Movie Review: "Masaan", an emotional Roller Coaster, an underrated gem of Hindi Cinema

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Masaan (translation: Crematorium) is a Hindi movie released in 2015, which majorly revolves around the lives of two young individuals: Devi, who finds herself in a tough situation after an unfortunate encounter with her lover, and Deepak, a lower caste boy living on the ghats of river Ganga in Banaras. It is one of the finest movies that showcases the raw beauty of Banaras (Varanasi)

Plot

The story has two distinct tracks which beautifully connect moments before the credits roll out.

The first track is the tragic story of Devi who lives with her father. She gets in trouble when her lover commits suicide and the police officer tries to extort money from her father just to not leak the story of their affair and tarnish the image of the girl. Richa Chadda played the role beautifully and you can feel the pain just by the way she acted throughout the movie.

She had to do some small jobs to provide for the money.

While the above tragic story is ongoing, we cut back to the other track where Deepak, who is born into a family, performs cremations and other related rituals on the ghats of Varanasi. He is an aspiring engineer and trying to get away from his family's work.

One day he met Shalu and they both started liking each other. Some time passes and Shalu asks where he lives and you can see the hesitation on Deepak's face. But he tells her everything and when they both decide to marry each other even if their family won't give them their blessings, it turns into a nightmare for Deepak. Shalu had met with an accident and tragically died and was brought to the same crematorium where Deepak works. That had to be one of the most emotional moments in the movie, and believe me it has a lot!

How Deepak copes with this loss and grief is shown in the movie. Both the stories are tragic and sad, to say the least.

But the story ends on a positive note as Deepak and Devi meet on the shores of river Ganga and their life finally takes a happy turn. It was a new beginning for both of them after a stormy night. This emotion is represented beautifully by an end song titled "Bhor" which means Dawn.

Why do I love it?

The cinematography and acting are top notch along with the Dialogue writing. But the most impressive is its two original songs which make this movie so memorable.

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I don't like songs in between movies but they were telling the story too. Not your typical Bollywood dance numbers xD.

I saw this movie in 2016, a year after it came out. Not many knew about the movie back then and it still is fairly less known. I decided to watch it one more time just to see if it would bring back those emotions again or not and it did. That's when you know a movie a well-made if it touches you this deep. I would highly recommend the movie, especially to my fellow Indians as they will be able to connect to this masterpiece a lot.

Acting, screenplay, writing, story settings and music are all the things I loved about this movie. This movie introduced Vicky Kaushal (as Deepak) and now he is one of the biggest Bollywood stars.

Pankaj Tripathi, who is one of the most respected actors in Hindi cinema, also played a little cameo in this movie and like always he did his job beautifully.

I don't usually write my thoughts on movies but this one touched my soul so I decided to write my thoughts. This is the real Hindi cinema for me: Raw and unfiltered!

• All the content is mine unless otherwise stated.
• Text dividers are from @cryptosharan.

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