Khoya Khoya Chand

Director: Sudhir Mishra
Cast: Shiney Ahuja
IMDB Rating: 7.8/10
My Rating: 3.5/5

First things first It's good to see a Sudhir Mishra(SM) film
after about two years, his last film I saw was
Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi(HKA).Was looking forward to KKC
for quite a while and finally got the chance to watch it in
its second(and probably last or second last) week in cinemas.
I am not too sure if HKA lasted any longer.

The movie is a tribute to the Hindi Cinema of 1950's and portrays
the Film Industry that existed then under various lights.The Good,
The Bad and the Ugly. We all as avid movie buffs to certain
extent know what goes inside the tinsel town so lets not delve
in to details of how this industry works or rather revolves around
the precious few and how favours are given and paid back.

I particularly loved the cinematography of the film, liked the music
and the old cinemaish feel of the film. The first half of the film
was good to the extent that you start wondering why did the movie
get such a thrashing at box office but this sense of wonder doesn't
last by the time u finish half of the regular popcorn you took
during the intermission.I can sympathize with the regular cinema
goers for running out of patience during the second half as I
myself felt a couple of times that movie is kinda dragging.

Needless to say I liked Saurabh, Shiney and Vinay's performances
but the find of the movie was Soha..Impressive bit of acting
there, totally justifying her place in a SM movie. The chemistry
between Shiney and Soha was beautifully and poetically captured
as everything from camera movement and angles to lighting worked
great. You cannot but notice the pretty Soniya Jehan for all her
beauty which shadows almost everything that's going on the
screen(her acting included).

While for HKA it was man yeh banwara for KKC it's
the title song Khoya Khoya Chand sung mellifluously by little known Swanand and Ajay which hums almost
through out the film. The writer/director's take on the
passionate love affair between Nikhat and Zafar was quite
commendable and a few dialogues carefully distributed amongst
Shiney, Soha and Rajat stand out and almost haunt you like this one

"Koi kissi ko dhokha nahi deta, sab halaat hote hain"
and that witty one by Shiney "ya toh apne aap ko dhoka deta
ya aapko toh aap hi sahi".

The Switching between present and past lives of various characters
in the film is also handled nicely. While the movie scores in all
these departments I feel it somehow lost track towards the end and
went kinda wayward. But in more ways than one its still a classic
tribute to the classics.

Links:
1) Wiki
2) Sudhir's blog
3) IMDB

Trivia:
1) All the actors had to learn Urdu for their roles
2) The film was originally titled as Bahut Nikle Mere Armaan
aka Many Of My Wishes Were Fulfilled.
3) Soha's role was initially offered to "Vidya Balan"

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