Qalandar

Rahat Kazmi’s Dekh Bhai Dekh (apparently re-named Dekh Re Dekh at some point; my DVD carried the older name) is a refreshing little film: it hearkens to the cinema of old, albeit in the streamlined garb of the contemporary “little” film. Refreshing because this look backward isn’t by way of ironic distance or homage, and nor does it fall prey to the stale rehashing of older Bollywood tropes that is the hallmark of B-grade cinema. In other words, Kazmi’s film isn’t set in a small-town in U.P. because he wants to make a point about crime and violence in the heartland (the usual vehicle for representations of U.P. and Bihar in contemporary Hindi cinema), nor is he trying to depict a world impossibly remote from the (imagined) “us” in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, or London. Rather, his film just happens to be set in U.P., and does not purport to stage its setting.

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