The biggest compliment that any filmmaker can get is that more than being just a movie, it felt like an experience. Now ‘Highway’ is an experience in itself, an experience which is gorgeously assembled. Highway has its way of including you in it, of giving you, your space. For instance, it starts with a montage of a truck traveling through different states, territories, and landscapes. Here you don’t have characters and context. It is even shot from a first-person perspective.
This is all about how one feels when they look at the mountains covered with snow, the barren lands, empty long roads covered with trees, deserts, as you pass by all of them. Highway as a movie has a lot to offer. It explores freedom both literally and symbolically.
Freedom is something that we take for granted. Without realizing that it should be cherished. The definition of freedom is different for different people. The value of freedom is known to those who don’t have it, to those for whom freedom is still a lucid dream.
This brings us down to our first character Veera Tripathi, played by a very young Alia Bhatt (in a career-defining performance. She is the daughter of a powerful Business tycoon in Delhi. She has been around pretentious people all her life. She knows, she does not fit in that circle and she is just not one of them. Her wish to go on a late-night drive to escape lands her in big trouble as she gets kidnapped by a gang of criminals at a petrol pump while she was on a long drive with her fiance.
This gang is led by Mahabir Bhaati (Randeep Hooda) who holds a grudge against the high class. After being abducted and carried to different places Veera goes through a journey of self-exploration and discovery of newfound freedom. ‘Highway’ addresses different issues like trauma, depression, and sexual abuse through a simple tale of love and discovery. With A.R Rahman’s divine music ‘Highway’ feels like a much-needed escape from life in the lap of a much-needed love.
‘Highway’ is all about Veera’s journey of self-exploration and freedom.
By now it is evident that Imtiaz Ali has a soft corner for themes of self-discovery of characters through long journeys and if I had to choose his best work, it would be ‘Highway’.
Text by: Sreyoshi Sil, IBTN9
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