new empire

a film which strikes one note in its first few seconds and keeps it held throughout like the drone of white noise in the background. except that in this case it is the foreground.

a film of pointless or rather single minded maudlin nostalgia for the glory days of youth of thirty something sentimentalists that is spread over a good forty minutes of reminiscing voice-overs about relationships with waiters and shaky romantic shots of the monuments of south mumbai.

unerringly throughout does canteenwala strike the melancholy note, old fashioned already at grand old age of 34, he romantically yearns for the lost beauty of his past through unbearably wistful eyes. it seems as if he can’t confront the fact that he is not young anymore. the world has moved on and his time is over.