"If I have to go away, can I leave a little bit of me with you?"
I had heard about this movie long before and was pending to be watched by me for a very long time. For some reason or other it kept on pending even though I had recorded it in my DTH box. I watched it when I went through back to back losses of family members recently and was going through a tough time and was glad I did watch it and connected too instantly.
'Memories in March' is a brilliant film by debutante Director Sanjoy Nag where a bereaved mother is shown to come to terms with his son's sexual identity. Without going into much detail into the plot I would rather prefer to narrate some scenes which are worth mentioning.
There is one particular sequence where Deepti Naval (Arati) expresses her wish to visit his son's office and take away some of his stuffs as souvenirs. The scene is shown in great length and detailing with incalculably striking visuals. When his son's boss dubs her actions too melodramatic, distressed she dashes off from the office.
While considering her Divorce from her hubby as the worst day of her life, she has to learn to acknowledge the death of her son in a road accident. Storming off to Kolkata and accompanied by her son's co-worker Sahana Choudhury who escorted her to crematorium for the last rites of her son. After the cremation is over, she is taken to the Guest House where her son used to live. Sahana narrates her how her son had consumed a lot of alcohol and insisted on driving back to Guest House when he had the fatal accident. Upset with above incidents, she blames her co-workers to drive him to death but she had more shocks in Store when she learns that her son has been living in with Arnob, his co-worker and boss in office. She is upset and blames Arnob of seducing her son but slowly she accepts the truth and accepts that it was her son's predilection to be with Arnob. She develops a bond with Arnob over the common loss they had.
There is a scene where she is browsing her son's phone where her son Siddharth had composed a message to her about his relationship with Arnob but never sent it because he was afraid of upsetting her.
"Memories in March" is about the wreckage that people leave behind after their demise. It makes you question on "this is what relationships are" and "this is what they should be." This is a film worth watching for its pragmatic and susceptible portrayal of a relationship that is sadly even today considered outside norm. For many homosexuals who are still forced to hide from what they are, but thankfully change is happening. Films like this should be made more and more so that it forces the society to recognize homosexuals as no different from them. The theme is not a stranger to hindi movie industry but leaving apart barely a few movies like Aligarh or Dear Dad, rest mostly make fun of the same.
One of the most underrated movie which has stellar performances from Dipti Naval as the mother who has lost his son in a mishap and Rituparno Ghosh who plays the partner of his son. Showing a receptive topic to the next level with performances at par with international standard, this is one of the best movies I have seen in recent times. Deepti Naval and Rituparno Ghosh have done a laudable acting capturing the sentiments brilliantly and deserve applause. Deepti Naval is so pervasive, so repressed; it's only her eyes that say the depth of her pain.
There are some of the movies that are a "Must Watch Before you die". Memories in March is one such movie and a must watch movie for everyone who loves good movie.
