The Fakir Of Venice movie review: Farhan Akhtar’s acting debut sees the light of day 10 years later and it is refreshingly undated

The Fakir of Venice, completed in 2009, by first time director Anand Surapur and producer Punit  Desai, has finally arrived at a release date of 10th March 2019. The film was held up due to production related issues, the production houses being October Films and Phat Phish Motion Pictures. The film stars Farhan Akhtar in his debut performance as an actor, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in his performance. Annu Kapoor is brilliant, and unfortunately, a greatly underutilised actor in the industry. The film also stars Kamal Sidhu (with a terribly unclear accent) and foreign actor Valentina Carnelutti, in key roles.

The story credit is Homi Adajania’s , the film scripted by Rajesh Devraj. The Fakir Of Venice was presented in 2009 at the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles. The music, a solitary song (not shown in the movie), and the background score are composed by A. R. Rahman.

What’s it about? As a production coordinator, Adi Contractor (Farhan Akhtar) gets the strangest of demands from his clients in The Fakir of Venice. He needs an Indian Fakir to feature in an installation show at a museum/art gallery in Venice, to bury himself in the sand for a few hours each day. The show is to play out for a whole week. Completely unfazed by the demand, Adi starts looking for the perfect fakir.

Not finding success at locating the real Mc’coy, he, through an oily, gold-toothed agent, hires a slum dweller, a poor painter of buildings Sattar (Annu Kapoor) surfaces to play the part. Therein starts the great international con job. They journey to Venice, and these two individuals, completely polar opposites in every aspect of life and living, end up bonding in the course of the not very easy to keep up charade of the week. Some of the lines were truly funny.

Yay: The cinematography by a three-person team of Deepti Gupta, Preetha Jayaraman and Bakul Sharma, captures the beauty of Venice as well as its seamy side excellently. Annu Kapoor is simply brilliant as a poor man, out of his depth in a foreign country, facing a daily death, burying himself under sand, ironically to keep himself and his sister Hamida (back in India) alive by the money he earns. The cute brief female interest for Annu Kapoor (not Farhan) in Valentina Carnelutti strangely works, and doesn’t seem far-fetched, the only tender moments are between these two.

In The Fakir of Venice, Farhan Akhtar looks at his physical peak, youthful and fit, and has really thrown himself into the role, the milieu of the character, something he seems to understand. One would rate this as one of his acting career highs. The glib patter of a desperate con guy flows easily and convincingly, even the awkward moments. Though in the years since the film has been made, Farhan has proven himself a better director than actor, this is one film he should embrace joyfully in his career graph as an actor. Some of the scenes have been very well created and orchestrated. The peripheral characters are also credible.

Nay: The only possible nay in the film seems to be the undue delay in its release. And the rumours that Farhan refuses to promote The Fakir of Venice thinking it would be conning the public. But he’d be wrong there. His fans and the public would welcome the film with no agenda.

Cine Blitz Verdict: Though this has been labelled a comedy drama, it is in its essence, more tragic, and the plight of Annu Kapoor is certainly not laughable. Despite that, it doesn’t drag you down with heaviness. It is a well portrayed comment on the ironies of life, the desperation that drives the have-nots, the pathos that is evoked in the very con, and the simple act of human bonding over a sorry situation, not weighed down by sentimental sop. The resilience of the human spirit triumphs.

Rating: 3 stars