I put this film on late at night, telling my wife "This is a long film and we are very tired so let's just watch a bit to see if we want to watch all of it tomorrow." Within the first section we were captivated and watched all of it, staying up much later than normal.
The comments by Manu-13, below are correct. It is a beautiful film, smooth and appealing. Of course this is not the usual Hollywood flick, but anyone going to Film Festivals or who have an interest with life in India will find Autograph a delight. There is a definite sense of reality, especially with the village scenes which were obviously the real thing and not film sets. Seeing how the people live was colourful and fascinating.
My Tamil (a state/region in southern India) friends laughed when they told me Autograph is not actually a Bollywood film but a Tollywood film (T for Tamil, not B for Bombay). Well, it is the first Tamil film I have seen and compared to the usual Hindi movie, Autograph is different. For example, there is an absence of the singing dancers that appear all too frequently in Hindi films. By the way, Tamil is a separate language so most people from India would have to read subtitles to understand Autograph. For this reason, I was told that Autograph would not be distributed widely in India, probably not out of the Tamil region.
What captivates is the 'mystery' style, in the sense that from the start the viewer is engaged in guessing what is actually going to happen. Who is he going to marry? What happened to him/her to cause them to live they way they do? What is the relationship between those two?
The ending is done very sensitively. There is a scene where a photographer asks a person to smile, and he cannot quite manage the big smile required for the social setting; so much meaning can be seen on his face, in this one instance. Without creating a spoiler, I'll just say that there are very few films that treat human relationships with as much meaning and sensitivity as Autograph. This film is a real gem, far from the big Hollywood blockbusters but refreshingly so.
The comments by Manu-13, below are correct. It is a beautiful film, smooth and appealing. Of course this is not the usual Hollywood flick, but anyone going to Film Festivals or who have an interest with life in India will find Autograph a delight. There is a definite sense of reality, especially with the village scenes which were obviously the real thing and not film sets. Seeing how the people live was colourful and fascinating.
My Tamil (a state/region in southern India) friends laughed when they told me Autograph is not actually a Bollywood film but a Tollywood film (T for Tamil, not B for Bombay). Well, it is the first Tamil film I have seen and compared to the usual Hindi movie, Autograph is different. For example, there is an absence of the singing dancers that appear all too frequently in Hindi films. By the way, Tamil is a separate language so most people from India would have to read subtitles to understand Autograph. For this reason, I was told that Autograph would not be distributed widely in India, probably not out of the Tamil region.
What captivates is the 'mystery' style, in the sense that from the start the viewer is engaged in guessing what is actually going to happen. Who is he going to marry? What happened to him/her to cause them to live they way they do? What is the relationship between those two?
The ending is done very sensitively. There is a scene where a photographer asks a person to smile, and he cannot quite manage the big smile required for the social setting; so much meaning can be seen on his face, in this one instance. Without creating a spoiler, I'll just say that there are very few films that treat human relationships with as much meaning and sensitivity as Autograph. This film is a real gem, far from the big Hollywood blockbusters but refreshingly so.