The blue Umbrella - Review

One Saturday evening we had nothing much to do; hence we decided to go for a movie. When we tried we could only get the tickets for this movie called The Blue Umbrella.

On first thoughts it looks like a children’s movie but if seen with a thought, it tells a deep story - a story of generic human behaviors, of desires to own something we like, something which symbolize our status in the society we live in. It beautifully depicts how something which is a simple appreciation of beauty for someone can be a fanatical greed for the other.

While watching the movie some questions popped up in my mind -
Did I ever feel like owning something which is of no great use to me but brings in certain pride associated with it? I did.
Were I ever so compelled by the desire that I even didn’t shrug off a negative emotion (theft… murder… cheating), if I perceived that as the only way to get it? Sometimes, that happened too.

What I realize is, in the whole process of collecting things through out our life, we forget the reason. We randomly buy things that we rarely need in life. If ever questioned, we counter question to justify our unreasonable acquisitions. (When Khatri was asked by his subject, why he wants the umbrella so desperately, he uses some very random questions as his points for justification.) At last our life is recognized more by our possessions than the soul within. Most of the time, this soul is killed, murdered, sold or lost. But can someone ever live truly happily without a soul? When happiness is a derivative of social recognition and that too for something that we did not create but just possess by the virtue of all the money we hold, it has to be short lived.

One’s desire to own should be driven by the need for a beautiful life and not for the purpose of vanity. When ever we feel like having something, if we ask ourselves - why do you want it, we will realize that there are thousand such things that we want for sheer display than use. There will be things which are useful but we don’t want it for the use but the status it carries along for us. That’s where the error lies.

The way story progresses is the most beautiful part of it - From the unreasonable desire of possession to jealousy, and from jealousy to crime (theft), from crime to the punishment for the crime, from the punishment to realization of guilt, and from guilt, it end into forgiveness and restoration of self-pride.

The movie scores a hit on almost every account of film making; be it cinematography, casting, characterization, sound, script, dialogues and acting.

In these rains, I must say, Blue Umbrella is for everyone.