Film: Notebook
Cast: Pranutan Bahl, Zaheer Iqbal and Muazzam Bhat, Mir Sawar
Director: Nitin Kakkar
Rating: * *
‘Notebook’ stuns you with its stunning images of a tranquil Kashmir in all its luxuriant glory but unfortunately that’s all that remains with you after the story is done told. Notebook is an adaptation by screenwriter Darab Farooqui from Teacher’s Diary, Thailand’s official entry for the Oscars in 2014. This film gets a bit too ambitions by transporting the original rural setting to a far-fetched middle-of-the-lake, no man’s land sort of scenario and promptly says goodbye to all believability. There are just a handful of students to teach and any of their homes would have done duty – so this location, while stunningly pretty, doesn’t quite cut ice with a discerning viewer.
Newcomers Zaheer Iqbal (Producer Salman Khan’s close friend’s son) and Pranutan Behl (yesteryear actress Nutan’s granddaughter) have been gifted with a romantic debut that defies all logic. Firdaus (Pranutan) is a school-teacher, adamant enough to stick with the star tattoo on the back of her palm – because of which she gets banished to a middle-of-the-lake Wular Public School meant for kids living in the outlying extremities of the large beautiful lake.
She is in a fractious relationship with Junaid (Muazzam Bhat) and is initially eager to gain distance but later on gets persuaded to come back to the mainland and fortify their relationship, in marriage. So while she is off the makeshift school, in comes Kabir, an ex-armyman (his father founded the institution he is soon to be inducted into) who decides to offer his services as teacher to keep the school from being shut.
He conveniently finds Firdaus’ diary in the desk drawer and after reading it’s mundane and uninspiring contents, falls promptly in love. A brief foray into militancy and a child’s involvement in providing the euphemistic light out of the dark tunnel, helps gain some affection but the overall effort is entirely forgettable. The children, first-time actors all, are beautifully natural but the main leads appear a little too stiff and one-dimensional.
Zaheer may not have a strong presence but he grows on you as the story takes shape. Pranutan is more like Tanisha than Nutan. Her acting skills have a long way to go before they can be entirely convincing. Award-winning director Nitin (Filmistaan) Kakkar’s third film is beautiful to look at, no doubt, (thanks to the amazing cinema capture by Cinematographer Manoj Kumar Khatoi) but the experience of it feels altogether hollow and distending.