There was a time in the 60s, even till mid-70s when Bollywood was in love with the North-East (and Kashmir,) and deserving of all the adulation are those places. In Jaane Jaan, Sujoy Ghosh plays a constant tribute to that glorious nostalgia through the background songs. Yet those movies seem only picture postcards compared to Ghosh's vignettes. The scenes are the perspective of the place that we never see in movies.
The name of the movie is derived from the famous Helen song Aa Jaane Jaan from the Sanjay Khan and Sadhana starrer movie, Intaqam. While the movies of the 70s celebrated the pastoral beauty of places like Kalimpong, Jaane Jaan gets into the unexplored dark alleys and mists of the place. The reference to the movie makes the nerd in me think, yey, homework! But the reference to the movie here is minimal, because this movie is an adaptation of the Japanese novel The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino. This is a venture from the director who brought us movies like Kahaani and Badla so we know it is going to be an exciting story.
Ghosh's characters are explored not through large gestures but simple every-person quirkiness. All three characters render well to this treatment.
As seen in her avatar in Don 2, Kareena can embody Helen's glamour with equal allure, no doubt. But what the movie explores is the aftermath of the phase. What happens to that unnamed vamp once she is no longer commanding the attention of the male gaze? With two solid actors like Jaideep Ahlawat and Vijay Verma, Kareena leaves behind the glamour and gets into the dark and anxious nature of her character, Maya D'Souza. She wears the story of her abuse on her skin. A mother to a daughter, her forehead constantly bears untold worries and her eyebrows are ready to be furrowed from an unsuspecting jab of her co-workers.
It is a murder mystery that borrows elements from its surroundings, everything from the murder weapon to how things are kept hidden then revealed, are all thanks to the mystery of the town itself. Even a character like Teacher, could they remain this invisible and unknown, in a city like Mumbai? Forget the lore that people don't know their neighbours in Mumbai, we do, and we could just be as voyeuristic as people in any other Indian city, but we just don't breach the lines of privacy. But in a quaint town like Kalimpong, privacy is probably a given, which is why Maya thinks her actions would remain unknown if she herself didn't inform the police.
Jaideep Ahlawat's Teacher shows us that he can play the angry cop just as well as a depressed genius. Vijay Verma's Karan Anand comes closest to being a filmi 70s character. He fits well in Mumbai's loudness but sticks sorely in the silence of hills, creating the necessary rumble to the story.
Saurabh Sachdeva despite his small role looms large in his absence and brings in the stench of pan masala and patriarchy into the pristine green surroundings. Maya's daughter, Tara, brings the extra bit of vulnerability to the story, appealing to our protective instinct. Lin Laishram, who stood out so well in the ensemble of Axone, has only a bit of a role as Maya's employee, Prema, but she blends in well.
In all, whatever mathematical riddle was at play here, it works out well. Jaane Jaan is yet another great addition to the fantastic oeuvre of Sujoy Ghosh movies.
