Well..I am talking about Aparna Sen movie 15 Park Avenue starring Konkana Sensharma (that’s how she spells her surname), Shabana Azmi, Rahul Bose, Waheeda Rehman etc…
I am not going to review the movie or something but this post is about my difficulty to understand the movie…
Most of the newspapers have given it more than 3 stars and appreciated Konkana Sensharma’s acting skills too….she was fabulous…no one would deny it but how many will agree that movie is worth giving 3-4 stars?
The movie is full of experienced actors with superb skills but how many people understood the movie? The movie went very well in the first part but I personally felt 2nd part was bit slow…and few scenes were making people wonder, what the hell is going on?…specially the scene where Shabana Azmi and her mother cries and expresses their feelings…that scene looked artificial than emotional…instead of mother and daughter relationship it was expressing something else…and this is what made people laugh..
2nd bad thing was ending of the movie…which kept everyone in the theatre shocked (at least where I was watching)….I was praying….please don’t end it like this…please don’t end it like this but I guess it didn’t help me….and the movie ended with a big question mark on the face of everyone…
So if you have watched the movie then please please please tell me why movie ended like that and what was the meaning of it…
Well.. I believe this movie is based on a mentally ill person.. who has her own imaginary world.. so in the end .. she is trying to say that thrs no cure for these diseases .. or it shows .. as no one can help her .. she got lost in her own imaginary world…obviously she is not a ghost.. that she will disappear.. its just that she is lost… or if this is not the end thn let us wait for the “15 park avenue reloaded”.. hehe 😉
what say deep…
But I guess I won’t take you for that… 😉
Aparna Sen, Shabana Azmi, Shobha De, Tasleema Nasreen and Salman Rushdie are not my cup of tea 🙁
I go to a movie for entertainment, not thought provocation or food for thought 🙄 🙂 For such kind of movies, you have to first prepare yourself and get into the serious kind of mood :D. Why bother? I see such movies only if I get a few good reviews.
Deep, relax! The movie is over. Don’t think about it so much. As such you have wasted 4 hours (3+1) and some money after such movie (because you didn’t like it). Don’t waste anything more 😀
well i think it was shabana azmi who was ill , and she was thinking she had a sis like that . and others were trying to help her get out of that dillusion. just that wat i fel
hehehe good one anon… but if shabana azmi was ill.. thn how come other know who is mithi… and how come rahul bose went with mithi to find the house….
and ashish…. deep is still in shock… he has become mithi.. plz get one rahul bose for him…who will take him to 15 park avenue… 😉 hehehe…..
but must say.. good actors ..good acting…
someone please teach aish also how to act ..she only looks good … acting ka to “A” bhi nahi aata…
ya i agree she (aparna sen) has taken a huge risk commericially by not shaping the end, i liked the movie but many will not n i 2 will not recomend to all the people. the incomplete film was a welcome change for me its was different ya, she it left to the imagination of the audience – u know if u are a pessimist ull think she lost herself, she met with an accident and for optimists itll be she is now happy in her own world n shes living a happly married life in her dillusions …….
Hey,
I have a very different perspective of the ending. I think the movie was trying to convey that at some point all of us are affected by schizophrenia and we imagine things.
Cheeers,
Vikas
yes vikas .. we do but we dont go mad becaue of it… hr is the story tht she imagines things and also the reason for her going mad is because wht all happen with her in her life… its not just one reason tht she is not in her sences …
it includes all- her imaginations since childhood, rape, the guy she loved left her,etc etc…
hey, just a question in my mind… do you know n e one who has lost his/her memory ?
well i wanna know ..does this happen?.. if yes .. thn how.. i have seen it only in movies…
is thr n e doctor who can reply ?…
agree with anon
By the time it got to taking the climax, I think Aparna Sen herself got dillusional and messed up. This is one messy depressing movie. My heart goes out to someone who would really have to go through this illness.
i think all of you are imagining this message. it is not actually here.
do not press refresh.
well people a lot of explanation! let me put it as simply as i can.Please note the fact that Sabana is shown as a physics professor teaching Quantum mechanics has it’s significance.Well i hope at least many of you have heard about parallel universes a theory given to us by quantum mechanics- the significance of Sabana teaching physics(quantum).This theory there are many uiverses parallel to ours where events have happened differently from our universe or our reality.Example say in one universe General Dryer had to visit England fo some reason and Jwallianwala Bag never happened….
It is also not clear how these universes interact with matter….Probably Mithi’s mind somehow cotacted one such universe and by a strange interaction with matter she was transversed to another universe.
I feel the climax was wonderful and we should not dampen it’s worth by trying to think too conventionally.People unleash your inhibitions of thought and realise the essence of the movie.
I think Shabana Azmi being a Physics Professor had become schizophreniac by studying too much of physics. So it was herself who was imagining everthing. She was living in a quantum world. Since she spoke of unified field theory once so there is a clear indication that she believed in String Theory which is most recent advancements in theoretical physics related to this area. Since string theory is more like philosophy than being a practical physics so it could only be imagined. Imagining too much of it made Shabana Azmi schizophreniac. She thought world is made of tiny strings vibrating at their resonant frequency. Mithi was a actually a form of subatomic particle following Heisenberg’s Uncertaintly principle. It was therfore impossible to find the exact position and velocity of Mithi. So this is the reason why she dissappeared in the end. It was actually a sci-fi movie. Some Insight was needed to understand it.
Anyways what an awesome movie! People thought it was an art movie but it was not. I appreciate the direction which made it look like that.
As for the acting all the strings did a great deal of acting except a few strings. Shabana’s acting was more like a stage drama than being a natural one. Infact many a times I felt that the strings were doing the acting just for sake that it should look like an art movie.
Bollywood is coming out of new era of art sci-fi movies. I am glad to hear that.
Hi,
Read a couple of interesting interpretations above..
Well, I dont think this movie is about who among Konkana, Shabana
or even Rahul Bose is schizophrenic…The canvas of this movie is too
vast to have such a shallow end…According to me, this movie is about how we define reality…Is the world that normal persons leave
is real or is the world where sick (read schizophrenic) people live
is real ? How can we say that schizophrenics are living in a delusional world. ? Are they really sick ? How can we know for sure ? Whose world is more real ? This is the question the movie asks..The answer off course is that no one knows for sure..
seen this movie today only, find this site googling for its meaning, well after going through all this what i think that movie is left with an open end just to leave viewers make their own interpretations.
What i interpreted from the movie was like the psychatrist explains to Shabana, in the restaurant that different people have different realities of their own. Also it was the professor who goes in first inside to check Mithi in the house shown (or the house entrance) and says he didn’t find her there. So while Mithi finds her real Jojo, 5 children and 15 Park Avenue, who accepts her as she was always there, she goes out of real world of others as she was never there.
http://gauravsabnis.blogspot.com/2006/01/about-15-park-avenue.html
This blog had some really interesting interpretations. hope it helps=) i liked this film but i hate when its left This open ended
i agree with sci fi lover and abhishek above. before coming to this site i had also concluded the same.
the fact that out of all the people the psychiatrist is not looking for mithi and that in the end all the characters that were bothering mithi showed up in different symbolistic ways (including the rapists ) and
that it is shabana azmi who kept asking everyone about 15 park avenue shows that it was in fact shabana who was the real schzo.
Sci fi lover has explained it. Another significant point in the climax is that Shabana starts asking people about 15 Park Avenue, just like her sister. So soon, she is going to have a world of her own too.
well being a psychology student and havin studied schizophrenia i thought i’d share my views on it..schizophrenics like shown in movie live in a world of their own..they have creatures in that world who are as real to them as you are to the person beside you..
we’d call their world “imaginary” n “illusionary”..but at the end of the movie they tried to give us a feel of how it’d be to be in their shoes..well so showing that her world is “real” and now she’s a part of it..we have to deal with their reality..
Ofcourse it is a SCI-FI movie. Cant you folks see it? Just becuase there are no flying saucers and little green martians dont mean it aint good old scifi in a bleak new bottle!
Seriously I think that is what the Sen lady is experimenting with – parallel universes and schizophrenia – who knows which is true …
Hey think about it this way………Mithi did not exist after her suicide attempt by slashign her wrists…………Wht if she dies in that part? ………..I guess its Anjali whu is the schizophrenic……….I saw this movie again today and this thought came to me…………If u think about it the doctor Kunal never has a personal interaction with mithi? why nt? What kidn of psychiatrist does not talk to his patient directly?? And he has made clues in the film that point towards Anjali’s mental status for eg: the scene where he tells her there is a lamp on the table and not a vase………Its a subtle hint at her……….Also in the end Kunal calmly takes her away from the scene becoz he realises that Anjali cannot see mithi ne more………..And that she may finally be curable………Lemme knw if u agree
i think it makes a lot of sense. plus the fact that the doc tells azmi that it’s already there. the illness could come to surface because of something sudden or gradual. maybe it was sudden for mitali but gradual for anjali. anjali’s failed marriage, responsibility of the sister and mom, death of her sister, all of these could have finally triggered her to be Schizophrenic. there are many questions you can ask yourself about this movie and answer them yourself because of the nature of the movie. it’s open ended. too bad for aparna sen that indian public isn’t intellectually open minded yet to understand where she is coming from. Email: bella87mits@yahoo.com
Manasi’s interpretation makes a great deal of sense.
I love this movie!
I feel there is a clever twist in the movie. Aparna Sen shows a fully mad lady, toddling in front of Mithi’s house. A close observation reveals that she was also searching for something in the small boxes, which she possessed, just a Mithi searching for 15 park avenue. Maybe this woman symbolizes Mithi’s future, after she gets lost. maybe lack of treatment will ultimately make mithi like her ??? its an open ended ending
I think azmi is schitzophrenic. As someone pointed, the doc never interacts with mithi which is the vital clue and may be the frequent references to mithi suicidal tendencies indicate that she died (either doing something mad like cutting her wrists or something). Really a hidden movie :))
In my opinion Shabana Azmi is in real life Schizophrenic. She thinks that nudity and sexual explicity in films is art. I’m happy however, thsi time she found a good director and she may agree now that you don’t need only sexual subjects to portray art. Sen has done a good job. She did wonders with “Mr. and Mrs. Iyer”. Only one request for the women directors. “Take subjects other than sex. Art cinema has better topics like this one than “Fire”. Rahul and konkona, you are losing your good image by coming to the mainstream cinema. That has no meaning. Films like Mousam, Ijazat, Mr. and Mrs. iyer are literature.
The scenes that you write as “bad thing” are probably the most important clues.
I agree with Manasi. However I think the ending is open for two kinds of interpretations.
1. The movie could be a surrealistic look at Mithi’s schizophrenia where she totally goes around the bend just like the beggar woman in the final scene. Until then 15 partk avenue was just an imaginary address. Now she is seeing it!
Once she goes to her illusory house, Mithi, as everyone knew her will cease to exist. So everyone keeps looking for her.
or
2. The movie could be an artistic look at Anjali’s caregiver stress and guilt and the hallucinations induced by them. She might have started losing her mind after Mithi dies. She gets back to reality with the help of Kunal.
IN the end, Anjali shouts “What do you mean She is not there?” and later she keeps repeating the address in a panicky voice.
Makes you think if Mithi was just a figment of Anjali’s imagination and that the doctor was trying to make her see that.
There is a reason why we never see Mithi interacting with Kunal or Sanjeev. They always talk to Anjali. they are both more concerned about Anjali. ,
What was the need to talk about duality of a subatomic particles even as Mithi is being exorcised?
The dinner scene is also very crucial. there are two realities. Who is to say which one is more real? When Anjali sees there is a vase, when Kunal sees there is a lamp.. We are shown both. So what’s real?
Great movie. btw
I agree with Manasi, the first time I watched the movie I didn’t understand the climax. But the second time I watched it I felt it was Azmi who was suffering from Schizo and meeti never existed.when I googled to find what the climax could possiblybei do see people feeling the same. Every character was trying together to get Azmi out of her imaginary world.
I think the movie was fantastic. Aparna Sen has done a wonderful job and so did the actors. In fact, no other climax would have justified the beauty of the film. Yes, there is a lot of ambiguity in it. But I would say, such climaxes make you think and think and come up with different interpretations. And that idea was amazing.
Watched the movie today..very sensitive subject.couldn’t understand the climax ,but after googlin for climax…came to conclusion that it was anjali(shabana azmi) is patient who created her own imaginary world and methi(konkana sen sharma) is a part of her imagination.really wonderful and twistive movie.