My thoughts, after meditating on 'Ship Of Theseus'

(No spoilers)

There is a scene in Ship Of Theseus (SOT) where the bottom-cleavage of the lead character is visible to the audience (Unintentionally though), when he is tending to his ailing grandmother. Yet the filmmaker and the actor (also the producer of the film) decided to keep it, as if letting the mainstream Bollywood know what they really think of it. This is how irreverent and honest this film is.

The film is a seamless combination of three different stories of three characters, living in the same city and connected ideologically, philosophically and almost literally!

The first story starts off with the irony of artists unable to access their own art and moves onto the larger questions of aesthetics, beauty(and human tendency to arrest it), and making sense of the ‘senses’.

Aida El-Kashef, as the blind photographer Aaliya and DOP Pankaj Kumar’ visuals, both are a delight to watch in this beautiful story with an enlightening and sobering climax.

The second narrative deals with the conflicting thoughts (body and soul, good and bad, right and wrong, violence and non-violence) of a monk (Neeraj Kabi, who has an aura of a real sadhu) on deathbed, suffering from liver cirrhosis and unwilling to take medicines which have been tested on animals.

Cinematography is stunning and dialogues are mesmerizing. At times I felt like ‘Aaliya’ of the first story, not knowing whether to watch or just listen!

In terms of treatment, the third installment is a fresh departure from the first two. On surface, it might even be a comic thriller… but look closely and you find the director is bang on mark with the central theme of paradox of Theseus’ Ship. It’s the story of a money grubbing stockbroker, who, in the process of helping a poor man find his stolen kidney, finds himself.

Here, the director proves that he is equally capable of brilliant humour (orthodox, dry, quirky and even dark at times) as he is, of weaving the fundamental, existential, cognitive questions into interesting narratives.

There is a hilariously-sad sequence of realizing how difficult it is to find the so-called ‘common man’ even in this era of technology and communication!

Sohum Shah is a revelation as an actor and according to the Director of SOT, he is a ‘find’ of life. The mannerism, the accent, the dialogue delivery… he just soaks in the character of a small town Marwari stockbroker.

It’s very rare that a film is so thought provoking (it is listed as one of the 15 life changing films of all time by UK Film Critic Circle) and leaves all other dumbing down, pretentious cinema completely redundant.

Ship Of Theseus, a totally sincere, honest piece of intelligent art about ethical and cognitive questions, beauty, aesthetics, faith, pain, self-realization and celestial harmony and mystery… is completely in-sync with the ‘Swabhaav’ of its Writer, Director and the man who has taken the art and purpose of cinema to a completely new level, Anand Gandhi.