The Last Color-
A Review and Conversation with the Chef and Film Maker
This review was first published after the movie was viewed in Indie Meme Film Festival in Austin,TX- (April 26th-28th ) opening feature being The Last Color by Michelin Star Chef turned Filmmaker Vikas Khanna in attendance.(http://bollywoodfilmcritic.blogspot.com/2019/05/indie-meme-film-festival-2019-building_2.html)
Director: Vikas Khanna
Producers: Jitendra Mishra, Bindu Khanna, Poonam Kaul
Screenplay: Vibhav Srivastava
Story: Vikas Khanna
Starring: Neena Gupta, Aqsa Siddiqui, Rudrani Chettri
Music: Mahesh Bharti
Cinematography:Subhranshu Das
Genre: Drama
Language:Hindi
Duration: 1hr 30 mins
Rating: 4.5 (****.5 /5) stars
Review: Birjis Adeni Rashed
What attracted me to the movie was the intrigue of how a celebrity chef with a Michelin star, a highest standard in food creation, fare in film making! Vikas Khanna is interestingly a simple man with a passion and works with his heart hence achieves success in all his endeavors.
The movie The Last Color is based on a book published earlier by the film maker. Last Color is a story of three people on the fringe of society, who are marginalized, ostracized, and looked down upon by society, religious clerics, and unfortunately even by the government and judicial system of the country. The heartwarming narrative shows the lives of an old Widow living life of colorlessness and abstinence; a rejected and mistreated Hijra- Eunuch; and a street dwelling low caste untouchable Orphan; giving rays of hope, breaking taboos and showing a victory of human spirit.
Excellently written, directed, acted and executed, the story sensitizes us to the harsh realities which prevailed and still exist in India which need to be questioned and stopped.
The naivety and natural talent of the orphan Chothi (Aqsa Siddiqui ) and Neena Gupta’s depth of acting experience with elevated performance as the widow Noor are the highlight of the movie. Vikas Khanna’s debut filmmaking is surprisingly excellent, bringing out the hostile truths balanced with innocence and spirited energy and color! Some of the scenes are well directed and choreographed
especially the scene with Choti on tight rope across buildings while Noor wrapped in white is passing under.
The movie was beautiful and sad, disturbing yet thought provoking and poignant. I give it 4.5 (****.5 /5) stars and recommend a watch.
In the Q &A with filmmaker Vikas Khanna in attendance- he opened up his life and talked indepth about how he got inspired to write the story, about the motivation behind the couple of characters, the incidents of his own life which got adopted in the story, his trips to Varanasi or his rides on the river Ganges which gave him food for thought!.
When comparing the mis-en-place of cooking to the prep of film making he said he found it similar to orchestrate. On asking the actress Neena Gupta on skype about her experience working with a debut filmmaker, she felt it easy to work with Khanna because his fervor for the cause gave him clarity and vision for the movie.
