still thriving. At first the relationship between Lolita Chatterjee and Jim Sarbh feels like the mismatch that was not supposed to be but as we all have heard the phrase that, "the heart wants what the heart wants", the want of a life, of love is clearly found in Lolita Chatterjee's heart wrenching performance. Yes, it's a tale of an old woman we all have known in our family but what if she in reality wants something else than a prayer in her last days? What if for our own sakes we have closed our eyes and convinced ourselves of her personality which might be something different in reality? For example, instead of being a grandma, what if she is a young soul by heart who looks for her solace in the world? Without a single word, Lolita Chatterjee asks these questions through her acting. The movie contains many unnecessarily prolonged scenes but the artistic play with shades that portrays this common yet uncommon love is something not found before. Where dilemma in love have been perceived through the tears of petals in other artistic mediums, we see it here with a different view: its either the peels of the orange that tinkers the fire or nothing but a match stick that catches fire and burns. Jonaki is not a story about a single person. When family and friends misunderstand, and one loses the courage to fight, she becomes a jonaki (Firefly). They all try to shine in the darkness but their life span is too short to erase the darkness completely. They glow in the dark from time to time, till no one remembers their existence anymore. Aditya Vikram Sengupta is truly an artist. Must keep my eyes open for his next performance.

You can take every frame out of Aditya Vikram Sengupta's second feature, put it up on a gallery wall and be rest assured that people will line up to see it. Love, longing and loneliness sucks you in like a deep breath, keeps you inside as long as they feel like and then breathes you out slowly at their own pace. Burnt walls, flickering lights and a brilliant soundscape aptly add to the minimalist performance of the actors who beautifully narrate an unforgiving story in the bleakness of this impressionist dreamscape. The stunning cinematography cajoles you into the chasms of the story, the edit pace unravels at its own speed to reveal things told and untold, the dialogues are minimal and narrated when needed, the production design is breathtaking to say the least and coming back to the sound design, it unravels in the background to express the deep seated emotions that the characters experience and emote from time to time. Jonaki is cinema that needs to be watched and watched again because each immersion is bound to be a new journey into the unknown. It's a deep dive into the senses, an open window in the structure of modern cinema of India and an experience that will linger even after the curtains come down.