'Filmistaan'- Heart Warming Hug across the Border

Sachindra Vats edits the scenes down to the minimum when required. But generally he lets the charactes develop naturally even if the process takes some time. The film is shot in authentic locations by cinematographer Subhransu Das who brings to the table an enticing aaura of believability.

The dialogues written by the film's lead Sharib Hashmi never become top-heavy with message-mongering, nor does the going get excessively verbose as it did in the recent cross-border film "Kya Dilli Kay Lahore".

It's astonishing how director Nitin Kakkar averts all the corny cliches of brotherhood across the barbed wire. By simply using Bollywood as the binding factor between the two countries, Kakkar emerges with a plot that is high on emotions and low on tripe and homilies.

The two actors who play the Indian and Pakistan do the rest. So effortlesstly do they express the oneness of a cultural kinship that we are left looking at two individuals who transcend borders to become two every mans. Sharib Hashmi and Innamulhaq are striven by their sense of absolute abandon that comes only to artistes who have nothing to lose except their anonymity. They are phenomenally in character, not slipping up even once in their interactive zone.

Bollywood does the rest. There is a longish homage to Sooraj Barjatya's "Maine Pyar Kiya" where we see the whole Pakistani village glued to a community television set watching Salman Khan and Bhagyashree love story.