There is a law in Physics which says that all matter tend to change from a state of order to complete disorder. Once pure and natural, the matter then perpetually heads towards a state of chaos from which it can never go back to its original form.
It’s only natural that this is applicable to director Bikash Raj Acharya’s Nai Nabhannu La 4, the fourth installment in a series of vaguely-related movies of the same name.
The movie continues the series’ tradition of exploiting romance by glorifying it and then reducing it to a device to put in a smattering of comic sketches, mawkish songs sequences and badly-timed pop cultural references in a two-hour runtime.
Add to that, a sense of self indulgence and complete disregard for subtlety, and you get Nai Nabhannu La 4. It could very well be a case study of what is wrong with most Nepali movies.
If this is what a major Nepali movie franchise in 2016 looks like, I will look somewhere else.
In the movie, Neer (Paul Shah) is deep in unrequited love. But before he can get over the loss of Aanchal (Aanchal Sharma), his girl of pursuit, Anjana (Barsha Raut) starts hounding him for her own interest. It’s better to love someone back than to be in a sorry state due to unrequited love, states the movie in recurring scenes.
The movie continues the series’ tradition of exploiting romance by glorifying it and then reducing it to a device to put in together a smattering of comic sketches, mawkish songs sequences and badly-timed pop cultural references.
However, if you can care for any of these broadly stroked characters, give yourself a pat on the back.
Director Acharya is more than comfortable with tropes than character arcs. And if you have any doubt about this, his heroine spells it out for you. “I am Emma Watson from The Fault in our Stars and you are Salman Khan from Tere Naam,” says Anjana to Neer.
Acharya’s characters are more of a device used to cash in the tragedy the story entails, and nothing more.
Nonetheless, however limiting the story may be, director Acharya has a definite love for the visual medium. This is apparent in the selection of locations, even if they serve nothing more than a pastiche to other lavishly mounted musicals.
In between the unforgivable incoherence of scenes and story arc, cinematographer Purushottam Pradhan’s frames shine through.
This sense of self indulgence, of romanticising our locales, is applicable to most Nepali movies shot in the recent years after the move from celluloid to digital. It’s more beautifully realised with Nai Nabhannu La 4. If only our filmmakers had anything worthwhile to situate in it.
***
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